BP trying to weasel out of Gulf Spill consequences

 Aw, shucks. 

Pay attention, people!  BP is offering a textbook example of how it works with these big corporations:

1. Work behind the scenes to cover up the bribes and shortcuts that led to the disaster;
   
   
2. Dip into the petty cash drawer to buy off the poor schmucks whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed;
   
   
3. Seek penance publicly, to give cover to media hacks like Britt Hume and Bill Kristol when they go to bat for you;
   
   
4. Back to business as usual.

Although the Obama administration and BP itself proclaim that it (BP) will pay entirely for the clean-up, I'll believe it when I see it.  The first indication of BP intentions to limit its own liability came with the news that BP has been offering payments of $5000 to residents on the Alabama coastline in exchange for those residents signing an agreement that waives their rights to sue for damages resulting from the spill.

Cheap cash pay-offs.  Get desperate people to sign away their rights and you're home free, BP.

Keep your ears open.  There will be more such underhanded efforts.

Global corporations, which comprise the ruling class of these United States, just like the feudal overlords of yesteryear, never suffer consequences for their murderous, destructive behavior.  No, sir.  They do as they please. 

BP executives are undoubtedly rueful at the mishap in the Gulf of Mexico.  But not because eleven worker drones died in the explosion.  Nor indeed because it will destroy the fragile ecosystem of the Mississippi Delta, nor because it will poison some of the world's most productive shellfish beds, nor because it will destroy a multitude of small businesses that rely on Gulf Coast tourism.  The real pity, from a BP perspective, is that this colossal f*ck-up will dampen public appetite for off-shore oil drilling in the future.

Alas, for them!  All that bullying and market manipulation and public misinformation that Big Dick and his gang did back in the day gets thwarted by damnable accident!  And things looked so good, just a year ago.  They actually had moronic tea-baggers shouting "Drill, baby, drill" at the GOP convention in 2008.  They even had Obama singing their tune.

And now, this! 

Well, sad as it is, we can imagine that Tony Hayward, Group Chief Executive for BP, is probably not going to get his accustomed place with the opening foursome at Myrtle Beach for a few Sundays.  You know that's got to hurt.

Poor guy.