Hiding it all from "The Little People"
The Washington Post is reporting that in the entire 77 days since oil started it's volcanic gush into the Gulf, convicted corporate monopoly felon BP has skimmed or burned only around 60 percent of the amount it said it could remove in a single day. The gap between what BP promised in its March 24 filing with federal regulators and the amount of oil recovered since the April 20 disaster has caused widespread confusion about the extent of the spill and the progress of the recovery. That confusion, of course, is exactly what BP wants. It's why the company hasn't installed a simple device on the blowout preventer pipe to measure how much oil is blowing out of the broken pipe. It's why they're pouring millions of gallons of dispersants into the oil so it will settle into lower layers of water, out of sight and out of mind, instead of floating to the surface where it can be measured and removed. They want all this becase under the clean water act they have to pay a fine of nearly $5000 per barrell of oil spilled, and if nobody knows how much has poured out into the gulf, nobody will know how much to fine them. Apparently the Obama Administration shares this concern, after the President's talk with the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, which is seeing its pension funds collapse along with BP's stock price. And, of course, the more the reality of the oil spill can be hidden - from keeping out reporters to pushing the oil underwater with dispersants - note that the Air Force is today spraying dispersants on the Gulf from the air - the less bad PR this administration will get. The less this looks like a Katrina-like disaster, the less it will politically harm President Obama. Meanwhile, BP may be getting short on cash as their debt has been downgraded by Fitch and one of the Libyan princes is apparently among many eyeing the company as a possible takeover target. Everyone, from corporate felon BP to the Obama administration seems more interested in hiding the oil and it's political and financial damage, then is doing something about it, that's is except "the little people"who live along the Gulf coast.
Comments
Is the BP Escrow a Shakedown?
In the US, corporations are "persons."
In the U.S., humans are person, too. If a human person damages someone, whether purposefully or through negligence, the courts will demand that that human person make restitution.
According to this right wing Supreme Court, a corporation is entitled to the same rights as a human person. Shouldn't a corporate person be held responsible for its damages as well? Aren't Republicans all about responsibillity?
Republicans, your English person BP is not being subject to a shakedown, they are required to make restitution for the damages they've inflicted on their victims just like you or I, human persons.
I'd like to see a movement to push this "personhood" thing. Just as human persons must obey laws, corporation persons also must obey or pay the penalty. How about starting with this incorporating in other countries, but living in the U.S. to avoid taxes? When a person is a citizen of another country, then lives in the U.S., doesn't that make that person an illegal immigrant? Republicans are all about punishing illegal immigrants aren't they?
Yes, equality for all persons.
Amen! To my local paper:
Corporate "personhood" a crime
The problem with our corporate financial giants isn't that they are too big to fail. It's that they are too big to jail. If corporations are "people," too, then their CEOs should be prosecuted and jailed for criminal activity. When they can go to jail for ruining people's lives MAYBE they can be trusted to self-regulate as the Free Market profiteers (and Supply & Demand deniers) preach.
NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW
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Here's a good example of how the blame game can make even Thom (who I have admired for several years and still do) lose perspective. I refer of course to the negative evidence presented in paragraph 2 which gives in its first sentence MORE than ample reason to point the finger squarely at BP and decades of deregulation. But for reasons unfathomable the paragraph becomes a rambling screed based on nothing but conjecture. Are we forgetting who deregulated the oil industry? Do we know what ways Obama's hands are tied or NOT tied? I stand fully ready to blame Obama when evidence comes in that shows the crap he's in is of his making. The core fact is we still don't know what kind of secret deals have existed for decades just like we're finding out now the real number of oil leaks that have been spilling for decades under the same exact deregulated environment that caused this one. But let's throw all that aside. It's so much easier to join the corporate media and blame the only real "regulator" to take office since Carter. One more detail people forget is that THIS oil isn't like the shallow water well oil. BP was barging regulation-free into "uncharted territory". I don't see what more blame we need. In fact I foresee a time coming very soon where blame won't matter anymore. The regulation-free zone called the Gulf of Mexico has been killed. All that matters now is how much worse will it get?