(This commentary is posted by Susan Stark, a guest here who crashes on Ted’s virtual couch now and then. I haven’t been here in a while, so I thought I’d stop by again.)
Whenever a disaster strikes as a result of corporate malfeasance, there is particular argument that well-meaning people make that annoys me, mainly because it’s not completely true. Take this New York Times letter to the editor:
In “BP’s Responsibility” (editorial, June 12), you say that while a possible total bill of $40 billion for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is breathtaking, the “destruction BP has wrought is even more so.” Like so much commentary on the disaster, this focuses blame wholly on the oil company.
Undoubtedly BP is responsible, but so are all of us who drive cars, travel by plane or consume goods produced and shipped with oil. If we didn’t use it, BP wouldn’t drill for it. Until we recognize that demand for oil is as much the problem as supply, and start to change the way we live to reduce it, environmental destruction is inevitable.
We are all BP.
Martin Brown
—
I beg to differ. This type of argument is something that actually works in the favor of corporations like BP, because it essentially lets them off the hook for what they do. It allows them to say, essentially, that “We are just giving the people what they want, don’t blame us for the result”.
But even if it’s true that we are responsible because we consume oil, we are not all equally responsible. Someone who drives an SUV or any other gas-guzzler is more responsible than someone who takes public transportation. A person who jacks up the thermostat in winter is more responsible than someone who wears extra layers of clothing. If you use air-conditioner rather than a fan, then you are more responsible for these types of disasters than if you chose the fan.
But the people who are the most responsible are the members of the corporate “personhood” of BP. They made the decision to cut safety procedures in order maximize profit. They made the decision to forgo obtaining a kill switch which would have prevented the disaster, merely because it would’ve cost them five hundred grand (which is a drop in the bucket for a multinational oil company like BP).
So yes, we are all responsible, but not equally. BP is the most responsible, and needs to pay for what they did.
Susan
33 Comments.
Yes, this is the competely expeted – and asinine – response from the elite. They said the same thing with the financial debacle, that somehow we were all at fault. The slimball head of the Harvard MBA program actually said that on NPR.
With the oil thing, here’s what people need to understand. Yes, we can all do our personal best to help reduce excessive energy use. We have absolutely no power though, to influence decisions by those that operate in the sphere of influence. We cannot regulate oil drilling, only the government – and their corporate benefactors – can. It’s absurd and offensive to suggest we all share in this debacle.
I can agree that our modern industrial lives are at fault for creating the incessant demand for oil, but I disagree that anyone besides B.P., even those who own entire fleets of Hummers, can be given any blame in this particular debacle. Demand for oil is not equivalent to demand for oil regardless of cost (monetary or environmental).
Oil can actually be harvested in manner that has surprisingly little environmental or other damaging impact when done in accordance with national environmental and safety regulations. These environmental and safety regulations are imposed by a government that at least theoretically represents the will of the people. These are the same people who want the oil and thus it can be assumed that the people who want the oil want it only so long as it is harvested within these guidelines that are at least intended to minimize the impact of its harvesting. Thus preventable disasters that result from ignoring safety and environmental regulations are only the fault of those who chose to ignore those regulations.
What if a pizza chain encouraged its delivery people to ignore red lights and stop signs when making a delivery for the sake of timeliness. After being confronted by an angry populous following countless hit and runs caused by this policy their B.P.-esk response would be: “well these deaths are in part your fault for wanting pizza while it is still fresh and warm.”
Sorry, but I just don’t buy that at all.
If the BP disaster had occurred on a rig that was fully up to safety and environmental specifications then blame could not be placed on BP. In such a case it would legitimately be a faultless accident, though blame for the necessity of the rig’s existence could reasonably be passed down onto the oil consumers of this nation. One might even argue that blaming the oil consumers would be especially apt if the faultless accident in question was a result of some sort of climate change related weather event. However, in the current disaster, none of this is the case. The blame goes squarely on B.P. for knowingly cutting corners on the exact requirements the oil consuming people indirectly imposed upon them to prevent precisely this type of catastrophe.
Responsible? Did I have the authority to demand better safety measures, insist the BP buy the latest safety gadgets, order extensive training in safety procedures for personnel? No? This arguement falls under the “Look what you made me do!” rant of the spousal abuser.
Well, BP never asked me about whether they should drill in a unsafe manner and cut corners while they drill deeper than ever before…
And guess who approved BP cutting corners?
“Patton (MMS New Orleans District drilling engineer), his voice quavering at times, testified he was not aware of any such requirement (to rpovide proof the blowout preventer works) . He has never demanded such proof from any of the more than 100 applications his office reviews each year.”
Go read all the government screwups at http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/minerals_management_service_ov.html
@US 395
I never said that the government wasn’t also to blame for poor oversight, just that the oil consumers weren’t this time around.
Although in reading the article you linked, it looks more like Frank Patton was either complacent, or ill informed instead of the government or even the MMS at large to blame. In fact, in the article, the people grilling Patton about following protocol are mostly MMS, and they are described as being a bit flabbergasted about how poorly Frank Patton was following protocol.
“Mathews, an accident investigator for MMS, questioned Frank Patton, the agency’s New Orleans District drilling engineer, about his approval of BP’s drilling permit for Deepwater Horizon. Mathews noted that MMS regulation 250.416(e) requires drillers to submit proof that the blowout preventer they are using to shut off the well will have enough power to shear a drill pipe in case of an emergency.
. . . Patton said. The BP permit application had ‘no information on blind shear rams’ ability to shear the drill pipe used.’ ‘If they didn’t submit it, why did we approve it?’ Mathews shot back.”
IMO Patton is the fall guy. The MMS is in CYA mode.
Oh well what do we have here? The MMS that was supposed to be overseeing oil wells in the gulf… what were our precious government regulators doing?
Interior Probe Finds Fraternizing, Porn and Drugs at MMS Office in La.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/ig-finds-fraternizing-porn-drugs-at-mms
Here is another fed f up:
Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state’s oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor’s wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.
You idiot leftists continue to rely on your precious fat lazy government bureaucrats to salve all you ills. When will you get it through your thick dense Obama drone brains that government idiots are the problem not the solution?
Route,
You can say the regulators were literally in bed with the folks they were supposed to oversee. Funny, but not surprising coming from the dwellers of a government perch.
>>>Here is another fed f up:
>>>You idiot leftists continue to rely on your precious fat lazy government bureaucrats to salve all you ills. When will you get it through your thick dense Obama drone brains that government idiots are the problem not the solution?>>>
Sigh.
Highway, government is not the problem due to “laziness”. Government is the problem because it’s bought and paid for with BP’s money. Just like that Patton guy.
Listen to me carefully: The whole thing about “species going extinct” is not just wishy-washy tree-huggyness. There really is something called a “food chain”, and if it’s disrupted, it can affect our food supply. In fact, it already has. Fish and shrimp from the Gulf is no longer available. If that fact scares you, it should.
And as for we “idiot leftists”, well, I marched against the Iraq War before it started, and if the “idiot leftists” like myself had been listened to instead of the neo-con fuck-hawks, we would not now be saddled with a ONE TRILLION dollar bill for the war. So maybe I’m not such an idiot, huh?
Now as far as Obama is concerned, that fucker is smart and well-read. But I’m afraid that he is so far down the neo-con rabbit-hole that his instinct for self-preservation has been neutralized. He ought to know that he can be betrayed at any time. If I was in his shoes, as a black man no less, I would have created a Works Progress Administration for jobs like FDR did, would have nationalized the failing banks (or at least ask for something in return for bailouts), and would have plugged up that hole in the Gulf the first chance I got. And if for any reason I could not do these things, either because nobody would obey me or because my life would be forfeit if I did them, then I would pack up my bags and go back to Chicago to be a community organizer again. And that is exactly what Obama should do if for whatever reason, he cannot do his job as President and preserve this country (and the planet, no less) from ruin. He either protects this nation as President, or he gets his ass back to Chicago. What’s it gonna be?
neo con=jew
” that fucker is smart and well-read”
He is? We don’t know anything about his academic years. I know he sounds smart when he reads a TelePrompTer. Take away his crutch, and “uhhhhhh” is about all you have left. He thinks there are 57 states, he slips and calls himself a Muslim. I mean who makes that mistake? You leftists are attracted to gaunt, effeminate professorial types.
@US 395
I am not a fan of Obama, I certainly didn’t vote for him and I certainly have no regrets about who I actually did vote for instead. That being said whether you like the man or not, or whether you like his policies or not, he is intelligent and well-read.
Flawless public speaking credentials are not actually a measure of intelligence or how well-read someone is. Eric Alterman has pointed out that some of the best pundits and plenty of other prompter-free speakers capable of mesmerizing or “wowing” their audience can just as often be some of the most ill informed and poorly read individuals as any other demographic. Look at actors, without prompters they are capable of giving very informed looking speeches and monologues at length that move people passionately, but does that mean they are well-read and intelligent experts on anything let alone everything they give such speeches upon?
Even if speaking were a viable metric for this, Obama is still a better speaker without a prompter then Bush and some other presidents were.
Good measures of being well-read and intelligent are usually literary and academic ones, though obviously there is no perfect metric for any such things as there always will be the rare major exceptions going both ways even by this criteria. None the less
Obama’s literary and academic credentials:
1) Post graduate education (Harvard Law)
2) Graduated from Harvard Law Magna Cum Laude
(it should be noted that while the occasional dunce makes it through Harvard Law due to the influence of daddy’s money, they, at least to date, never come out Cum Laude let alone Magna Cum Laude)
3) President of the Harvard Law Review (random aside: first African American to achieve this)
4) Served as a professor (lecturer) at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years on constitutional law. (University of Chicago has averaged in the top 20 of ranked universities in the United states during this time, spending much of it in the top 10).
To this abbreviated list I would add his non-ghost written book, but dunces do sometimes manage to produce books, although they are usually ghost written when they do.
As for the 57 states gaff: find me a politician, who when exhausted, has not made a gaff in his or her entire carrier. We are all human and get worn out from time to time. Any of the politicians either you or I like have made the occasional gaffs when tired. To error is human. I refuse to believe that you have never made a mistake, I certainly do.
As for your claims that he calls himself a Muslim, you are going to have to back that up, because to date no such claims I have heard have ever been substantiated. Occasionally references can be provided, but they always trace back to certain right wing pundits of the vein known for saying things along the lines of “It becomes the truth after I say it”.
But even if Obama were a Muslim what would that matter? Sure there are muslim radicals in the world, but there are radicals of every denomination in the world, Christian, Jewish, even atheists and pragmatic-egnostic-secular-humanists. We don’t see or talk much of the violent non-Muslim radicals because they just don’t get as much TV or pundit time as they don’t help establish the zeitgeist that the powers that be wish to establish.
In conclusion, there are plenty of legitimate reasons both for those on the right and the left to strongly disagree with the man’s policies and even to dislike him personally. but regardless of one’s take on the mater, for better or worse, he is smart and well-read by any rational metric.
As for your latest articles on the spill and MSS, I am seeing nothing new. The article on MMS corruption talk about the same things that were revealed back in 2007-2008. The Bush administration (but not Bush himself) shuffled the MMS staff in locally strategic areas to individuals who were later found to be both figuratively and literally in bed with big oil. The love of porn for these individuals is news that is now a few years old as well. If memory serves me correctly, one of them even owned a sex toys shop as a side job. When you make an oil man president and he brings his oil cronies with him, what do you expect will happen? It will probably be a decade or more before all the gifts to big industry in the form of complacent and occasionally even conspiratorial government “regulators” installed by the Bush administration are finally ousted and purged, if ever. Your logic that government is to blame instead of corrupt industry because the government failed to prevent bad things by said corrupt industry after the corrupt industry in question managed to infiltrate and rework the government as it saw fit, is circular.
Even if this weren’t true then what has happened is the cop was asleep when the criminal committed the crime. The cop certainly needs to be reprimanded, or even fired and replaced, but it is ridiculous to say that the criminal is now blameless and it is all the useless cop’s fault. The cops crime is either laziness or complacency, which is undeniably very bad, but is not as bad as the crime itself, nor does it magically excuse the criminal’s roll in matters. That would be like saying its okay for me to rob you as long as I don’t get caught until after I commit the crime, at which point it is now the cop’s fault.
If Obama created jobs fixing our crumbling infrastructure, brought the troops home, and reigned in corporate power (starting with BP), then it wouldn’t matter to me if he was a Muslim born in Kenya. What matters is that he does his job.
Again, here is a link to Obama slipping up and saying “my Muslim faith” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auwe-aGF4Lo
Does it matter if he is a Muslim? No, but it matters that he lied about it.
Susan,
It is not Obama’s job to create jobs. As for crumbling infrastructure, all levels of government tax the hell out of 50% of us who work. Some of that money is supposed to be for infrastructure. That’s what fuel taxes are for. Instead, they piss away our money on all sorts of crap. And now they will have another 20 billion.
Susan,
I feel sorry for you. I suppose you might be bright I don’t know, but you certainly misinformed. Let’s run through what we’ve learned from you: You are proud of dumpster diving, you think wearing a wet tshirt will combat global warming (which is a scam but you are a mindless lib so never mind that), you call someone sexist because they posted something to you, but not Ted, you think you can opt out of Social Security, and now you don’t particularly care what country your President is born in. I know, the constitution is a living breathing document that has little relevance today, because obviously liberals like you are more intelligent than the white slave owners who founded this country. Again, I feel pity for your small lemming mind that has been brainwashed in what passes for a school system.
>>>It is not Obama’s job to create jobs.>>>
Yes it is. Otherwise he doesn’t have the right to sit in the Oval Office.
>>>As for crumbling infrastructure, all levels of government tax the hell out of 50% of us who work. Some of that money is supposed to be for infrastructure. That’s what fuel taxes are for. Instead, they piss away our money on all sorts of crap. And now they will have another 20 billion.>>>
They piss our money away on trillion dollar wars and other so-called “defense projects” that we don’t need. What we do need is to come up with alternative energy, as well as update our nationwide public transportation system, so we don’t waste money killing people half-way around the world for the oil they have in the ground and we don’t have disasters like BP.
Let’s run through what we’ve learned from you: You are proud of dumpster diving,>>>
Correct. It reduces waste.
>>you think wearing a wet tshirt will combat global warming (which is a scam but you are a mindless lib so never mind that),>>>
A *damp* t-shirt, not a wet one. My point was not about global warming specifically. It was about reducing energy usage. I wanted to present alternatives to using an air-conditioner.
>>>you think you can opt out of Social Security>>>
The Amish do this, so there must be some truth to it.
>>>and now you don’t particularly care what country your President is born in.>>>
As I recall, there was once talk of changing the law for Arnold Schwarzenegger so he could one day become President. But that was before Arnold turned out not to be the conservative savior the Right thought he would be, and that was it. To me, job performance is more important than birth country.
And besides, the truth is that Obama was born in the US, in the state of Hawaii. You only make yourself ridiculous by believing otherwise. Proof? I hardly think that Obama went back in time to put his birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser. Not even Stephen Hawking can do that.
Susan,
The President’s job is defined in the constitution. He does not create jobs, well except government jobs. Corporations create jobs.
The Amish do this, so there must be some truth to it.
Yes, if you want to become Amish. Really did I need to tell you that oh great bright one?
I never said Obama was born in Kenya. His wife did. Do you need the youtube link again?
>>>The President’s job is defined in the constitution. He does not create jobs, well except government jobs. Corporations create jobs.<<<
Do you really believe that "Corporations create jobs" ?
Not even the Chicago School is making that argument anymore. Here's why:
1) All goods begin as public, and need to be appropriated in order to become private. The appropriator in this country is a government consisting of different branches.
2) there is no job, technology or knowledge that has been created without public funding.
Now that you are up to speed there, lets try to get you out of your frighteningly naive understanding of the executive:
1) If the president dissolves an agency which was stopping you from creating a bunch of phony corporations, lending money to them, dissolving them, and collect the government insurance, has the president created a job? (hint, see Reagan and S&L)
2) If the president fails to veto a spending bill which allocates money to build useless military equipment, how many jobs did he create?
All goods begin as public
Sorry, but I don’t agree with your first premise. The goods I produce are not public. They are mine.
>>Yes, if you want to become Amish. Really did I need to tell you that oh great bright one?>>
I don’t think the Amish have special laws that only apply to them. They choose to opt out because they take care of their own elderly themselves. If it’s true that only the Amish can opt out of Social Security, then that would be discriminatory to anyone else who wanted to do the same. It would seem to me that anyone could opt out if they were prepared to live with the consequence of not receiving any benefits when they turned 62 or older.
>>>I never said Obama was born in Kenya. His wife did. Do you need the youtube link again?>>>
I’m not seeing that link at all, but I did go to the “Obama admits he’s a Muslim” video. If he is a Muslim, he’s not a very good one, not with the all the palling around with Rahm Emmanuel that he’s done all these years.
Susan,
Here, again, is the link where Michelle says Barry is from Kenya. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk3OMRqO7aY
Here;s some more Barry from Kenya videos:
Kenyan Ambassador admits Obama born in Kenya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH4GX3Otf14
AP Reported Obama Born In Kenya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU-oNAaQX6s
us395 SAID
<<Sorry, but I don’t agree with [Milton Friedman, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes or anyone at all]
I figured you wouldn't.
thanks for playing
K you are going to have to show me where Friedman, Locke or Hobbes said that all goods begin as public.
nah. Here’s a better idea. You just give me an example of a good that is completely private, and I’ll hand your ass to you again. Sound good?
olegena78,
You made the assertion. Its on you to back it up.
I’m guessing your education was public, would I be right?
again, see Nozick, Hobbes, Locke and pretty much anyone with regards to property. You need to read, my friend.