The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is also bringing the debate about regulation to the forefront once more. Where it belongs. Time and time again, those who tout the “Government is the problem” meme manage to steer the conversation. The phrase is repeated by those who aren’t very introspective about their beliefs and in the minds of many, it becomes true. But it’s not. And it should be one of the most obvious things we deal with. The need for regulation should be a no-brainer. But, just like the mining disaster in West Virginia and the financial meltdown in 2008, this too will be blamed on the victims.
The financial industry spent five billion dollars to bribe politicians in order to game the system. They got what they wanted and they were also warned by many that the deregulation would cause a bubble and that bubble would break. Molly Ivins said of the deregulation 1998, “Not since Congress passed the Garn-St. Germain bill in 1981 – the one that deregulated the S&Ls and unleashed a half-a-trillion-dollar disaster, which the taxpayers of this country wound up paying for – has there been a move to match this for pure folly.” So the people who crashed the world’s economy and spend a good portion of their time talking about how great they are and how bad the government is, ran to the government to bail them out when it inevitably went south. But who got the blame on Fox News and right-wing radio? Poor people, brown people, black people and immigrants. Never ones with enough to character to stand up and take responsibility for what they have done, they quickly blamed the victims.
Within a week or so of the mining disaster in West Virginia – one that can be attributed to deregulation and a disregard for the regulations still in force – Rush Limbaugh tried to blame the unions. "Was there no union responsibility for improving mine safety? Where was the union here? Where was the union? The union is generally holding these companies up demanding all kinds of safety. Why were these miners continuing to work in what apparently was an unsafe atmosphere?" After more than twenty years of fighting to weaken unions, Limbaugh wants to know why the unions didn’t stop this from happening. There were questions and concerns voiced by people working in the Massey Energy mine, just as there was by some working on the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. But, just as with other foreseeable disasters, this was caused by the deregulation mindset so prevalent in some circles.
The people in our country are the victims of the broken system. Financial, safety related and ecological. The corporations pay the politicians to make counterproductive laws. Then they pay propagandists like Beck and Limbaugh, and Fox News, to lie to the people so they have popular support for those laws. In the meantime the middle class keeps shrinking and making less money. We keep going deeper and deeper in debt, and the people doing the damage keep privatizing the gains and socializing the losses. All the while making the people who follow them fight against their own interests. The need for regulation is very much common sense. Common sense and science. It follows the Cox Theorem.
Prediction: Remove B from the system and N will happen. In this case strong regulation and a disaster. Replace B and N will not happen. At least not to the degree as it was before B was reintroduced. This has been proven over and over again during the last century. But, memories are very short.
After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the obvious thing for the country to do was to cut our consumption of fossil fuel. We did the opposite. The obvious thing for us to do now after the Gulf oil spill is to put in strong regulations and cut our consumption of fossil fuel. But our track record for doing the right and obvious thing is not a great one. “Government is the problem” “The private industry does it better” “Don’t let big government stand in the way” Now that things have gotten out of hand in the Gulf, they are begging the government to fix it. Until the crisis is over, then they will start the process all over again. The talking points are ready to go the minute this spill is off the front page. We shouldn’t let them do it this time. Enough is enough. In fact, it’s already been far too much.
http://www.propublica.org/article/bush-forces-deregulation-in-waning-days-of-administration 
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