If they had no back-up plan, why did they permit deep water drilling?

[sabrina 1]

When asked by the press why the Government had not taken over BP recently, WH Press Secretary, Gibbs said the government could not do that because BP is a private corporation.

We have taken over Sovereign Nations, like Iraq, but we cannot seize a private corporation after it creates a catastrophe right on our own territory like this?

The excuse given by some who are defending this apparent impotency on the part of our government is that BP is the only entity that knows how to handle this situation. They are the only ones with the 'right tools' and they 'own the equipment'!!

The Government doesn't know how, they say, they don't have the equipment, they don't have the knowledge of deep water drilling to be able to do anything about this ongoing disaster. And that is probably true.

But isn't anyone appalled by this state of affairs?

I thought that the U.S. Government had a list of potential threats to this country and that they study them and develop ways to handle them should they occur. I thought they were always prepared to deal with them. I thought that a major oil spill like this would be on that list. Especially since it's happened before.

Why, eg, once the idea of drilling so deep in the ocean off our coast came up, did the U.S. Government not assign the task of studying what to do if something should go wrong to say, The U.S. Navy? Why didn't they hire the best minds in the country to work on a back-up plan, to develop equipment etc. that the NAVY would be trained to use in the event of something like this happening? BEFORE permitting any offshore deep water drilling?

Was it because the Oil Industry did not want the Government to be independent of them? Are they that powerful? Or did the Government just not think it was necessary, that they could trust the Oil Corporations? And if so, how could they determine if the Oil Corps were telling them the truth unless THEY had enough knowledge to make such judgements?

Why did Obama say that Oil Rigs are safer today than when the Offshore Drilling ban was put in place 30 years ago because of modern technology? Whose advise was he taking when he made the decision to lift the ban and based it on information like that, which was clearly wrong?

For all the talk we hear about National Security you would think this would be somewhere at the top of the list. But it's like 'not to worry, trust the Oil Guys'! Is that an acceptable National Security policy?

Or is it that there has been an almost complete corporate takeover of this government and they really do not have any say without the approval of private corporations?

All I know is it sounded shocking to me to hear Gibbs say what sounded like 'we are helpless. The Private Corps are in charge'! Even Foreign Ones it seems ...

This country landed on the Moon.

We build WMDs that could destroy a good part of the world.

We invented the automobile, life-saving medications, we were at the fore-front of all the technological advances in the world today and we used the best minds from all over the world to do so, whenever necessary.

So it doesn't make sense that we could not have had a system in place to protect our coastline from a disaster like this. I'm not buying that argument.



Someone should have been protecting the Ocean ....

[Jamastiene]

1. Greed n/t

[sabrina 1]

2. Greed was surely to blame for a lot of it.

But so many people had to go along with allowing so much power in the hands of these Corps. Maybe there was a fight, I just haven't come acrosss anything that shows that was even much of a struggle. And Gibbs casual statement made it seem that everyone already knew this. I didn't!

[Greyhound]

3. See that would necessitate that working for and protecting the nation be their motivation.

Such is not the case, and except for a couple of brief interruptions, never has been.
:kick: & R

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. Cheney. Bush.

They deregulated and installed oil-company yes-men in places like the MMS and EPA and the USCG and the...

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. it's going to be hard to get rid of these

Obama should do a clean out

[TheWraith]

11. Unfortunately, that's sort of illegal.

A lot of the politically motivated hires were either placed in civil service jobs, or were converted into civil service jobs, making it illegal to fire them except for cause. It's going to be decades getting rid of all of them.

[TheWraith]

12. Unfortunately, that's sort of illegal.

A lot of the politically motivated hires were either placed in civil service jobs, or were converted into civil service jobs, making it illegal to fire them except for cause. It's going to be decades getting rid of all of them.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. the generalm public do not understand that

perhaps voters should be informed

[sabrina 1]

44. He should have done that from the start of his administration.

Maybe he didn't want to? He kept Gates and Bernanke eg.

[sabrina 1]

17. Drilling offshore has increased immensely over the past ten

years. I agree with you re Cheney/Bush. They sold this country out in so many ways. But I think you have probably nailed it. They filled all those agencies with yes-men.

We need a thorough investigation. Dems should be screaming about it, appointing special investigators and subpoenaing Cheney and his secret energy meeting minutes.

[Poiuyt]

5. I still cannot believe that they issued licenses for drilling without them having contingency plans

I also think that if our government REALLY had to, they would be able to come up with a solution. It was Bush & Cheney's fault that BP was allowed to drill without adequate safety plans and with lax regulation, but I think Obama is being too slow in forcing an end to this.

BTW, we didn't invent the automobile.

[sabrina 1]

9. You're right, I just looked it up.

Who invented the automobile?

But I don't feel so bad as apparently, according to this article, Obama also said it was invented here.

Was the automobile invented in America?

Short answer: no.

The Library of Congress credits German Karl Benz (of Mercedes-Benz) with inventing the "first true automobile" (one that had an internal combustion engine). That happened in 1885. However, the Library of Congress also notes that "he history of the automobile is very rich and dates back to the 15th century when Leonardo da Vinci was creating designs and models for transport vehicles."

As Mary Bellis points out, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot build the first self-powered vehicle for the road. In 1769. His invention is "recognized by the British Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Club de France as being the first" automobile.

Most inventions have more than one "inventor" although mindshare is usually held by one person. In the U.S., that mindshare often goes to Henry Ford, who did not invent the automobile but who revolutionized its production.

But here's a more thorough account of the history of the automobile. It all depends on what a 'car' is ...

Obama was right: We invented the car

The 'first car' was supposedly the Benz Motor Wagon. But it looks more like a tricycle to me:

[Scuba]

6. 1. Nationalize the energy industries. 2. Indict these criminals.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. I would go along with that!!!!

[sabrina 1]

16. Excellent idea.

And order Cheney to release the minutes of those energy meetings he's been hiding.

I have read that offshore drilling has increased over the past ten years. I bet there are some answers in those minutes. A BP CEO says he doesn't remember if he was present at the secret meetings! As if you'd ever forget a meeting with Darth Cheney!

[Odin2005]

7. Greed makes people do stupid things.

Ego-concept, the notion of an essential and unchanging "self" leads to grasping for impermanent pleasures, which leads to greed, which leads to suffering.

[Richard Steele]

8. The answer is as plain as a Coast Guard vessel threatening to fire upon...

...a boat load of reporters,
acting under the orders of BP personnel.

DUH.

[Catherina]

15. Terrible isn't it?

We invade other nations, repeatedly using pretexts like crimes against humanity, and we barely say a peep about a crime of this magnitude.

To your question about the oil industry, yes they are that powerful. It's a sad state of affairs. The fate of millions of people in the Gulf, of millions of animals, were subordinated to the profit interests of a multinational oil company. We're on our knees before these oil companies, just as we were when Wall Street demanded a trillion-dollar bailout.

"Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries". That was 10 years ago, before they ramped up their raping and pillaging.

Howl Sabrina. We're living in times of utter madness.


Howl: Part II

BY Allen Ginsberg

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!



Rec'd

[sabrina 1]

21. Wow, great post Catherina ~

Just checked the link ~ amazing, I had no idea!

The Ginsberg piece is so sad, so depressingly descriptive also:

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!

.....

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!

It reminds me of this song, 'Mad World' ~ if you haven't heard it, I think you'll see why ~ this is the Adam Lambert version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyyESHqT9a4

Howl Sabrina. We're living in times of utter madness.

Yes, sometimes it seems that way and it makes you want to go somewhere that hasn't been spoiled by all of this ... but is there anywhere they have not destroyed anymore?

[Catherina]

24. Mad World

Thank you! I didn't know Adam Lambert's version; it's beautiful. I'm already on my third listen.

I'm still looking but I know there are some.

“The story the Leavers have been enacting for the past three million years isn’t a story of conquest and rule. Enacting it doesn’t give them power. Enacting it gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. This is what you’ll find if you go among them. They’re not seething with discontent and rebellion, not incessantly wrangling over what should be allowed and what forbidden, not forever accusing each other of not living the right way, not living in terror of each other not going crazy because their lives seem empty and pointless, not having to stupefy themselves with drugs to get through the days, not having a new religion every week to give them something to hold on to, not forever searching for something to do or something to believe in that will make lives worth living. And – I repeat – this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because they’re innately noble. This is simply because they’re enacting a story that works well for people – a story that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers haven’t yet managed to stamp it out.”

...

“The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler’s mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness.”

...

"And every time the Takers stamp out a Leaver culture, a wisdom ultimately tested since the birth of mankind disappears from the world beyond recall."

- Daniel Quinn

[sabrina 1]

29. It is hauntingly beautiful, isn't it?

'The Takers' ~ thanks for that story ... I am sure there are a few places left, but it's best that they remain unnoticed don't you think? If there is anything of value to the 'takers' they will not be unspoiled for long. There are still beautiful places, but where I am now, in Ojai, CA, I see oil fields and rigs out in the ocean and they have an ominous feeling to them now.

[NNN0LHI]

18. Because we didn't want to purchase oil from countries that didn't like us

So instead we committed ecological suicide.

We really showed them didn't we?

Don

[sabrina 1]

32. But we don't even get the oil, I just found out from another

thread. We get royalties when they extract oil. According to one commenter who works in the business, it may be as little as 12%.

I don't know if we then buy the oil from them, or if it goes elsewhere. A lot of questions, few answers. They have been counting on the people's ignorance of these issues.

Someone also said that Alaskan residents share in the profits from their oil. Each of them gets a check every year. But that is the only state that shares the profits with the people who actually own the oil.

[uponit7771]

34. BINGO it's sold on the internaitonal market and subjecto to currency fluctuations namely the dollar

[Ned Bro]

19. My question exactly!

K&R!

[Skittles]

20. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. The Government does not have the equipment

or expertise, that is a fact. The US Government used to... look at Reagan as to why?

As to how specialized this is... there are very few pieces of equipment that can work at these depths. and they are not owned by most governments. Sweden might have some, and so MIGHT Brazil... after that... nope.

Should it be this way? No. But it is.

Should BP be pulled out... as much as I'd like to push them to the curb, l know why legally that cannot be done. (See 1990 law... scream that we get emergency legislation to change that), and quite frankly they do have some proprietary equipment on site and no the USCG don't do any of this deep sea drilling.

As to the permits... well, you know what happened during the Bus Administration. These permits were issued at least four years ago.

Oh and the google would illuminate most of this too.

[sabrina 1]

25. Well, I am aware of all of that. Already googled a month ago.

My question wasn't whether or not the government had the equipment, but WHY since they DIDN'T, they gave out permits knowing that this could happen.

The U.S. is certainly capable of developing a plan, of training people in the NAVY and the Coast Guard eg, to learn what these morons from BP know. With the money that is spent on the military, there is no excuse for the Government NOT owning the proper equipment AND having people trained to use it to deal with a disaster like this.

As I said, we went to the moon, I think we could go the bottom of the ocean and I think if the will had been there, the Government would have done a far better job than BP is doing right now. The military would have had an interest in defending their country. BP's only interest was in profit.

So, I would like those responsible for this utterly incredible incompetence to explain to the American people why they did this. Cheney to begin with, and everyone else who went along for the ride. Mr. 'Homeland Security'! Who is remarkably silent right now ...

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. I am not going to wait for those responsible to answer

one thing.

We don't prosecute war criminals and look ahead (barf)...

As to WHY they gave them... well Chenney and Pals stood to make millions... and of course even though there have been hundreds of these incidents on sea since we started doing this... they are still rare enough that they can mostly ignore the risks. And they will continue to. We depend on the stuff.... so all the anger in the world will not change the fact that we have a choice of dealer in our drug choice... and this is a systemic change that needs to happen. Don't expect the energy companies to lead, though realize BP was the ONLY one to sign the Kyoto protocol.

[sabrina 1]

30. I definitely do not expect the energy corps to lead. I do

expect the people we elect to lead. Apparently they haven't been doing that. This is big enough that it may rouse the people out of their apathy and motivate them to start making demands of their politicians. In fact, it may very well spark a movement. People ARE angry, more than I've ever seen them about anything else.

We'll see. But history has lots of examples of what appeared to be impossible, becoming possible when the people were motivated enough. This may be the spark that was needed on top of the Coal Mine disasters. Anger, justifiable anger properly directed can accomplish a lot. It is a natural emotion and in this case, more than justified.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Yeah but I don't count on it

you've seen anger... and I've seen apathy, outside of DU.

And of course I also see a denial of how deeply we depend on this... and that in my mind is the FIRST STEP... then we can go in for the intervention. And no I don't expect the US Political Class to lead hungry men to a banquet...

But what we need will require the kinds of stark choices that I don't think most people are willing to make... for example more costly food. Our cheap food policy... comes from this cheap oil for example. So call me cynical. We need the changes, I just don't expect it.

Oh and the changes have to be GLOBAL, enough with this national crap... we are a global civilization, well time we act like it...

[sabrina 1]

43. I don't disagree with you. There is a lot of apathy as well as

anger, and selfishness. People are spoiled, so it will be hard to give things up. I'm just surprised that there has been no call for people to start conserving especially now, from this administration. There are a lot of things I don't understand.

[tavalon]

23. Your title says it all

You actually didn't need the rest of it. And of course, the answer to your rhetorical question is "they never, ever, should have".

[sabrina 1]

27. Well, it wasn't really rhetorical. There seemed to me to be

a gap, that's the only word I can think of to describe how I felt when we were told that the Government had no solution and that we had to trust a private Corp. with the horrendous record BP has to fix this.

I tried to find out a point in recent history where this was even brought up, before Congress eg. But I found very little. Now, I'm wondering what other threats are out there to this country's eco-system that we don't know about. We know now about this one, and the Coal Mines.

But yes, that was my conclusion also, 'the never should have'. So, who do we prosecute? It's not JUST BP's fault ... they couldn't have done any of it without permission.

[tavalon]

37. The list is long

but it's time to look forward, to move on. You know, prosecution isn't really on the table..........etc. However, sternly worded letters are likely to be mailed soon.

I'll be highly surprised if more than one low to middle management person goes to prison for this. Very surprised.

[sabrina 1]

39. Sadly, you are probably right. But we can dream.

If the outrage were so great that we could finally get Dick Cheney to produce those minutes from his secret energy meetings and maybe get him on this, since he's off the hook for war crimes, it would be something.

But, I know that is not likely to happen.

[Overseas]

28. The Cheeeeneeey Gang wanted things to be simplest for the Oil Giants.

His pals wanted to regulate themselves. They wanted those damn regulations loosened so by golly they got loosened.

And I too, detest the continued restatement that the US just doesn't have the knowledge or equipment to handle the spill, we have to trust the mega-felon. That's playing in to the right wing favorite theme of government incompetence. We have great engineers who saw all the remedial measures BP tried this time being tried in 1979 and we had engineers who knew a giant Saudi oil spill had the damage minimized by getting several supertankers to vacuum the oil up.

Unless there was a Cheeneey leave-behind in charge again. Another of the GOP's pretend troops-- buddies put into government positions to demonstrate government incompetence, like heck of a job Brownie.

How sad that our old-fashioned New Democrats wanted to send President Obama out months ago to show how mega-power friendly he was by endorsing more offshore drilling. We didn't have him telling us he would like our country to do more drilling but would demand more safety measures be installed first. And that wasn't much separated in time from the endorsement of mega nuclear power.

Why so determined to prove he's fossil fuel friendly? Had he given too much funding to solar so he needed to reassure the giants of their continued dominance?

What a pity we don't have our president on record saying he'd like to pursue offshore drilling and nuclear power but they needed much more stringent re-regulation first.

[sabrina 1]

42. Why did Obama endorse Offshore drilling?

And nuclear power? He was so against Offshore drilling until August of 2008 when he began 'softening' his position on it.

Remember Congress bringing in the Oil Execs, one from BP, during that summer to speak sternly to them about the high gas prices?

I went back to look at those hearings this week, and saw them in a whole different light.

Back then, we saw them as being 'testy' and 'argumentative', the media determined that they didn't like being questioned by Congress.

But what they actually did was to use the time to claim that the high price of oil was because of the 'restrictions on offshore drilling'. Every one of them made that claim, over and over again. And so it was clear they wanted to drill closer to shore. Yet, we were told that there is 'nothing worth drilling for' so Obama was just letting them have their way but no drilling would be done!!

Anyhow, shortly after those hearings, Obama 'softened his position'. McCain was already on board. I wonder who met with him? Did they tell him that he could not win unless he played the game now?

You say the 'New Democrats' advised him. Yes, I am sure they did, Rahm et al. What awful timing it turned out to be. They were probably delighted with themselves, sticking it to the Liberals and 'Greeniacs'. It's almost as if there is a god after all and he finally said 'enough'!

But even the claim that we need to 'decrease our dependence on foreign oil' is a lie. As I said in another comment in this thread, we don't even get the oil. We get royalties, and the rest of the oil belongs to the Oil Corp and probably gets sold abroad, or back to us at market price. The American people end up with nothing.

And yes, Obama lifted the ban, but never once spoke about having a backup plan should anything go wrong. It didn't even seem to be a factor. As if he had not researched the subject at all, just did as he was told and accepted the information they gave him without question. All he had to do was google ...

[TheKentuckian]

33. Our society is not well mentally. An individual person acting as we do as a group

would be committed.

[uponit7771]

35. Hopefully Obama will STOP LISTENING to these people, I don't trust them...my views of safe nuke powe

...power has changed due to this deep ocean gusher

[JCMach1]

36. Because big oil has had the US by the balls since the time of the Robber Barons

in the Gilded Age.

When the truth is that deep water drilling is dangerous as nuclear power. Would we have given the same lack of backups and oversight to a nuclear plant?

[sabrina 1]

38. If you asked me that question a year ago

I would have said 'no'. But, you know what? I am beginning to think that this country has been in the hands of some pretty insane people and after this disaster and what is revealing as it unfolds, I think if there was money to be made, they would take the risk with all of our lives, just as they have with this.

[pundaint]

40. Nothing will change if we re-elect Congress. The breakdowns all start with their

dereliction of duty. They owe the American People oversight. The have and continue to let us down badly. They cannot be rehabilitated, even in the face of all this obvious failure, they do not change. We must change their employment status. And we must carefully watch the new batch.

[sabrina 1]

41. Yes, things have to change. They suffer no consequences

as we are caught in this game of 'their team' and 'our team'. When really there is only one team and we are not a part of it.

While we can still vote them out, I agree, and yes, closely watch the newly elected. The corruption seems to set in as soon as the reach DC and are descended upon by multitudes of lobbyists. Michael Moore was so right in 'Sicko' and 'Capitalism. A Love Story' when he showed the swarms of lobbyists descending on the new members of Congress.

[tiptoe]

45. ExitPoll vs VoteCount: vote-margin shifts to GOP in votecount 98.5% when 3% MoE exceeded (66 of 238)

From Proving Election Fraud (2010), pp 81-91:

Exit polls are used to collect demographic data about voters and to find out why they voted as they did. Since actual votes are cast anonymously, polling is the only way of collecting this information. Exit polls have historically and throughout the world been used as a check against and rough indicator of the degree of election fraud.

The 2004 exit poll report was released on Jan 19, 2005. It showed that Kerry won the unadjusted State Exit Poll aggregate by 52–47% and the [preliminary] National Exit Poll by 51–48%, before they were forced to match the recorded vote, won by Bush 50.7%–48.3%. The pollsters concluded that the 7% discrepancy (WPE) was due to the Kerry voters responding at a higher rate than Bush voters to be interviewed. It was dubbed the "reluctant Bush responder" hypothesis (rBr). The pollster's Final National Exit Poll, which indicated that returning Bush voters outnumbered returning Gore voters by more than 7 million, refuted the theory. Not only that, there were more returning voters than were alive in 2004.

It is important to keep in mind that the [adjusted] Final National Exit Poll (NEP) is always 'forced to match' the official recorded vote count.
...
An analysis of [unadjusted] State Exit Poll discrepancies for the 1988-2004 elections yields an interesting pattern. The data is from Edison Media Research/ Mitofsky International: "Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004" (January 19, 2005).

E-M provided unadjusted exit poll data for 238 of 255 state presidential elections from 1988 to 2004. They define "Within Precinct Error (WPE)" as the difference between the unadjusted exit poll share margin and the recorded vote-count share margin. “Error” implies that the exit polls were wrong. But millions of votes are un-counted in every election (nearly 11 million in 1988 and 4 million in 2004). Therefore, it is more accurate to refer to Within Precinct Discrepancy (WPD). A positive WPD indicates that the vote shift favored the GOP; a negative WPD favored the Democrat.
...
Unadjusted exit poll data has not been released for 2008. Is it because the data would confirm what the 1988-2004 exit polls indicate?  In every election, the Democrats do much better than the official recorded vote indicates. As always, the Final 2008 National Exit Poll was forced to match the recorded vote-count. A True Vote Model (see below) indicates that Obama won by over 22 million votes.

1988-2004 ±3% MoE exceeded in 66 of 238 State Exit Polls  (65 favoring the Republican, 1 the Democrat)