The United States of BP is leading this charge....

[Mind_your_head]

Why in G-d's name is BP leading the effort to stop the worst man-made disaster in the history of the world?!?!? When BP CAUSED the diaster?!?!

Where is government? Where is government who can bring such powerful resources to bear to end this blight? OH.....we've spent BILLIONS on NOTHING PRODUCTIVE. Endless WARS. Bombs. Seeming Double-crosses to perpetuate war....

We're not prepared AT ALL for eco-terrorism! Especially when it comes from one of our own 'donors'/corporate sponsors *purrrrr*....

US Generals, did you see this coming? If not, *FAIL*. If so, why did you Petreus?

:mad:

[Ozymanithrax]

1. Because U.S. Law requires that they stop the leak and clean up...

afterwords. The law was written after the Exon Valdez dumped a load in Alaska and required the people who screwed up to fix the problem.

However, the Cost guard is overseeing what BP does.

[William Z. Foster]

4. can't have it both ways

Either the USCG is doing an extremely shitty job, or else they are not really in charge.

This has nothing to do with this or that law. That is a bunch of lawyer-speak double talk and misdirection.

[Ozymanithrax]

5. You are right, we can be a nation that follows the rule of law, or not...

Yes, the law needs rewritten to account for this type of spill. Since we are not going to stop drilling oil in deep ocean, there will be changes.

I disagree with your assessment that the USCG is doing a bad job. The only real solution to a spill like this is a relief well. BP began drilling two on May 5th. they have stopped drilling on one because they are going to use it's Blow out preventer in their next attempt to stop the leak. The other well will eventually reach the right place and relieve the pressure, allowing the well to be sealed.

As long as we are a civilization based on the hyper utilization of oil, the world will continue drilling wells. As we get farther past peak oil, these type of wells will be drilled because the easy oil is gone.

[William Z. Foster]

7. now

The important thing is now. People want to talk about whose fault it is in the past, and what should be done in the future. That is a distraction from what is happening right now, and what is happening right now is what is important.

"A nation that follows the rule of law?" That is what James Baker kept intoning to defend the halting of the vote count in Florida in 2000. Clearly, "rule of law" has come to mean that law is used solely as a tool to rule over all of us for the benefit of the corporations. The government pays no attention to law when that helps corporations and keeps us all held down, and then uses the law and talks about strictly following it when that is what will help corporations.

There is more to this than plugging the leak. "It is not easy to plug this leak" has been a catch-all excuse for a totally botched operation.

"As long as we are dependent on oil" is another excuse and distraction.

[Ozymanithrax]

8. HOwever, plugging that oil leak is hard...

we are a civilization that requires oil as much as each individual requires oxygen...
and we are a nation that believes in the rule of law. The law as it sits needs changing, and will be.

This oil leak will be stopped when the relief well is finished. It would be much easier to put a band aid on the damn thing if it were in Texas or Oklahoma. But it is a mile under the gulf, which makes it an incredible engineering challange.

I am sure that your expetise in oil field engineering would be helpful. You should volunteer.

[William Z. Foster]

9. you are repeating yourself

I heard you the first time and do not dispute any of that.

- We use a lot of oil, in many ways for many things - yes.

- We are "a nation that believes in the rule of law" - sort of, not so much as once as true, and there is a double standard. But in theory - yes.

- Laws get changed - yes.

- The leak will stop when they stop the leak - yes.

- It is harder to deal with 5,000 feet under water than it would be on dry land - yes

So, there is not real dispute about any of that, yet you repeat it as though there were.

No need for this - "I am sure that your expertise in oil field engineering would be helpful. You should volunteer." That is a sign that you have a weak argument.

[Ozymanithrax]

10. Then what is your solution to sealing the well?

From everything I have seen, the relief well is the only solution. Other things might work, but have not so far.

This isn't a hollywood movie where everything is fixed in a ninty minute thrill ride.

[William Z. Foster]

11. LOL

This is so funny.

What are you talking about? One must have a solution to sealing the well in order to have an opinion about any of this?

BP wants us to think that this is all about sealing the well, and want any and all questions about the response to this catastrophe to be answered with "oh yeah, so what is your solution to sealing the well?" If people have no "solution to sealing the well" then nothing else BP is doing can be questioned.

You can see why BP would want to do this. But why are you helping them?

[Ozymanithrax]

12. Are you reading their minds? Or are you in their board room?

Me, I comment on reality of the world we live in as I see it, not help BP. I do hope they succede in stopping the oil before the relief well is done. I also think we should be agitating for tougher restrictions on companies drilling wells. We need to work to stop the next debacle before it happens while trying to fix this one.

[William Z. Foster]

13. no problem

Stopping the oil before the relief well is done - yes.

Tougher restrictions on companies drilling wells - yes.

Stop the next debacle before it happens - yes.

No dispute about any of that.

Managing the current catastrophe, however...that needs to be taken out of BP's control and 100% federalized.

[Ozymanithrax]

14. From what I read in the relavant law, that isn't legal.

Though the President and Congress may have to find a legal way to do it. But we do agree on most everything else.

[William Z. Foster]

15. got it

I misunderstood what you were saying. My apology.

Congress and the administration, with the will to do so, can certainly declare whatever sort of emergency they like and authorize a federal response, which may or may not then pass muster with the courts. If it doesn't, they can try again. We certainly saw all sorts of bizarre legislation passed and executive action taken and powers grabbed recently on all sorts of other pretexts.

Certainly we should be leery of power grabs by the executive branch, but the threat to us from something like the Patriot Act or FISA is vastly more dangerous than some "emergency Gulf disaster response" executive powers could ever be.

[Lint Head]

2. Did John Dillinger or Machine Gun Kelly stop bank robberies?

Hmmmmm...

[William Z. Foster]

6. they had the expertise

They had the expertise and equipment, and knew how to clean up crime scenes like no one else. Besides, the local dog catcher was "overseeing" things. In any case, what can the government do? The government has no power or authority.

[AdHocSolver]

3. The Gulf oil spill is going to get much worse before this situation is resolved.

If the U.S. government takes over at this stage, then the right wing will say that the government can't do anything correctly. The right wing will say that the government should have let the "experts" at BP fix the problem.

Of course this is nonsense. NO ONE KNOWS how to stop the gusher in the gulf since BP failed to institute the appropriate safety measures in the first place.

Since it is going to get worse no matter who is in charge, the U.S. government may as well let BP continue to OWN this disaster.

[William Z. Foster]

16. f*** the right wing

Who cares what they say? If we were saying anything with any "oomph" to it at all, nothing the right wing says would make any difference.

We should be far more worried about the tepid and timid calls for moderation and compromise from our own side. That is where we are losing the battle.

The biggest damage the right wingers do is getting all of us to take them seriously and get all in a tizzy about the latest nonsense they throw out there.

[Overseas]

17. Cognitive dissonance -- on a daily basis -- only BP can handle it ?

When I hear that stated and restated my heart and brain ache, and I want to shout-- Are you all kidding me? They sure haven't "handled it" so far. Lied on their damn application to set up the drill in the first place.

The remedies they tried are over ten years old. Tried and failed before.

According to an Esquire article, after a Saudi spill decades ago, fleets of tankers were gathered to suck the oil off the ocean's surface before it could wreck their coastlines. No toxic dispersant required to sink the evidence. Immediate clean up came first. Why wasn't that written into all future contracts for dangerously deep drilling?

And the dissonance is when I remember the USA having outstanding corps of engineers in our government. They kept industry on its toes and made sure our infrastructure did not crumble. We have fleets of brilliant engineers ready to help us with all of those projects. We used to have outstanding engineers on our government payroll. To imply that we do not have the expertise to handle the BP disaster is heartbreaking. We have engineers who have studied all those decades old techniques, and learned the best practices of other countries.

We had great scientists on staff. But that was back in the days when Republicans believed in government excellence; before they ramped up their project of proving government incompetence by stacking its halls with cronies to do a heck of a job and build up a public distrust of government.

We have tons of gifted engineers ready to help. I was kind of counting on our new Democratic administration to restore the greatness of our previously effective teams of government engineers and scientists. We did a lot of great things in house in the old days. I can't imagine a private serving moldy food to our troops.

When Republicans rush in and cut budgets and jobs for our nation's safety regulatory framework, we all suffer. We saw what happened after Republican cost cutting on everything but warfare, so millions of us voted in the Democrats to please clean things up already. We don't want government services on the cheap. Privatized to the old chum or lowest bidder. We know from BP that bidding is the easy part. We want our in-house, corps of engineers revived. Teams of engineers that serve the national interest, not a party or corporation's quarterly profits. We want our lifers back-- our dedicated safety personnel, with enough inspectors to do their jobs. Not frat boys and girls appointed anew every term. We voted those guys out.

Republicans slashed our infrastructure and safety inspection budgets to finance their dumb wars. Cutting budgets everywhere but the military, even though city bridges collapsed on their people, ecoli and salmonella surged, mines blew up, and miles-deep oil drilling in tons of pressure per square inch was started without a back up shut off valve, or the pledge of ten oil tankers available in immediate response to any rupture to suck up or skim up the oil.

Things would be different if we still had the Republicans with us in the tradition of honorable civil service, respecting the hundreds of thousands of other jobs in addition to our military, that make our country a greater place. My FDR bell was clanging because the Bush Gang left so much deferred maintenance, and so many laid off safety inspectors, regulators and engineers ready to get back to work. "Voluntary compliance" led to the Bush Crash, Bush Bailout and BP Disaster. Enough already, I thought. We have the expertise we need but its been laid off. I voted in Democrats to rehire those guys. To wind down the bankrupting warfare and refocus our national priorities on a more sustainable course which would, in actuality, greatly enhance our national security.