sunday, june 20, 2010
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BP's green flower power hard at work, setting fire to crude oil floating in the
Gulf of Mexico. The universal response of perps to an emergency is a guilty
panic to hide the evidence. By the time BP gets into court, it will be
"who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"
Nightmare in the Gulf...
Even though raw crude oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 60,000 barrels of gunk per day, don't believe for a minute that this spill is our penultimate nightmare...that horror show still lies in our uncertain future. BP's pattern of criminal conduct in the Gulf, from the use of bribery to sabotoge government oversight, to the theft of an estimated $53 billion in oil royalties, to its illegal attempts to limit press coverage of the spill and it's aftermath, is but a stalking horse for greater disasters looming.
While I don't necessarily mean a (reasonable) fear of the potential for additional off-shore platform emergencies, given the pattern of corruption that permeated the Minerals Management Service for all 8 years of the Bush presidency, and the first 18 months of Barack Obama's, the danger is by no means remote, especially with hurricane season soon to arrive.
But there is also grave cause for concern about the wider patterns of corruption as yet uncovered, in other agencies of the government, where federal regulatory authority has been equally absent. Whether the tea party open-carry cowboys like it or not, the federal power to regulate is our only proven fail-safe against the rapacious nature of private economic power. Environmental stewardship and public safety demand the due diligence that only government can impose against the belief of the corporate elite in their god-given right to develop natural resources where they find them, and convert them to private wealth. What further disasters wait to be revealed, when the corrosive power of bribery and corruption finish working their ugly magic?
The free-market revolution begun by Milton Friedman groupies nearly 5 decades ago, is bearing fruit in the Gulf today. The private war against the public expression of power wielded by a government of the people, is all but complete. The alliance of corporate power and the Republican/populist right, was well exposed by a key Republican senator, who shamefully apologized for President Obama's "shakedown" of BP, (referring to the $20 billion government-controlled escrow fund that Obama imposed. to prevent BP from "slow-walking" damage awards, as has happened elsewhere.) The demand by the Republican leadership for an apology from Senator Barton, was not because they disagreed with his sentiments, but because it exposed the truth about Republican allegiances to their corporate masters.
For most of the opening decade of the 21st century, the Bush/Cheney administration operated under a policy essentially abdicating the government's responsibility for exercising regulatory authority in virtually every agency of the executive branch. The end of government regulation as a tool for limiting private power, is the flowering of Ayn Rand's dream...the semi-erotic fantasy with which she inspired the lust of Freidman, Greenspan and the flying monkeys of the new capitalism...of the ascendant private individual as superman, celebrating the death of collectivism. Some dream...sounds like a Soviet-era propaganda poster.
Like all religions, the purity of the free-market vision was betrayed by a metaphorical 30 pieces of silver; the collective greed and lawlessness of a corporate priesthood whose contempt for the politicians they found so easy to bribe, was exceeded only by their dreams of avarice.
Our caution for our immediate future lies in the realization that these predators worked every sheep pen in the government, not just the Mineral's Management Service, and not just the Department of the Interior. We have already seen the collapse of the financial markets, and the super-heating and collapse of the housing market, both caused by the same pattern of corporate corruption of government oversight. Given this horrendous recent history, we can only wonder and worry about what bursting bubbles lie in our immediate future.
Though apparently aware of the thirst of corporations for absolute power, President Obama has followed the lead of other Democratic politicians (read Bill Clinton) in an accomodation of influence, amounting to the "corporatism" with which he is often charged by the green left. It is certain, from his support last spring of increased off-shore drilling, and his fronting of the myth of oil rig safety, that President Obama did not envision himself leading a war against "Big Oil."
But in the Gulf, war has already been declared, and the first great battle is now being waged. President Obama, sword in hand, has demanded - and received - an escrow account of BP funds to pay for damages, leading to the first narrow victory in what BP hopes will be a long-term war of attrition. For there to be other victories, President Obama must slay the free-market dragon. If he doesn't continue to confront the corrupt power of the corporation, we as a nation, will face capitulation to corporate monarchs and the end of government of, by and for the people.
Hyperbole? I wish it were.
DHL
For most of the opening decade of the 21st century, the Bush/Cheney administration operated under a policy essentially abdicating the government's responsibility for exercising regulatory authority in virtually every agency of the executive branch. The end of government regulation as a tool for limiting private power, is the flowering of Ayn Rand's dream...the semi-erotic fantasy with which she inspired the lust of Freidman, Greenspan and the flying monkeys of the new capitalism...of the ascendant private individual as superman, celebrating the death of collectivism. Some dream...sounds like a Soviet-era propaganda poster.
Like all religions, the purity of the free-market vision was betrayed by a metaphorical 30 pieces of silver; the collective greed and lawlessness of a corporate priesthood whose contempt for the politicians they found so easy to bribe, was exceeded only by their dreams of avarice.
Our caution for our immediate future lies in the realization that these predators worked every sheep pen in the government, not just the Mineral's Management Service, and not just the Department of the Interior. We have already seen the collapse of the financial markets, and the super-heating and collapse of the housing market, both caused by the same pattern of corporate corruption of government oversight. Given this horrendous recent history, we can only wonder and worry about what bursting bubbles lie in our immediate future.
Though apparently aware of the thirst of corporations for absolute power, President Obama has followed the lead of other Democratic politicians (read Bill Clinton) in an accomodation of influence, amounting to the "corporatism" with which he is often charged by the green left. It is certain, from his support last spring of increased off-shore drilling, and his fronting of the myth of oil rig safety, that President Obama did not envision himself leading a war against "Big Oil."
But in the Gulf, war has already been declared, and the first great battle is now being waged. President Obama, sword in hand, has demanded - and received - an escrow account of BP funds to pay for damages, leading to the first narrow victory in what BP hopes will be a long-term war of attrition. For there to be other victories, President Obama must slay the free-market dragon. If he doesn't continue to confront the corrupt power of the corporation, we as a nation, will face capitulation to corporate monarchs and the end of government of, by and for the people.
Hyperbole? I wish it were.
DHL
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