You Know the Drill
Yesterday at about lunch-time, Myrtle and I walked in the door after running some errands. I switched on the tv and there he was, President B.S. Obama, trying to calm voters who are irate over the BP oil disaster. I immediately switched-off the set. Why bother wasting my time? I already know the routine:
1) President declares how serious the situation is and he is aware of how serious it is.
2) President deeply understands the distress of the American people. But everything will be alright. He has people closely following the situation and keeping him informed.
3) The situation could not be foreseen. It is not his fault. Nor is it the fault of anyone. It was brought-about by a few bad apples or a one-time anomaly that will never happen again. No one could have seen this situation coming. But our system/way of doing things is basically sound. He has total confidence in his underlings and his corporate sponsors.
4) President has absolute faith that American know-how will fix the situation. Meanwhile the same crooks/incompetents who caused the situation are in charge of fixing it.
5) President calls for a bi-partisan commission to look into the causes of the situation and make recommendations to the president. If any illegality was involved, it will be punished.
6) Meanwhile, he is ordering the following moratorium/temporary changes to prevent another situation like this until the bipartisan commission reports.
7) President will take questions from reporters. President displays testiness. Flippancy. Assertiveness. Reiteration. (Not necessarily in that order.)
And then,once voters are looking the other way, back to business as usual.
I did not watch the speech. How close did I get?
Holes
A month has passed since BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil-rig blast in the Gulf of Mexico. My how time flies!
At this point, rational people (that excludes Rush Limbaugh & company) have started to ask themselves whether this mess may become the biggest man-made environmental disaster. Well, if BP and its wholly-owned subsidiary, the Obama Administration, keep things on the present course then the answer looks to be a resounding “Yes!”
BP had said the two holes in the ocean floor are spewing 5,000 barrels of crude per day into Gulf waters. Earlier today, the oil giant announced the latest fix it tried, which involved using a siphon tube to capture the gusher, is catching 5,000 barrels a day. Problem solved! Whew, we’re glad that’s over… what’s that you say? BP now says 5,000 barrels a day is just a fraction of the amount of oil that was leaking?! Independent scientists told Congress yesterday that BP’s hole is likely spewing 100,000 gallons of oil per day. Uh oh!
And speaking of holes… when fat-cats from the 3 companies (BP, Transocean, & Halliburton) directly involved in creating this catastrophe appeared before the U.S. Senate, they promptly and passionately helped clarify the situation by blaming one-another for the problem. Were any of us actually surprised at their cowardice? I am sure the Senators could appreciate & respect the blameshifting tactic since they themselves use it so well. It relies on obscuring who is specifically responsible for a disaster by making it look like everyone is responsible, because then no one is responsible. That same game-plan was used to explain the lack of response by the intelligence community and military to stop the September 11th attacks. They all failed so no one failed.
Yes, worthless Senators & environment-raping industry executives are all cut from the same cloth. They probably met for cocktails after the show, once they were safely out of the light of public scrutiny. Had I been a spectator in the Senate chamber during those ridiculous hearings, I can imagine myself reacting much like the downtrodden creatures at the end of George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm,” as they “looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
And speaking of another hole… just where is our brave Commander-in-Chief during all this? By now even W, Godawful as he was, would have hopped into Airforce One and flown-over the disaster area.
Tragic, endless wars; largesse for big-business while the common folk foot the bill; and now, dawdling while destruction overwhelms a large part of the nation. The Deephole Horizon finally completes Barack Obama’s metamorphosis from agent of change to dark-skinned George Bush clone.
