The issue is death -- death gushing at ten thousand pounds per square inch from a mile below the sea, tens of thousands of barrels of death a day. Not just death to eleven human beings. Death to sea birds, sea turtles, dolphins, fish, oyster beds, shrimp, beaches; death to the fishing industry, tourism, jobs; and death to a way of life based on the beauty and bounty of the Gulf.
Many, perhaps a majority, of the Gulf residents affected are conservatives, strong right-wing Republicans, following extremist Governors Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour. What those conservatives are not saying, and may be incapable of seeing, is that conservatism itself is largely responsible for what happened, and that conservatism is a continuing disaster for conservatives who live along the Gulf. Conservatism is an ideology of death.
It was conservative laissez-faire free market ideology -- that maximizing profit comes first -- that led to:
It is conservative profit-above-all market fundamentalism that has led other oil companies to mount a massive PR campaign to isolate BP as an anomalous "bad actor" and to argue that offshore drilling should be continued by the self-proclaimed "good actors." Their PR fails to mention that in Congressional hearings it came out that they all outsource risk assessment to the same company that declared that BP had "zero risk." The PR fails to mention that they all use cost-benefit analysis to maximize profits just as BP did. Cost-benefit analysis only looks at monetary costs versus benefits, case by case, not at the risk of massive death of the kind gushing out of the Gulf at present. Death, in itself, even at that scale, is not a "cost." Only an outflow of money is a "cost." This is what follows from conservative laissez-faire market ideology, an ideology that continues to sanction death on a Gulf scale.
But the facts won't make a difference to dyed-in the-wool conservatives, since the facts will be filtered through their ideological frames: when the facts don't fit the frames, the facts will be ignored.
The conservative worldview says man has dominion over nature: nature is there for human monetary profit. Profit is sanctioned over the possibility of massive death and destruction in nature. Conservatives support even more dangerous drilling off the coast of Alaska and are working to repeal the President's moratorium on deep water drilling. Nature be damned; the oil companies have a right to make money, death or no death.
Directness of causation is a rarely noticed property of the conservative worldview. What are the causes of crime? Bad people, lock 'em up, say conservatives. There are no social or economic causes, that is, systemic causes, in the conservative universe. So it is with the Death Gusher. Blame BP, the "bad actor." Look for the immediate cause, but don't look any further, at the profit-above-all system in which all oil companies operate, a system idolized by conservatives. Without an understanding of systemic causes, the causes cited above won't make much sense.
A great many self-identified conservatives are actually what I've called "biconceptuals," who have both conservative and progressive worldviews, but on different issues. They actually share a progressive view of nature: they love the beauty and appreciate the bounty of the Gulf, as it was before the Death Gusher. They want to save the environment of the Gulf and the way of life as it was. But shift the issue to the culpability of laissez-faire markets, the absolute right to profit from nature and profit-maximizing corporate practices, and their conservative worldview is activated. They will not be able to see the causal role of conservatism itself in the Death Gusher, and in the conservative ideology of greed and death that has given us the global warming disaster we now face worldwide.
Incidentally, there are bi-conceptual Democrats who share the conservative view of the market. Their views have led to many of President Obama's problems with Democrats in Congress.
Finally, there is what progressive Democrats see as a contradiction: conservative advocates of smaller and weaker government and critics of governmental power trying to pin the Death Gusher Disaster on Obama for not having and using enough government power to prevent or lessen the disaster -- even though the government has no capacity to plug oil wells.
The contradiction is logical, from a progressive point of view, but not from a conservative point of view. The highest value in the conservative universe is to preserve, defend, and extend conservatism itself. Anything that helps, or fails to harm, Obama contradicts this highest principle, since Obama's deepest values on the whole fundamentally contradict conservative values. Conservatives, on principle, cannot let a major opportunity to criticize Obama go by. Of course, it also helps conservatives politically.
Those who are not held captive by the conservative worldview should be able to recognize the causal role of conservatism in the Death Gusher in the Gulf. Many progressives do, but keep it to themselves.
Progressives have been much too kind to conservatives on this matter. They have largely accepted the Bad Actor Frame, criticizing BP but not the whole industry and its practices. No one should be drilling miles under the sea, where oil comes out at 10,000 pounds per square inch. No matter how much profit is involved.
Conservatism gushes death -- and not only in the Gulf of Mexico.
"when your enemy is digging themselves into a big hole... don't stop them"
You genuinely have no idea what you are talking about, except when you suggest that we're all to blame. Ultimately, that is the cause of these and so many other of our problems.
She told me that, to be fair to BP, it could have happened to any of the companies drilling in the Gulf.
Since some of their worst offenses have been revealed I have not heard whether she might have altered this opinion.
But suppose she's right -- then every well that is drilled exposes the Gulf to risk of a repetition.
A nuclear power plant is beset by far fewer unknowns than the conditions which prevail deep in the ocean. It is therefore less likely to fail. It is false to go fearmongering about the calamities that a nuclear power plant accident might cause. Mind you, I'd rather trust timid government employees to run it, than "risk taking entrepreneurs" whose financial risk has a cap on it.
France gets about 80% of its electricity from nuclear power plants that a Government corporation funded, and gets it cheaply enough that the EU complained about its "unfair" competition.
We are going to change how we do things , that is a given.
But let's not exchange one bad outdatted technology with one even worse, or do you have a FAIL-SAFE plan to store radioactive waste for 10,000 years that you've been sitting on?
Oh let's hear two of these. It should be rich. Focus on the rationality of the arguments, in particular, please.
That's the dynamic we're working with: republican world dominionists and the democrats who hardly ever stop them.
the stupidity of what I see going on.
Conservative ideologues: "We know we are lying in this case
and in many other cases but we will just go right ahead
and lie so that we and our families can face our peers and,
most important, not be fired and or ostracized." Once you
take republican money and have a family/mortgage you
cannot get out. Reminds me of something else.
A related point about conservatives' worldview is that there is only room for PRIVATE property, not for public goods like clean air and clean water. Inevitably conservatives degrade these resources we've taken for granted, and you get Trajedy of the Commons.
The Republicans first adopted Fascism after trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt. Fascism reached a peak with Herbert Hoover, who proved what happens when you let banks offer sub-prime loans, and let investment houses engage in derivate trading. The economy was rescued by the Democrats, who pushed for public spending, and workers rights. This led the greatest expansion of the US economy, and the middle class this nation has ever seen.
While Fascism didn't die, it was held in check until Reagan. Reagan overtly attacked worker rights and pushed for limiting regulations to corporations. The Democrats failed to act. They accepted corporate money, and became fascists in proxy.Since then, while productivity has improved, workers have received a smaller share of the wealth created by the expansion of productivity. The result has been a decline in the middle class.
The struggle does seem hopeless. It appears the oil industries' impact on our lives will only be diminished as the oil wells dry up or a cost-effective alternative magically appears.
http://skepticva.org/my_solution.html
To that point, for those of you who are in denial, the effects of the Bush presidency didn't disappear with its end. It takes more than 18 months to undo the effects of those 8 years. Keep saying it; eventually you will understand.