LONDON -- The British media have been ablaze with patriotic defensiveness, upset that President Obama keeps calling BP "British Petroleum." Strange: I was at the Tate Britain museum yesterday, visiting galleries sponsored by ... BP. The London Olympics have as a main sponsor ... BP. Seems pretty British to me.
The media, and the Prime Minister, have also been insistent about the economic importance of BP to ... Britain. The figure floating around suggests that a significant amount of pension-fund income in Britain each year comes from BP. Although it's not British, you recall. And then they point out that almost 49 percent of BP shares are owned by Americans, and that BP grew to its mammoth size by merging with Amoco, an American company, mainly to gain control of Amoco's operations in, of all places, the Gulf of Mexico.
So, okay, a message to BP shareholders, be they Brits, Americans or none of the above. You benefited through the years from the profits generated by the company which accumulated 97 precent of the fines levied against oil companies for safety and environmental violations (not counting Exxon Valdez compensation). You gained financially from the damage your company inflicted on its workers and its surroundings. Now your company, following those same policies, has created enormous economic and ecological damage, and you are concerned about the impact that unlimited liability for that damage would have on your dividend and on the ability of your company to avoid bankruptcy. Question: how many of you complained to management about the policies and practices from which you benefited all these years? Or do you just complain when these policies and practices inflict profound economic and other costs on others, for which your company may be held responsible? Did you complain when management obviously low-balled flow estimates out of the well for at least a month, so as to minimize damage perceived by the potential jury pool?
Or, as seems more likely, are you happy to privatize the gains and socialize the losses?
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BP - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BEFORE THE BELL: US Stock Futures Up; Deals Eyed, BP Downgraded
AT A GLANCE: Fitch Downgrades BP; Lawmakers Slam Safety Record
The seafood industry both recreational, & commercial has been destroyed for decades to come.
Save, & add this animated disclaimer to your MySpace, & Facebook Pages.
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I dreamed I saw Tony Hayward last night,
Still CEO of BP.
Says I "But Tony, you're 3 days fired"
"I never left" said he,
"I never left" said he.
"The US Congress fired you Tony,
pressured BP, Tony" says I.
"Congress and BP are in cahoots"
Says Tony "I didn't die"
Says Tony "I didn't die"
"The Gulf coast is a dyin' Tony,"
Him standing by my bed,
"Surely that's the death knell for BP,"
Says Tony, "But I ain't dead,"
Says Tony, "But I ain't dead."
And standing there as big as life
His eyes shining like the sun.
Says Tony "What they can never kill
"Million dollar campaign funds,"
Million dollar campaign funds."
From San Diego up to Maine,
in every Senate or House seat,
Where Corporations defend their greed,
it's there you'll find Tony,
it's there you'll find Tony!
I dreamed I saw Tony Hayward last night,
Still CEO of BP.
Says I "But Tony, you're 3 days fired"
"I never left" said he,
"I never left" said he.
It's just not right those Gulf Coast residents all became millionaires due to big oil. I mean, just look at them pretending to manage a living by fishing and depending on the tourist trade, when they're really all oil millionaires.
Those greedy bastards! Screw 'em!
The rest of us really-concerned-about-the-ecology Americans, will just find somewhere's else to get our organic oil fix.
What? There IS nowhere else? You mean we've been exploiting the Gulf Coast for decades to try to sate our lust for oil and gas, and the only benefactors there have been politicians and oil companies? Those folks aren't oil millionaires, and 30% of our seafood comes from the hard work of those fishermen/women in the Gulf?
Never mind.
not to pull the carpet from under anyones feet but this phrase is not new, at all.
this from wiki:
"I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. ... You are a den of vipers and thieves.
—Andrew Jackson, 1834, on closing the Second Bank of the United States;
Anyone shareholder who unsuccessfully tried to change management should have sold his or her shares as soon as their efforts failed.
Maybe this will be a lesson to shareholders to start paying attention and start kicking out unscrupulous management.
Know why I love literary references? Cuz dem teebagguhrs jes dun gettum.
We on the left have a natural aversion to short, simple, pithy phrases. We tend to think they are simplistic. But this one phrase captures the essence of the major problems we have in our world today.
We need to repeat this simple phrase every day. It explains everything.
The difference I suspect is that you believe that government is the solution and I believe that government is the cause.
I think it is far too simple to place the full blame on either government or the private sector. The problem is the combination of the two-- that the private sector continually fights (and spends) for a bigger role in government, undermining the role of government (protecting us from powerful corporate interests) in order that it can better achieve its one and only objective of maximizing profits.
If you had your way, BP would be drilling wherever it wanted, however it wanted, and a disaster like this wouldn't even have to be cleaned up. As it is BP has tried to low-ball the estimates of the extent of this blowout from day one in order to reduce its liability. Government is now the only entity in place that can assure that the interests of the people are taken into account-- that is unless their lobbyists and the shills they have managed to place at MMS do not get in the way. As bad as this is, it could be much worse and blurring the lines between government and the private sector almost guarantees that it will be.
As someone else here put it so nicely, shareholders must share the pain for investing in oil. Not just because of spills and the potential for them, for a whole host of reasons, oil must now be seen as a risky investment, and portfolio managers and pension advisors must change their mindsets and promote investment in ethical companies and sustainable energy.
British papers reported on the lasting effects of the Exxon Valdez spill. BP had problems all out of proportion to their marketshare. The Texas City explosion five years ago could not have gone unnoticed in Great Britain.
"Published on Friday, February 2, 2007 by the Guardian / UK
18 Years on, Exxon Valdez Oil Still Pours into Alaskan Waters
Study concludes threat to ecology could last decades.
Crude oil is still polluting Alaskan waters almost 18 years after the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground, according to a study by US government scientists ...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0202-01.htm (copy of Guardian article from 2007)
"July 12, 1999 Published at 13:12 GMT 14:12 UK
Alaska oil disaster 'imminent'
Monday, July 12, 1999 Published at 13:12 GMT 14:12 UK
World: Americas
Alaska oil disaster 'imminent'
An ecological disaster greater than the Exxon Valdez oil spill 10 years ago could hit Alaska at any moment, according to senior employees of the BP Amoco company.
The six employees - who have not been named - have written to BP Amoco's Chief Executive, Sir John Browne, warning that "irresponsible operations" at a major oil pipeline are posing an imminent threat to human life and the environment..
"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/391698.stm
This is an American disaster with little international impact. Unless, of course, some of those tar balls manage to cross the Atlantic Ocean. But for now, if I mention the documents which have damned BP to a Brit, I'll get "Oh, didn't hear about that! Do you think Capello will pick Cole against Slovenia? What do you think about Chris Huhne dumping his wife?"
It is a little-known slice of history that in the countdown to the Anglo-American coup in Tehran against Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953, the US Central Intelligence Agency lost nerve just as the Tehran street protests - eerily similar to the recent unrest - were about to be staged, but the British intelligence outpost in Cyprus which coordinated the entire operation held firm, forced the pace and ultimately created a fait accompli for Washington.
=======================================================================
“Blowback” is a CIA term that means retaliation, or payback. It was first used in the after-action report on our first clandestine overthrow of a foreign government, the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, when, for the sake of the British Petroleum Company, we claimed he was a Communist when he just didn’t want the British to keep stealing Iranian resources. In the report, which was finally declassifi ed in 2000, the CIA says, “We should expect some blowback from what we have done here.” This was the first model clandestine operation.
===========================================
the Corporation - the City of London, is virtually a self regulating parasitic organisation so called this financial center has turned into into a self-regulating state like the Vatican.(ofocurse for the anglosaxon protestants only God is money and nothing else.).
The ruthless advantage seeking was racheted up around 1980 and it have been inspired by the fact that insiders in Lloyd's of London were facing bankruptcy, conspired to offload their losses onto 34,000
A country that consumes 20% of the world's oil while supplying 3% of its reserves shows some arrogance to decide now to issue a moratorium while continuing to consume that 20% of supply and outsource the environmental risk to the "small people" in less developed regions of the world. Let them explore off the coast of Africa, if something goes wrong while they supply a commodity they use little of, no biggie to us. Let them eat cake.
did the british care about Russian pensioners when they robebd russian of money in 90s?
chamberlain in 1938 at Munich was several times heard saying_intercepted by the soviets-that "we shoudl make soviets and Germany fight amosnt each other till they are bloodied and then we british will get in Europe"
Conjuring Hitler
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Conjuring Hitler is a seminar work of historical revision
The book effectively rewrites the history of the inter-war years and their inevitable cataclysmic result.
It's author is Professor Guido Giacomo Preparata and it challenges the cosy, self satisfied official narrative of the World War II victors.
For the average UK/USA citizen schooled and brought up on a diet of a plucky little Island Nation battling against the odds and joined by its US ally just in time to defeat the Evil Empire, it makes very uncomfortable reading indeed. Most will close their minds to its meticulously researched, documented and footnoted contents. The Establishment will indulge the vicious calumnies that are its only defence against having it's 'victor's justice' narrative exposed for the arrogant self-serving series of lies that it very largely is. As is clear from Preparata's Afterword (see below), written 4 years after publication of the book, this is already being attempted - thankfully with little success so far.
See Also
* File:IncubationOfNaziism.pdf - The Incubation of Nazism: The Critical Act of Britain's Strategy for Keeping Empire, 1900-1941