Stop Calling It a Spill!

It's not a spill, it's a crime scene.

A spill is not something you cry over, remember? So perhaps the reason Americans are slow to react to the magnitude of the Gulf oil catastrophe is that we're not using the right language.

A spill is an accident. This is a not an accident. This is the accumulation of decades of decisions to ignore regulations, cut back on safety requirements, and let the fox guard the hen house. According to original reporting by MSNBC's Chris Matthews, such malfeasance goes back at least 20 years. So the U.S. government is hand in glove with BP in this disaster. Can you say contributory negligence? The government has sovereign immunity; BP has a statutory limit to liability. Nice.

Folks, this is where you bring out the handcuffs and let BP CEO Tony Hayward cool his heels in a jail cell. (Rikers Island, anybody? Too bad Law and Order has aired its last episode.) Then you "pierce the veil" of limited liability for corporations and divest upper management of every dime they have.

BP already spent millions in advertising to persuade Americans that it was a "green" company moving "beyond petroleum." Hell, I even bought a few tanks of those lies. Maybe we can convince the ad agency that profited from such Orwellian messaging to do a PSA campaign.

Let 'em call in Republican spinmeister Frank Luntz if they have to. He came up with death tax instead of estate tax, climate change instead of global warming. Surely he can come up with something suitable for the greatest environmental disaster in human history. Maybe we can text our votes to MSNBC for the finalists.

Call it a catastrophe, call it a gusher, call it anything but . . . a spill.

Operators are standing by for your calls.

 

 

 

Follow Linda R. Monk, J.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LindaRMonkJD

Comments

[mrjames1]

03:29 AM on 05/30/2010

Thank you Ms Monk

Every time this ongoing gusher is intentionally mislabled a 'spill' , it should give everyone pause to think why

[DrFrann]

01:07 AM on 05/30/2010

Thanks for this. It's not even just a crime scene because the crime is continuing and expanding exponentially moment to moment. We don't even understand the scope of this nightmare because as hurricane season approaches quickly, it will take on another dimension. It (the ongoing crime) has and is changing the face of that region and perhaps more regions, wider, deeper and higher.

This is a planetary hemorrhage caused by an incompetent surgical team, BP.

They either needed to know what they were doing from the get go or not done it or understood how to mitigate damage, which they did not.

[Puller58]

06:55 PM on 05/29/2010

I hear you, but there'll be no perp walks for these clowns. The best defense is a fat PAC.

[Dhammi]

05:15 PM on 05/29/2010

Crime Scene indeed. BP has more or less gotten away with shoddy practices for years receiving only weak slaps on the wrist and relatively small fines. It is my hope their corporation goes down because of the disaster and takes Cheney, Bush, Halliburton down with them. All other off-shore drilling companies take note.

[Jes Alexander]

04:28 PM on 05/28/2010

It’s NOT a Spill. http://bit.ly/abd7l3 - an OP ED that ran today in the Herald de Paris.

[dumbrecovery]

07:27 PM on 05/25/2010

It's a BLOT on humanity's standing in the natural world. We deserve to be driven to our own extinction.

[gs-425]

01:53 PM on 05/25/2010

Ok, its not spill. It's a leak.

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

06:03 PM on 05/25/2010

As Charlie Brown would say: ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

[gs-425]

07:24 AM on 05/26/2010

thank you

[ewas]

01:32 PM on 05/25/2010

"BP has a statutory limit to liability".

As I understand it, the $75 million liability cap is only for ECONOMIC damages. BP is responsible for the total cost of the oil clean up.

In a way, this low economic liability cap should force the local coastal communities to consider the risk of offshore drilling to their individual livelihoods and property values.

A closer look at the statute that limits economic liability may exclude BP due to criminal behavior, eg., contractor selection, faulty equipment & procedures used and calling off the final Schlumberger test just prior to the blowout.

BP said that there was almost no chance of this incident occurring in their permit application, therefore there was no need to develop a plan to deal with the consequences of a massive blowout. BP should have eagerly signed a waiver of all liability at that point if they truly believed this.

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:15 PM on 05/25/2010

Yep, I'm all for a criminal prosecution. Chris Mathews just reported that in LA the oil companies filled out their inspection reports in pencil, and then the actual "regulators" wrote over them in pencil.

As our Prince William Sound commenter pointed out below, those folks are still trying to recover after 20 years since the Exxon Valdez.

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:33 PM on 05/25/2010

Oops--my mistake! The regulators wrote over the inspection forms in PEN!

[Igotit]

12:34 PM on 05/25/2010

Linda you are so right, lest we forget their were 11 workers killed in the explosion. I believe their doing the best they can with destroying the enviroment, not just BP but but all corporate greed, from farming, energy, forestry etc. you get the idea. Lets hold these corporate bosses accountable, hit them in the wallet, thats the only thing that would grab their attention.

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:17 PM on 05/25/2010

I come from a union family myself, and as you know, a good indicator of whether a company is breaking the law in general is how they treat their workers.

[zzcat]

12:31 PM on 05/25/2010

I appreciate your article, but this has been going on for awhile now, don't you think it is way past time for semantics? Is this another distraction? Maybe we should have called it a blowout the first week, but right now it needs to be stopped or mitigated if at all possible. And why do so many of you keep saying to let the Republicans handle this?

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:21 PM on 05/25/2010

I never said let the Rs handle it. But the inaccurate info at the beginning from BP about the nature of the "incident" has fueled public expectations, so to speak. I do think the White House dropped the ball on this one. Axelrod was totally clueless on Matthews' show yesterday.

[AGP]

12:16 PM on 05/25/2010

Initially I was open to more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico yet coming to mind recently have been the words of Charlie Crist the Governor of Florida who has consistently voiced reservations and concerns. Governor Crist was right and sadly I was wrong.

The assurances to the public of safety and backup systems are wrong, basically nothing more than lies told by BP coupled with gross negligence and incompetence of the administration. We are now losing daily valuable wildlife, pristine wetlands along with scenic areas and jobs by the thousands. BP's green paint and symbols mean nothing they are simply a marketing ploy and as a simple act of protest I will never buy another gallon of their fuel. They are unworthy of my trust or future business.

Dr. Alan Phillips
Bloomington

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:25 PM on 05/25/2010

Thanks for "coming clean." I think we all have some oil on our hands, so to speak, and perhaps--if we get a second chance on this issue--we'll value Creation a lot higher than our own convenience.

[JimR]

12:02 PM on 05/25/2010

The discussion raised by this article (or column, or post, or whatever you want to call it) seems rather pointless. It reminds of the effort a few years ago to replace the term "suicide bomber" with "homicide bomber." As if people were somehow unaware of the destruction and death that action brings.

It's the same with the oil in the Gulf. I think we are all well aware of the awful devastation that is occurring, and continues to occur, and also aware that there was great negligence in the permitting, inspection, construction and/or operation of the rig.

Technically, this is a spill. As a result of the explosion, oil is spilling out from the pipe in the Gulf.

I know the word "spill" doesn't convey the gross negligence and possible criminal actions that led to this situation, but I don't think there is one word that can. And we all seem more than capable of understanding that this shouldn't have happened and that people should be held accountable.

So, a modest suggestion... shouldn't our efforts be on holding those people accountable, and on doing what we can to help people affected by this devastation, rather than playing word games?

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:31 PM on 05/25/2010

As a writer and constitutional scholar, I can't agree with you, obviously. I've dedicated my entire professional life to the belief in the power of words to limit government. I also believe in the power of words to educate. And lots of money is spent in politics on "semantics," otherwise known as a candidate's message. Words are how we help hold people accountable, in a court of law and in the court of public opinion.

[JimR]

05:51 PM on 05/25/2010

Though not a constitutional scholar, I do write for a living. I am well aware of the power of words. But I also know that once a description is engrained in the public's mind, it ain't gonna change (use of "ain't" intentional, for any grammar police posters out there). I used "homicide bomber" as an example. Another is the effort to change "stroke" to "brain attack." Both efforts failed miserably, and a lot of effort was spent on that that could have spent more constructively, I would argue.

And again, I don't think there is one word that accurately describes all aspects of this situation.

[MarsAmbassador]

11:53 AM on 05/25/2010

To paraphrase Mr. Burns from The Simpsons in reference to the Springfield nuclear plant meltdown, "We prefer to call it an unrequested oil surplus."

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:32 PM on 05/25/2010

Touche!

[MarsAmbassador]

11:50 AM on 05/25/2010

It's not a spill, it's an underwater oil volcano. And when that thing blows, there will be NO keeping it under control. And yet the Republicans still aim to give BP a free pass here, pass the expense on to taxpayers and push for more offshore drilling instead of finally starting the transition to clean energy. The strength of America's Golden Age (oil) is it's weakness in this new world. India and China will surpass us due to energy innovations borne out of the necessity of their own limited resources and large populations. I weep for this nation.

[Linda R. Monk, J.D.]

05:37 PM on 05/25/2010

An underwater volcano--you've just won the best visual metaphor prize. However, that to me implies a natural cause of the disaster, whereas this was entirely man-made.

[drricklippin]

11:47 AM on 05/25/2010

OR EVEN WORSE "A LEAK"

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa