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Robert Greenwald

Robert Greenwald

Posted: June 20, 2010 12:40 AM

Clean, Baby, Clean

What's Your Reaction:

We've seen the result of oil money flowing into Washington and bribing political decisions.

Click here to watch the video

If that video makes you angry, go to our Facebook Power without Petroleum page to demand an end to the bribes and a focus on clean energy!

The disaster in the Gulf was no accident. It was the result of years of oil money buying off politicians to lead to an unregulated and ill focused addiction to oil and drilling. The doomed fate of the local fisherman and the environment were foretold in the infamous chants of "Drill, Baby, Drill."

If any good is to come out of this horrible and unprecedented disaster, it will only be through people standing up and demanding political leadership around creating a clean energy economy and finally stopping offshore drilling.

Brave New Films will release a series of videos on this topic. We invite you to join our Power Without Petroleum page on Facebook, the home where those videos will live, and where action for clean energy will be organized. We believe the story of this disaster and the clean energy needs to be told. And we believe the American people have had enough and will demand a change! Come join us. Demand a stop to the bribes, and demand clean energy!

 
 
 

Follow Robert Greenwald on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robertgreenwald

 
 
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12:06 PM on 06/22/2010
After seeing the movie "Gasland" the fight I have in me for the environment just went down some major notches. Now I know how the people of the dust bowl must have felt. Maybe now we have to wait for the gas to choke the people in D.C. for some drastic action. Because it still looks like business and life as usual on my street.
At least in the '80's we dimmed all the lights at night to save energy for 1.
11:19 PM on 06/24/2010
Rosemary, we happen to be around at a pivotal moment in human history. We have a limited number of years to wean ourselves off our destructive fossil fuel addiction and embrace clean energy. Don't despair - despair and denial that there is a problem lead to the same result - inaction. Now is the time to get connected with others who share your concerns and have a vision of a world with less pollution and a more secure future. Let's get too connected to fail!
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Leslie CA
01:35 AM on 06/27/2010
I'm watching GasLand now. Wow, it feels like there won't be much environment left soon. The oil/gas companies are just the most egregious offenders, I'm sure. And this ethics thing is a problem that has trickled throughout this country. How often have you been told to break the law and put people at risk? I lost my last job for refusing. I couldn't live with myself if someone got hurt, but I'm truly one of the few, and I suffer for it every day.
06:58 PM on 06/21/2010
The only change I will demand is to move deep water drilling closer to shore. There is no technology that is ready to remove us from Oil, Coal or Natural Gas, Solar is getting more attention especially from Duke Energy, if an incentive (profit) is there the best and the brightest will make it a reality. But the radical environmentalism, that is turning the central valley of California into a waste land is the same policy's that drove big oil to deep water drilling. As far as my personal contribution I am boycotting Shell, Chevron and BP, for agreeing to rig the cap and tax proposals against the people with the help of Obama. Similar to the Big Pharma involvement in the Obamacare law.
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DaveInWheaton
Corporatism Destroys All - both here & abroad
02:35 PM on 06/22/2010
fact-free post from the dark ages. If the actual cost of oil (and coal) to our health, the environment, and the wars we wage to protect "our" foreign oil were factored in, gas would be over $10 / gallon.

Agreed cap and trade is stupid; simple taxes on CO2 at the source would make much more sense.
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06:16 PM on 06/21/2010
What we are seeing in the Gulf oil catastrophe, the banking/housing/financial crisis, the Supreme Court ruling granting Corporations personhood, corporate tax loopholes with billions of tax dollars buried away in out-of-the country tax havens, is the result of 30 years of slowly chipping away at the fair treatment of the working class. If the American people can't see by now that there is a great difference between Democrats and Republicans, they are not living in the same world as I. How average citizens can protest for things that are against their own best self interests is mindboggling. Will it be easy to transition from a mostly oil driven society? Of course not. The facts are we will most probably always have to have fossil fuels, so much of everything we use is made from petroleum, but, the thrust of President Obama's policies is we must beging to use all alternative methods now, and along the way, with emphasis on R&D, educating young people into the green field, more will be developed and discovered. The short-signtedness of status quo just doesn't work in a world that keeps evolving. Deep water drilling can be done, we know that, the capping from that depth when there is a catastrophe, is turning out to be something else.
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robadeaux
Your labels have expired....
04:51 PM on 06/21/2010
Really it comes down to hubris and very poor cost benefit analysis on the part of BP.
As with other major companies... Ford Motor Co comes to mind, back when they let an accountant determine that it would be less expensive to pay the claims on people killed in the exploding pinto than to fix the design problem... and they knew they'd never have to publicly admit responsibility or disclose settlements...
If BP had done a proper C/B anal they'd have seen it would have been far cheaper to spend a billion more on safety than they did... but, having worked in the oil patch (Deadhorse Alaska) I am not at all surprised they wouldn't. Safety just isn't the mindset of the people who do not actually do the work... I mean the bean counters...
03:28 PM on 06/21/2010
Thank god for Greenwald. At least he doesn't contribute to all the lying and propaganda going on. Politicans who are fed money by oil companies then promote more offshore drilling even though there's a giant catastrophe. Well what would one expect. If they'd take money from these industries, they're going to do their bidding, probably no matter what. Until that pay to play system of legalized bribary ends its obvious it's hopeless, unless you want to keep beating your head against a wall wondering how politicans could continue to be so stupid (wanting to continue drilling).
03:04 PM on 06/21/2010
Would there be a way to put a netting..cheesecloth-like on the oil at the surface to contain it and drag it in?
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RickM1969
speling is sow fundimental
06:36 PM on 06/21/2010
I saw something like that but with screening and a pvc frame. It worked and they were "mass producing" them.
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Overtone
See bio on the Aesop Institute website
02:40 PM on 06/21/2010
THIS MAY PROVE TO BE THE GREATEST CATACLYSM SINCE CHERNOBYL - AND IS PROBABLY MUCH WORSE!

See: Life Threatening Danger at http://www.aesopinstitute.org

Also, What to Do! on the same website.

This may prove to be a dire emergency! Far greater than has so far been generally understood.

Recognize the dimensions of this extraordinary set of problems! Humanity has a difficult but possible job to do!

A scientist has stated that if a thin film of oil from this geyser covers the surface of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, it will raise the temperature sufficiently to accelerate the melting of the permafrost, releasing huge additional amounts of methane and accelerating the possibility of reaching a Tipping Point.

If that occurs most life in the Northern Hemisphere may be at hazard.

Methane may have all but eliminated life on earth twice before in the history of the planet. In one case only single celled animals survived. Recovery took millions of years.

This may become the most threatening event in history.

Wise leadership will seek to confirm or refute this information. If it is accurate, we need an all out effort to do what we can to keep the oil from spreading into the Atlantic.

There is no sign that is a priority at this time.

We need much better leadership from the White House - fast!

For far more detail and information, see: What to Do at www.aesopinstitute.org

There may still be sufficient time to take significant action!
01:54 PM on 06/21/2010
Any well-read Progressive knows that Bush the Oilman and his evil twin, Dick Cheney, were entirely controlled by the Oil Cabal. They cared, we are told, nothing for preserving the environment, only for increasing piggy capitalist profits.

One might think if you are out to change STUPID and EVIL, the two fav words of the Left, that might be a pretty big FLASHING NEON ARROW to the first stuff you have to fix.

Surely, “The One We Have Been Waiting For" knew immediately where in Bush’s government to look the hardest, where to scrutinize, and where to scrub ferociously . But almost half Obama’s first term has passed, and an ecological disaster of epic proportions has come upon us…and it appears Obama was so appalled by Bush oil policies….that STUPID and EVIL stuff…that he never found time to correct any of them. Or impose better ones of his own.

Huh?

Looks like …Obama is ushering in the moment when bureaucrats…”begin to care for the sick”…..and good temporary census jobs “are provided to the jobless”…the ocean levels are rising with crude oil and the planet is gagging on it…. the wars continue…and Chavez, Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il…are still throwing verbal shoes at our Progressive Barney Fife.

Whether kissing derrières or kicking them…Obama hasn’t proven successful at either endeavor.
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DaveInWheaton
Corporatism Destroys All - both here & abroad
02:24 PM on 06/22/2010
don't forget Obama's speech to open up more off-shore drilling just before this catastrophe struck. If he was all that interested in cleaning up the Bush appointee mess, he wouldn't have appointed pro-drilling Salazar, and he would've made sure the mess was cleaned up. Wasn't a priority for him, because he was the lesser of 2 evils, just another DLC corporatist.
12:24 PM on 06/21/2010
Good article however the difference want and need is about twenty years if we act now. This little concept http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP8iN4ZX1JU&feature=channel would help enormously until that time.
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11:33 AM on 06/21/2010
"If any good is to come out of this horrible and unprecedented disaster, it will only be through people standing up and demanding political leadership around creating a clean energy economy and finally stopping offshore drilling."

Nope - never happen.

We need to eliminate the automobile as the main method of transportation. Everyone who drives a car owns a piece of that oil spill. If the US wasn't running on gasoline, BP wouldn't be drilling wells in 5000 ft of water.

In Europe it is possible to get wherever you want without a car. We need a similar mass transit system. Until we get it, oil companies will have too much money and politicians will take it.
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ferrarimanf355
ZOMG TEH REI!
12:49 PM on 06/21/2010
Who died and made you king?
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03:35 PM on 06/21/2010
To whom did you donate your brain?
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FredNH
free thinker
02:25 PM on 06/21/2010
actually, just raising the price of fossil fuel, like gasoline, will be the beginning of the end of this economic and envirnomental disaster and the driving engine of alternative fuel and public transportation.
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vippy
Carpe Diem!
11:28 AM on 06/21/2010
When will our government realize that by taking bribes and selling themselves to corporations in exchange for money will eventually ruin the USA. Our government cannot govern that way. Vote all incumbents out of office and keep the new elected ones only for their first term. It is up to us, will we be smart enough to follow through. Our government is an embarrassment to the whole world, everything seems topsy turvy now.
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den1953
The best politicians are for free!
09:43 AM on 06/21/2010
Hard time trying to understand how careless one corporation can be to put profits over safety and we are paying the price for a company that should be shut down until the government finds out what BP did leading up to the drilling of the well and why they were allowed to proceed!
09:24 AM on 06/21/2010
Let's be reasonable. Why should we expect any actual real reform to result from this? Nothing has happened with financial reform. The game is rigged and the majority of US citizens no longer have a voice that anyone in a position of power thinks is valuable enough to consider.
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sposton
right to tell what they don't want to hear
11:01 AM on 06/21/2010
Exactly correct. The current system can only deliver a carefully contrived illusion of change while leaving most of the thieving structures as they are or even strengthened. Obama is an excellent Trojan horse. Imagine if the president were still Bush and doing exactly what Obama is doing. Would we be as trusting and tolerant? I think there would be general unrest in this country. With Obama everything is under control. ;-)
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Carl Caroli
Give peace a chance
08:55 AM on 06/21/2010
"The disaster in the Gulf was no accident. It was the result of years of oil money buying off politicians to lead to an unregulated and ill focused addiction to oil and drilling."
Not to mention 8 years of bush/cheney handing them the keys to the kingdom.
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DaveInWheaton
Corporatism Destroys All - both here & abroad
02:26 PM on 06/22/2010
and noone taking them away since.
08:30 AM on 06/21/2010
Truer words were never written. But Americans wanted cheap gas for their endless driving. They did and do support the madness of Reagan's economics. They were happy while it seemed they were doing well. It was always a whited sepulcher, a rotted core within. And so far that rule seems to still apply. the cost of oil has never been absorbed by the consumer who wants more and bigger cars, houses etc. I think its called greed. Madoff was not unique. Rather than do with less jobs were offshored so some would do well and to hell with the rest Rather than ride a bike or turn down the thermostat or buy energy saving lightbulbs count on a bailout. The gulf will never recover. BP lied and Americans didn't care. Americans didn't want anything to get in the way of a good time and they still don't..
09:32 AM on 06/21/2010
While I agree with some of your points I would point out that by necessity many of us have turned down our thermostats in the winter and don't even use air conditioning in the summer. We drive only when necessary and continually try and stretch our budgets to cover our expenses. Certainly we pray for low gasoline prices, we can't afford to pay our rent or feed our families when the price escalates to please the speculators on Wall St..
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den1953
The best politicians are for free!
09:48 AM on 06/21/2010
They lied to us there was never cheap gas, they needed us to buy more so there was more profit, so what has happened we are all tied to foreign companies that can hold us hostage when ever they want. We are at the mercy of wall street setting prices for there profits every day , sometimes for no apparent reasons!