The US president's scapegoating of BP is a distraction; the only way to clean up the oil industry is to put it under public control
A Good Comment
A Good Comment
Seth Freedman
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 June 2010
"Barack Obama's crude comparison of the Deepwater spill to 9/11 marks a new low in the political grandstanding over the Gulf of Mexico disaster. While the president might be right to haul BP over the coals for the company's apparent negligence prior to the explosion, the distancing of the US government from the private sector is a cynical way to exploit the tragedy.
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 June 2010
"Barack Obama's crude comparison of the Deepwater spill to 9/11 marks a new low in the political grandstanding over the Gulf of Mexico disaster. While the president might be right to haul BP over the coals for the company's apparent negligence prior to the explosion, the distancing of the US government from the private sector is a cynical way to exploit the tragedy.
If Obama's post-spill proclamations are to be believed, the US administration bears no responsibility for the catastrophe, and instead is wholeheartedly committed to environmental protection, developing alternative energies, and all the other buzzwords so beloved by politicians and voters alike. BP can be instantly cast in the role of pantomime villain by opportunistic senators, set up as the fall-guy for a society which – when the going was good – lauded BP and its peers to the heavens for their work.
In that respect, a better comparison would have been to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns rather than the twin towers, at least in the way that the credit crisis and the Deepwater spill have brought out the worst hypocrisy in those scrambling for political cover after the event. It is no secret that politicians and diplomats have been in the pocket of energy companies almost since the first oil was struck in Pennsylvania in the 1850s, and the murky relationship has continued ever since....."
No comments:
Post a Comment