oil catastrophe - Bob Herbert

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/opinion/22herbert.html?adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1274533244-kLjlGhLXBDNhblqXsWh93g


These wetlands are one of the nation’s most abundant sources of seafood. And they are indispensable when it comes to the nation’s bird population. Most of the migratory ducks and geese in the United States spend time in the Louisiana wetlands as they travel to and from Latin America.

Think songbirds. Paul Harrison, a specialist on the Mississippi River and its environs at the Environmental Defense Fund, told me that the wetlands are relied on by all 110 neo-tropical migratory songbird species. The migrating season for these beautiful, delicate creatures is right now — as many as 25 million can pass through the area each day.

Already the oil from the nightmare brought to us by BP is making its way into these wetlands, into this natural paradise that belongs not just to the people of Louisiana but to all Americans. Oil is showing up along dozens of miles of the Louisiana coast, including the beaches of Grand Isle, which were ordered closed to the public.

The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. We take our whippings in stride in this country. We behave as though there is nothing we can do about it.

"This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter."

Mr. Herbert. Telling it plain and simple.

I realized that the govt. ran everything for the benefit of corporations, not the benefit of americans.

All I could think of is the thousands of species of birds and other animals that will be effected by this! It won't be "money" that can buy this back - that goes for Transocean and Halliburton also!:grr:

K & R

:cry:

:hug: :cry:

It's about wildlife and it's about great human costs, especially generations of fisherman and others there most immediately and profoundly affected, as well. It's about jobs. It's about the food chain. It's about the long-term impacts of little-studied and unproven chemical remedies on a scale such as this. It's about what will be the much further spreading impact of that-- all of that-- from there.

These ideas evidently don't matter to unreccers as much as his mildly unpleasant characterization of the corporate and Obama administrative response.

!

and is shocked into action before he more damage to him, politically, and to our coastline and air quality, ecologically!

Oh wait, BP absorbed AMOCO, that was an American company. The company then is an international corporation. So, that means they're above the law and explains why they're not all that worried about their little drop of oil in the great big ocean.

Remember how much BP cares for the people of Nigeria and a whole lot of other places who live on top of BP's oil.

:sarcasm:
their commercials say so!

heart breaking. When this gusher started, I read a Petroleum Engineer's article that said this gas/oil field BP was drilling into went as far inland as central Alabama.

These stupid, stupid oil boyz make me sick. Whatever made them think they could drill this deeply into such a huge oil field and not have a grand explosion...especially after one of the valves was not operating properly.

Now hurricane season is upon us.

I'm just sick.