Valdez Goes Cajun
Greg Palast, The BP I’ve Known Too WellLast year, CEO Hayward boasted that, despite increased oil production in exotic deep waters, he had cut BP’s costs by an extra one billion dollars a year. Now we know how he did it.
By cutting necessary expenses in emergency gear and crews.
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Americans want government off our backs… that is, until a folding crib crushes the skull of our baby, Toyota accelerators speed us to our death, banks blow our savings on gambling sprees and crude oil smothers the Mississippi.Then, suddenly, it’s, “Where was hell was the government? Why didn’t the government do something to stop it?”
The answer is because government took you at your word they should get out of the way of business, that business could be trusted to police itself. It was only last month that BP, lobbying for new deepwater drilling, testified to Congress that additional equipment and inspection wasn’t needed.
And now, because the oil spill is going to be too big for a complacent BP, it will mean that the oil spill will be too big to fail: we will be picking up the bill.
Well, let's not broadstroke it too much there, Greggy-poo! Not all Americans want government "off our backs." Really it's just the rich folks. We poor folks who are often getting victimized for being poor would love to have more laws in place that protect individual rights and limit the power of corporations.
The thing is, we don't live in a democracy. Well, we do, but only the richest corporations really get to vote. So, don't blame us. We couldn't afford to speak up in a way that was organized enough to get noticed.
The weird thing is that Greg knows this. He's done loads of reporting on our corrupt/rigged election system. So, why is he forgetting that we're screwed?
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