BP's Photo Blockade of the Gulf Oil Spill
Photographers say BP and government officials are preventing them from documenting the impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Gerald Herbert / AP
Jean-Michel Cousteau (center) was turned away from a wildlife sanctuary by the U.S. Coast Guard after they discovered that an AP photographer was on board.
As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials—working with BP—who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.
Hey kids, you know what this sounds like, dontcha?
Yep. Corruptionism.
I was going to use the word "corporatism" to describe this, but there's something that just isn't right about the official definition of corporatism. The definition says that corporatism is a "Political system in which power is exercised through large organizations (businesses, trade unions, etc) working in concert with each other, under the direction of the state."
That's not a true "ism" then, is it? "Racism" isn't "the belief that one's own race is superior to others, under the direction of the state." "Islamist states" don't put their government above Islam, but put Islam above government (well, that's what they claim). So, I decided that a state that is bought and paid for by any interests other than the People's is a corruptionist state.
Just like ours.
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