Wednesday, May 26, 2010

British Petroleum and redefining fubar…

Shall we?

Lawd, have mercy.

There are fuck ups and then there is the current eco-disaster pumping out in the Gulf.  Everyone is frustrated…every day this shit gets worse and every day entire industries are being destroyed.  Watching this unfold is the very definition of agony and the eco-disaster itself is the very definition of fubar.

It just is…all indications are that it simply will be…an absolute hot mess of epic proportions.

I’ve noticed a recurring statement in the media coverage of BP’s attempts to stop the oil from pumping out – “this has never been tried in deep seas.”

Every time they propose and then attempt a fix...every time that fix doesn’t work…BP is forced to admit what no one wants to acknowledge – that companies are drilling offshore in deep sea conditions, that drilling carries with it the risk of spills and spills will happen, and no one has a proven technique to deal with those spills in deep water when they do happen.

The only question on the table is whether anyone will figure something out, who that person will be (and it sure as shit doesn’t look like BP’s gonna get a clue anytime soon) and how much oil will be in the region once that yet to be determined genius gets her or his genius on and delivers a fix.

Damn it all to hell.

As the masses come to terms with the reality that screaming “do something!” doesn’t make a this-will-fix-this-shit-so-we-can-start-cleaning-up-this-oil perfect something-based fix suddenly appear on the table, I’m left wondering if we’ll learn anything and knowing that the odds are against it.

BP is arrogant because they can be…they aren’t taking responsibility because they don’t have to…they lack a sense of urgency because they know that their proposals to fix this shit might not work and there aren’t consequences for that, other than our anger…and the worse thing about all that is that BP is a monster the lack of regulations created.

The federal government doesn’t have the answers because they don’t have to…they’ve been reformed to do just what they are doing – spin in circles while waiting for private business to solve problems.

This is small government, rampant free enterprise and lax regulations in practice…economic theory playing out in a real life scenario for all the world to see.

But hey, we’ve got a live web cam to capture all that fubar for the record!

Yay.

Christ.

Will we learn anything?

Will we apply the lessons we learn?

Will the oil ever stop pumping out so we can even think about lessons and changes and reform?

They drill baby…because they can.

And it spills, baby…because it will.

And even if the buck stopped somewhere we’d still be faced with that recurring statement ‘cause “this has never been tried in deep seas”, with the Gulf as testing ground and with a growing eco-disaster no one is responsible for.

Because they don’t have to be.

Fubar, redefined.

Blink.

7 comments:

MomTFH said...

Can't we just blame it on Obama, and argue for less regulations at the same time? And look the other way when regulatory agencies don't even enforce the tiny bit of authority they have over these private companies?

Oh, wait, that's what got us into this mess.

Donovan said...

For real...now we see who really runs the whole show.

SunTiger said...

I'm glad you're brave enough to post about this topic. I couldn't think of anything to say about it ... feel so horribly mortified by it all. Couldn't think of something to say that might help improve the situation. Bleh.

Kit (Keep It Trill) said...

I worry a great deal that we're only seeing the early stages of FUBAR. You might be interested in this post (one of several) I've written on it:

Some Of Mother Earth's Terrorists Are Oil Executives Who Are Screwing With The Global Ocean Conveyor Belt

Also, they have the option of using hairbooms rather than toxic oil dispersants, which I wrote about too, but BP says they don't work, the media parroted this back, the President said don't use dispersant but BP ignores him. Unbelievable.

Rachael said...

Thank you for writing about this.

On another note, I'm now a member of the Food Outreach 3117 Club there in St. Louis. When I joined I told them that the donations were in honor of your good work.

Best,
~
Rachael

Nat said...

Agreed. It's just astonishing that we (royal we here) have allowed this drilling to happen without failsafe methods... somebody somewhere must have stopped and said "what happens if there's a huge MFing spill?" Frightening.

It also occurs to me that BP is just not trying very hard to fix this. They don't seem in a much of a hurry. Are they hoping that the oil will run out?

Shark-Fu said...

Oh thank you sooo much Rachael! Food Outreach is an amazing organization and beyond worthy of community support...way to give back. I'm honored that you did so in my name!!

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