How does a global oil company, that does business in maybe 50 different languages, screw this one up? Even if you are a simple tourist traveling in Paris with only a rough knowledge of the French language, you know enough to make sure you are not saying “the purple poodle is crapping in my salad” when you are ordering in a restaurant. If you can’t say it properly in their language, you bring a good translator or just order in YOUR language and hope for the best. So there you are, British Petroleum, sitting on the biggest oil drilling disaster in world history and there is no doubt it is your fault. Isn’t it kind of important that your audience, the victims in this case, come away from your response feeling like you care? Nah. Probably not.
Mistakes happen. They do. Little ones…like saying the wrong things in a public forum. Big ones…like opening a crevasse in the ocean floor and polluting a trillion gallons of ocean water with crude oil. I know BP is at fault. I also have lived long enough to know that there are many contributing factors to large problems that get grayed out by things that are ‘spun’ and blown out of proportion. Like ‘small people.’ ‘Small people’ enables BIG people, who should have done something, to have cover from their contribution to the disaster.
Many have had a hand in this. Some are BP’s people, some are not. There are drilling companies, rig management, government oversight for safety, contingency planners, not to mention our government response to all of this. Our government. You know, the group that is ‘of, by and for the small people.’
The fact that all the groups involved in the drilling are responsible is a clear fact. You would have to be a complete idiot to not recognize that. Yet, the most disturbing aspect of this is how the ones who created the mess could seemingly stare mesmerized at the oil gushing from the pipe into the gulf and appear to do nothing but scratch their collective fannies and/or heads. To start a debate on whether 10,000 or 60,000 barrels of oil per day were spewing out is like trying to estimate the exact time of death of a corpse. Get off your butts and move and do something.
Our President, after 50 days, decides to go take a look. Oh I heard him on the Today Show with Matt Lauer. He claims he was down there a couple of times right after it happened. In reality, contrary to what we all believe, he has been actually monitoring the whole thing. Covertly. He has been going down there like he was sneaking away on a date with the First Lady. He went down there and was completely unnoticed by the White House Press Corps. Maybe instead of being President, he should be in the CIA.
So let’s say he was looking the whole time. It took 50 days for him to decide that someone’s ‘butt’ should be kicked. What does this say? It says that when oil is gushing into the ocean, and killing an entire ecosystem, that the Federal Government’s toleration window apparently begins when the oil slick becomes visible on military satellites. Until then, it is the state of Louisiana’s problem.
Many people have contributed to this disaster. Many continue to contribute. The line is a long and distinguished one. So let’s stop talking about ‘small people’ and let’s really focus on fixing this. I hate to point to history but I have to think that, if George Bush were President, Dick Cheney would have his boys from Halliburton in there and this would have been fixed quickly. But Halliburton isn’t bailing THIS President out.
My solution? I wouldn’t write this if I didn’t have one. First, get BP the hell out of there. They are only interested in protecting their own interests. Second, offer $20 Million Dollars to the company that can successfully cap the pipe. Straight fee. Last, the company that DOES cap the pipe gets to keep all the oil too. As a bonus. All we want as Americans is that the oil stops flowing into the gulf. If it flows into someone else’s oil tanker, as of this moment, we don’t care. If that were the deal on the table, it would probably be capped in 14 days.
Prayers to the ‘small people.’ Lots of prayers.
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