BP: Make the President be an advocate of the people, not the company

[Chris Knipp]

Consider this: http://www.seizebp.org/

The Answer coalition is asking for a movement to have the assets of BP seized provide substantial aid to the Gulf region inhabitants whose security and livelihood are threatened by the oil spill. There is an organization now called SEIZE BP. (http://www.seizebp.org/)

Is Barack Obama an advocate of the people -- or corporate interests? The advocacy group's statement begins:

Seize BP responds to Pres. Obama's Oval Office Address

President Obama needed to be able to say with certainty to the people of the Gulf Coast, who today go to sleep fearing that they will not be able to put food on the table, pay their rent or their other obligations because of the spill, that tonight you can sleep safe knowing that the funds needed to make you whole would be secured, in trust, and available immediately. Click here to read the full statement."

More of the statement:

Why "negotiate" with corporate criminals?

Rather than using the power vested in him as President and fulfilling the obligation vested in him to protect the people, he instead insists on “negotiations” with an entity that has engaged in criminal and reckless acts of deadly proportions.

President Obama has been given a choice: Serve the people or be subservient to corporate interests. The corporate interests of BP are in irreconcilable conflict with those of the people of the Gulf Coast and of the United States.

The workers and families in the Gulf Coast need action. Not rhetoric. Not sympathy and not the channeling, or mirroring, of their anger and frustration through the figure of the President. Their suffering is real. Their fears of life-altering catastrophe are well founded. The coastlines of five states are under attack.

The White House, responding to building national anger and the echoing cry for relief, brought out all of the symbolism of Presidential authority and leadership that have been so sorely lacking over the past two months of crisis. For the very first time in his presidency, which has seen the financial crisis—to which his administration responded with a massive banker bailout—Obama used the authority and the familiarity of a speech from the Oval Office to communicate directly with the nation as a whole.

[Johann]

Amen to all that.

President Obama is a gigantic disappointment to me. What has he become? I heard he has direct, undeniable connections to the BP company.
What those "connections" are I have no idea, but I shudder to imagine what they are.
This is Obama's Katrina, and he's failed just as miserably as Bush did.
You just stand back and say "What the fuck is going on here?"
Laugh all you want, but when James Cameron offers you advice on how to help fix the problem, take it.
I would guess he has more underwater expertise then every BP employee put together...and he's Canadian!
Too Proud, Yanks? From Sea to Shining Sea..

This catastrophy may be the one that seals Obama as a one-term President.
Thanks for highlighting this unprecendented HELLISH situation Chris.

[Chris Knipp]

Maureen Dowd 's NY Times op-ed piece today (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16dowd.html)(June 16, 2010) gives a trenchant analysis of Obama's personality and how it is weakening his leadership. To bring about lasting change now as always we need stronger grassroots action in this country and the world, but for a disaster like the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico we needed prompt, strong leadership at the top and we obviously have not gotten it.


President Obama’s bloodless quality about people and events, the emotional detachment that his aides said allowed him to see things more clearly, has instead obscured his vision. It has made him unable to understand things quickly on a visceral level and put him on the defensive in this spring of our discontent, failing to understand that Americans are upset that a series of greedy corporations have screwed over the little guy without enough fierce and immediate pushback from the president.
--Maureen Dowd, NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16dowd.html)

In answer to the question you don't dare ask about Obama's connection with the petroleum industry, I don't think he's necessarily as directly connected as Bush-Cheney; he's simply beholden to the forces of industrial wealth -- and Wall Street.

P.s. Citing James Cameron as a better source of expertise on the underwater disaster is a good one for this website and may be valid.

[Johann]

That sounds right. He's "obligated" but not directly involved with them.
The Dowd quote is interesting.
But how is it possible that Obama cannot "see things more quickly"?
He's got ten billion more brain cells than Dubya.
This isn't a case of ignorance and willful disregard of the problem, like Bush II was.
I sure hope Obama realizes the gravity of this situation- for the United States, for BP and HIS OWN FUTURE as President.
He does a lot of talking but not much action seems to be taking place!
It's horrible all around. Everyone involved should be fucking JAILED.
You don't allow something so devastating to happen for so long and then say "Oops. My bad" while smirking that you'll clean it up as soon as you figure out the difference between your mouth and your asshole.

People need to be fired and jailed. Because they've ruined lives worse than Bernie Madoff did.
Madoff ripped off rich people who tried to increase their wealth. They weren't 100% innocent
The people affected in the gulf regions are 100% innocent.
Imagine being a fisherman who's lifestyle is ripped away by some oilman's folly and then being HIRED BY THE SAME COMPANY to help clean up the spill? You gotta do what you gotta do, but Jesus, I'd be seriously considering "BP executive hunting" after that shit. A $9000 sniper rifle and an iron will would go a long way to giving me relief- because those fucks have it coming.

The office of the Presidency of the United States is pretty weak, isn't it?
Catastrophies and tragedies are routine under ANY president, huh? They just get bigger and bigger...with everybody in power standing around with their thumbs up their asses.
Yeah, be REAL PROUD.

[Chris Knipp]

W. was good at acting from his gut (though as you recall he hid from 9/11 at first); Obama is the opposite extreme. He is not proving to be a strong leader. Another way he has weakened himself is distancing himself from "Washington," which has alienated the Democrats in Congress. You will not see a lot of people jailed. Don't expect big oil to suffer too much from all this. There are only two things that should concern us: to plug the well and to move to clean energy. Obama did at least use the spill to push for a shift.

[Johann]

Yes- I saw him speak last night. Too little too late. Why is he wheeling this "clean energy" shit out now?
You look stupid. You look like you weren't behind the 8-ball even more!

Obama is clearly "learning on the job" here. Does that help anybody?
You're dead-bang on that his "leadership" is far from strong, a terrible reality to realize. I thought he had it Man. I really did.
He's flaming out. Not as spectacular as Bush did, but he's getting there...
All he needs to do is start an illegal war over this oil...ha ha

[Chris Knipp]

A video (https://secure2.edf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1727) on this theme of taking action on the oil spill from Environmental Defense Fund:

https://secure2.edf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1727

The NY Times June 16, 2010 lead editorial "From the Oval Office" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16wed1.html) responding to the President's first address to the people from that famous White House location stressed that Obama must "take full charge of the fight" for a real energy bill to pass in Congress. They didn't quite say "too little and too late," but they said the American people "have been anxiously waiting for President Obama to take full charge of the Gulf oil catastrophe." And "Mr. Obama and his team will have to follow through -- with more energy and dedication than they have shown so far."

Also, and more summarily, "We know that the country is eager for reassurance. We're not sure the American people got it on Tuesday night in a speech that was short on specifics and lacking in self-criticism." At least he didn't again shockingly "whinge" (as Maureen Dowd put it) as he did the other day speaking to grand Isle residents: "I can't dive down there and plug the hole. I can't suck it up with a straw."

He may wind up wishing he had tried.

Yes, the President has been learning on the job. They all do, though he is more a rookie than most. Yet Obama has done good in many areas. He has not by a long sight made me want to have George W. Bush back (that last "whinge" has a bad enough Bushie ring to it). But he has disappointed in important ways:

1. Rights. Failure to punish Bush crimes and right human rights violations of the post-9/11 era -- the recent failure to redress the wrongs against Maher Arar a good example, the continuation of Gitmo a bigger one. Sending troops to the Mexican border? Lack of action on immigration. I would consider that a human rights violation too.

2. War. Related to #1, because another failure to detach from Bush foreign policies, stepping up the killing machine. More war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, drone attacks, black ops troops pursuing secret wars in dozens of countries. Are Democrats pacifists? They sure aren't. Has Obama gotten us out of Iraq faster? Has he stood up to Israel and pushed harder for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem? Has he stopped kowtowing to thug leaders like Putin and Netanyahu?

3. Economics. Failure to enact strong new reforms in the economic sector, deference to Wall Street and corporate interests. One analysis is to say he is making "depression" mistakes, ceding to worries about "deficits" and moving toward further recession -- and failing to solve the problem of massive unemployment that is a key to economic revival.

4. Universal health care -- allowing it to shrivel up like a raisin in the sun. Failure to stand up for a "public option" in health care reform. But he did get something passed, and this is a big step.

It is looking like Obama has a tendency to dodge responsibility, sometimes under the guise of carefully pondering the issues -- despite his façade of claiming never to "pass the buck."

[Chris Knipp]

"SEIZE BP" responds to Pres. Obama's Oval Office Address

If the US President's response to a terrible environmental disaster has been an exercise in timidity, some ad hoc groups are being quite forceful. The Answer coalition is asking (http://www.seizebp.org\) for a movement to have the assets of BP seized to provide substantial aid to the Gulf region inhabitants whose security and livelihood are threatened by the oil spill. There is an organization now called "SEIZE BP." (http://www.seizebp.org/)

Is Barack Obama an advocate of the people -- or corporate interests? The advocacy group's statement begins:

"President Obama needed to be able to say with certainty to the people of the Gulf Coast, who today go to sleep fearing that they will not be able to put food on the table, pay their rent or their other obligations because of the spill, that tonight you can sleep safe knowing that the funds needed to make you whole would be secured, in trust, and available immediately. "

More of the SEIZE BP statement:

Why "negotiate" with corporate criminals?

"Rather than using the power vested in him as President and fulfilling the obligation vested in him to protect the people, he instead insists on 'negotiations' with an entity that has engaged in criminal and reckless acts of deadly proportions.

President Obama has been given a choice: Serve the people or be subservient to corporate interests. The corporate interests of BP are in irreconcilable conflict with those of the people of the Gulf Coast and of the United States.

The workers and families in the Gulf Coast need action. Not rhetoric. Not sympathy and not the channeling, or mirroring, of their anger and frustration through the figure of the President. Their suffering is real. Their fears of life-altering catastrophe are well founded. The coastlines of five states are under attack.

The White House, responding to building national anger and the echoing cry for relief, brought out all of the symbolism of Presidential authority and leadership that have been so sorely lacking over the past two months of crisis. For the very first time in his presidency, which has seen the financial crisis—to which his administration responded with a massive banker bailout—Obama used the authority and the familiarity of a speech from the Oval Office to communicate directly with the nation as a whole.

Long on rhetoric—short on guarantees

This was to be the defining moment of the President’s response to this crisis, if not the defining moment of his presidency as a whole.

President Obama did not deliver. He did not deliver specifics about an escrow fund; specifics about the size of a proper trust account; specifics about how it would be administered; specifics about whether all wage-earners who have lost their income would be able to get immediate compensation. Again long on rhetoric, painfully short on details or the minimum guarantees that people require. President Obama reiterated his imposition of a six month moratorium on deepwater drilling but refused to pledge to use BP funds to compensate all oil workers who will lose their incomes as a result of the moratorium. . .

Tonight’s speech—particularly in what was missing—projected President Obama’s unwillingness to act in the face of this catastrophe.

His election benefitted from the repository of the people’s aspirations. He promised change. He promised hope. Tonight, for the people of the Gulf Coast, that promise remains unfulfilled."

___________________

Well, Barack Obama is not the friend of the big oil companies that the Bush-Cheney administration was. But how much difference has that made, and is Obama more an advocate of the people, or of big business? Two months ago we had another test of that question: the BP offshore oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico -- the worst environmental disaster in American history, we're told -- just what they said Katrina was only five years ago. A blow falling on a wound, since this is the second time the humble fisherman of the Gulf has had his livelihood wrenched away from him. And what has the Administration done about this? A video (https://secure2.edf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1727) on this theme of taking action on the oil spill from Environmental Defense Fund asks everyone to write their representatives.

As always, grass roots action remains the key to change. But with a major environmental disaster, rapid action from the top was called for. To many, President Obama's first Oval Office address to the nation on June 15, 2010 seems too little and too late, and only showed how his response to BP and the spill has highlighted his weaknesses. We may describe George W. Bush's presidency in terms of what he did and shouldn't have. We may wind up describing Barack Obama's in terms of what he didn't do and should have. Americans have been pushed from one extreme to another. Shooting from the hip, the White House cowboy, has been replaced by professorial hesitation, the uncertainty of the "rookie." And yet the two presidents are not as different as those who elected Barack Obama dreamed they would be.

The [i]NY Times June 16, 2010 lead editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16wed1.html) "From the Oval Office"responding to the President's first address to the people from that famous White House location stressed that Obama must "take full charge of the fight" for a real energy bill to pass in Congress. They didn't quite say "too little and too late," but they said the American people "have been anxiously waiting for President Obama to take full charge of the Gulf oil catastrophe." And "Mr. Obama and his team will have to follow through -- with more energy and dedication than they have shown so far."

Also, and more summarily, "We know that the country is eager for reassurance. We're not sure the American people got it on Tuesday night in a speech that was short on specifics and lacking in self-criticism." At least this time, in front of the whole nation, the President didn't again shockingly "whinge" (as Maureen Dowd put (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16dowd.html?ref=columnists)it) as he did the other day speaking to grand Isle residents: "I can't dive down there and plug the hole. I can't suck it up with a straw."

He may wind up wishing he had tried to do just that.

Yes, the President has been learning on the job. They all do, though he is more a rookie than most. Yet Obama has done good in many areas. He has not by a long sight made me want to have George W. Bush back (that last "whinge" has a bad enough Bushie ring to it). Half a loaf is better than none. But he has disappointed in important ways:

1. Rights. Failure to punish Bush crimes and right human rights violations of the post-9/11 era -- the recent failure to redress the wrongs against Maher Arar a good example, the continuation of Gitmo a bigger one. Sending troops to the Mexican border? Lack of action on immigration. I would consider that a human rights violation too.

2. War. Related to #1, because another failure to detach from Bush foreign policies, stepping up the killing machine. More war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, drone attacks, black ops troops pursuing secret wars in dozens of countries. Are Democrats pacifists? They sure aren't. Has Obama gotten us out of Iraq faster? Has he stood up to Israel and pushed harder for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem? Has he stopped kowtowing to thug leaders like Putin and Netanyahu?

3. Economics. Failure to enact strong new reforms in the economic sector, deference to Wall Street and corporate interests. One analysis is to say he is making "depression" mistakes, ceding to worries about "deficits" and moving toward further recession -- and failing to solve the problem of massive unemployment that is a key to economic revival.

4. Universal health care. Failure to stand up for a "public option" in health care reform and allowing it to shrivel up like a raisin in the sun. But with his support if not his total initiative the government did get a major health care bill passed, and this is a big step, however incomplete, toward real reform of the broken US health care system.

Obviously we couldn't expect an American President to defy corporate interests with the authority called for by SEIZE BP. But the fact that the other big oil companies -- Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, and Conoco Phillips -- have "broken ranks" and refused (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/business/16oil.html) to back up BP shows that this disaster is virtually a "bipartisan" issue where Obama might have acted decisively and still represented both the public and business. The Gulf oil disaster called for prompt, decisive action that President Obama might have provided but very evidently did not. Despite his repeated claim of never "passing the buck," it appears that as a President Obama has a tendency to dodge responsibility, sometimes under the guise of carefully pondering the issues.

[Johann]

Very astute Chris. Very great comments.
I agree with you on this one totally.
He should do a photo op trying to "suck it up with a straw"- we'd at least have the photo of him trying to do something. (It would be for jokes, but still, you could use that shit!)

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. I think Obama is regretting that remark, which has been called "whiny and juvenile." He will wish he'd sucked it up. People take that as meaning he can't do anything. This is Mr. The Buck Stops Here? I don't think so.

A CounterPunch article (http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio06162010.html), "Deconstructing Obama's BP Speech," by Anthony DiMaggio argues that he is lying about his handling of the spill. Obama said:


Obama: From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation's history, an effort led by Adm. Thad Allen, who has almost 40 years of experience responding to disasters.

DiMaggio comments:
AD: This claim is not substantiated by the historical record. As mentioned above, the Obama administration preferred a “let BP handle it” response from the beginning, to the point where even liberal pundits in the corporate media attacked Obama for his unwillingness to intervene. More than a month after the onset of the crisis, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs argued that BP had “the technical expertise to plug the hole...It is their responsibility.” When asked by a reporter if a federal government takeover of the cleanup was possible, Gibbs answered a resounding “no,” contending that the Obama administration lacked the power to play anything more than a supervisory role.

In other words, the speech is a whitewash, a rewriting of the facts, a bypassing of a needed apology (as today's NYTimes lead editorial commented). DiMaggio cites polls showing the public and especially Gulf Coasters are highly critical of Obama's weak handling of the spill.

Obama is trying in the speech to bypass the former blind faith that caused him to delcare, "it turns out that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills...they are technologically very advanced." As further proof of Obama's and the administration's callousness DiMaggio notes that "the Minerals Management Service (supervised under Obama by the Department of the Interior) approved 198 leases for oil wells following the April 20th Deepwater explosion. Americans may be appalled to know that BP was the winner for 13 of those bids."

Now Obama says everybody "wants to know why" the Deepwater Horizon blast occurred, but the information was out there about BP's rogue behavior, as shown in an important article (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965) in Rolling Stone by Tim Dickenson, "The Spill, the Scandal, and the President," and also in an Associated Press piece (http://www.aolnews.com/gulf-oil-spill/article/bp-engineer-brian-morel-called-deepwater-horizon-rig-a-nightmare-well-before-explosion/19516105) by Matthew Daly and Ray Henry, "Documents Show BP Cut Corners in Days Before Blowout." The government was not doing its regulatory job; the Obama Minerals Management Service was a Bush-style tool of Big Oil that let BP go ahead and cut corners to continue its already outrageous profit level, and safety be damned. A Congressional investigator has found (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7137865.ece)that to cut costs BP used an inferior casing on the well that was doomed to fail; BP employees have said they knew a failure was coming sooner or later.


Simply put, [DiMaggio goes on] Obama should have known the dangers involved with drilling, as proper regulation of BP would have revealed the perils involved in offshore drilling. That he still wants to "know why" the oil site was dangerous is a sign more of his willful incompetence than anything else.

Obama, as DiMaggio continues to quote and dissect the Oval Office speech, now turns on the Minerals Management Service, but the time to have overhauled this rubber stamp outfit was long ago. He set the stage for the whole disaster, and now is covering up his role in it, as shown in a compendium piece (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/06/13/after_obama) from Salon.com. I recommend perusing these sources for anyone who wonders if Obama is an innocent bystander or straight-talker in this matter, which threatens to be his Whitewater, his Monica Lowinsky, his Watergate, and his Katrina.

Just as the BP oil spill isn't going to go away, Obama's mishandling of it isn't going to go away either. Tim Dickinson's Rolling Stone article clearly demonstrates that the Administration dodged responsibility for handling the spill, that BP's behavior was outrageous and everybody ought to have known it, Obama's Katrina -- or his 9/11: Dickinson wries, "Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings – yet the administration had ignored them. "

The buck should have stopped sooner. Now it's too late, for us and for the President.