True, wish them luck. On the bright side, the guy in charge will have his life back.
I'm pretty sure that once the oil spill is stopped, and cleaned up, some other oil company will swoop in and buy up BP for a bargain price.
I don't think there's much chance of that since BP contributed 72% to Reps and I think it was 42% to the Dems.
This won't make me popular but here it is:
If you are opposed to drilling oil, then you must stop sucking from the straw, and it's not just about gas. Oil is used in everything. Synthetic fibers, medical equipment, computer equipment, and the machines that manufacture all of those things. It is in our food as the basis of preservatives, it is used in anesthetics, dyes, aspirin, furniture, disinfectants, cleansers, feminine hygiene products, condoms, and chewing gum. (Did you know that Goodyear—the tire and rubber company, made from oil—supplies Wrigley's with most of its gum base?) It is estimated that the average person uses three and a half gallons of oil a day not including cars. (This would include all the oil that is used to make your single, small, plastic sandwich baggy.) Over half of what is pumped from the earth is used in the creation of everyday goods other than fuel. Wind power, solar power, nuclear power, magic cold fusion power; none of that will reduce the need to keep on drilling.
People blame "big oil" for the grief that exists in the gulf. But if a 600 lb man walks into McDonald's and asks for six quarter pounders with extra cheese and a super sized order of fries, is that McDonald's fault? Are they greedy for satisfying an insatiable apatite that will ultimately kill the man? Where do we take personal responsibility? Oil companies don't pump it for fun. They pump it to meet demand. If everybody ate 10 lbs of meat a day at McDonald's the company would be very wealthy. However, if McDonalds only charged a nickel per Quarter Pounder, would people eat less meat or more meat? It's not about the money. Oil companies are not rich because of exploitation, they are rich because we have insatiable apatites. We pay them to be exactly who they are.
Oil goes beyond politics; Capitalists and Communists eat it at the same rate. (So do Democrats and Republicans, and Libertarians and the hopeless Naderites.) Oil goes beyond economics; We consume just as much oil if it is expensive, as when it is cheap, as a matter of fact, when it's cheap we consume more. We like to blame "big oil" for being rich, but we make them rich, we give them the money freely.
I am not on the side of "big oil." I am also not on the "tree-hugger stop drilling" side. I believe that BP was irresponsible in their deep water drilling frenzy to supply my desperate need for a pacemaker, a plasma TV, aspirin, three computers, and trash bags. (OH … and gum.)
We are angry because of the ongoing oil gusher. Would we be just as angry if the catastrophe had not happened, or happened off the coast of Venezuela? We would be in the same predicament; an absolute dependence on petroleum. We want 100% oil drilling safety which is impossible. We can reduce the odds and put in fail safes, but with the hundreds of thousands of drill heads out there, there will ALWAYS be a risk. It's just a matter of where and when. The oil business is dirty, and every time we buy or use something with a petroleum base we are in business with them.
IMHO, I cannot point fingers at them without seeing the oil drip from my own dirty fingers. I hope to god we can find an alternative to oil. But for the time being, I hope to god that they don't stop drilling; I would (literally) have a hard time living without it.
::Nobe shrugs, and walks away from the conversation, really wishing he had spend this time writing about something perverted.::
I'm not opposed to drilling Nobel. I just think they need to watch over it and the companies more than we do to make sure they do it safe. Too many lives have been lost because of people looking the other way at safety regs, etc. We'll never be rid of the big oil companies, I understand that. As you said, if this happened a half a world away most Americans would shrug and still hit the gas station to fill up their Escalade.
I hear you, Nobe, and chef said it as good or better than I could, that it's about their irresponsibility, not the fact that it's oil. It's funny, look back at the beginning of this thread and it happened again. There's this immediate assumption that anyone angry at BP is some dumbass that doesn't understand that we are tied to oil in all that we do. We get it. It's about safety and due diligence and being responsible to something other than their fucking shareholders. Would I care if it was off the coast of Venezuela? Yes, but not nearly as much, because that isn't my country or in my backyard. That's not my government that's supposed to be making these greedy bastards jump through the right hoops and follow all the right regulations. Let them make noise about their own, at least until they get shot for speaking up.
I saw where some former government official got pissed about Obama criticizing BP, saying that "all of Americas might and wealth" couldn't clean up this mess, so now we're blaming a multinational company. Well....yes, and yes, dickhead. The mess that BP made. Other than diversion, not sure what his point was.