BP Kills Twitter Fail Whale (click to visit and pay respects)
Twitter has been having a hard time for weeks and weeks. I think I’ve figured out why. Instead of Twitter’s ‘fail whale’ not surfacing because everything’s A-Ok (which it’s most certainly not), Twitter’s ‘fail whale’ is surfacing because of too much oil!
BP’s catastrophe in the Gulf is so monumental that it’s even affecting on-line wildlife! Even the little red birds gagged on tar balls and had to be replaced by the feel-good BP logos to help cart off the ‘fail whale’ carcass. (BP — it’s rumored — is working extra hard as of latest report to dispose of dead birds, fish, and other sea animals as quickly as possible before they’re photographed, cataloged, autopsied, et cetera.)
Just generally speaking? What’s happened — and happening — is disgusting. It’s Capitalism run amok. It’s not only a travesty but a sick look into the lesser angels that drive the inner-workings of human nature.
And government isn’t to be excused in the equation, either. Though not as a Democrat, I fault the George Bush Administration, and only to a degree the Barack Obama Administration for not having been able to reverse quickly enough the absolute gutting of oversight and regulation that government can and should do. That said, the eight years Dick Cheney spent greasing the wheels of government, all for the sake of Big Oil, must be called into account . . . and correcting eight years of heading full speed in the wrong direction can not be corrected by one-plus years of trying to turn the boat around.
It’s said each President fights their wars with the last President’s armed forces. The very same could be said with the situation in the Gulf.
Would anyone knowingly perpetrate such an act? Of course not, except for the most absolute of outliers in our society. Would an absolutely massive multi-national corporation develop, repeat, and perpetuate an institutional behavior that seeks to both maximize profit and reduce expense? Absolutely.
So what is the role of Capitalism verses Government? Seems that everyone is talking about it these days, even people who would be advised not to (yes, that includes you, Rand Paul). Well, oddly enough, I tried my hand at penning that exact thought a number of months ago and would appreciate your thoughts and comments.
LittleDEM article published November 27, 2009: Defining Capitalism and Government vis-a-vis Each Other
If there’s one thing I think we can all agree on, it’s that in times like these we need help, big help, and more help that we can most likely individually contribute — It’s a desperate situation for a collective solution.
