LittleDEM » Environment

Holding Corporations Responsible

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:40:57 +0000

The emotional side of this is covered pretty well at BPKillsFailWhale.com, but what I want to talk about here is the political and social aspects.

I’ll be honest — I was confused by President Obama’s Oval Office Speech on Tuesday night. It was not-so-uplifting and / or reassuring.

But here we are still absorbing Wednesday’s news . . . and $20B is a great start. Granted, we’d rather have never gotten into this mess, literally and figuratively. But let’s hand it to the President.

Good Job, Mr. President. $20B is a very good answer — given the circumstances — to “What have you done for me lately?”

[My one, slight defense of President Obama is that I did listen to his speech, not watch it, later again on Tuesday evening. There was some very strong language that I think earlier times would have paid much greater attention to -- That language was intentional, it was on the mark, and it was blunt . . . and was utterly undercut by today's overproduced and hyped media expectations.]

What we’re seeing is the failure of the ‘hands-off’ approach to business. And we’re seeing firsthand what that failure can yield. Is this even the worst case? I’d like to think so (though there is that pesky thing last year about avoiding the next Great Depression).

This is exactly what happens when Capitalism is left unbounded and unchecked. And this is exactly what happens when Government doesn’t play the role it should.

[BTW, a big Thank You to President Reagan. I guess "Government is the problem." So much for that Social Good, huh?]

Writ large (as if it weren’t ‘writ large’ enough already), this is why both the Republican Party and their Siamese twin the Tea Party are so screwed up. They don’t get it. Government actually does play a necessary role in today’s society. It’s not at all that Government is too big or too intrusive — It’s simply that for much too long Government has been too ineffective.

Why exactly that is the case is beyond me (that Government has been too ineffective). A case could be made that, while certain times over the past few decades have not been great, they certainly haven’t been the standing-in-a-bread-line or starving-children-in-Africa kind of bad that America has been fortunate enough to watch (and help with) at a distance. Crisis breeds Ingenuity and Gumption to both finally see and solve real problems (or so some might say). It does fall in line with the more recent argument that we’ve gotten a little too ‘fat and lazy’.

But let’s get back to core politics. In today’s hearing, Representative Joe Barton (R/Oil – Texas) actually referred to President Obama’s meeting with BP as a ’shakedown’ and a ‘$20B slush fund’. Seriously. Watch.

Does Representative Barton get at all that — as he’s talking — there’s a live feed of the barrels and barrels and barrels of oil still upwelling from BP’s drill site!?! Exactly how much oil did spill into the Gulf over the time it took Representative Barton to apologize to BP?!? He sure took his time to make sure he really apologized!

But, to be fair, there are plenty of other Republican and the like that simply don’t seem to get it. This — This kind of incident is exactly why people want Government. The Republican ’small / no Government’ argument simply doesn’t hold water, let alone oil.

Representative Barton, just like Senatorial Candidate Rand Paul (R-SC), owes the People his apology. I’d even go further and say he owes a direct apology to the People’s of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Apologizing to the offending party during opening remarks is NO way to represent the People’s business, even if they’re not the people who elected him.

BP Kills Twitter Fail Whale

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:35:15 +0000

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.

Why Climate Change Steams Morons So Much

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:00:47 +0000

If you think we haven’t achieved a level of technological sophistication to — even just possibly — affect climate . . . then you’re a moron.

If you think 6,800,000,000 people — that’s six-point-eight billion people — doing all the things they do on the surface of the planet can’t have an effect . . . then you’re a moron.

If you think here in the United States that, as the world’s largest consumer, we don’t have the responsibility to at least consume responsibly . . . then you’re a greedy moron.

If you think 30+ inches of snow falling in Washington D.C. in the middle of winter is somehow proof that Climate Change doesn’t exist . . . then you’re a dumb moron.

If you use the snowstorm in Washington D.C. for political purposes aimed at Al Gore and taking pot shots at Global Warming and Climate Change . . . then you’re an incredibly shortsighted, political moron (take note Senator Jim DeMint, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest).

If you casually dismiss the Defense Department and the Defense Department’s findings / opinion that Climate and the potential of Climate Change to alter and / or disrupt ‘world order’ is a National Security concern of the United States . . . then you’re an unpatriotic moron.

Why do I believe in Climate Change? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but let me tell you just one, quick reason, that when I kid everyone went ice skating. I’m 40 years old. I grew up in the Northeast, and I have generally lived in the Northeast for a vast majority of my life, and in particular both my childhood and the past 10 years.

What I can tell you about when I was a kid verses now is simple — No one ice skates anymore. When I was young there would be 100 kids on the ice . . . regularly. I actually never really was much for skating (weak ankles), but there I was there sliding across the ice in my sneaks and loving every minute of it.

But now? Well, it’s the all-too-often story of a kid (or an adult) being pulled from an only semi-frozen pond after falling through. The ice isn’t think enough because it’s not cold enough for long enough. The only place people can generally go ice skate is a place that offers a refrigerated ice rink.

That’s why I believe in Climate Change or, at the very least, that we do have the capacity to affect climate and that we should take prudent measures to make sure we don’t screw-up the planet . . . that just one reason to believe is because it isn’t cold enough to ice skate anymore.

That change has taken less than 30-40 year, and it’s only within the skill of a moron to not see that as Climate Change.