The Buck Stops on Obama’s Desk

[IndianaGreen]

Published on Saturday, May 22, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

The Buck Stops on Obama’s Desk

by Lewis Seiler & Dan Hamburg

Meanwhile, inexplicably, BP remains in charge of the situation. They decide who are the "legitimate interested parties" to information. (Obviously, this does not include the general public!) For example, air monitoring along the shore and over the sea is being done by an organization called The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, hired and paid by BP. BP has also determined what kinds of chemical dispersants to use. They chose the eerily labeled Corexit, and sprayed at least 600,000 gallons of it on the sea. If by "corrects it" we mean hides it, as in "out of sight, out of mind", they chose wisely. However, it turns out that Corexit is also, according to the EPA, "carcinogenic, mutagenic, and highly toxic." EPA has ordered BP to change to a less toxic dispersant but significant damage has already been done.

The cherry on this most unsavory sundae came with the news that no less mainstream a news organization than CBS was recently ordered to leave public beaches by the Coast Guard. When the reporters protested, they were told that "This is BP's rules, not ours." As was pointed out on the Daily Kos, "It seems as if BP, a foreign corporation, has taken over a branch of the U.S. government and is ordering US citizens off of public beaches, with the Coast Guard acting as its enforcer."

We had grave concerns about Barack Obama from the time he became a serious candidate for the presidency. Obama ran for and won the world's most powerful office with a very spotty resume. He got his initial big boost from outlaw enterprises like Goldman-Sachs (which gave nearly $1 million to candidate Obama) but the oil companies weren't far behind. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, BP and its employees have given more money to Obama than to any other candidate over the past 20 years!

This is, of course, legalized bribery. And with the recent Supreme Court travesty of Citizens United, it will only get worse. This is not the country we signed on for; instead, it is a country, in Ralph Nader's words, "of, by and for the corporations". Contrary to his rhetorical flourishes, President Obama is just another sycophant to corporate America. We are risking the future of the planet and our species by allowing this deadly ruse to go on.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/22-6

[pokercat999]

1. In action the Obama admin is nearly indistinguishable from the

Cheney admin. Well.......they give better speaches...no less lies, just better verbiage.

[Itchinjim]

3. Yes, Obama = Cheney.

Fucking moran.

[pokercat999]

4. I wouldn't call Obama a moron or even a moran.

[Hawkowl]

2. The Buck stops at Obama's pocket..........nt

[KoKo]

5. Why is neither Biden nor Obama down there putting pressure on BP by getting public opinion

engaged? Why is it we can get reporters on the ground in Haiti and Indonesia and yet we have reporters banned from investigating what could affect the whole Gulf Coast and the East Coast of the US. Think of the millions lost in fishing, tourism in the economies of states already hurting on top of the horrible Ecological Damage for years.

If this was a terrorist incident and the rig had been blown up...do we think Obama would have done more?

Why is he not engaged...but above it all...letting the corporation take care of it. I realize he's gotten together a Commission of Scientists...but why is he never engaged in anything. Just one commission after another to "study" problems.

How can this be the same man to gave rousing speeches and gladhandled crowds of adoring citizens making promises "I won't forget you...I will work for you..change you can believe in!" What happened to that candidate? Could it all have been a clever act? A charming man who was talented enough to whip an audience into a frenzy..like a rock star? Was he just a "Brand" as Chris Hedges has claimed?

[Lorien]

8. Sadly, it seems so. Just goes to prove that if a person has enough charisma

they can con even some of DU's most liberal progressives into becoming staunch defenders of Reaganism; "corporations can do it better than the government can." in other words: NO WE CAN'T seems to be the new mantra around here with the party over principle crowd. Just like the teabaggers- who have become willing foot soldiers for corporate feudalism- DU's Obama faithful have no clue that they are now siding with Magacorps against their own interests and the interests of all living things. To say that it's disappointing is a massive understatement.

[Tansy_Gold]

9. Reading your post, Koko, put me in mind of a phrase I never thought

would ever, ever, ever enter my mind.

And I hesitate to post it here on DU because I know it will attract flames and I really don't want to do that. I'm hoping the mods and admins of DU know me well enough not to label me a troll or a troublemaker or a PUMA or anything like that. I'm just a serious observer of this whole horrible mess and have been since I first signed onto DU back in the summer of 2001 -- yes, before that infamous September morning.

"How can this be the same man. . . " you ask, and I'm sure you're not the only one who has asked it. "Could it all have been a clever act?"

What's the next step from that? What's the next horrible step from "clever act"? "Could it all have been a lie?"


I don't want to give the freepers and the trolls any additional ammunition, but in the interest of honesty I guess I have to put this out there. And if I get tombstoned for it, well, that's the way it goes.

Therefore ---

We knew, as well as anyone could "know" without hard evidence, that Obama's predecessors were consummate liars. They lied about the Iraqi links to 9/11, they lied about the WMDs, they lied about Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson and Niger and the yellowcake, they lied their argyle socks off about just about everything. "Bush Lied, People Died" became one of our mantras.

Has it reached the point where we have to contemplate even the possiblity that "Obama Lied, the whole Gulf Coast died"?

So Bush and McCain partied while New Orleans drowned. How much different is that from Obama and Calderón partying while Grand Isle and Plaquemines Parish suffocate in crude oil?

http://www.examiner.com/x-21743-New-Orleans-Progressive-Examiner~y2010m5d22-Plaquemines-Parish-President-Billy-Nungesser-declares-the-oilpolluted-marshes-a-dead-zone

"Ever since the BP oil rig the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank over a month ago, gushing at best guess a minimum of 700,000 gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, local residents of the coast have harbored the fear that Louisiana's once pristine coastal eco-system, - home of some of Louisiana's most sacred wildlife - will eventually turn into an oil-polluted graveyard. To the dismay of everyone, that fear has now turned into reality.


"...In a part of Plaquemines Parish in an estuary called Pass a Loutre, reeds in the marshlands that were normally green with life, are now brown and dead, saturated with oil..."

"Sacred wildlife" is not a phrase used in everyday conversation, but I think it speaks to an almost-forgotten connection between our lives and the life of the planet. A connection relegated with some disparagement to native Americans, New Agers, and ancient goddess worshipers who hadn't seen the light of modern Jesus. We are about to be destroyed, not by the sword or by lightning, but by the consequences of our ignoring the rules of living in harmony with our world.

What Obama seemed to promise in all those ringing speeches was a return to something resembling that harmony. A retreat from war. A hand outstretched in peace. A more equitable economy.

Was it a lie? Was it all a deliberate untruth?

My French is rusty and it wasn't ever very good to begin with, but when I saw the name "Pass a Loutre" there was an instinctive "translation," if you will to "Pass to the Other Side." (Pass á l'outre.) Maybe my translation is completely wrong and someone will correct me and embarrass the hell out of me, but there you have it.

Obama has disappointed me many times since November 2008, and I've not been shy about voicing my "concerns." But I've held back on this issue because I just did not want to believe it was as bad as I thought it was.

I listened to the narrator of the "Booming 101" video as she told of her broken faith in Obama, and I heard her voice break. The truth is that 11 people have already died. Not as many as on 9/11. Not as many as in Iraq or Afghanistan. But if -- IF -- the promises were made with no sincere intent to keep them, weren't they ultimately lies?



Tansy Gold

[proudohioan]

10. Tansy, that was absolutely beautiful.

"Sacred wildlife" should become part of everyday conversation for all who inhabit this earth.

I cannot imagine what the folks in the Gulf Coast must be feeling when looking out at their beaches, wetlands and swamps, and seeing them ruined; dead. I just can't imagine what horror they must feel when their sacred wildlife washes upon the shore, half-dead and covered with oil. And the suffering for that sacred wildlife itself; what did it do deserve to have a slow, torturous death bestowed upon them?

Here in NE Ohio, the seasons are so much in harmony with nature; every March 15th, like clockwork, the Turkey Vultures return to the area from their mysterious winter home location. They are the first harbinger of spring. At the same time, the Dark-eyed Junco's start to migrate to their summer home in Canada. When there are no more Junco's, there are typically no more snowstorms. Today I saw my first Baltimore Oriole of the season, and with it, summer is not far away.

I take comfort in the sacred wildlife. When all else is wrong with the world, and everything looks hopeless, the familiar cycle of seasons/wildlife put it all in the proper perspective, and all is right with the world.

What we have sacrificed/lost in the name of greed and 'competitiveness' is beyond words........

IMO, Mr. Obama has committed his final disappointment for me. Thank you for expressing what many of us have been feeling.

Theresa

[Tansy_Gold]

11. Thank you. I just wish I hadn't had to write it.

I know the midwest. I know how the seasons change there. Indeed, they change everywhere, and if you and I an dsome others are attuned to it, sadly too many others are not.

Believe it or not, the seasons change here in the desert, too, and in such spectacular ways. The prickly pears and hedgehogs have already bloomed, the palo verdes are just monstrous clouds of electric yellow now, and the ironwoods are beginning their soft lavender pink glow. Atop the saguaros the white flowers are opening for their one day of glory. There's a nest of red-tails on the sign at Idaho and 60; I saw them watching over their young as I drove home yesterday. The quail babies are everywhere. A wildfire started by a carelessly tossed cigarette could destroy every bit of that.

I don't believe in revenge; I think it's totally counterproductive. But there is a part of me that would like to see Tony Hayward and his ilk drown in rusty red Deepwater Horizon crude.


Tansy Gold, Chicago native and 15-year resident of NE Indiana before she moved to Arizona

[proudohioan]

13. I wish you hadn't had to write it, either....

but since the necessity arose, it did need to be said.

Isn't the natural 'calender' wonderful, no matter section of the world we live in? It's just something to know that in Arizona the Ironwoods are blooming a soft lavender-pink glow at the same time the wild Peonies are opening up and fragrant in Ohio? And all over the world, folks are tuning into the same natural harbingers of seasons, the familiar signs of the never-ending circle of life. It saddens (and angers) me that the Gulf area is losing a big part of their natural calender due to excessive greed and gross negligence! A big part of me would love revenge as well.

Thank you for the mental picture of the desert in spring; it sounds absolutely breathtaking! You must be glad to be out of the brutal midwestern winters.

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the desert splendor!



Theresa, gypsy wanderer, native of nowhere in particular.

[tonysam]

12. I fully blame the media for this. They never vetted Obama in the primaries, which shocked me.

His neoliberal tendencies were always there if one cared to look for them. Paul Street wrote a book about Obama which laid it all out, but of course it sold few copies.

People were sold a bill of goods on this guy, but I think many chose not to look too closely.

[truedelphi]

6. Thank you for posting this. n/t

[Lorien]

7. +100000000000000000000000000

they've summed up why so many of us are furious with what's happening. I keep foolishly hoping for Change, but every day it only seems to get worse. We need a whole new breed of candidate for the next elections to combat corporate feudalism.