"Make Fat Cats Hate You." The Audacity of Ruin: Risk-Adverse President Enables High-Risk

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The Audacity of Ruin: Risk-Adverse President Enables High-Risk, Rogue Driller

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-becker/29942/the-audacity-of-ruin-risk-adverse-president-enables-high-risk-rogue-driller

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The Triple Whammy

The Big Spill called for a wider S.O.S. as dire as for Katrina (with larger range and duration of impacts). The result - a triple whammy fueling the mother of all spills that feeds on itself:

1) First Crisis: oil inundation caused by gross negligence by the riskiest hustler in the oil patch, thus not just the worst Gulf disaster, nor this country's, but history's worst man-made "accident."

2) Second Crisis: Collusion and incompetence allow the polluter to handle clean-up, the dumbest idea since Iraq. No alarms or red flags meant inept monitoring and dubious non-fixes. The AWOL EPA didn't control toxic dispersants, nor apply Endangered Species Act to restrain outrages (burning live sea turtles, maybe halted by private suit);

3) Third Crisis: Irreparable Damage, the Gulf Oil Kill, the Big Spill. Under-reported magnitude, paucity of response, warmer, worse water conditions all amplify uninterrupted assaults: hurricanes, oil rig spills, overfishing, coastal erosion, and unspeakable volumes of pollution from industrial, agriculture, sewage, now oil.

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No Claim of Ignorance

On July 5, the Wall Street Journal reported a federal circuit court a year ago shocked the Obama administration by calling "irrational" its environment oil spill restoration plans, judging this government "unprepared for a major spill at sea." Bingo. Echoing Bush-Cheney machinations, Obama's DOJ pressured the Court to reverse itself, thus permitting - guess what? - the BP-Deepwater Horizon time-bomb shellacking the Gulf like a tsunami. Double bingo.


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Third: Act like this is the Battle of the Gulf, which it is, worse than 9/11. Assail "drill, baby, drill" advocacy, lower national speed limits, mandate national conservation, real and symbolic. Punish drillers for acting like masters of the universe. Give a far bolder Oval Office speech that commits to truly integrated, national energy planning (beyond ethanol, oil drilling, and nuclear). Demand a region-wide, New Deal-like Plan that integrates Gulf commerce and employment with sustainability and wildlife protection.

Make Fat Cats Hate You

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[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Oh dear. So, Obama's administration reversed a Court order that would have

prevented this disaster?

How do we defend against that in the next election?

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2. Interesting to watch the rec count going down. I wish the un-recommenders would tell us what they

object to, or explain their opposing viewpoint.

No criticism allowed, I guess.

[dionysus]

3. they'd lose the public at the "lower national speed limits" part, i think.