Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Don’t listen to Obama, look instead at what he does
by Larry Geller
If you don’t want to see today’s oiled bird picture, don’t click here.
Obama has not banned offshore oil drilling, despite the rhetoric. It would be too simplistic to believe that he simply has his head in the sand because there is plenty of evidence to show that he has all the information he needs, such as this testimony: Exxon CEO: Oil Companies "Not Well Equipped" to Handle Disasters.
There is criticism beyond the perpetual Fox News anti-Obamaism:
The Obama administration has utterly mismanaged the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and it has been "horrible" at crisis management, Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, told CNBC. [CNBC, Obama Managing Crisis 'Horribly': Jack Welch, 6/16/2010]
High on the mismanagement list must be leaving both the cleanup and compensation responsibility to BP. In addition to the reports of shrimpers hauling oil out of the ocean without protective gear, there are numerous articles from journalists and others like this one:
Reports have been coming out of the Gulf for days about British Petroleum blocking access to beaches and animal-cleaning stations, in some instances using private Blackwater-style mercenaries to do so. Journalists as well as citizens have been thwarted in their attempts to see for themselves the extent of the damage being done by the runaway Deepwater Horizon disaster. [truthout.org, Enough of This Crap, 6/15/2010]
…it was really important to understand the motivations that BP has with a contractual relationship, a company called ESIS, that made it very clear on their website that their focus and goal is minimizing the amount of payout for claims for damages on behalf of its clients, like BP. The information that Thad Allen was seeking in his letter to the BP CEO, Tony Hayward, was—would fail to get at this real critical point, which is BP is utterly motivated to pay as little as possible, which would obstruct the recovery of people in the Gulf region. And it would also obstruct the restoration of our communities and the lives of so many people who have lost their livelihoods for—into the indefinite future. [Democracy Now, Roundtable…, 6/16/2010]
Leadership includes taking action. Words begin to lose their meaning if they remain just words. If we want just words, perhaps we should elect Obama’s speechwriters to fill his second term…
Do the strong Obama supporters have "egg on their face" yet? I turned Obama off long ago after his administrative and cabinet appointees were known. It was obvious that the public was "scammed".
: June 17, 2010 at 7:18:00 AM HST << Home
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