Samuel Freeman

EDINBURG, May 23 - For roughly forty years, environmentalists have warned there eventually will be an offshore oil catastrophe of immeasurable environmental proportion. 

That eventuality arrived with the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, and subsequent massive and continuing oil spill--if the millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf can be called a “spill.”

Major blowouts occur when drilling on land. Why would one think a major blowout would not occur in offshore drilling? The fact the blowout occurs offshore, as Americans are learning, tremendously increases the difficulty of stopping the flow of oil from a wellhead.

From day one, BP has lied about everything. BP initially said about 42,000 gallons of oil per day was pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. That subsequently was increased to 100,000 gallons, then 200,000. For weeks, we had no idea of the true volume of oil pouring into the Gulf because BP officials refused to provide data, including live video of the oil spill so independent scientists could estimate actual flow. Those estimates, still based on incomplete data, range from one million to four million gallons a day.

Given we have no way of knowing the actual flow, but assuming BP is lying, I will take the conservative independent estimate of one million gallons of oil flowing into the Gulf per day. That would be, to date, in excess of 30 million gallons of oil. For those who prefer to think in barrels rather than gallons, the oil dumped into the Gulf exceeds 710,000 barrels.

Fingers are being pointed everywhere - first, foremost, and most deservedly BP. But BP’s partners, Halliburton and Transocean deserve considerable blame also. We all know, or should know Halliburton’s record from its abysmal performance in Iraq where it soaked up billions of taxpayers’ dollars while either not delivering at all or producing some of the shoddiest work ever seen anywhere. This much is clear from Halliburton’s history; Halliburton officials are criminals who belong in prison. Sadly, that can be said for many officials of numerous major corporations.

Outraged citizens are beginning to criticize the Obama administration for not taking a more active role in trying to stop the flow of oil. To date, its most prominent involvement is U.S. Coast Guard officials on a boat with BP goons telling American citizens they cannot go into U.S. waters contaminated by oil. It does appear Obama is determined to follow in Bush’s footsteps in natural disasters, just as he has followed in Bush’s footsteps in bailing out Wall Street instead of Main Street, and in continuing U.S. wars of imperial aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps it is time to start referring to Obama as Bush-Lite.

There are a few things we need to understand that have not been discussed much. First, BP and the oil companies do not care at all about the environment, human life, or anything beyond stuffing as many dollars in their greedy pockets as possible.

About ten years ago, a former Texaco (now Exxon) Vice President for Latin American Operations said to me regarding their operations in Latin America, Texaco “did not give a damn about the environment.” The statement was made with a clear sense of approval and pride. So, for Texaco, as for BP, the environment be damned. And why not? Texaco’s former Vice President for Latin American Operations did not live in Latin America, but in a multi million dollar mansion in Dallas, Texas.

BP executives do not live along the Gulf coast. They might fish there sometimes. But they can afford to fish anywhere in the world. If they have severely damaged the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, they do not care. They live elsewhere and they can fish elsewhere. To hell with the people who live there, with the marine life, the entire Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. That is their attitude.

Second, certainly we should hold government responsible. But think for a moment. According to wrong-wing Republicans and T-Baggers, the government is doing almost what it should be doing. It is not doing much; and according to their philosophy, not much is too much. From their perspective, government should not be doing a thing. Let the oil flow. Let the “free market” figure out how do deal with it.

If we do not like the way BP treats the environment, do not buy BP products. If we do not like the way Exxon handled the Exxon Valdez accident, do not purchase Exxon products. If we do not like the way Union Oil (now Chevron) handled the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, do not purchase Chevron products. If we do not like the way Shell Oil hires mercenaries to slaughter people objecting to Shell’s pollution and rape of Africa’s environment, do not purchase Shell products.

The problem with this logic is, if we refused to purchase petroleum products from any oil company that has a hideous record of screwing the environment to maximize profits, we would not purchase any petroleum product from any oil company. The idea buyers can control corporate behavior by purchasing decisions, or have a meaningful understanding of how corporations conduct themselves is ludicrous. Yet, that is the stupidity the “free market” crowd demands.

Third, and importantly, while the Obama administration can and should be faulted for its poor handling of the situation, and even more for continuing lax enforcement of remaining environmental protection laws, we also must recognize this disaster is, at least in part, the consequence of 30 years of “deregulation.” Thanks to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the nation long has been in a myopic stupor in which we stupidly believed corporations could be trusted to police themselves, to look out for the public interest, to protect the environment. But this always has been total idiocy.

When will it sink into the collective brains and consciousness of the American people? Corporations do not care about anything other than their profits. They do not care how many lives are destroyed, how many lives are lost, how much environmental damage is done, whether they wipe out entire ecosystems. 
Some may think my words are exaggerated or extreme. Look at the relatively recent scandals that have rocked our economy. ENRON, WorldCom, Global Crossing, the 1980s Savings and Loan debacle thanks to “Reaganomic” deregulation, the recent banking/insurance/financial industry meltdown. All of them were caused by greed and precipitated by criminal acts, or what should have been criminal acts, and what, in many instances, were criminal acts before the wrong-wing Republicans started their insane deregulation.

Why are we fighting wars of imperial aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan? Oil, and the money to be made from it.

And who put the likes of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, John Cornyn, Bill Archer, Tom DeLay in office? Voters who were swayed by the in-bed press, who do not bother to educate themselves, but who allow themselves to be manipulated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and all of the other wrong-wing liars infesting the media today.

It is entirely possible, if sufficient numbers of Americans had not listened to these liars, if we had not elected Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush, we might not have had the environmental deregulation of the past 30 years. It is entirely possible the regulators would have been more vigilant, that more rigorous safety standards would have been a blowout preventer installed on the Deepwater Horizon that actually would work.

It is entirely possible, with more stringent safety features in place and functioning, the explosion would not have occurred in the first place. It is entirely possible, the disaster unfolding in the Gulf would have been prevented had we not fallen prey to the lies of the “free market” crowd. For being total fools, for falling for the lies, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We need to stop voting for and electing these wrong-wingers who either are fools or who simply prostitute themselves to those who fund their campaigns - the propertied class, the capitalist class, the criminal class.

Continuing as we have for the past 30 years will make similar future disasters inevitable.

Samuel Freeman is a political science professor based in the Rio Grande Valley. His weekly Left Is Right column appears weekly in the Guardian.

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