Obama Administration:‘I Believe There’s Not Going To Be An Oil Spill’

[Hexen]

Obama Administration’s Plan For Arctic Offshore Drilling Safety: ‘I Believe There’s Not Going To Be An Oil Spill’



Think Progress' Stephen Lacey writes (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/27/506965/obama-administrations-plan-for-arctic-offshore-drilling-safety-i-believe-theres-not-going-to-be-an-oil-spill/):
With virtually no infrastructure available (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/arctic_ocean_drilling.html) to clean up an oil spill in the sensitive Arctic, the Obama Administration is still pushing to get offshore drilling projects developed in the region.
What’s the messaging strategy from the Administration? Trust Shell.
Talking to reporters about exploration permits for Arctic waters yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar summed (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/science/earth/interior-department-will-likely-allow-shell-to-drill-in-arctic.html) up the Administration’s approach: “I believe there’s not going to be an oil spill.”
Really?
http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/arctic-drilling-for-oil-006.jpg
Shell has faced more legal prosecutions (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/08/24/302474/oil-investigation-shell-has-dreadful-safety-record-in-north-sea-now-it-wants-to-drill-in-arctic/) for safety and environmental transgressions than any other major oil company drilling offshore in the North Sea.
And let’s remember, the Arctic is a place where the Coast Guard has warned (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/26/471933/your-taxes-will-pay-for-the-coast-guard-to-babysit-shells-arctic-drilling/) “if [a spill] were to happen … we’d have nothing. We’re starting from ground zero today.”
Heck, even one of the world’s largest insurance pools refuses to back offshore drilling operations (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/12/463436/insurance-giant-lloyd-london-warns-of-unique-and-hard-to-manage-risk-of-arctic-ocean-oil-drilling/) in the Arctic, saying the environment is “highly sensitive to damage” and that the risk is “hard to manage.”
Discussing the technique of foreshadowing, Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”
As we see in the graphic below, Obama already proved himself a master of foreshadowing in the lead up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Let’s hope Salazar doesn’t do the same. (Hat tip to Greenpeace’s Joe Smyth for the image).
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/salazarquote.jpeg (http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/salazarquote.jpeg)




Source: http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/06/27-1

[erupt]

To me, it's nothing more than realpolitik in action, bulked up by the upcoming bourgeois election. Anything negative that happened in U.S. sovereign territory, anything possibly negative in the future, anything negative that the U.S. government and it's companies and corporations have done to the workers, environment, etc. will be attempted to be dusted under the rug by the Democrats. On the other hand, as usual in realpolitik and bourgeois politics, the other side, Republicans, sling bile about the incumbent administration, attempting to pull swing voters and diminish any credibility the Democrats have with their base voters (this,as we all know, is one of the main reasons why bourgeois democracy works at a snail's pace,) to ensure their candidate is elected.
This has has happened in many, many countries for many, many years, as we all. It'd be surprising if anyone were shocked by the sneaking and realpolitik, or if a bourgeois administration actually just admitted its faults before an upcoming election.

[Ocean Seal]

Well if he believes hard enough maybe there won't be an oil spill.

[Sea]

How can we be sure that he's not referring to his youth, when he worked in charge of the frying oil at McDonalds...

[smellincoffee]

I hope we don't find big reserves in the artic, though damn it -- I bet we will, and the cheap oil era will get a fresh breath on life for another decade or so, by which time we will be merrily making ourselves even more dependent on it so that the eventual crash will be all the more severe.

[eyeheartlenin]

"Oil rigs today don't generally cause spills" (President Obama, before the BP catastrophe in the Gulf)

I just want to say "Thank you!" in the strongest possible terms to Hexen, for putting Obama's words in big print on the image in his post. Obama was the one who choose BP, a serial polluter, according to what I read, for the job in the Gulf.

Even in bourgeois terms, concerning ecology, the BP disaster in the Gulf, or ethics, Obama's drone attacks and kill lists, and, I am sure, an awful lot more covert outrages we don't know about, as well as the skyrocketing poverty numbers, bigger than George W's, this administration has so little to recommend it to reflective voters. I seem to remember that in the 1980'a the Democrats passed a bill pushed by Senator Frank Church, against assassinations by the federal government. None of that now.

As if that were not enough, sometime ago, the Democratic administration signed an agreement with Karzai's government that will keep GI's in Afghanistan for years to come, even as the President told the US public, that same week, that "the transition," the completely imaginary situation in which the Afghans do their own fighting (which is obviously never gonna happen), was "taking place."

In the coming elections, I am so tempted to write in Ron Paul, who, despite all his faults, actually is an opponent of war and empire (unlike the big party candidates), but I won't. I imagine our union branch will probably try to encourage people not to vote.

[Zav]

There are ALWAYS oil spills. There are hundreds if not thousands each year.

[Hexen]

In the coming elections, I am so tempted to write in Ron Paul, who, despite all his faults, actually is an opponent of war and empire (unlike the big party candidates), but I won't. I imagine our union branch will probably try to encourage people not to vote.

I think the only reason to elect Ron Paul is to show conspiracy mongers, people who are disillusioned with US politics, etc how duped they are, as if a Right Wing Libertarian government is actually a necessary requirement before we reach Socialism because it will open people's eyes to the true nature of Capitalism which will lead to mass revolt.

[eyeheartlenin]

I think the only reason to elect Ron Paul is to show conspiracy mongers, people who are disillusioned with US politics, etc how duped they are, as if a Right Wing Libertarian government is actually a necessary requirement before we reach Socialism because it will open people's eyes to the true nature of Capitalism which will lead to mass revolt.

(Just to clarify) If I thought Ron Paul had the slightest chance of winning the election, I would actively oppose him in some way, without giving any support to the conventional bourgeois politicians. I certainly don't believe that having the Libertarians in power, to disassemble what little is left of social programs, would accomplish anything good. The condition for my voting for Ron Paul would be that he could not possibly win. It would be anti-war protest vote.

[Hexen]

I certainly don't believe that having the Libertarians in power, to disassemble what little is left of social programs, would accomplish anything good.

While it's not a good idea to have a Libertarian government but is it possible that it would open people's eyes about capitalism itself due to this which would later lead to revolution which would finally lead to socialism?

Theory goes that if all forms of capitalism are explored and recorded throughout history, people will finally come to realize how horrid the capitalist system really is after learning the hard lesson which is probably the only way for socialism/communism to become appealing to the masses again....

Although I might be wrong.

[eyeheartlenin]

While it's not a good idea to have a Libertarian government but is it possible that it would open people's eyes about capitalism itself due to this which would later lead to revolution which would finally lead to socialism?

Theory goes that if all forms of capitalism are explored and recorded throughout history, people will finally come to realize how horrid the capitalist system really is after learning the hard lesson which is probably the only way for socialism/communism to become appealing to the masses again....

Although I might be wrong.

Dear cde Hexen: Thanks again for the spectacular art in your previous post and also for the interesting post above. I am reminded of a famous quote attributed to the German Communist Party (KPD) in the early 1930's, Nach Hitler, uns ("After H, us"), which turned out to be a suicidal perspective. I think workers should take action to transform society as soon as they can (which obviously involves a lot of prior work by leftists). It's pretty clear to me that humanity is already paying a terrible price for postponing a workers' revolution. Who knows what indescribable horrors await us, as capitalist rule grows older?