Monday, June 14, 2010

Right Wingers Open To Lifting Cap For Liability To BP? Hold On There, Buddy ...

I read a "rumor" that the Republicans in Congress are now eager to back a raise on the cap of $75 million for the BP oil spill. The reasoning goes that if this does, in fact occur, BP will have no choice but to file for bankruptcy protection -- leaving the clean-up costs, and payouts for the Gulf Coast businesses to the American taxpayer. And, of course, just blowing off the ecological damage to the Gulf that America will probably never ever recover from.

Remember when the Exxon Valdez was given that hefty fine that was eventually reduced to pennies on the dollar after 20 years? Let that be a warning. Oil companies across the globe own America. Drill, baby, drill is not the mantra we should be spouting. Kill, baby, kill is more likely, as the damage done by this man made disaster (let's not get caught up in the right wing meme that this is a natural disaster), could have been prevented but for the bottom line (dollar) that these corporations are squeezing out for their base (shareholders and congresscritters).

And don't get be started on mountain top removal coal mining.

From Ashley Judd:

But the ache I feel for my mountain home is now more than a bittersweet nostalgia accrued through inimitable generations of belonging. There is a searing tear, a gaping wound in the fabric of my life and the lives of all Appalachians. And it gets bigger with every Appalachian mountaintop that is blown up, every holler that is filled, every stream that is buried, every wild thing that is wantonly and recklessly killed, every ecosystem that is diminished, every job that is lost to mechanization, every family that is pitted one against the other by the state-sanctioned, federal government-supported coal industry-operated rape of Appalachia: mountaintop removal coal mining.


H/T to Crooks and Liars.

1 comment:

Arno said...

I know the good people of the Appalachians should feel like the good people of Afghanistan today. The region of Appalachia, particularly West Virginia, has just been found to have massive natural gas deposits rivaling anything known. These things don't generally work out well for the folks who live in such places. They sure haven't yet.

Great posts here, above and below, Good Bartender.

Got any Joan Armatrading on the machine?