Tony Hayward of BP, who is the 'front man liar of the century' on a par with both Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon and other Robber Barons of the 21st Century, is yet another example of the outright arrogance, that knows no bounds.
It's all about them, all the time, no matter who they have hurt, no matter what the cost, no matter how many lives they have destroyed, we are still facing the same outcome: The poor, and middle class that are barely getting by, will, in the end, no matter what argument you have to present here, will be left 'holding the bag.'
That is because we live in an era of 'NO ACCOUNTABILITY'....If you actually believe that Eric Holder/AG in name only, is going to 'save the day'...then let us at least dare to speak the truth, about this new 'Photo Op' for Eric Holder, the toothless front man for President Obama, who let Joseph Cassano walk away free and clear from Lehman Bros.,
I'm just curious here? Ok? Why do we think anything has changed at all?
I am so tired of hearing the same excuses....the Federal Government has not the 'resources' for dealing with this oil spill. Lie Number One.
We Could have called and Obama should have called, and put everything else on his agenda aside.....and not taken two vacations...during this time, except for those photo opps....to rally all Americans, military and who ever was willing to come forward in a national effort to all pitch in. That is what, 'leaders do'...
But instead, what I read is this: No one can fix it, it is beyond our scope of fixing. It is no one's fault. Yet we instead of holding President Obama accountable, we are getting the same things over and over again: It's all Cheney and Bush's 'moles' that are still in there...well...
shit who reappointed them? Ok?
Why do we, on this site, dare to call that 'Republican talking points?' I am so sick of that.
I read this really awesome article that gave me a chill up my spine...:
I just can't wait any longer for the new administration to take office. They are absolutely guaranteed to handle things so much differently than the Cheney Bots in the White House who seem intent on wrecking the whole world, with their charity beginning at home. Look at this oil spill disaster, for example. To start with, Barack Obama would never pick a guy like Ken Salazar for the crucial environmental position of Secretary of the Interior. Of course Bush would, though. Salazar has been deeply tied to mining and ranching industries his entire career - just the kind of corporate hack Cheney would insist on for the position. In fact, Salazar was even a big supporter of his predecessor, the corrupt industry shill, Gale Norton. After all the work environmentalists put into getting Obama elected, there's no way he'd choose someone like Salazar for this position, a guy so lame that mining association lobbyists welcomed the appointment when Bush made it. What does that tell you? Of course, Salazar has turned out - just as you'd expect - to be the "Heckuva Job, Kenny" of the oil spill. This will never happen once Obama gets in and puts a real environmentalist atop the Interior Department.
Nor would Obama ever adopt the "Drill, baby, drill" mentality that Bush did earlier this year, when he opened up vast expanses of the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling - much of it for the first time, ending a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along 167 million acres off the East Coast, from Delaware all the way down to Florida. This travesty by the Bush administration - which delighted oil companies and right-wing drilling advocates but angered environmentalists and appalled residents of those states - would never happen under an Obama administration. Unlike Bush, not only will Obama cease the expansion of drilling in these sensitive areas, he'll surely cut it back. And not a moment to soon! Who knows where the next destructive spill will be.
We also wouldn't be in this mess if federal regulators were doing their job, instead of being emasculated by regressive Bush administration deregulatory policies that turn industry loose to do whatever it wants. Regulators knew that backup systems were required to control the blowout preventers that failed in the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, and they even told rig operators that in 2009. But they never did anything about, relying instead on promises from the offshore drilling corporations that they were on top of it. Wait 'til Obama gets into office, man! He'll clean up that nonsense in a hurry. Regulators will actually regulate, and regulatees be whipped into shape, and forced to comply with the government-enforced public interest, just like they should be. I'll tell ya another thing. When Obama is president, you won't see reckless companies like BP getting permission from the industry whores in the Minerals Management Service to drill wells without obtaining the permits that they are required by law to first receive from other government agencies. This is exactly what happened with Deepwater Horizon. And since January 2009 alone, permission to go forward for at least three huge lease sales, 103 seismic blasting projects and 346 drilling plans has been granted by MMS without getting the environmental protection permits required from other federal agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to protect endangered species, among other things. MMS staff scientists are also regularly pressured and overruled by management whenever they raise concerns about the environmental impacts of drilling projects. No way will these sort of destructive sell-outs ever happen once Barack Obama is in the White House.
http://smirkingchimp.com/...
The reason this article send chills up my spine, is that I never in a million years, expected Obama to fix 8 years of destruction, but what I did expect him to do, was to bring in the best and the brightest....to value new thoughts, new ideas. He talked over and over again about the 'urgency of now'.....but as I've said before:
Obama is always that Pitcher or batter who is warming up in the dug out. Always on the Bench....he plays it safe.
When we call on him to be the 'designated hitter' he disappears, and again and again in missing in action.
He thinks if he somehow, hides out in the 'dug out' no one will notice...but that is not, and will never be 'Leadership'......and any decent Democrat knows he is hiding.
I'm am not 'naive' about how this game is played, but I learned a great deal about President Obama, when he gave 'Wall Street a pass'........just as he gave the entire 'Fake Health Care' a pass, again and again, it was the middle class that continued to pay out, and be destroyed.
This make me so sick to my stomach.
This asshole from hell, wants 'HIS LIFE BACK'......
This makes the Great Heist of 2008, look like a walk in the park, because no matter what anyone says, BP has destroyed our entire Gulf for the next 50 to 100 years...if not longer.
My brothers and families had 3 years of ancestors that worked those waters.....that revered them, that chose to work the hard, hard life of fishermen, not because they were not 'highly educated' but because of their love of the ocean and sea life. Two of my brothers had MBA's and Ph.D, but chose to work those waters, and protect them.
There is not enough money in the world that can ever replace this level of destruction............there may be people, thousands, millions that die from cancer from the toxic chemicals they are being allowed to use...
But for Christ's sake, can we all just stop saying, even for one single minute, that this is not an total National Emergency, and that we should have accepted every single offer from all the other countries that offered to help us, and were 'shut down'................?
Why is this different from the 'financial meltdown'?
it is not......
and that is the point of this diary.
The Robber Barons are in charge....
Our ancestors, died for the rights to live a decent life and wage, and still, we are back to square one.
But don't you dare tell me, that Eric Holder................who has now all of a sudden gone down to the Gulf for yet another set of 'photo ops' is going to to anything....
This is the same guy that has done 'shit about Wall Street, letting Joe Cassano of AIG off, free and clear, after a long expensive two year investigation, let him walk away no questions asked... along all the other crap.........
This oil spill, has already destroyed the entire Gulf region. That is a given.
It makes Katrina look like a walk in the park. Just like Watergate makes the 'Financial Heist of 2008' look like a walk in the park.....
The Shock Syndrome is alive an well in America, but still, we protect both our parties.
They divide us, they all all paid off 'whores' of the worst kind, and we talk about Campaign reform, as if it were a real solution, when, in your right minds do you think that will happen? They are the ones we elected to support Campaign reform?
Get a grip people. None of these people will ever support that. They are all on the ultimate 'Government Tit' that keeps giving, and they will never give it up. The very idea of Campaign reform is the ultimate Catch 22.............if anyone were to actually to do a poll on the politicians who support it, this would be my guess: 85 percent of the American people would support it, Congress would 'pretend to do the same' and when that vote came down, what would happen is this: we would get the same results of Real Health Care Reform, or Real Financial Reform, or any other kind of reform. These rat fuckers will vote it down. What does that tell you?
It tells me, that Oligarchy Madness is in full swing, all the way...100 percent to the max.
We have now become the 'authors' or our own story. We all are the same ones, that trusted our government, that can no longer be trusted. They have failed us all....in every single respect of the word.
Believe me, I wish it were not so.
This consistent narrative on DailyKos is always the same:
Did you expect Obama to change everything in overnight? No I did not. OK? Did you expect that Obama to not be the 'centrist' we all thought and knew he was?
To me, that is just another excuse for not leading. Centrist of not, he will not even come out and admit that he is a centrist. He always plays both sides of the fence.
One of my favorite people on Kos is SallyCat, who has that signature line that says....and I paraphrase: When you sit on the fence all you get in 'splinters in your butt'.............and by now, I figure Obama has about a 1,000 of them to pick out of his own butt.
I didn't expect miracles, I never did. God knows I did not, but I sure as hell, thought that he could at least 'show up' and take a stand.
If you think that is too much to ask, then I ask you this:
What do you think leadership is: define this for me if you will. Give at least three examples in your comments, as to what you would define as real leadership.
To me, this is what leadership means ok?
Taking a stand. Having a vision and a specific agenda and well thought out plan of action that has a beginning and hopefully an goal that defines that plan and agenda and vision.
To be up front and center in, most especially a national emergency, that which we have never seen the likes before. To call on every single American as volunteers or paid out of work Americans who have no jobs or money to feed their families and have been thrown out of their homes by Wall Street/the Banks and even to begin now more than ever a new CCC to clean up the Gulf....
When FDR took office, he immediately commenced a massive revitalization of the nation's economy. In response to the depression that hung over the nation in the early 1930s, President Roosevelt created many programs designed to put Americans back to work. Roosevelt was not interested in the dole. He was was determined, rather, to preserve the pride of American workers in their own ability to earn a living, so he concentrated on creating jobs.
Problems were confronted quickly. The bulk of the nation's young and unemployed youth were concentrated in the East, while most of the work projects were in the western parts of the country. The War Department mobilized the nation's transportation system to move thousands of enrollees from induction centers to work camps. The Agriculture and Interior departments were responsible for planning and organizing work to be performed in every state. The Department of Labor was responsible for the selection and enrollment of applicants. The National Director of the ECW was Robert Fechner, a union vice president chosen personally by President Roosevelt.
Young men flocked to enroll. Many politicians believed that the CCC was largely responsible for a 55 percent reduction in crimes committed by the young men of that day. Men were paid $30 a month, with mandatory $25 allotment checks sent to families of the men, which made life a little easier for people at home. Camps were set up in all states, as well as in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Enrollment peaked at the end of 1935, when there were 500,000 men located in 2,600 camps in operation in all states. California alone had more than 150 camps. The greatest concentration of CCC personnel was in the Sixth Civilian Conservation Corps District of the First Corps Area, in the Winooski River Valley of Vermont, in December 1933. Enlisted personnel and supervisors totaled more than 5,300 and occupied four large camps.
http://www.u-s-history.com/...
At what point, did these basic common sense ideas become obsolete?
I guess, a great deal of that is since we are now at the trillion mark of our endless wars, and endless bailouts to Fannie May and Freddie Mac which Timothy Geithner gave a $400 billion dollar blank check on Christmas Eve and let all of his other 'pals and friends' off the hook for the 'rape of the American Middle Class' what we have left, is not one last fucking dollar to clean up, what BP, will never, ever clean up....
How can anyone replace the the lost lives of the animals are that and will now, without a doubt become extinct? How can anyone ever, believe this is anything different from the Great Heist of 2008 that Summers and Geithner and Rubin and Clinton and Greenspan were allowed to perpetuate and pretend that 'no one saw it coming?' When they were warned repeatedly and shut out by Brooksley Born and now our own Elizabeth Warren and Niel Barofsky?
How long can we keep pretending that people like William K. Black, Simon Johnson and so many others, like the whistle blowers of the mining disasters in West Virginia, or the no bid contracts that are still being given out to Halliburton in the Obama Administration, are just another figment of our imaginations?
The argument, that as long as the 'crazy fucked up Right Wing Fake Christian loonies' don't get it, might me 'your debate' but I expect more from the party I was brought up in.
I didn't expect any miracles, I never did, but I sure did expect our own President to stop hiding out in the 'dug out'....never pitching, always warming up, never coming to bat, and always giving every one else in the 'corporate world a pass''''''
that would go for the Health Care Industry....and Big Pharma....
that would go for never holding anyone accountable on Wall Street/the Banks....
that would go for allowing the Oil Industry to destroy and entire part of our hemisphere......for the next 50 to 100 years, with the most horrifying toxic chemicals, that could easily kill in excess of a million people with cancer and end their way of life, and the sea, and wild life and wipe out entire animal populations for the next 500 years, that could go for, forever.
My own take on this, is that President Obama, should have gone down to the gulf, and set up a 'intermediate White House' and should never have left until the job was done.
You may not agree with that, but consider this. What if it he had?
Always in the bull pen, always warming up, never going out to pitch or bat....that is the 'safe bet'........
that is not leading...........no matter what you say to me...it is not.
Leading is leading. Leading is showing up until the job is done. Winston Churchill showed up until the job was done. Roosevelt showed up until the job was done, Truman, showed up until the job was done. President Lincoln...............for the longest and hardest time in our nation................showed up until the job was done.
There comes a time for ever President, to just concentrate, and just 'show the fuck up' until the job is done.
Just do me a big favor ok? Stop telling me he can do 'nothing' because what he can do, is get the fuck out of bull pen, and just show up. That is all that Americans ever asked of any of their Presidents.
It is called 'Leadership'.
Thanks.