Day One

When I was growing up, my grandmother would put an end to certain situations by accusing us grandchildren of “wanting to have our cake, and eat it too.”  That was her way of saying “you’re being greedy, hypocritical and immature, so cut it out!”  Usually, we did cut it out, because usually she was right, and we knew it.  Besides, if she could see such unattractive behavior, it was likely that others, whose approval we courted, might see through us, too.

With the BP oil disaster in the Gulf heading into its seventh week, a lot of conservative politicians are in a serious state of “wanting their cake, etc . . .”   Some have had the good sense to keep their heads down, their mouths shut and their hands busy with other business.  Those are the ones smart enough to figure out that if they start mouthing off about “liability caps, Obama’s Katrina, or deregulation” the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate is quite likely to start quivering and pointing to logical inconsistencies in the “small government, free market” gospel that they adhere to.

The rest, most of whom “can see BP from their docks” are squealing like stuck pigs for the “small government” that they crave to be “big” enough, in this instance, to step in and save their bacon.  Having said that, let me make it clear that I am not trying to minimize the utter tragedy of the ecocide that is going on in the Gulf right now, or the effect that that tragedy has on hardworking regular folks who live by the Gulf and depend on it for their livelihood.  Nor am I trying to reduce the Gulf-states plight to a backdrop for some noisy, nonsensical “political theater.”  To me the words “Drill, Baby, Drill” represent everything that is rash and cavalierly careless about American energy policy. 

Unfortunately it takes a disaster of this magnitude for our modern society to begin to grasp the old truism about “reaping what one sows.”   It also sadly demonstrates the ever widening disconnects, in America, between Representatives and the Represented, between good governance and abuse of power, between accountability and reckless abandon, between public interest and the “free market.”.

What Goes Around, etc. 

For a year now, we have had to endure the inconsistent, semi-coherent messaging of the Tea Party as well as the GOP’s on-again, off-again relationship with them.  Given the candidates that the Tea Party has fielded, so far, one can safely assume that this is a largely ultra-conservative movement — all for dismantling government, as we know it, and replacing it with something else.  Currently, the “something else” is where details get fuzzy. If one must choose a “core value” of the Tea Party, I’d have to say that it’s anti-tax, anti-government spending; that is not to say that the Tea Party is anti-military spending, or anti-Social Security spending.  In other words, theirs are not always particularly well reasoned policy points — witness last year’s “Keep your government hands off of my Social Security” tirades.  For a political movement, the Tea Party is a tad over-emotional and under-informed.

Politicians, on the other hand, should know better; at least insofar as they are making careers of shaping social events and riding the waves of public opinion.  Some things just don’t make sense and should, therefore, be avoided.  For example, one should not rail against a stimulus bill then get caught on camera handing out oversized cardboard stimulus checks like Daddy Warbucks (or Bobby Jindal).  One should not strip regulatory agencies of any actual accountability or enforcement power, then expect regulated businesses to operate in a well-regulated manner.  One should not cut taxes to record lows then spend like there is no tomorrow on military-industrial wet dreams of global domination.  One should not try to impose a Puritan Ethic on the masses then get caught groping a stranger in the men’s room or jetting off to Rio for a quickie.  Well, I’m sure you can fill in any blanks I’ve left open . . .

Nevertheless, these things are no longer isolated incidents in the US political community, they have become mundane.  The electorate, numb to all but the most outrageous offenses, no longer expect honesty, integrity, accountability or even adequate representation from their elected officials.  It is a foregone conclusion that members of Congress sell their votes to moneyed interests which may or may not benefit their constituents but will go a long way toward keeping them in office.

Predictably enough, Sen. David Vitter (R-La) has come out in favor of continued offshore drilling as well as a liability cap for drillers that would be based on their profits.  Granted, Vitter, like other Gulf-state politicians is up on a high wire without a net on the topic of offshore drilling in a state where offshore leases generate a lot of state revenue.  This Sunday on CNN, Vitter defended his position by saying that no one opposes air travel after every plane crash.  I suppose he subscribes to Rand Paul’s view that “accidents happen” . . . 

The very fact that “accidents happen” is the greatest rationale for risk management and contingency planning (two business practices which, unfortunately, take time and cost money that bottom-line-sensitive executives are often loathe to underwrite adequately, if at all).  In a perfect world, BP would have a proven solution (on the shelf) that would effectively and quickly cut off the flow of oil in every type of well that they drill – before they drill them.  Suffering through BP’s trial and error efforts to cap the Deepwater Horizon well is one of the best advertisements for contingency planning that I’ve ever seen.  Reports just in this morning indicate that the latest effort to cap the well, a risky one with about a 50-50 chance of success and that could possibly make things worse, has stalled.  According to the LA Times:

“A diamond-edged industrial saw being used to carve through mangled piping in an effort to cap the well spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico became stuck today midway through its mission, delaying BP officials’ hopes of stanching the worst oil spill in U.S. history.”

And that is only the “fourth best option” for sealing the well . . .

Not that I hold BP entirely to blame; this is also a clear example of “Buyer Beware.”  Someone, somewhere along the procurement and contracting arc really should have asked the question “what happens if the thing breaks, or leaks oil into the Gulf?”  That same “someone” should also not just accept vague marketing messages that BP has it all under control, in any event. 

Dolphin washed up on Horn Island, Gulf of Mexico

It would also be interesting to know how much the local elected officials, who campaigned on bringing offshore leases to their states, planned at all for the kind of eco-emergency that this accident has created.  How many environmental impact studies have they done, how many coastal oil spill drills have they carried out, what preventive measures have they taken to safeguard the coastline?  if the government gives them the aid that they are asking for, what do they plan to do with it?  What about the other offshore wells operating along our coastline; what do we plan to do to prevent this from ever happening again?  Or will we just trust the “free market” to make everything whole.

For now, BP is touting the fact that they have deployed 22,000 people on 1,600 vessels in the Gulf to solve the problem.  One might reasonably ask if it really takes all of that to not fix something; or if, perhaps, it is illustrative of a culture of bad business decisions in general.  Meanwhile, there is no more compelling illustration of the dangers inherent in a deregulated “Free Market” than the very one that we are all witnessing.  Our “free market” principles have fallen apart spectacularly over the past few years in many different, painful ways that we will be living with for years to come and, most likely, leaving as our legacy.  I wonder if we’ll learn the lesson or if we’ll start to hear the same old “cut taxes, cut spending, deregulate” mantra that is dragged out, by some, every election year?

Maybe, as a sardonic commenter on Huffington Post said, they “should privatize the cleanup operation” – and call it job creation?

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