The BP Oil Leak and Tea-Party/Business-Republican Politics
by Beverly Mann
crossposted with The Annarborist
The BP Oil Leak and Tea-Party/Business-Republican Politics
“The only good news from the oil spill is that when catastrophe strikes, even some hard-line conservatives, like Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, start begging for the federal government to act, and act big. It’s the crunch moment for government to make its case — as Obama belatedly started to do on Thursday. But words are no match for results. As long as the stain washes up on shore, the hole in BP’s pipe will serve the right as a gaping hole in the president’s argument for expanded government supervision of, for starters, Big Oil and big banks. It’s not just the gulf that could suffer for decades to come.”
—Frank Rich, New York Times, Sunday
I love Frank Rich. I agree with him almost always, and am thrilled that someone whose commentary will be read by millions, among them people who, well, matter, actually says what I would say if I wrote a column that is read by millions—among them people who matter.
And Sunday’s column was no exception. Well, except for that second-last sentence in what is the final paragraph of the column.
Rich is one of the few political commentators who recognize rote conventional wisdom for what it is: mechanical, formulaic, and often out-of-date pronouncements that echo from one to another to another pundit, without questioning, without independent analysis. So I was surprised that he accepts unquestioningly the presumption that the federal government’s failure to stem the tide of oil pouring into the Gulf is good news for the Tea Partiers and the more traditional “pro small-government/pro large-corporation” Republicans. There is, after all, a difference between a government’s inability to pull off an engineering feat of a perhaps-impossible nature after a crisis has arisen and the government’s ability to force the prevention of such crises in the first place. And that difference is what this oil-spill tragedy demonstrates, in high relief.
The art term, not the term of art.
The larger tenet of Reich’s column is an accurate one: “Obama,” he says, “was elected as a progressive antidote to [Bush’s] discredited brand of governance. Of all the president’s stated goals, none may be more sweeping than his desire to prove that government is not always a hapless and intrusive bureaucratic assault on taxpayers’ patience and pocketbooks, but a potential force for good.” But a prerequisite to government’s ability to competently act as a force for good—in this instance, a force for the prevention of immense harm to millions of people, many of them undoubtedly Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin aficionados, is that the government first be given the legal authority, the legal responsibility, and the actual means with which to do this.
Yes, most big-government-versus-small-government issues lend themselves to the irrational we-want-it-both-ways (“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!”) demagoguery. But not this one. Which is why this one is far more likely to kill the Tea Party movement than help it. As Rich notes, Rand Paul claimed in his victory speech after winning the Republican primary in a race for an open Senate seat in Tennessee earlier this month, his victory was a victory for the Tea Party.
But because, also as Rich mentions, Paul soon attributed the BP spill to mere accident—“Accidents happen”—rather than to premeditated negligence, and because a cascade of internal BP memos leaked to the New York Times, which reported on them on Saturday, detail in jaw-dropping fashion exactly how this particular accident happened, the Tea Party movement is likely to be, rather than enhanced by this situation, fatally wounded by it.
The stains that wash up on shore, the destruction of the fishing industry in the Gulf and the perhaps nearly as devastating impact on tourism, even on some of Florida’s gulf coast, the death of thousands of birds, and who knows what else, cannot logically be seen as an argument for failing to dramatically strengthen government oversight over mega-corporations and mega-industries that can cause such profound, extensive, undeniable, harm—immediate and long-term—to such a huge swath of the public and to the fundamental ecosystem.
The federal government is impotent to mitigate this disaster because it has not had what is should have had and what, hopefully it now will be given: a small separate agency staffed entirely with top-flight, well-paid engineers who can develop strategies that geared toward preventing such catastrophes and dealing expeditiously and proficiently with crises when they do occur. But the federal government was powerless to prevent this crisis not because of an inherent failure of government, by its very nature, to do so but instead because of the triumph of an ideology whose very goal was to render the government powerless and the oil companies and other huge industries all-powerful to determine so much for all of us.
If this calamity in the Gulf illustrates anything—and it does—it’s that libertarian ideology should not be limited to government imposition upon individual rights. BP, which will affect the quality of life for so many individuals for a long time to come, is not a government subsidiary. Not technically, anyway.
the Tea Party movement is likely to be, rather than enhanced by this situation, fatally wounded by it.
I disagree. They’re going to take the position that it was government regulations that lead to this problem. Just like their religious viewpoint that “Conservativism works every place it has been tried” – as every failure of Conservatism gets handwaved away by claiming that they didn’t really try it. It is a version of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
The federal government is impotent to mitigate this disaster because it has not had what is should have had and what, hopefully it now will be given: a small separate agency staffed entirely with top-flight, well-paid engineers who can develop strategies that geared toward preventing such catastrophes and dealing expeditiously and proficiently with crises when they do occur.
A highly effective small government agency staffed by motivated and competent government workers? Good luck with that!
Gentlemen, We are at War. On several fronts. A nation at War does not consider risk in the way a nation at peace does. All civilian input to government and Corporate production decisions are taken for a grain of salt, especially where energy production and finance are concerned.
Read the Patriot Act. To raise concerns as trivial and completly implausible as environmental destruction of the Gulf, when the War Machine’s need for fuel grows every year, is tantamount to treason and (again, I suggest you read the Patriot Act) subjects those raising objections to “disappearing”. You not only lose your job, you lose your right to even question why You’ve been detained, or if they prefer, deported to a country that can more effectivle question you as to why you think, for example, the BOP is unsafe.
All the finger-pointing and hysterics about BP’s monumental blunder have ignored this most germaine fact. As a nation we act more as if we were at War than that we are at War. We are, as The Commander-in-Chief told us, as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, going to continue to be constantly at War to maintain the peace. So we are, as citizens, constantly, for the rest of out lives, under threat of dismissal and arrest if we dare to question any decision made that’s deemed of importance to national security. Oil production is most decidedly under that rubric.
I don’t think, from reading commentary and listening to the reactions propagated by the MSM, that there is a general consciousness of the dampening affect on any form of dissent, especially of a worker in the oil indutry, this has on people. We’ve internalized it so much we don’t even see it anymore.
The government had (has), just as in the case of the attack on the WTC and the financial collapse, all it needed to regulate the industry. It chose instead, for the sake of expediency, to not use those tools. On the contrarty, just as the mortgage brokers were whipped into a frenzy of fiscal debauchery, so too was the oil industry. And if those in power of, oh let’s say the MMS, HAD used the tools at their disposal to slow down the escalation of risk to the point of mania, they would simply have been replaced by someone more, well, cooperative.
This mess is merely the predictable result of waltzing off to War with no more consideration than that it’s a simple “cakewalk”.
Tell ’em, Bennie:
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
There rhetorical line between “libertarian” and “fascist” is pretty blurry these days. I think it is because both sides favor the neutering of government. But that is where it ends. If/when our leviathan big-spending (yet oddly weak) government well and truly fails, look for lots of LINOs (Libertarians in name only) to then break ranks, and embrace their corporate masters as the new and improved government.
Frank Rich makes a common mistake. He assumes that if the right wing governors call for help from the federal government they will understand that hard core Libertarian beliefs are unworkable.
The fact is first.. they won’t even recognize the contradiction. second, they won’t care. libertarian rhetoric is about winning elections and lowering taxes and keeping the feds from regulating YOUR business. it is easy to fool the public with it, and easy to ignore when it is you that needs the help.
DM
please see comment by Tangurena re “religious viewpoint.”
government agencies and government workers are just as competent and motivated as private sector companies and workers. no more no less. their problem is that their work is “public” and therefore political, and not the kind of thing that can be judged by a “bottom line.”
i personally don’t see a government agency of engineers heading off any of these disasters, but a government agency which keeps track of disasters and lessons learned and writes rules to try to prevent the same thing in the future might be of some help. as would a policy of holding the free enterprisers legally responsible for the damage they do. all of it.
This article is wrong. The BP disaster supports the limited government side of things. The original disaster stems from the government claiming ownership of the water and drilling rights. If you’ve looked at the work of the latest Economics Nobel winner, Elinor Ostrom, you will find that the true tragedy of the commons takes place when the government lays claim to ownership on the land and water. If ownership had been given to those that had an interest in the coastal fisheries and tourism, you would have seen drilling that actually met safety regulations.
Agreed!
The US government (USG) has privatized everything, on which it spends technical money.
There is no such thing as a practicing government engineer.
Look to defense, the arsenals were too slow, etc. The profit motive breeds good products! See F-35 below.
The DOE labs are fewer than 100 DOE employees each center managing contracted technical services.
NASA has very fewer USG engineers, lots of engineering services contracts.
DoT………… FAA…………….. All lots of contracted engineering.
Faith based, the evil socialists taking care of poor peoples’ babies rather than being there to bail out BP, EXXON, Jindl and the drill everywhere crowd.
Maybe if the USG did not spend so much for the wasteful war machine (artifically raising engineering salaries, shipyard wages, SW line of code prices, etc, etc), there would be competent, affordable engineers to address alternative energy. Ideas rolling around since Eisenhower made his military industrial complex speech.
Possibly, BP could have afforded engineers who would have said: “your risk taking will bankrupt you all and destroy the Gulf…..”
The typical well paid engineer (working for Lockheed or one of a few hundred subcontractors sharing the wealth) these days is trying to fix the F-35 Lightning II, late and shoddy, with dismal results and a whopping 76% unit price increase since 2002.
I wonder what will be the result of whatever civil litigation results from the BP oikl spill. Whether by accident or by incompetence or by failure to act, BP Corp’s activities in the Gulf have caused a huge financial disasture to occur. Doesn’t that make BP Corp liable for all the damages that may be brought against it in court? Granted that BP paying for the cost of the damage done may not too severely disturb its balance sheet, not will it rehabilitate the dmamge to the Gulf. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as a mass tort event. Does anyone out there have any actual expertice in regards to this aspect of the disasture?
Bret
that’s a seductive argument. but my bet is that if there was even a way to give ownership of the commons to all the people who have an interest in it, you would see it exploited to death in ten years or less. it’s hard enough to stop rape when you have a cop on the beat. when you give the rapist a badge and a gun it becomes impossible.
And if the regulations hadn’t pushed the drilling out to 5,000 and 10,000 feet of water the spill would be over, and there would be no disaster.
-“There is, after all, a difference between a government’s inability to pull off an engineering feat of a perhaps-impossible nature after a crisis has arisen and the government’s ability to force the prevention of such crises in the first place.’
Say hello to Dorthy and the Tin Man for me!
-“Tea Party movement is likely to be, rather than enhanced by this situation, fatally wounded by it.”
It’s wishful thinking, and I know you would love to see that, but not likley to happend. The Tea Party isn’t loyal to a corporation, it’s loyal to an ideal, and if you think that they are going to change their beliefs because a foreign company cut corners that wasn’t properly regulated by the government to make a profit, then you really are displaying absolute ignorance to who the Tea Partiers are and what they stand for. If anything this situation is going to reinforce their beliefs. BP wasn’t the only one to make mistakes, the government hasn’t exactly impressed anybody in helping solve the problem, and that is what they will focus on.
-“a small separate agency staffed entirely with top-flight, well-paid engineers who can develop strategies that geared toward preventing such catastrophes and dealing expeditiously and proficiently with crises when they do occur”
There were many plans in place, did the government implement them in a impressive fashion? The Tea Partiers will focus on that. The MMS was supposed to blow the horn, did they? How often have these crises occured? Does it justify this? Isn’t there a cheaper and more clear solution? The Tea Partiers think there is!
-“to do so but instead because of the triumph of an ideology whose very goal was to render the government powerless and the oil companies and other huge industries all-powerful to determine so much for all of us.”
Wow, this is childish at best. Nobody claims goverment should not regulate certain things, not even the most outspoken Libertarians, and certianly not the Tea Partiers, which is excatly why this piece is totaly off base. Your trying imply that the Oil Companies had no interest in preventing this disaster, which makes no sense. So BP is just out there like Pirates, and the big plan was after the spill they take all the money and run to where exactly?
-“BP, which will affect the quality of life for so many individuals for a long time to come, is not a government subsidiary. Not technically, anyway.”
Nope, but Obama didn’t mind taking any money from them before the spill did he? BP will pay, and they have a long public affairs campaign ahead of them. You can blame BP all you want….bankrupt them for I care….I’m sure the Tea Partiers could care less, but let’s get real here, there is a much bigger picture here than the little propoganda campaign advocating more Government control. BP wouldn’t have been in the gulf drilling for oil if we didn’t need it.
Could BP been allowed to drill in shallower waters where a disaster like could have been prevented…Nope…and why not? Was it the Tea Partiers that should be blamed for that too? Has the government allowed public land to be drilled or even explored?…Nope…and why not? Because apparently there is imaginary technology in the minds of Environmentalists, and native species were at so much risk this country is forced to handcuff itself.
There was no political agenda involved though…..Hell NO!….it was all for the childern right?
That is right! There are plenty of efficient and highly-effective employees in the private sector – you are correct sir! I suggest the feds immediately start recruiting at Enron, BP, Charles Schwab, Tyco, World Com, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns….why the list is endless!
Bravo for your brilliant and wise insight, DM!
They tried golf balls, mud, and other objects to plug the leak. Maybe Obama will flood the leak with money. I suppose the tea party would not support the money plug. Maybe this is what Beverly actually meant.
what regulation pushed drilling out to 10000 feet? Just curious. I think you are talking out of your ass. It’s nothing to do with “regulation”, Sarah. It’s where the pool of oil is.
Jimi,
What regs or laws kept BP from drilling in shallower water??
Tea Party candidates for office encompasses many different sorts of people with a lot of varied ideas…it has been quite difficult for me to find a unifying set of proposals. The emotions run deep, but governance has not formed as far as I can tell.
they might have a lot of varied ideas but they seem to agree on not liking people who Aren’t White.