Now that I've seen the President's speech on the spill I know....

[Scuba]

...that we're totally screwed. He seemed to make three main points:

1. We'll make sure BP pays for the spill. I'm skeptical that we'll even make an honest effort to collect, and that any compensation will come far too late to help anyone.

2. We need to move away from oil with a new energy policy. Somehow this sounded familiar.

3. We all need to pray for help. Millions (billions?) have been praying for world peace for thousands of years. Sorry, is it just my cynicism or has this not ever worked?


I hope somebody can talk me down.

[babylonsister]

1. Why are you skeptical we'll make an honest effort to collect?

Do you think the US govt plans on paying for this, and if so, with what?

[Xipe Totec]

3. The unstated assumption that somebody will pay for this may be at issue

We're already hearing the drone from the right: "oil is organic!"

Translation: Ignore the problem and it will go away.

[babylonsister]

6. You honestly don't think this admin will require bp pay for this?

I don't agree, especially when bp has already said they will.

I'm not into stoking more anger, there's enough of that to go around.

[Scuba]

8. Just based on the track record of BP and "our representative government"...

...no, I don't thing they will pay much, if anything. BP will fight it every step of the way, and much (most?) of Congress will support in doing so. Even if it gets all the way to the Supreme Court, that body is loaded with oil interests.

[inna]

11. I doubt they will end up paying even $20 billion.

As for the speech, it was sort of ridiculous.

[readmoreoften]

7. I just think the US government and BP will let us die.

And not only that, I think letting Americans die is par for the course.

[SmileyRose]

9. We usually don't.

The $Billion dollar fines get the front pages. The final settlement that usually 10-30 cents on the dollar rarely gets reported.

[vi5]

12. I already hear/read the phrase....

"Legitimate claims" being bandied about by both BP and Obama. Whenever I hear that it leads me to believe that we'll get screwed, or at the very least a lot of people who don't have the time, money, or means to prove their claims will be screwed.

[Skittles]

2. I hope you did not expect more

[Delphinus]

14. I did.

I was extremely disappointed with his closing remarks - pray. To whom? For what? Pray?

[Kringle]

4. who benefits?... long and bad oil spill... Rs or Ds .nt

[lamp_shade]

5. You hope, huh? Right.

[Joe Bacon]

10. It's just more of the same.

What a disappointment that speech was.

[KharmaTrain]

13. There's Nothing Else He Can Do...

I guess people wanted lies or some super duper plan that would fix everything. Ain't gonna happen. As long as that hole spews oil there's little we can do but try to contain, but the scale is so large that even these thoughts are beyond not just what a government can do, but technology as well. Decades of false securities perpetuated by the oil companies and government have now proven to be the lies...they didn't have the capacity to contain this mess and the amount is so massive that a rear-guard action is all that can be expected. No sooner is the oil swept up from the beaches, then the tide rolls again and there's more oil. Yes, this thing is that screwed up, and while the oil spews this ugly scenario will get worse.

BP does have us over the "barrlehead" as this is their area of "expertise"...they assured us and our government they had the capabilities to fix this hole...and right now that's the priority. What comes next will depend on where things stand when the oil is shut down (and I do expect it will be). Yes, it may take months...it may require involving others than BP, but the options are limited. Right now its in BP's best interest to plug that hole...and fast. But fast is what got us into this mess in the first place. You can't win.

[zipplewrath]

22. There is plenty he could "do"

You are focusing on closing down the well. But he could have advocated the employing of huge numbers of people to work the clean up. BP has been holding back on throwing manpower at the problem. And along with those people showing up and being paid, it would help the local economy.

But more importantly, he should have advocated a longer, and vastly more specific, plan to move away from oil altogether. Instead, he's doing the whole "I'll listen to anything". There's 30 years of ideas out there he can already "listen" to. It's time to lead by choosing one and moving it through Congress. But he's gonna do the whole Heath Care Reform schtick again and leave it to the conservadems to write our energy legislation.

Get ready for a mandate to insulate your house and buy a new more efficienty car.

The auto industry will get billions to engineer a 30 mpg car.

[KharmaTrain]

26. There's Already A Lot Of Manpower At Work...

Just cause the corporate media doesn't show it doesn't mean there's not a large effort going on. The Coast Guard has been out skimming and thousands of National Guard troops have been mobilized but whatever they can do at this point is overwhelmed by the size of this mess. BP's growing liability is another story and I'm not satisfied that they are operating on the level with anyone, including the government. The need for manpower is still to come.

The real issue right now is the liability and ways to compensate those who are directly affected by this disaster...while President Obama's words about making BP pay sound good, they also sound hollow. There's also the growing noise about the drilling moritorium that is turning into a major distraction as the number of jobs it affects are minimal and the thousands of rigs and their workers can still go on as if nothing happened. I was hoping to hear of some kind of escrow fund being established...that's where the government can help and should.

I still think there needs to be more pain here before the idea of alternative energy starts to register. Our oil addiction is so deep. Many are hoping this mess goes away and so will the call for new sources of energy. I've long favored this government issuing the same amount each year in grants and tax breaks to develop alternative energy sources as they throw at the military. There needs to be a multi-level approach and there already are many great ideas...many that could use a loan or tax break to show their merit.

The real question is are our politicians so addicted to big oil money and what will it take for them to stop protecting this ugly and destructive industry.

[zipplewrath]

27. Millions out of work

There are whole beaches with no one on them as they get covered with more oil.

And millions of people out of work.

Those two facts don't align very well.

[KharmaTrain]

28. They Only Align In Anger and Frustration...

We live in a very self centered society. While one can feel sorry and compassion for those affected by this disaster, it's not directly affecting his or her world and theier priorities and frustrations are either projected into the general frustration or take on a life of their own.

One factor that isn't thought about is that there are many this year who aren't able to afford a vacation at the beach and it isn't cause of an oil spill, it's still the fall out of a financial collapse that still endures. Just like its inability to deal with the oil mess, the government is clueless as to how to tackle an issue head-on...so conflicted in corporate money that it only takes half measures...and even those are hard to come by.

The disconnect is that money always trumps the "public good" because our culture now equates wealth as a public good.

[XemaSab]

29. "There's 30 years of ideas out there he can already "listen" to."

Exactly.

If this was World War II, or the Great Depression, sitting there and waiting for the perfect idea to come up marks someone as a Hoover or a Chamberlain.

Obama needs to pick 5 ideas, or 10 ideas, and throw them all out there at once.

It's crisis time, and he seems to have gone from "no big deal" to "kiss your ass goodbye" on the turn of a dime. :o

[demwing]

15. Nothing personal, but I am tired of that term "Talk Me Down"

All else considered, I agree. Another let down from the Prez.

[madokie]

16. They'll be no coming down

May I join you is the only thing I can think of now

[Bluzmann57]

17. "Talk you down"?

JUMP! Sick of that term, "talk me down." If your life is that friggin' full of negativity, then you likely need help which you won't find in here.

[eilen]

18. No interest in talking anyone down

I'm on the side of the angry mob option at this point.

Tar and feather the BP logo whereever we go.

[HereSince1628]

19. I thought his comments were consistent with his training

Obama's professional values are those of a lawyer and a politician. For him, other politicians, the legal and ecomomic realms, it is about culpability and monetary damages.

In a lawyer's mind mitigation always comes in the form of money. This is understandable as money is fungible, it often can be used to purchase repairs or replacements (it's also a whole lot better than two dead hens when it comes to fines and legal fees).

Unfortunately, individual lives are not fungible, although a human perspective that sees life always replacing life may make life in nature seem cheap. Members of our society tend to fall back on the notion that other lives can be lived. And we purposely raise slaughter/harvest life all the time.

But there is another pespective, one that notices that when a life it is lost a genetic history is lost. When all the lives in a population are lost, another population may recolonize a place, but (considering Hardy-Weinberg expectations associated with founder effect) that population will have somewhat different genetic composition. Consequently, a somewhat different future must almost surely happen. When many populations are lost and replaced a genetically different community will result. Not that a lawyer, a hotel owner, a tourist or perhaps even a shrimper might notice.

The chemical insult to the gulf ecosystem is likely terminating local populations causing genetic losses that in some ways cannot be mitigated with any amount of money. Of course, at this time no one can yet assess the biological 'damage,' and my concern can be dismissed as the armchair hand-wringing of diversity loving population biologist.

Human mitigation will be aimed at making it 'look pretty again' and time and natural colonization will replace the life that was there. To the casual observer in decades it will in all probability 'look' pristine again. Secondary succession is a great "healer" to ecological scars. Things will seem to be as they should be, but the genetic lineages that are terminated will have been . . . terminated. And for the first time, a single corporation will have altered the course of life on such a large swath of our planet. The Obama, government, and BP can't undo that.

But they can deal with money and policy and policy enforcement...the things that make up a lawyer/politican's life work. No matter how I lament the growing extent of the environmental impact, I can't knock Obama for seeing the problem through his experience and training and doing the few things that for a lawyer/politician are doable.

[Scuba]

21. Only when the....

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can't eat money. |


~Cree Indian Proverb

[HereSince1628]

30. If you want to see something interesting about native American land management

look at a satellite image of Wisconsin, the county that is totally under native management can be seen from space...

[muffin1]

20. I'm with you. I HATE that 'pray' on it crap.

What kind of sense does that make? Let's assume there is a Sky Wizard. Sky Wizard (seeing and knowing everything!) already knows about the gusher. Sky Wizard already knows it makes us sad, and that is killing wetlands and animals alike. So....Sky Wizard is just sitting 'up there' waiting to see if we have the faith to PRAY for help? If not, he will withhold help? And as you said, even when people DO pray, things rarely get better. PRAYER IS UTTER NONSENSE. You'd probably be as well off using a Magic Eight Ball. At least you get an answer right away!

When will this stupid ass country stop relying on fantasy and start looking toward science and technology?

[meow mix]

23. pray!? were so screwed

gaaaaah

[lunatica]

24. He didn't say pray for help. He said pray to find the strength to find solutions

There's a difference but you like so many choose to hear what you want to hear.

[mix]

25. the illusion of competency and leadership has been shattered nt