On the Mark

There's plenty going on in the world right now, but nothing more notable, or important, as the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. President Obama just delivered a live address from the Oval Office dealing entirely with the situation down there, and his speech hit all the right points with exactly the right tone. Contrary to what the Republican Party would have the rest of the world believe, having a single moment where you even begin to stop hating President Obama will not automatically impose cultish devotion to him upon you. Many of us, including myself, who have supported the President from the beginning have disagreed with many of his actions. I can say that there are a couple key issues in which I feel he has not been as assertive as he should be, but thankfully he picked the most important issue to draw a line with and hold his ground. This oil spill is not only an economic issue in terms of jobs lost, an environmental issue in terms of sheer damage, or a policy issue in terms of enforcing regulations on corporations, but it is an issue that will affect this country for generations to come in the way the ecosystems of the Gulf are affected.

The President hit on all of these points and said all the right things. For all the people complaining about the severity of how the government is dealing with BP, the President reminded us that people lost their lives and their livelihoods. For all the people complaining about government regulation the President reminded us that increased oversight would and should have prevented this problem. For all the people complaining about the temporary halt imposed on offshore drilling the President reminded us THE most important thing in this issue, which is that a delicate ecosystem that was already endangered was compromised further, and that the natural beauty which has been part of America for well over a century has been irreversibly altered. The President didn't mince words in fear of being called a hippie environmentalist, or a raving socialist, or a bleeding heart liberal. He said what absolutely needed to be said in a strong and assertive manner.

And make no mistake, he will be called all those things and more. I'd wager all the money I had right now that the ideologues are already spewing these insults, hell I wish someone would take that action, I could use the eleven dollars. When those insults do come, though, they will be, to put it bluntly, bullshit. We can sit here and debate the pros and cons of government intervention and non-intervention, we can talk about socialist policies vs. the free market, but if there is one political constant it is that purely ideological views are never completely correct. I've never before stated that free market principles are useless, simply that there are pros and cons and that the goal should be to minimize the latter and maximize the former. One particularly prominent drawback are the corners that are cut by corporations when there is no watchdog looking over their back, such as BP's lack of proper equipment and safety procedures on the Deepwater rig. They you have the apex of an unrestricted industry, millions of gallons polluting our natural beauty, the deaths of eight oil rig workers, and the loss of productivity for an entire coastal region. This is where the free market ideology fails, this is where sensible conservatives should be able to say to themselves that there are limits to how far corporations should be allowed to go without oversight. You think BP doesn't wish the government had been more forceful with them now? They lost well over half of their value in the stock market, their debts now outnumber their holdings, when they were making millions of dollars by cutting costs I'm sure all the execs were patting themselves on the back and talking about that vaunted free market philosophy, but now that they're losing billions-not because of socialism or government intervention but because of their own short-sightedness-I'm sure they wish they had spent a little more on trying to prevent a disaster like this.

BP is not the victim here. Their recklessness led to the deaths of eight of their workers. How is it that certain people would talk about capital execution for someone like Michael Jackson, who had never been convicted of a crime, but then turn around and defend the people who have the deaths of eight innocent workers on their hands? Why is it that a corporation is now a person in the eyes of the Supreme Court in terms of their right to exercise free speech, but not in their responsibility in reckless homicide? Recklessness leading to eight deaths would be a death penalty in Florida, it would be multiple life sentences in other parts of the country, if BP is a citizen of the United States why shouldn't it get the [corporate] death penalty? That's not even counting the damage done to the environment. Think of if an individual citizen polluted a natural beauty near wherever you are. What if I had defaced Mount Rushmore, dumped oil at Yellowstone or in Lake Michigan, or at one of our other countless places of natural beauty? This is our country, not an individual's country, not a corporation's country, our country. One person, or even a group of people, could care less about what happens to OUR natural beauty, but it affects far more people than just them. The idea that anyone who cares about these natural treasures we have can have their opinions simply written off is selfish, small-minded, and un-American. This country and its natural beauty were meant to be enjoyed by all Americans, and BP ruined that beauty for all Americans. The American people, including the ones who lost their lives in that explosion, are the true victims.

This is the right time for President Obama to be assertive, this is the right time for him to call all the profiteering opportunists in political positions across the country that the claims they made in pursuit of more money are flat out wrong, and it is time for him to take a stand for a group of concerned citizens who care about this country in a sense that transcends the political and financial arenas, and who have been written off for daring to care in the past, and tonight the President did exactly that.