Speaking of federal policy makers’ increasing comfort with global devastation, in a NY Times Op-Ed piece, Bob Herbert observes, “The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza.”
Such an observation echoes General Smedley Butler’s frank speech in 1935 describing his role as a soldier as nothing more than serving as a puppet for big-business interests. So it would seem that now more than ever blatant and catastrophic crony-ism, tolerated and supported by members of Congress, is the norm.
As noted before, democracy has become a code phrase for do-re-mi for certain special interests, a way to ask the troops to die or commit atrocities for Emperor Fossil.
While the op-ed is specifically about getting out of Afghanistan, it also has a critique of U.S. Energy Fascism. BAUAAAE (Business As Usual And Above All Else) is “going with the flow”, whether it is billions of barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf or the U.S. military spends $1.75 billion every day. (Editor’s note: Thank-you Mr. Herbert for recalling that BP is one of the largest suppliers of fuel to the wartime U.S. military. Your observation fits nicely with Jim Sensenbrenner, BP investor and GOP Congressman, not recusing himself from the Oil Disaster hearings and 47 senators voting yes on the so-called Murkowski Amendment.)
And, as reports of atrocities in Afghanistan increase, ‘Merika can take comfort in the fight for our beaches (if not for what is under the oily surface of the Gulf). “Three weeks ago,” reports HuffPo’s Dan Froomkin, Admiral Allen told CBS News: “I trust Tony Hayward.”
Coast Guard Commandent Thad Allen is the point man for the Obama Administration. He leads our response to the massive oil spill that is poisoning the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, after 53 days during which BP has just made the leak worse while spreading misinformation intended to minimize its possible liability, Allen is sticking to his earlier statement.
Asked at a news conference if he still trusts Hayward, Allen responded: “The fact of the matter is, we have to have a cooperative, productive relationship for this thing to work moving forward. When I talk to him and ask for answers, I get them. You could characterize that as trust, partnership, cooperation, collaboration, whatever. But this has to be a unified effort moving forward if we are to get this thing solved.”
So does that mean yes? “If you call that trust, yes,” Allen said.
And, so, as we grow more and more forgetful of the war crimes of the Cheney-Bush years, today’s message, sheeple is we need to learn to trust Tony Hayward.
See also
- Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson on the Inside Story of How Obama Let the World’s Most Dangerous Oil Company Get Away with Murder
- Years of Internal BP Probes Warned that Neglect Could Lead to Accidents
- Dick Cheney’s Last Laugh
![[ISBN-0805079122]](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0805079122.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg "Amazon:ISBN-0805079122")
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy ASIN: 0805079122
![[ISBN-0922915865]](http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0922915865.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V37451287_.jpg "Amazon:ISBN-0922915865")
War is a Racket ASIN: 0922915865
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Events at BP that lead to the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico
BTW: Joshua Dorner may have coined the phrase, “catastrophic cronyism.”
And speaking of textbook examples of psychopathy, anybody else wondering whether Don has sent Tony a box of chocolates, flowers, and a case of Tennessee sipping whiskey?
Continuing with a war analogy…
The Climate Wars: True Believers, Power Brokers and the Fight to Save the Earth ASIN: 140132326X
June 1937, New York City, “The Cradle Will Rock” is about to open at the Maxine Elliott Theatre. Except that armed guards surrounded the theater to prevent entry because in the musical Marc Blitzstein included a nemesis, a heartless industrialist that he named Mister Mister.
Skip forward 73 years, substitute fossil fuels for steel, change Mister Mister to Mister Crotch, and we see that Washington Theater still puts on a good show — The Oilpocalypse, a story about Politics As Usual in the service of BAUAAAE (Business As Usual And Above All Else) that evidences such a wicked disregard for future survival of life on the planet as we know it.
He was a good alpha male and stuck with a war analogy.
P.S. “US Army to spend as much as $100 million to expand its Special Operations headquarters in northern Afghanistan. Construction is supposed to take a year. At which point, the U.S. is allegedly supposed to begin drawing down its forces in Afghanistan. Allegedly.” Wired.com
Robert Scheer rhetorically asks, “What’s with the president’s war analogy on the oil spill?”
The message from the Military Petrochemical Complex seems pretty clear, Scheer.
P.S. It ain’t a spill; it’s a disaster.
“The conscious disregard for the safety of workers and the preservation of the environment have been subordinated to corporate profits of the multinational corporations that control our politics with money,” says Mark Papantonio.
Uh,oh. Whistle on the play. Looks like Obama got fact checked.
Whether or not BP puts $20 billion in escrow, it won’t touch the cost of damage to the environment over time. Which is why Tony served notice about paying all “legitimate” claims. Such a statement came from confidence in BP’s ability to control the justice system defining what would be legitimate.
According to Carl Safina, Blue Water Institute ocean biologist, a potentially biblical disaster is unfolding, threatening to make vast parts of the Gulf dead zones, animals and plant species so contaminated and unsafe that Gulf communities may face “the total end of fishing.”
Politics in the Zeros makes the observation that “it’s getting sooo hard to tell the crime lords from the CEOs.”
And it’s one, two, three
What are we fighting for
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn
Next stop: Afghanistan
A Bob Morris Variation of an old MacDonald favorite.
http://xkcd.com/154/
Speaking of the credo, “Greed is good,” Global Heating is good for you.
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