News
The Case For a B.P. Boycott
Johnny Sanford :: Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 6:30 pm
The pink shrimp in the room is covered in oil. More specifically, British Petroleum. It was April 20th, 2010, (37 Days ago) that the explosion on a B.P.-Leased oil rig exploded, killing eleven workers in the Gulf of Mexico. Initial reports of the incident focused mainly on the search and rescue operation, and briefly mentioned that there was a shit-ton of oil pluming into the Gulf’s pristine waters.
Gradually, the news reports shifted to the serious ecological impact such a spill would have. For the most part, the White House reaction was reduced to a soundbyte about supporting BP with the cleanup. BP’s reaction was decidedly somber, yet calm. In an interview with The Guardian UK on May 14th, BP chief executive Tony Hayward said that the “oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is “relatively tiny” compared with the “very big ocean”. (Guardian UK) Like the ego of a child ousted to the edge of the playground, BP’s exec Hayward even went as far to say that BP is “big and important” in an interview on 5/25. (Huffington Post)
Each subsequent interview that BP’s PR team roll out has less and less effect at quelling the rising anger against the company. While BP initially dismissed the scientists that estimated analyzed the plumes of gas and oil coming out of the leaking well being anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 barrels a day, The Rolling Stone released an article entitled “BP’s Bogus Math” on May 18th that begins “…BP and the Coast Guard’s estimate of the volume of oil leaking into the Gulf — 5,000 barrels per day — is a joke,” and goes on to say that “with epic dishonesty, BP continues to frame the impact of its latest effort in the context of the old, bogus, leak estimate.” (Rolling Stone)
The recovery effort has been so slow that the White House has finally warned BP to either speed up, or get the hell out of the way.(Raw Story)
Even Republican Bobby Jindal, a staunch supporter of offshore drilling, as noted by the below video, said that the White House response has been light.
On another strange sidenote, the infamous Halliburton was contracted for work on the rig, as report by The Huffinton Post. According to a Halliburton Press Release obtained by THP:
“Halliburton performed a variety of services on the rig, including cementing, and had four employees stationed on the rig at the time of the accident…Halliburton had completed the cementing of the final production casing string in accordance with the well design approximately 20 hours prior to the incident.” (Huffington Post)
The blowout preventer, which presumably would have stopped the oil leak, is reported to “have had a dead battery, along with other flaws.” According to The Washington Post, “A House energy panel investigation has found that the blowout preventer that failed to stop a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a “useless” test version of a key component and a cutting tool that wasn’t strong enough to shear through steel joints in the well pipe and stop the flow of oil.”
It’s almost too much to believe. Clearly the blame falls hard on British Petroleum, according to Democracy Now. “In a briefing to lawmakers, BP said it may have made a “fundamental mistake” in its work on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the hours before the explosion.” (Democracy Now)
I have created a Boycott against B.P. And it’s corporate ties. The boycott doesn’t require much from citizens, just a quick decision every time to have a choice to use a BP gas station or the one next to it. As a company that made a profit of $10 Billion dollars in the first three months of 2010 alone, they have more than enough capital to see this cleanup happen quickly and easily without our continued support at the gas pump. The terms of this boycott also includes the following products/services: Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, and Wild Bean Cafe.
Einstein once said, “Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men of our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence for fighting for our cause, but by non-participation of anything you believe is evil.”
To join my Facebook boycott of BP and it’s products/services, click here.
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