A modest proposal for BP

SOMETHING QUITE surreal keeps happening. I stop thinking about the Gulf oil spill. And then I start again. And then I realize that in those last two or four or nine-and-a-half hours when I wasn't thinking about it, oil was flowing. And now that I'm thinking about it again, oil is still flowing. And this keeps happening. Every day. Week after week. Month after month. And it's still flowing.

And BP is concerned. At least, they're saying they're concerned. "Let me reassure you," wrote BP press officer, Robert Wine, in response to an online petition I never signed, "that we in BP are extremely concerned about the spill and pouring every possible resource we can into the efforts."

Well, it's a good thing they're extremely concerned because I'm extremely disgusted and extremely scared.

As individuals, when we make poor choices, when we misappropriate priorities and funds that result in disasters and deaths, we go to jail. For corporations, however, when poor choices are made, when priorities and funds are misappropriated, resulting in disasters and deaths, as long as it's done in the name of profit, CEOs and shareholders cash in stock and attend yacht races. And it's still flowing.

"We have engaged local communities to support those efforts," the letter continued, "and we are following all the requirements of law to verify that persons hired are lawfully present to work in the U.S." So in the face of a colossal environmental nightmare, one of BP's top priorities is that they don't ruffle the feathers of the Minutemen or Jan Brewer.

Well, that's just colossal genius. Especially considering people who are from, let's say, south of the Rio Grande have a legitimate and understandable interest in helping with any and all efforts given that their job security through the tourism industry and their food security are on the brink of extinction thanks to this colossal environmental nightmare spewing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Not the "Gulf of America" or the "Gulf of Britain" or even the "Gulf of Texas," a state which, like all of the southwestern U.S., was part of Mexico until imperialist-driven members of the U.S. military and government spun a web of lies to justify an invasion. (For those who have had a pulse in the last decade, this scenario may sound familiar.)

But the "lawfully present" priority of BP begs the question: What about the sea creatures? How is BP verifying that the sea turtles and the brown pelicans and the dolphins and the sharks and the crabs and the schools of fish that are now crowding American shorelines are lawfully able to receive treatment in the U.S.? Who gets the job of profiling them? Who's asking for those documents? Who listens to those accents to decide which ones sound just a bit too un-American?

Because, by all accounts, it appears that we've got single-payer health care in action for those creatures. (Which is more than we can say for what we've got in action for people.) Regardless of what patch of land or ripple of water those creatures turn to as a nesting ground, if they haven't already sunk to the bottom of the Gulf or Minutemen haven't shot them, they're receiving medical attention. It's quite the testament to humankind. Look at that, we can be both.

And after all of the "single-payer now" petitions, rallies, cross-country caravans, requests to speak to President Obama, rejections from President Obama, town hall meetings, Congressional hearings and arrests at Congressional hearings, who would have thought that all we needed to bring single-payer health care to America was the most devastating man-made environmental disaster ever. And it's still flowing.

SO THE twisted and toxic logic of capitalism strikes again. In the event of a worst-case scenario, BP could have poured every possible resource into having a back-up Plan G or T or Z. At this point, I'd take a functional Plan B.

But instead of pouring resources into those preventative efforts, BP did what corporations are legally bound to do: they increased their profit margin. Just six weeks prior to the April 20 explosion in the Gulf, the obedient sheep who inhabit the mainstream media pastures applauded BP for an "aggressive cost-cutting drive" that allowed the company to top rival Shell as the largest oil company in Europe.

Aggressive cost-cutting drive? I wonder what departments had their funding cut? Because I know one department that didn't: the penthouse-suite department actually received an increase. The CEO of BP had apparently been living in scarcity over the years with a $4.2 million annual salary. But then, he showed his cost-cutting aggressiveness, which somehow meant that he deserved what was called a "fair and balanced" increase to $5.9 million per year.

A 40 percent increase? What's your original demand when you enter contract negotiations if what you walk away with is a 40 percent increase during an economic collapse? Do you go in demanding 75 percent, and then show you're a good sport willing to take one for the team as you walk away with a measly 40 percent?

Teachers should give that a go in their next round of contract negotiations. As it stands right now, they're labeled as selfish when asking for even single-digit increases. So if they announced that they were willing to take one for the team at 40 percent then maybe they could also be the recipients of a "fair and balanced" increase. And it's still flowing.

So what can be done? Some people are trimming their hair and sending it to the Gulf to be bagged and set afloat. Some people--famous people--are hosting telethons. And not-so-famous people are calling up and donating their dollars. And some people are getting their hands in the muck and wiping down feathers and setting creatures free.

And still other people are selling carcinogenic chemicals to sink the oil, while others are selling contraptions to spin the oil out of the water. Because, surely, we need to do something.

Agreed. But let us start by acknowledging that while trimming and donating and wiping and sinking and spinning may help us feel like we're doing something to help, those actions will do absolutely nothing to get at the root cause of this oil spill and prevent future disasters. We cannot buy our way out of this nightmare. No more so than someone could buy their way out of an abusive relationship with make-up to cover the bruises and aspirin to take away the pain.

What more devastating environmental disaster needs to occur for us to admit that a society based on profit cannot support the very life systems that we and all creatures depend upon for existence? It really can't. No matter whom we vote into office. No matter how many lyrical and lovely speeches they give. No matter how many actions they promise to take. No matter how many actions they end up not taking.

It can't because the point of a society based on profit means that when profit comes into conflict with social needs, profit wins. And profit won in the gulf, and the gulf will never recover. Not in our lifetimes. And if profit continues winning, not in anyone's lifetime.

WHAT IF those 11 BP workers who didn't get to go home to their families would have actually had a say in the priorities of the company? Would they have supported offshore drilling in the first place, especially considering no viable remedies existed in the event of a worst-case scenario? What if they and their fellow employees on the rigs, in the refineries and in the offices had voted on how much one hour of labor was worth?

One penthouse-suite employee was taking home $3,072.92 per hour while other employees on the rigs, in the refineries and in the offices were taking home kibbles 'n bits, by comparison. If an aggressive cost-cutting drive would have been deemed necessary by the workers, would they have voted to postpone needed maintenance on what internal company e-mails labeled the "nightmare well" in the Gulf? Or would they have voted to cut costs by reconciling the obscene gap in wages?

Why do we continue insisting that democracy is a wonderful way to live, yet we don't extend it to our daily lives? Our workplaces? Our banks? Our universities? Our neighborhoods? Right now, we're living in a world where people making $3,072.92 per hour are calling the shots and buying off the very people we elect and the federal agencies they oversee.

We need look no further than the fact that in the weeks following the explosion in the Gulf, the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that regulates drilling, which has since been split into three different agencies with three new names, continued issuing exemptions to corporations that make their profits in oil and gas. This meant that those corporations were not required to pay for or submit in-depth environmental studies of exploration and production projects before drilling in the gulf. The federal government continued this well-entrenched and disastrous practice even after the April 20 explosion.

Then let us continue our clean-up effort by acknowledging that whatever it is that needs to be done cannot be done for us. No promise can be made, no law can be passed, no temporary ban can be implemented, no CEO can be sacked, no agency can be restructured, no agency can be renamed, no politician can be voted in, no politician can be voted out that will mean things are finally "fixed."

Because no one making $3,072.92 per hour wants the system to be fixed. The only things that get fixed in a system based on profit are those things that are profitable for the corporations. And if politicians need anything to win a political campaign, what they need most of all is for their corporate sponsors to maintain profitability.

So if the system cannot be fixed for us, then that means fixing the system is up to us. What if the employees at BP or Shell or Exxon were to decide it was time that the workers ran the company based on social needs. One worker, one vote. Offshore drilling--worth the risk? An hour of labor--what's it worth? Hours in a work week--what's fair? Oil--what are alternatives?

Now, of course, the penthouse-suite employees will have none of this. So they fire the workers. But the human resources manager rather enjoys workplace democracy and refuses to enact the terminations. And the payroll manager realizes that real democracy includes economic democracy and continues issuing paychecks.

The penthouse-suite employees go to the bank to put a stop to this democracy madness. But the bank employees received a call from the oil company's payroll manager, and now the bank is trying out this democracy thing, too. The bank employees vote to refuse any request by the penthouse-suite employees to withdraw or freeze funds.

The penthouse-suite employees go to the police station. But the police officers have accounts at the same bank, so they heard the news. The police officers vote to stand in solidarity with the workers. No tear gas or cracked skulls on their watch.

So the penthouse-suite employees call up the president. But the phone line's been disconnected. So they try the Pentagon, the Marines, the National Guard. But the soldiers heard from their families and friends that democracy's rising, so they took a vote. They're refusing to shoot down democracy at home. And given that the U.S. military is the largest consumer of oil on the planet, they took another vote. They're refusing to shoot down democracy abroad, too.

So the penthouse-suite employees call their friend at Fox News. But movements spread fast these days, and the office workers and camera operators told Glenn Beck to take his $666,666.66 weekly pay as a writer and broadcaster and kiss it goodbye. ($666,666.66! I'm not making this up. $32 million is his approximate annual salary, divided by 12 months, divided by 4 weeks...equals $666,666.66. And guess what? If a=100, b=101, etc., adding up the letters in Hitler totals 666. If we worked for Fox News, this would be all the proof we'd need that Glenn Beck is, indeed, Hitler.)

Now maybe you're thinking that a society run by workers to meet social needs is inconceivable. Inconceivable?

"BP calls blowout 'inconceivable'..."

"BP says Gulf oil spill 'seemed inconceivable'..."

"BP calls disaster 'inconceivable'..."

You mean, like that kind of inconceivable?

And it's still flowing.
Nicole Bowmer, Portland, Ore.