Josh Rushing did a great piece on the Gulf and called it the disaster that ideology built. CG
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Have to retract that. It was Avi Lewis. The piece is here:
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/2010/06/201061682426990347.html
Even so Rushing is an interesting guy. He was a US Marine, stationed in Iraq, in CENTCOM HQ. He was working with media, around the military command, and Bush era officials. He saw first hand the political and military manipulation of the realities of the war---right in the belly of the beast. He tried to get Aljazeera access which was stalled, denied, or demonized, etc.
What the above link shows is the same system of news manipulation. This time it is the oil gusher. But the same system is in place. There is a central command, HQ in BP offices where US government and military officials work to put out access to this disaster. They keep non-government scientists, engineers, and of course journalists out of the ocean areas where most of the oil is. This is done to manage the information on just how large this disaster is. They have effectively embedded the news to blind the story. You either walk on the shore, or you get a Coast Guard fly over. They probably have a restricted air space regulation set up, or the news media just doesn't bother with expense of conducting their own flights. Here is a NOAA map:
http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/book_shelf/2183_SOFM24-2010-06-13-1900.pdf
Here is a ocean current map:
http://www.mskaykim.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ocean-current-7b.jpg
The real threat is some large section of the oil reaches the Florida Straits and gets pulled into the Atlantic Gulf Stream.
If people haven't seen the 60-minutes story, it is definitely worth watching:
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978242011
This guy explains this was not an `accident'. And we have to remember the whole system of oil industry development gets superficial inspections, and citations---like parking tickets. So obviously regulatory agencies are completely worthless window dressing. All this executive branch and congressional noise is ridiculous hypocrisy.
See? The Gulf is a perfect metaphor for all the disasters of economy, war, and the degredation of life in the US. The disasters that neoliberalism built.
Sorry, sometimes I snap in total frustration. Nobody seems to write about the larger view. We must be getting disaster overload, like sensory overload, we've gone numb.
CG
