Those who prioritize the environment more than money don't make it to executive row

It should be obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn't. Watching the three stooges testifying last week before Congress about the oil spill, I thought there was nothing surprising in their statements -- they were careful with their words, walking a line between minimizing liability while managing perceptions, appearing serious but not grave, neither respectful nor contemptuous.. etc.., etc. Cut from the same bolt of cloth. This demeanor is a symptom of the intense focus and willingness to do what it takes to get to the top seat in these huge corporations. You don't get to be chairman of BP or Transocean or Halliburton without being intensely focused on money and on what's in the short term financial best interest of your company -- not to mention protecting your own self. You get the job by doing whatever it takes to maximize profits.

Drill faster, baby.

So for some reason, I've heard people praising the benefits of nuclear power in the aftermath of this oil disaster. "That's why I've always been in favor of nuclear power", they say. WHAT??!! NOOOOOOOOOOO! Wake up. The SAME mindset that ends up running the oil companies with such disastrous results will ALSO end up running the nuclear power companies. Who's going to run them?? The ones who prioritize MONEY over the ENVIRONMENT, that's who. And eventually, we will be sitting here next to an American Chernobyl, watching executives speak in careful language before Congress about whose fault it was that the shutoff valve wasn't operating properly, or that the containment walls were too thin, or that safety checks weren't carried out.

The tired old meme about private industry being so superior never owns up to the fact that private industry self-selects for leaders who want private profit, public risk, externalized costs, and zero responsbility for anything but the bottom line.

BP thinks this will add up to a 'very, very minor impact'..in BP's world, only the fish and crabs that would have been dead anyway (in the hands of fisherman) count...the ones who would have been alive and well before the oil disaster -- and are now just rubble on the ocean floor -- don't count because they didn't have a dollar sign attached.

"environment." The health and survival of all living things depends upon the health of the environment. There has been a successfull effort to separate that fact. Environmental health literature is kept separate and apart from medical literature so that it must go through many hoops (propelled by cost and political pressure) to be considered for public policy.

If people - average citizens - familiarized themselves with the information, they would be more inclined to push for better environmental (human survival) protections.

by money that the facts are buried in an avalanche of falsehood.

do a much better job. Environmental Health Perspectives published by NIH is good and they do publish research done out of this country. I think ours is too corrupt - it is bought and paid for.

I think countries that have universal healthcare look at illness as a drain on the economy. The US sees it as a cash cow.

Hmm. Health care: it's the original 'disaster capitalism'.

This disaster needs to be recognized as symptomatic of the warped decision process of unrestrained corporate values.