The Sovereign State of BP - Down for the Count?

The Sovereign State of BP - Down for the Count?



Michael Collins

British Petroleum has operated as though it were a sovereign state since its inception. When they blew the well at their Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, it never occurred to them that they would have to take orders from anybody. But that may change largely due to their inability to stop the flow of oil after nearly sixty days of gushing.

President Obama was clear in his speech last night. If any entity is going down as a result of the catastrophe, it will be BP. Today, Obama meets with BP's Chairman of the Board, Carl-Henric Svanberg, and the man he told the chairman to fire, Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward.

Two sovereign states will collide. The outcome is a foregone conclusion.

http://www.apj.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3005&Itemid=2

over estimating the power of the US Government. . .

I see this as a "must win" for the president. No more diddling. Basically, the people will
demand something tangible. Could be wrong but what the heck... It's politics in the age of
decline.

:hi:

Gibson wrote prophecy, not fiction. (Neuromancer and the rest of them for those who miss the reference)

You are an astute political observer, that makes good sense, but....so far we have seen no tangible goods delivered to the people from this administration, which even surprised me. Now it may be that desperation might break that pattern, but it would surely freak the Chamber of Commerce as the worst sort of blasphemy, that is a political consequence too. And we know who holds the whip hand...

That guy in your graphic has the whip, imho. This is an improvement over the bialouts since we're not paying the perpetrator. That's all due to public pressure. There's a bad leak in the Gulf but a huge volcano about to go off right here. Just look at that SC primary. Amazing stuff but not surprising considering the neglect of working people, productive enterprises and too damn many "friendsters" running things.

it merged with an american firm.

theirs, to try to hide their human rights and safety records. But the victims of their abuse, or family members of those murdered on their behalf in places like Colombia, a change of name won't change their history.

The OP is correct regarding BP, and the rest of the Global Oil Corps operating like a 'sovereign state'. They didn't even need a military, they were given the services of other countries' military and law enforcement agencies. So yes, they probably are in shock at anyone having the gall to make demands of them. They are used to governments oppressing their own people on their behalf.

referring to it as British petroleum. Its an attempt (not by the original poster) to nationalise the issue when you quite rightly point out it is a problem of global corporations and global capitalism.

Its strange how what the poster originally pointed out is precisely what is at work here....that being Halliburton have got off completely free, when they did the fucking drilling. I think this is for exactly the same reasons as implied in the OP

BP are culpable but so are two american firms...i think your correct focus on global oil corps, rather than global oil corps of a certain nationality is by far the best approach.

The US government and vested interests elsewhere are ensuring this is a BP....or rather 'British' petroleum problem and are covering US soveriegn corporations.

(btw i don;t think the name change was done for the same reasons as Blackwater, it was always referred to as BP prior to the name change and had the same coloured logo, it has just officially 'become' BP....but i digress ;)

I posted information on Halliburton's culpability earlier today as they seem to have been forgotten completely and their PR people have even convinced some here that they really weren't to blame at all.

Thanks for your input, I will remember to emphasize the Global aspects of these Corps :-)

law of capitalism.. ie.stoke nationalism

Capitalists have always used nationalism to shield themselves!

Good luck! ;)

quasi-geopolitical metaphor is a knock-out. Very cutting. Two sovereign states....; one somewhat bigger than the other and tiring of diplomacy.

But still big enough to shove BP around. The unfortunate thing is the use of British pensioners by some who claim that this is a US attack on GB. That's a classic divide and conquer technique aimed at dividing people of the same class by nationality, thus impeding international alliances.

So you like the flag?;)

in relation to predatory corporations and their right-wing, political puppets are always a welcome sight.

Loved Hayward's line about wanting to ensure "the long-term integrity" of the gizmeter. Reminds me a bit of my late brother and myself, when we were young children. My brother would tell my mother that when he grew up, he'd buy her a saucepan and a broom - prosaic, domestic stuff. On the other hand, though, as an adult, I have a sort of romance by-pass, I swore I'd buy her fur coats and diamonds. Guess who came closest to being able to give her even the more prosaic array of gifts.

You inspired the flag with your enthusiasm about the motto;)

Answer: YOU?

meanwhile the oil still gushes...stopping that would be Obama's best chance at salvation (and ours)...but scape goats are always good, especially when they are truly culpable...

Stopping it would be wonderful!!! I'm betting on some innovation out nowhere that blows people away. And, yes, isn't it nice when the scapegoat is the perpetrator;)

Even reading your whole article didn't let me figure it out.

Wasn't it on account of BP that we (THE USA) helped push the democratically elected President out of Iran in 1953?

And didn't Obama let BP sit around holding meetings for weeks and weeks while the oil gushed?

Even some film footage on Anderson Cooper I saw only 72 hours ago, it took the reporter inside the BP headquarters, where the scientists and workers were sitting there. One of them said basically, "We simply cannot go out there and clean the oil as it arrives. First we have to take samples, then we have to figure out how those samples ar edifferent from samples taken elsewhere and each region has its own needs, so the cleanup efforts will be different everywhere." (This means that reports will be written, committees must review reports, then the executives overseeing these things must evaluate - with any real luck by August of Two Thousand and Eighteen we might see one little bucket of sand being cleaned.)

Meanwhile everyone else connected with the oil industry (and also Rachel Maddow, who spent so much time talking some real oil cleanup professionals) knows that you DO INDEED just friggin' clean up the oil as it arrives. AND MORE imporantly, you use your boom and use it professionally and you don't have to worry about cleaning - the oil never gets to the shores or the marshes (See the tunyurl video in the sig line; simply one of the best videos on the matter yet.)

It all is a stalling technique. For whatever reason, the Gulf seems to be deliberately sabotaged.

Since Obama is already well behind the ball on destroying the food supply, I see no reason whatso ever to believe that he isn't helping BP with what BP ultimately wants.

And now apparently there is this "agreement" that BP will pay 20 Billion a year, but is it a signed agreement? And if BP just decides to sell out to someone else, after Enron-ing whatever parts of its inner workings that it wants to keep for its major holders, then what?

Obama may well convince BP to pay the first year's isntallment - so the 2010 elections are not total Dem disasters, but after that, then what?

Whenever I hear the figure, Twenty Billion, I get concerned, because it is Obama's figure for a "quick fix." (Shows you what inflation has done among the political class - back in Clinton's day, a mere seventeen years ago, one billion was the trigger word.)

So BP will be paying twenty billion, annually, as part of the "repair of the Gulf."

And of course the details are not worked out. But BP is adamant that it will pay for only "legitimate" situations, which probably indicates how hard BP will fight to avoid payouts to middle class fishermen and women whose livelihoods have been destroyed. I foresee their claims being denied. (BP as of this week, is still telling people out there working to clean up the spill that they are not sick from the oil but from food posioning!)

So let's say that this twenty billion ends up being used to "repair the environment." According to Rachel, Obama is standing behind the idea of "sand berm islands." Four hundred miles of sand berms that are each six miles across. Unfortunately every single expert that Rachel Maddow has talked to about these berms says they are a pointless exercise. (I come from Indiana dunes country, originally, and the thing about sand is, it is here one minute and gone the next.) So let's say that the first ten billion bucks goes to building sand berms? What can we expect?

Well, probably we will see good ol' Hallibruton in charge of the berms. And it may take six months to a year to get these sand berm islands installed. The first time that the coasts in the Gulf get hit with a hurricane, the berm islands will be gone. That is just the nature of sand berm islands. (But hey, it will be a win-win for Haliburton or who ever gets the contract to build the berms. And if it is Halliburton, they probably will only build ONE six mile berm for the first ten billion bucks - they charge our government over 1,000 bucks to wash ten loads of the GI's wash over in Iraq. That's right - one hundred bucks for every soldier's single load of dirty clothing. Soldiers who complain and wash their own clothes to save us tax payers can be punished and given KP duty.)

And even if through some miracle, the sand berm islands remain intact, according to the experts Maddow has discussed this with, the berms are not any good at holding any spilled oil away from the marshes or the coasts. They have to be on the small side so that the currents still interplay from the Delta to the Gulf and back again. Otherwise the currents are knocked out of their usual progression and the nutritional chain is lost.

So it is a totally porous method of dealing with an oily matter that demands a much more effective solution.

the soldiers and laundry in Iraq...maybe in a documentary I saw.

Again, you raise excellent points!

The CIA and the British folks. What a colossal blunder, epic fail.

Your comments on the deeper story are very interesting. There may be something so wrong they can't figure it out. The lack of transparency is deadly for all involved in the fix and the oil industry in general. The failure here screws everybody in big oil so they have to be concerned in a big way. But we don't see the industry task force. We don't see the best geologists in the world commenting, particularly from USGS. The lock down provokes all sorts of theories.

Wait until you hear about Nigeria, soon... right here.

Remember the old cartographers' comment - "After this point of sea, there may be dragons..."

Well, we may be seeing such remarks relating to the moment before the BP rig blew and after - "After this point in time, there may be World Wide Catastrophe."

Addendum One: Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class John Walker, USCG.
found at URL:
http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_itemId=907355

Addendum Two:
(Sender's comment)
insider sources in BP and in U.S. Government say that there is a Gas Bubble 15-20 Miles across 10+ feet high near BP's oil well head in Gulf of Mexico. 1OO,OOO PSI. SUPER SONIC EXPLOSION READY TO BLOW!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMEr4FctWAM

Thanks

I hope things are well for you. You are great journalist, and I really appreciate your talent and dedication. The fight in you is inspiring.

BD12