Drill Baby Then Spill Baby

Why do Americans have to learn the hard way? Sometimes it seems we have no memory of the past - whether it's last week or last year or last century. Same old same old SAME OLD!!

This disasterous oil spill in the Gulf is threatening an array of food fish species, a quarter of U.S. crustacean beds, delicate eco systems and tourism not just for a few weeks or months but maybe forever. The oil spilled by the Exxon Valdiz is STILL evident on the coast of job quitter Sarah Palin's state even decades after the fact. (Funny that she couldn't name a single significant Supreme Court decision besides Roe V Wade ... how about Exxon Valdiz? But we digress.)

Didn't the collective we or the powers that be we or the scientific we learn anything from that debacle? Apparently not. Because when BP representatives and engineers and administrators continually and continuously assured us that they could handle any kind of oil emergency out there in the vast open sea thousands of feet beneath the mighty ocean's surface with treacherous currents and piles of debris and the oil spewing like a volcanic geyser and heaven knows what ELSE ... we believed them.

It appears BP wasn't even using the latest leak prevention/diversion/detection technology on its rig - because it is expensive and because U.S. law didn't require it. WHY DIDN'T OUR LAW REQUIRE IT? BRAZIL REGULATIONS REQUIRE state-of-the-art protection for all its off-shore drilling. Are their beaches more precious than ours? Are their fisheries and their tourism meccas more deserving of protection than our own?

Hey fellow too naive-to-be-believed citizens!! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE PATTERN!!! We deregulate the Savings and Loans and the Savings and Loans crash. We deregulate banks and insurance companies and the sky falls down on our little heads. How about the airlines or ATT? Our sad sap legacy of believing that the rich and powerful will inevitably do the right thing and promote a common good instead of an uncommon greed ... has proved to be wronger than wrong. AGAIN!