What if what's best for America isn't what's best for you?

[vannamocha]

I’ve been having interesting conversations with people re: our political condition lately. I’m disappointed at how self-centered many of our political solutions are. Have we become so psychologically individualized that we can no longer act for the greater good? If it’s an inconvenience to BP to be more regulated, but in the greater good, shouldn’t they happily accede out of their love of country? Is winning more important than being happy (and yes I know they’re not mutually exclusive)? Is profit more important than accountability? I just keep wanting to ask the subject of this posting to every business person, every teacher, every police officer, every politician, everybody. What say ye, my fellow WSites?

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[dawsonct]

Though I agree with your post, I would like to point out that BP DOES love their country. BRITIAN doesn’t require BOP’s and redundant safety devices on their North Sea rigs, but BP uses them anyway, as they know how devastating a blow-out would be for the UK.

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The U.S., on the other hand, has had politicians who are happy to have us treated as third-world country, as long as they and their benefactors continue to get obscenely wealthy, so they worked very hard passing legislation to allow industries to “self-regulate” and installing industry stooges into regulatory positions (“they know how the stuff works!”). We are to BP what Nigeria is to Shell: a petroleum soaked dumping ground with easily manipulated governments.

Who could have POSSIBLY seen that their inherent greed would lead to this!?

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[cjboffoli]

Every time there is a huge environmental disaster the knee jerk reaction is to vilify the nameless faceless corporation that had the accident. That’s a huge cop out. The truth is that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US who drives a car, uses petroleum derived chemicals or uses anything made of plastic is complicit in these disasters. Our endless demand for petroleum products is the motivation for the need to take it out of the ground. Sometimes the price is environmental disaster. More often it means sending vast amounts of money to hostile nations that contribute little to the world culture except for light sweet crude and fundamentalist extremism. Personally, I think you’re missing the point if you expend any amount of time debating the level to which Exxon or BP (or whoever the next one will be) is responsible. If you want to know who is really responsible take a look in the mirror.

I have a car in the driveway and a house full of plastics. I make decisions every day that makes me absolutely to blame for the fact that there is oil spoiling the Gulf of Mexico tonight.

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[JoB]

cj..

the fisherman in the gulf coast will pay a disproportionate part of the cost for this oil spill.. so will the gulf tourist industry… not to mention the Florida Keys and at least part of the Atlantic coast since the spill has likely entered the loop leading to the gulf stream..

there are irreplaceable coral beds off the keys that are in harms way.. not to mention wildlife and tourism and fishing and …

When you create an environmental hazard in the process of making money .. it is your responsibility to clean it up.. and if not to compensate those whose livelihood you destroyed by not doing so.

It is their responsibility.. not that of the American public… but you might ask the fisherman in Alaska how well that has worked out for them even though they won in court.

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[The Velvet Bulldog]

BP–just like Exxon or any other petroleum company–(or heck, even our local utilities) is responding to consumer demand. We are in an era where we need to decide whether, as vannamocha said, we act for the greater good. When we demand less oil, fewer petroleum products and we turn down our thermostats, there will be less economic incentive for companies to engage in practices that destroy ecosystems, displace families and eliminate species. Until we send a message with our actions and/or our dollars, there’s no incentive for any company to do anything differently.

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[JoB]

the Velvet bulldog..

although i agree completely when it comes to personal petroleum demand creating increased drilling… decreasing demand won’t minimize risk as oil companies struggle to maintain the same profit margins… in fact. it may just increase the risk as they work even harder to cut costs.

this spill is the result of preventable mechanical failure that wasn’t deemed to be of a high enough cost/risk ratio to halt production while it was fixed… nor was it considered a high enough cost/risk ratio to contain immediately.

those choices had little to do with demand.

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[waterworld]

CJBoffoli: Much of the “vast amounts of money” you say we are sending “to hostile nations that contribute little to the world culture except for light sweet crude and fundamentalist extremism” is in fact going to the top four nations from which we import oil — Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria. And even if the lion’s share of the money was going to Arab nations, I’m not sure it would warrant racist accusations about their contributions to culture.

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[Carson]

Just reading the Topic Headline is enough “What if what’s best for America isn’t what’s best for you?”

We are one of the most selfish nations on earth. Look at the fight to provide healthcare to our own people!!! When we couldn’t get enough cheap gas to fill our SUV’s we tried to turn food into gas. We could fill an large book with examples and our willingness to pollute is just one of many.

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[vannamocha]

OK… how did this become a dialog about petrol and BP. That’s not what I intended. What I want to know is whatever happened to demos… the people. We are becoming more a country and less a nation, and I’m trying to understand why. What if what’s good for individual (or collective) teachers isn’t what’s good for the nation? What if what’s good for wall street isn’t what’s good for home ownership and the long-term stability of communities? What if what’s to my personal advantage isn’t what’s good for the long-term good of my community, state or the nation? What’s happened to that calculation? That’s all I’m asking.

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[JoB]

vannamocha

“What if what’s good for individual (or collective) teachers isn’t what’s good for the nation? What if what’s good for wall street isn’t what’s good for home ownership and the long-term stability of communities? What if what’s to my personal advantage isn’t what’s good for the long-term good of my community, state or the nation?”

this is exactly the question we need to be asking as individuals because our politicians spend their days listening to those who honestly believe that if it is good for big business short term.. it is good for America. Most of our economic indicators measure only the impact of the economy on big business.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this isn’t working for most individuals in America… not unless you are in that top 5%…

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