For OpEdNews: Brent Budowsky - Writer
Get ready for the BP bailout debate. As the most hated company in America led by the most despised CEO in business continues its systematic deceptions about the magnitude of the catastrophe, its systematic secrecy and threats of reprisal against employees who speak the truth in public and its systematic blockade against reporters seeking the basic facts, get ready for the mother of all political debates.
When the full damage of the oil is calculated, and the full payment of restitution is required and the full consequences of lawsuits are understood and the monetary consequences of such enormous personal and economic misery are realized, BP will tell us that we face the choice of BP going bankrupt and being unable to pay its debts or receiving a government bailout so it can meet its obligations from the damage it has done.
We will be told that BP is too big to fail.
Prediction: Before the rooster crows another 60 times, BP will be seeking a government bailout. If you thought the Wall Street bailout debate was nasty, wait until you see the BP bailout debate.
There should be NO bailout of BP paid for by ANY taxpayer, period, end of discussion, over and out. If necessary there should be a fund paid for by all of the oil companies doing offshore drilling, as the price of their doing business off our shores and as the incentive to make sure this does not happen again.
The economic damage and the political fallout have only begun. If the pictures of oil spewing from pipes are unsavory, and the pictures of angry citizens and dead pelicans are unsavory, watch what happens when we begin weeks of television news of the D-Day invasion of poison oil landing on the beaches of the American Normandy.
It would serve Washington right if the rivers of poison meet the loop current and the Gulf Stream and end up in the river of the Potomac so official Washington can see, taste and smell what has only begun for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Let us hope this does not happen, though it very well could.
Today, the president should demand, and BP should disclose, every video stream and internal memo that reveals the truth, whatever it is, about the size of the ocean of poison.
Today, the president should demand, and BP should disclose, the exact amount of chemical dispersants that are polluting our land, water and people.
Today, the president should demand, and BP should agree, that all restrictions against media be ended and all reprisals against media should be stopped, and if rights are being violated, those responsible should be prosecuted.
The sooner the truth comes out, the safer our people will be.
Today, the president should demand, and BP should disclose, the exact and complete chemical composition of the dispersants so Americans do not wake up on some future morning with news about deformed babies or cancerous disease.
Mark my words: The abuse of dispersants, the composition of which are being kept secret, in amounts that are probably infinitely larger than what is being disclosed, create the potential for a grave, extreme and mortal health catastrophe whose pain and cost are not even remotely understood today.
What does it tell us that these secrets are being kept from the people even today? It tells us that the damage is far more than realized, and that the cost is far greater than understood, and that the BP bailout is far more likely than realized.
With BP delaying so much payment to so many people already, heaven help the victims when the payments due mount from the millions that are currently unpaid today, to the billions of dollars that will be due tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
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