BP narrowly misses out on UK safety award

Well here's a good one.  BP, the company that has poisoned the gulf of Mexico with catastrophic consequences that we have yet to see, came excruciatingly close to winning a safety award from the lobbying (Bribery) group Oil and Gas UK yesterday.

Though BP didn't quite make first place it was till praised by the bribers for "enthusiasm and commitment to offshore safety" says Reuters.  No doubt the death of 11 workers and pollution of an entire gulf, the consequences of which are impossible to determine until we see the by-product of it, fish we multiple sets of genitals, two heads etc., classifies as enthusiasm for safety as it could have been 100 workers, or worse, it could have been a visiting executive checking keeping an eye on the profits.


 "All our finalists demonstrated the ideas, enthusiasm and commitment required in putting safety first and set an example for all of us working in offshore oil and gas to follow." said Malcolm Webb, CEO of Oil and Gas UK. 


The US presidential investigation into the disaster was forced to publicly criticize BP's safety record and handling of the spill once it became public knowledge that the US government officials had allowed the oil company free reign in the gulf even writing its own safety rules.

None of this matters when those responsible for policies that destroy the natural world as well as people's means of survival not to mention their lives face no consequences.  We are taught not to think of it this way but in the US we have mass murderers not only walking free but making even more money. Rumsfeld just wrote a book, Bush will no doubt open a library, perhaps put three or four books in it, Kissinger is a global consultant for corporations and the modern Robber Barons and responsible for millions of deaths from Chile to South East Asia.

It seems the only mass murderers and terrorists are foreign nationals; they can never be an American except someone like McVeigh whose actions were misguided and wrong but compared to Cheney or Rumsfeld quite mild.  If McVeigh had bombed an Afghani wedding he might have his own talk show today.