I'm basically in the mood to write for a few minutes, so I'm doing just that.
The BP discussion is intriguing to me, and challenging...
I've come to a realization that I don't like very much. Our political system allows for significant bending of the core ideas that founded the nation. On one hand, this is really good. We've got a lot of progress on core civil rights, for example. On the other hand it's bad! We've lost on many civil rights fronts, with an increasingly militarized police force, executive powers, and other ugly things written here regularly.
The right works really hard to bias the system so that they can bend the law their way, often making choices for other people that should otherwise be a matter of personal freedom, and favoring the more substantial people among us, and the corporations they own, over ordinary people and the environment.
We on the left, often claim foul on this, citing what appears to be obvious to us ideas of people over corporations, personal freedom from discrimination, hate, bigotry, the usual list.
There is a lot of angst over BP and this growing mess in the gulf. That I understand completely. The whole thing is a horrible clusterfuck that will impact us for a very, very long time. Those people living near that disaster will likely see the rest of their adult lives changed for the worse, and have to live with that, along with the damage done by Katrina.
We can and should be very angry over that.
There appears to be a lot of surprise too! I've read a lot of BP diaries where the "evil" in their actions, or perhaps just the wrongness of them is explored in gory detail, each with calls to action! Don't buy BP gas, phone it in to your congress person, sign the petition, and any number of other perfectly worthy activities.
I can't escape the growing notion that's all a distraction. Before you go hammering me for that, just give me a few minutes, remembering that I am just jotting down a few thoughts here, largely because I can.
Is there really any genuine surprise over BP working the system to it's best advantage? If there is, we really ought to be thinking hard about that. To me, there isn't. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not defending them at all, just posting up some observations.
Corporate power is at an all time high. The norm in politics, progressives and the likes of Bernie Sanders aside, is they get to do whatever it takes to make the money they need, and in return we get things! We get things like cheap gas, or computers.
BP entered into some contracts with us, and is using the terms of them to it's best advantage, using the courts to it's best advantage, and will spend it's money in Washington to it's best advantage. That's simply how we do things here.
Is that ok with you? It sure isn't ok with me, but what are we really going to do about it, besides all those distractions?
That's the core observation here. We can make our statements, and they are valuable, vital, passionate statements, but really that's all they are, unless we grow the notion that perhaps "freedom on the march" isn't such a good idea.
Another observation is on free markets. When we say that market forces, driven by greed, are some magical force that leads to the common good, we are essentially saying that we can trust corporations to do the right thing. This makes no sense to me at all. It never has!
Why?
Because quite often, doing the right thing actually serving the common good, costs more than not doing that! Corporations want to make money. That's all they want to do, and they will do whatever it takes to make the most money possible as much of the time as possible, and do it as consistently as possible, growing where possible.
Corporations are not moral things!
When it comes to making money, the classic formula is to push cost and risk away from the enterprise. This is known as externalizing costs. Couple that with eliminating any and all competition where possible, and we very quickly get to a scenario where corporations don't actually compete much, where they only have to do the minimum innovation required to make money, and where we the people bear the costs and risk, while they capture the profits.
That is what "free markets" do. Free markets result in fiefdoms, where very large corporations each own a niche, have few meaningful competitors, and sell their products and services for the highest amount the market can bear, profiting from raw exploitation of the people and the environment as much as possible.
More often than not, this is the norm in politics. Most business people understand this, and realize very quickly, that if that really is the norm, then somebody will be out there taking advantage of the opportunity, and it might as well be them!
So, that's a lot of what the last President meant by "freedom". It was never about our freedom. It was all about corporate freedom. We are just another natural resource to be exploited for profit, right along with the environment.
Why do we permit this to continue? How come more Americans are not tired of the ever increasing cost and risk exposure they bear in their lives every day? How come they don't look at the BP mess and understand that to be the product of failed economic ideas?
So, what's the alternative?
Regulation.
It takes more work to produce goods and services in a way that adds a net value gain to society. Producing products in sustainable ways means constant innovation to recover the valuable materials, prevent pollution, pay people an amount that makes sense, and on and on...
Free market ideas don't lead to the greater good. What they lead to is corporate rule, and ordinary people and their environment taking a back seat to the money.
IMHO, this isn't evil, it's just fact.
How can we get more Americans to understand this?
I don't know about you guys, but my personal experience with my peers suggests that most of them buy the bull shit. They see a market rally and feel really good about it, as if that "trickle down" is headed their way, if only a few more solid quarters can be had.
That's the ultimate expression of corporate dominance right there! If they do well, we are doing well, but that's absolutely not the truth at all!
Under our current set of political norms, when they are doing well, we generally are getting screwed very efficiently. I know that's jaded, but it's really hard to justify saying otherwise, given the current state of things.
Regulation.
When ever that word is mentioned, a vast majority of people fear it. They've been taught to fear it through the media, their employer, even the schools they were educated in!! Regulating business gets in the way of THE MONEY, and lord knows, we can't do that!
Why not? Why can't we do that?
Other nations do it! They regulate the shit out of big business, and they tax them too.
They regulate business so that their people get a fair wage more often than not. They tax that business so their people get a good safety net, enjoying lower cost and lower risk lives, so that the money they do make can actually be spent on meaningful things, or to build a business, or simply to retire and enjoy a bit of the scenery before it's all over.
More often than not, here in the USA Corp. that's framed as a crime!! Unfair, socialist, you name it.
Often I see a false choice in play. It's either a "free market", or it's something ugly like pure socialism, or communism, or some other ugly thing. Truth is, there are lots of choices that take from all the ideas, and that our democracy is supposed to lead us to those choices that insure that we the people actually see material value from the efforts of business, not just be exploited by them.
How can we get more Americans to understand the heirachy of things? The law of the land is we the people agree to self-govern for the common good of all, essentially allowing us to better enjoy our freedom. That government permits business to exist and profit, so that we may enjoy the value that comes from innovation, again serving the common good, so that all of us may better enjoy our freedom, with those helping to get that done being rewarded for it.
The way it's framed now is totally different! Business is framed as the benevolent provider of all good things, with government polluting that, getting in the way, hobbling business, with the clear implication that we will be worse off, if they don't get to make the maximum amount of money, while leaving us with the cost and risk to do so.
Want to drive a car? Sit down, shut up, and let BP do it's thing, because oil is hard, oil is necessary, and so on... leaving us to look at the gulf and wonder just whether or not that oil was worth it.
Was it worth it, knowing that most of it won't even be used here, sold on world markets instead? Was it worth it, knowing the damage to the lives, animals, environment, and god knows what else that will ripple through the nation over this mess?
How can we get more Americans to understand external costs and risks?
Had we factored those into our policy years ago, things might have been very different!
The true cost of oil is huge!! It takes a lot of effort to acquire, refine, distribute, etc... What if we actually had taken the potential risk inherent in these off-shore efforts into account, writing THAT into the contract? Would drilling for that oil have been worth it then?
I seriously doubt it would have been. The amount of extra engineering, labor, analysis, and other things required to insure the project won't end up like this means costs many times what BP actually paid to get at that oil.
In the end, drilling offshore makes very little sense! This disaster highlights just why that is, yet we allowed it to happen anyway...
That burden is on us people. At some point, we have to understand that regulation makes sense. We have to understand that if we don't force business to actually innovate solid solutions to problems, profiting from the value they add to society, we will get the kind of business that just does the minimum necessary to profit, leaving us holding the bag.
Look hard at that bag, and know that's the product of the American people duped and divided on wedge issues, voting against their own interests, exploited for the gain of a big corporation, who could care less about the state of the gulf, because they just want to make the money, doing the least possible to earn it.
It's on us.
The way I see it is we either start reconsidering how we govern corporations, returning to a state where we make market rules that encourage real competition, real value added innovation, discourage exploitation, and set our priorities on making business actually serve us
,or
we sit down, shut up, and enjoy the cheap shit, and let the future generations deal with the aftermath.
Regulation.
Regulation just isn't a bad thing! Regulation means making damn sure it costs more to build stuff in some other country, where raw exploitation of it's people and it's environment is ok, than it does to build it here, taking care of our own needs, under our control, keeping things clean, safe, and productive.
Regulation means saying no to putting our nation and it's people at risk so that some foreign company can profit on world markets.
Regulation isn't any more evil than people are saying BP is! How can we get more Americans thinking about their own best interests, instead of big business, who lies to them every single day, teasing them with the "trickle down" idea, wrapped in fear and doubt for their very lives, if they don't let them make that money.
How can we get more Americans to understand that if we don't produce enough goods and services here to balance what we consume, we will be owned by those nations and corporations who do?
How can we get Americans to understand that "freedom" doesn't mean all that much, when we are owned by others?