Gulf coast

[eamarquardt]

A pretty sage cowboy once said: "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for".

Most politicians are out for themselves and special interests, period! They have been bought and paid for! Why do we have remote airports that will never make a profit and every ticket is heavily subisidized by the taxpayers just so a few folks don't have to drive to a larger airport? Why are we paying farmers (read corporations) not to grow crops? Why are welfare recipients able to use cash cards in strip clubs and casinos? Why are most senators multimillionaires? Why have most politicians never had a responsible job in industry? Why do we subsidize irresponsible reproduction? Why are our immigration laws not on par with the other countries of the world and why are the laws we do have not enforced? Why is it that a friend of mine (a very high ranking officer in the USMC) is not able to accept a gift valued at over $20 without writing a check to the US Government but our elected officials are and do so on a grand scale that most of us would find hard to believe if it were all made public? Why aren't all Americans required to participate in the SS system if it is so friggin great? Why won't the members of Congress (both houses) be forced to use the same medical system they have forced on the rest of us?

Government is not evil but there are a lot of evil/selfserving politicians out there. We need to scrutinze their behavior and hold them accountable and they should not be allowed to have one set of rules for themselves and one set of rules for the rest of us!

Gus

[Larwyn]

CD, sometimes I worry for you comrade...

I'm caught in the middle of a crossfire in a war of extremes. You jokingly call me "comrade" but too often, the loudest extremist voices say that are either a "real American," who thinks like they do, or you are a "Socialist."

There's plenty wrong in government, but I just hate to see anti-govment ideology block sound reasoning. In spite of what a minority on the right say, regulations have done a lot of good in America -- I'd say a lot more good than bad.

Anyway, it's certainly fair to criticize our government, but to blame government regulations for an oil spill caused by private companies, who are ultimately responsible for this mess, it just not reasonable or rational.

CD

Nobody is blaming government regulations for causing an oil spill, nobody is excusing someone at BP for the actions leading up to the oil spill. Anybody with any degree of intelligence can see that government regulations have interfered with the efforts of BP and several others to help minimize the impact of the spill.

Somebody who was "in charge" made a stupid decision. Several people who were probably more interested in maintaining their income than their own safety followed along with the "big brass". I doubt seriously that any of us have actually ever heard the name of the person who decided to ignore safety and authorized breaching the regulations.

But you cannot excuse United States Government agencies for their part in standing in the way of clean up/prevention efforts.

[GPW]

Politicians , nothing good about them .... It was the gross de-regulation by the former administration that caused all the problems ... The pursuit of even more profits and "kickbacks "...
Banks ... Real estate (mortgages ), and the oil industry .. all screwed up due to de-reg. You must remember a long time (invested) OIL man did this ... "Shame Shame Shame on you now Dubya' !!!"

[Cliffmeister2000]

I was going to respond, but "politics" is supposed to be a forbidden issue on this forum"

Besides, the blame falls squarely on OUR shoulders for allowing all this crap for the last 100 or so years.

[GPW]

Apologies for speaking of "those that must not be named "... Nevermore !!! Cliff , who knew???

[caseydog]

CD, sometimes I worry for you comrade...

I'm caught in the middle of a crossfire in a war of extremes. You jokingly call me "comrade" but too often, the loudest extremist voices say that are either a "real American," who thinks like they do, or you are a "Socialist."

There's plenty wrong in government, but I just hate to see anti-govment ideology block sound reasoning. In spite of what a minority on the right say, regulations have done a lot of good in America -- I'd say a lot more good than bad.

Anyway, it's certainly fair to criticize our government, but to blame government regulations for an oil spill caused by private companies, who are ultimately responsible for this mess, it just not reasonable or rational.

CD

Nobody is blaming government regulations for causing an oil spill, nobody is excusing someone at BP for the actions leading up to the oil spill. Anybody with any degree of intelligence can see that government regulations have interfered with the efforts of BP and several others to help minimize the impact of the spill.

Somebody who was "in charge" made a stupid decision. Several people who were probably more interested in maintaining their income than their own safety followed along with the "big brass". I doubt seriously that any of us have actually ever heard the name of the person who decided to ignore safety and authorized breaching the regulations.

But you cannot excuse United States Government agencies for their part in standing in the way of clean up/prevention efforts.

Some people ARE blaming government regs for the spill, but as I said, they are a minority, and have a political agenda behind their accusations.

I think that the government and the oil industry BOTH got caught unprepared for this kind of spill. Plans on file were woefully inadequate, as we found out the hard way. The oil industry submitted the plans, and the MMS rubber stamped them. They both blew it.

When the disaster happened, the oil industry was slow to respond, and the government trusted that the oil industry had things under control. I think BP really believed that they had things under control early on, and government went along with that. IMO, that is the REAL reason that decisions like the one to turn down help from the Dutch happened -- not regulations. That decision, and many others, were based on the false belief that the situation was under control.

Once reality sunk in, we saw things happen that should have happened sooner. Any regulations that did get in the way were dealt with.

My main point in earlier posts is that criticisms of specific decisions and actions are valid, but generalizations about government incompetence and the evils of regulations are just not reasonable. It's driven by ideologies.

If anything, I'd say it is politics, not government, that most often gets in the way of solving problems.

CD

[martha24]

I'm no expert on oil cleanup, but from what I've read & heard it seems like some of the different government agencies involved are so focused on their particular domain, the bigger picture of protecting the coasts and cleaning up the oil seems to get lost.

For instance in Alabama some of the booms they had protecting their coasts the Coast guard decided to move some them else where. The Coast Guard gets to decide which states get how many booms.

Fish & Wildlife is involved telling Alabama what kinds of booms they could use, due to sea turtles needing to get to shore. So areas of Alabama ended up with no booms.

Then OSHA determines how many minutes in an hour a worker can work.

I'm not saying these things are automatically bad or good or unnecessary or necessary for that matter, but that the end result is clean up of the oil is harder.

from caseydog

When the disaster happened, the oil industry was slow to respond, and the government trusted that the oil industry had things under control. I think BP really believed that they had things under control early on, and government went along with that. IMO, that is the REAL reason that decisions like the one to turn down help from the Dutch happened -- not regulations. That decision, and many others, were based on the false belief that the situation was under control.

I think this is true in the beginning, but once it get past the 2 week mark or the 1 month mark the federal government has to own responsibility for its own slowness. When it takes 2 months for the Jones act to be temporarily waved, that is a very long time. Plus very quickly on many locals were very vocal as to what was going on and it came across as the federal gov not listening to them.

[madjack]

...all this reminds me(once again) of something my ol' Daddy told me on a regular basis...for every finger of blame you point, there are 3 pointing right back at you...there is plenty of blame to go around...ya know, what I see is the SAME as when Katrina/Ike/Gustav hit the coasts...lotssa of individual gov't bureaucracies each competing against the other to show how important and needed they are and nothing real getting accomplished...I could go on and on but it would just be a rant but I will make a prediction...a year from now, the beaches in Ms/Al/Fl will be cleaned up and back to business as usual, the marshes in La will be remain destroyed and forgotten, Billy Nungesser will still be president of Plaquemines Parish(unless he has a heart attack) and not much else will be fundamentally changed.........................
madjack

[caseydog]

I'm no expert on oil cleanup, but from what I've read & heard it seems like some of the different government agencies involved are so focused on their particular domain, the bigger picture of protecting the coasts and cleaning up the oil seems to get lost.

For instance in Alabama some of the booms they had protecting their coasts the Coast guard decided to move some them else where. The Coast Guard gets to decide which states get how many booms.

Fish & Wildlife is involved telling Alabama what kinds of booms they could use, due to sea turtles needing to get to shore. So areas of Alabama ended up with no booms.

Then OSHA determines how many minutes in an hour a worker can work.

I'm not saying these things are automatically bad or good or unnecessary or necessary for that matter, but that the end result is clean up of the oil is harder.

from caseydog

When the disaster happened, the oil industry was slow to respond, and the government trusted that the oil industry had things under control. I think BP really believed that they had things under control early on, and government went along with that. IMO, that is the REAL reason that decisions like the one to turn down help from the Dutch happened -- not regulations. That decision, and many others, were based on the false belief that the situation was under control.

I think this is true in the beginning, but once it get past the 2 week mark or the 1 month mark the federal government has to own responsibility for its own slowness. When it takes 2 months for the Jones act to be temporarily waved, that is a very long time. Plus very quickly on many locals were very vocal as to what was going on and it came across as the federal gov not listening to them.

I don't know that the Jones act was the primary holdup. Again, I think government and industry were both just slow to realize that those Dutch skimmers were needed.

There were also local business interests and politics involved in holding up those skimmers. Local gulf barge companies wanted the business of cleanup. They didn't want foreign government and industry ships taking that lucrative cleanup money away from them. So, part of the problem with setting aside the Jones act was that costal businesses had an interest in NOT letting the Jones act go away. That's politics pure and simple.

In the end, the Dutch skimmers were fitted to American barges as a compromise.

It's been my observation that things are always more complicated than we are led to believe by our sound-bite news reporting.

CD

[caseydog]

I will make a prediction...a year from now, the beaches in Ms/Al/Fl will be cleaned up and back to business as usual, the marshes in La will be remain destroyed and forgotten...

Yep, I can see that happening. Out of sight, out of mind.

CD

[martha24]

...all this reminds me(once again) of something my ol' Daddy told me on a regular basis...for every finger of blame you point, there are 3 pointing right back at you...there is plenty of blame to go around...ya know, what I see is the SAME as when Katrina/Ike/Gustav hit the coasts...lotssa of individual gov't bureaucracies each competing against the other to show how important and needed they are and nothing real getting accomplished...I could go on and on but it would just be a rant but I will make a prediction...a year from now, the beaches in Ms/Al/Fl will be cleaned up and back to business as usual, the marshes in La will be remain destroyed and forgotten, Billy Nungesser will still be president of Plaquemines Parish(unless he has a heart attack) and not much else will be fundamentally changed.........................
madjack

To me that is the saddest thing not to have protected areas like the marshes that can't be easily cleaned up and can end up being destroyed forever.
From my coast I have no idea of which areas can be destroyed and which areas a year from now will be just fine.
Without local common sense input, there is no real way to know the truth since the media has their own agenda too, no matter which one they are.
Thank you madjack for the input.

[martha24]

It's been my observation that things are always more complicated than we are led to believe by our sound-bite news reporting.
CD

Of this I have no doubt. It is the local gulf coast common sense voices here that have certainly helped me to understand better what is going on.
It is much appreciated.

[martha24]

And, yes, everything is political.
CD

I got to thinking, being that I'm not a local viewing this disaster, my tendency is to mainly think in terms of national politics and its effect.

But truly politics is national, state level and local, all with there own agendas.

When it comes to local politics, the only local politics I understand are my own local ones and how they cause problems here.
My guess is that when reporters come in from an outside area they probably don't fully understand the local politics either and it depends on who gets their ear and what their point of view is as to how they portray it.

One more problem of being able to have a somewhat clear view of what is going on. And one more reason that I like the local input from this board of what is "reality".

I guess one of the reasons I am effected or bothered so, it is sort of sitting on the sidelines and watching a terrible thing happen and it just seems like so much more could have been done to protect the areas of the coast like the marshes in Louisiana (or other equal areas in other states if there are any) that may be permanently damaged. Of course what I'm feeling is probably very small compared to the locals that live in these areas and love them dearly.

[Billy K]

CD, I'm glad that you got the humor of where I have been coming from.
It'd be way too boring for you and I to sit and agree 90% of the time.

MJ is one to whom I would defer; because he is there.
And that; is where I would like to see the most control of the whole show.

Business and profit margins create their speed bumps.... Big government is so laden with beauracracy, that it becomes it's own speed bump.

Smaller more local views and control would be, IMO; more responsive and accountable to the most affected.

I won't argue that some good has come of legislation like child labor laws, and....lemme think...... I'll come back to this ...

The whole thing is that we discuss and inform one another; and make our time and place a stepping stone to go forward.

[madjack]

...just to be perfectly clear, I live a bit over 100mi from the coast...and no, the the marsh doesn't come clear up here and I haven't lived in a stilt house since I was a kid
madjack