Category Archives: White House

The British Petroleum Oil Spill and Memorial Day

Posted on May 31, 2010 | 5 comments
Memorial Day actually springs from the traditions which came out of the Civil War, War Between the States, War of Northern Aggression, War to Save the Union, War for Southern Independence, Last Stand of Western Civilization or War to Put Down Rebellion– that great cataclysm of bloodshed and destruction which to many Southerners is what one is always presumed to be speaking about when one simply says “The War”. However on this Memorial Day my memory turns to the War Americans call the War of 1812 which gave us our National Anthem and the first complete military victory of the US over the Brits in a major engagement where no foreigners helped. That came in the battle of New Orleans.  Despite Lamar Mackay, Bob Dudley and thousands of US employees and stockholders the odd truth of all this is that the British and their Swiss allies are invading our most precious resources under the leadership of Tony Hayward and under the concealed banner of British Petroleum.  

Scraping oil off beaches

 

Below we have a map of how the British invaded Baltimore and how Americans sunk their own ships in a line to block access to the harbor. The British were large held at bay by that single maneuver and the heavy artillery from a fortress which was operating under an enormous star-spangled banner which a lawyer saw from a truce ship and about which he wrote the song which became our anthem.  
This Map Shows  how British Besiege and Attack Baltimore in war of 1812
The American gunboats were supported by a line of sunken American ships in lines not shown on that map that were sacrificed by the waterfolk and traders to limit movement of the mighty British fleet as well as by the fort McHenry which fired off huge guns and small ones beneath an enormous starry flag. The battle was watched by a lawyer in a truce fleet and  he wrote our National Anthem from its inspiration.

British invasion and repulsion in the Battle of New Orleans

 

The round of hostilities between Britain and America which reached such poetic height in Baltimore reached it end in the Battle of New Orleans which was fought very near where the current battle for the survival of the marshes is ongoing. We are facing the invasion of British Petroleum Crude near where Jackson and his army and Lafitte and his navy (injured by a new American attack) drove off some fine units of UK invaders. There in New Orleans they handed the British the first decisive defeat at the hands of an all American force in a major encounter. The Revolution owed much (if not most) of its winning to the Kingdom and Empire of the French but here French and English-speaking Americans drove out the British Empire in blood-soaked victory alone.    

This 2010 battle of Memorial Day  is an epic struggle and the stakes are very great. It is hard for us to win on this side because if there is little damage it will be used as an excuse for future sabotage or carelessness to be more easily permitted. If there is great damage then we live in age when the natural world is already under great strain and we have rich “well-educated” idiots (who had the capacity not to be idiots when they were young) in government and in big business who never think things through as regards the natural world. I hear so many stupid and irrelevant remarks. The damage done in a short period of time can wipe out millions of years of vital continuity and removing the toxins through there being biodegraded later won’t help. The oyster beds of South Louisiana ought to be compared and classed with vineyards of Napa and Sonoma and instead are classed with the sands of the Arabian deserts. It is hard for me to write this through all the pain and depression I am feeling.
I am very careful to use legal materials in this blog but if I have infringed any rights in this post I will worry about it after I see how much of my homeland has survived. This is a struggle  of enormous proportions. The eleven killed in the explosion and the  dozen or so cleaners who have been hospitalized have suffered in a war in which admirals, generals and Guardsmen are also battling. This is really a struggle for what cannot be replaced.   

http://www.usa-flag-site.org/song-lyrics/star-spangled-banner.html 

Local efforts to block oil incursions

I am going to include a few phrase of my own between pictures of the struggle and verses of the National Anthem. Just above you see people drawing a line against the new invasion. Do we doubt they risk their health in this noble struggle? 

 The Star Spangled Banner Lyrics
By Francis Scott Key 1814

 

 
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

  

 

 

Fishing fleet cleaning or stranded in many places

Like Baltimore and Lafitte’s flotilla it has fallen to small ship and boat owners to bear the brunt of much of this great battle and they do so alongside the Coast Guard and others in their government’s formal service. But is their civilian service much less patriotic? 

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! 

A flotilla of shrimp boats adapted for skimming

This flotilla of shrimp boats sails like the Americans of 1812 and 1814 to save their homes families and country. Already some languish in hospitals. Are they not our heroes too?  

 And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! 

Louisiana National Guard fights a new enemy.

The National Guardsmen know that their world will not recognize this as combat. They will earn no new respect on world battlefields. Yet they risk their health in a beautiful but dangerous coastal wilderness under hot suns in proximity to possible and unmeasured risks of poisoning. The battle for their homeland and can not hurt the liquid at which they throw their human and mortal flesh. Are they not good warriors in this case as well?  

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! 

 I wish everyone a good Memorial Day weekend. I have several friends nobly risking their lives in the two foreign wars we are fighting  and I wish them well.  SD, AD, JS,and JS if you read this know you are not forgotten. But this day my heart is full of pain and also the debt of respect for those who fight with little hope for honor or glory against an invasion so near to so much that I love. 

Note: Throughout the BP Macondo oil leak crisis I was responding day by day to an enormous set of devastating problems for many that I care about deeply or am connected to. While I have made no money on all that work and tried to use my own, open source or public domain materials in every case the stresses were enormous. This particular post has received many views and I have few if any net assets. If it happens that this or any materials used during the crisis are proprietary and used without permission I first apologize and secondly will do in a slow and careful manner whatever I can to make things right. Nonetheless, I am gratified that so many have visited this post over such a long time…

5 Comments

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, Christianity, Easter Holiday, Environment, family, France, Geopolitics, Gulf of Mexico, Healthcare, Labor, Louisiana, Memorial Day, Oil & Gas Industry, Royalty and Empire, United States of America, USA--UK Relationship, Western civilization, White House

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Biggest US Spill: Living in the Age of Liquidation

Posted on May 30, 2010 | Leave a comment

This BP — Transocean spill  is not just another mess. This spill is historic and calls for a response in historic terms. It also must be seen in context. That context and response is what this post is about.  The liquid nature of the spill goes with the crisis of unstructured flow of migrants who are joined by the desire to make money flow around for no real reason. This joins with the government forcing racial groups to flow together in no structured way. This goes with an economy designed to liquidate all wealth and punish the kinds of wealth that does not flow quickly. In may ways this spill symbolizes our whole set of social disorders. 

We are facing the largest oil spill in US history. We had the failed Times Square bombing, the underwear bomber, the Fort Hood shooting and we have hundreds of thousands of people protesting  forcefully to proclaim that one should be able to stay here as long as one wants without documentation. Not all the Arizona law protesters want to say that but hundreds of thousands do. We have people in our congress advocating an unconstitutional ex post facto law against BP. Here again the nuance is that if Congress were saying they would issue letters of Marque and Reprisal against BP if they do not adequately deal with the spill I would not object (Britain would but not I). Our debt to revenue ratio is outrageously high and people largely believe we should all spend more to stimulate the economy.  We are still involved in two foreign wars. In my opinions all the things I mentioned above are only minor symptoms of the disease afflicting our society. We are a country in crisis, deep and serious crisis.

I am different from  most of those who are likely to read this blog as American citizens in that I support and advocate radical constitutional change. I advocate change which is revolutionary  — although I am willing to see that change come in the following Constitutional form: “or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” This quote makes up most of Article V (Article Five) of the Constitution.

The part I did not include is the first few words reproduced here and now ” The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, (or, on the Application of the Legislatures)” the words in parentheses are the words at the start of my quote above. All amendments in US history have been passed through the houses of congress and then ratified by the States. However, a constitutional convention summoned by  two-thirds of the States  and ratified by three-fourths of the States could effect total transformation of the country as long as every State retains equal votes in the Senate and the entirely new Constitution would be a formal and legal continuity of our current regime. The only role of Congress in this second path would be to choose whether State legislatures or State conventions should ratify the larger convention.  In the real world if a convention had been called then force of arms would be justified if (by no means certain) a Congress refused to act to make this one choice. Thus if three-fourths of the states can be convinced of the need for radical change then we can have it. And we do need radical change. It is time for our society to evolve. I have outlined the ideas for a new regime elsewhere in this blog.

We need to create a system which will value conservation, preservation, familial wealth, nature, honor and recognize that neither big business nor bureaucracy has all the answers and yet both have a role to play. The risks these spills and other things like the war on terror relate to or not adequately addressed in an eight year presidential administration. We need the kinds of changes we are very far from adopting so far.  The total destruction of our society is what is likely if we continue to follow the path we have been following .  As our society becomes more dysfunctional the rate of decay will increase. Making the right changes now will be very hard but making them later will be much harder.

We are partly destroying and may be largely destroying an estuary which is the product of processes ranging in millions, thousands and hundreds of years. We are doing this in days and months. We need a government with a loner term view of things. However, not just any old thing will do. We need to make  the right changes. I have tried to outline those changes elsewhere in this blog. But we will not have many more chances for good change. It will not be long before any effort we make will be the kind of desperate and frenzied reaction that seldom works out well — to say the least.  This may be our last chance to create change that is rational, wise and measured. 

So let us consider really  changing the government. We have a choice now. That will not be true forever.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, Environment, family, Geopolitics, Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, Mexico, Oil & Gas Industry, Royalty and Empire, United States of America, USA--UK Relationship, War, Western civilization, Wetlands, White House

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

BP Has Failed to Stop the Gusher: A Catalogue of My Blog’s Coverage

Posted on May 29, 2010 | 2 comments

 

British Petroleum has announced that the “Top Kill” or dynamic kill option has not  worked and is being abandoned. They claim only 38 acres of Marsh have been damaged severely and that only 107 miles of coastline has been hit. However I live in distant Vermilion Parish and we have verified small amounts of oil contamination on our own coasts. There is so much we do not know. Everything is in flux and under a strain and pressure.

I want to give you the list of my blog posts on the subject of this spill in reverse chronological order. Perhaps there are some you have missed that would be of use to you in understanding this crisis. We are ready see this struggle continue indefinitely but I am using we in the broadest sense. I myself am not very involved in the struggle itself in the way that some other parties are involved. 

1. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/links-loss-and-the-laws-biggest-us-oil-spill/

2. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/the-largest-spill-in-us-history-more-links/

3. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/british-petroelum-spill-and-clean-up-crisis-goes-on/

4. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/two-bps-on-my-mind/

5. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/oil-and-gas-an-odd-argument-for-continuing/

6. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/twelve-questions-about-the-deep-water-horizon-gusher/

7. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-oil-spill-in-the-gulf-and-making-desperadoes/

8. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/yet-more-of-my-thoughts-on-the-oil-spill-and-a-few-links/

9. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/more-thoughts-about-the-oil-spill/

10. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/the-deep-water-horizon-oil-spill-thoughts-about-the-crisis/

2 Comments

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, Environment, family, Frank W. Summers, Geopolitics, Gulf of Mexico, Labor, Louisiana, Mexico, Oil & Gas Industry, United States of America, USA--UK Relationship, Vermilion Parish, Western civilization, Wetlands, White House

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Links, Loss and the Laws: Biggest US Oil Spill

Posted on May 28, 2010 | 1 comment

Well today there are a a variety of possible descriptions and some of them conflict as to the state of the dynamic kill of the gusher a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Is the spill growing by crude oil and natural gas and if so by how much? Or is there only mud and seawater coming out now. Most television channels are showing only the top of the blow-out preventer and no longer showing the issuance from the riser. That makes it even harder to tell what is going on because the top of the preventer could be spewing mud only and it would mean much less than if the broken riser were also only spewing out mud. I mud is coming out of all leaks without oil then in fact as some have said they are cutting off the flow of oil while they pump.  Of course spewing drilling fluids is not perfect either but it would be a sign of progress. Nonetheless, this is a good time to turn to issues that are not so sensitive to the progress of events minute by minute.

After the Exxon Valdez disaster the laws were changed under the Oil Pollution Act. This Act had many good effects such as forcing all major players to file an emergency response plan and setting up emergency response under the Coast Guard. MAYBE: It had the very bad effect of having the responsible party do all the clean-up, then pay a 75 million dollar deductible and then tapping into a grossly underfunded indemnity or rainy day fund to compensate those injured. A sum of 75 million dollars would compensate for a minor interruption of the Louisiana Gulf Coast for about a minute. The remaining two billion or so in the current indemnity fund would constitute lost business insurance for less than a week in this region in a worst case scenario and would leave no money thereafter for other injuries than lost business. Creating a plan like this removes all incentives to have a responsible coastal policy at least on its face. To see what the laws are as described by the Environmental Protection Agency see the link below.    

http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/opa.html

The EPA and other parts of the government have built up some response capacities based on these laws. It is arguable that the regime under the Oil Pollution Act is often far better than it was under most statutory regimes likely to apply before the laws changed.  To see some of this response capacity as it is relevant here see the next link.

http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/index.htm 

On the other hand the insurance capacity is very low relative to real risk in this area. It is also true that such a disaster as this must be best mitigated before hand. This is best done by policies which may not be considered because of the current scheme. See my own ideas in the link below.

https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/ideal-wetlands-policy-on-the-louisiana-coast/

The federal government of the United States of America is also very much engaged in regulating the industry. There is very little that the public has followed about the Mineral Management Service but you can look at their link below.

http://www.mms.gov/

The State of Louisiana has to deal with the terrible results and fight against the worst consequences of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. In order to fully know what there concerns are there are several agencies to check with. I am not going to repeat government links I gave before. I would encourage you to look at what Wildlife and Fisheries has to say in the next link.

http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/

As you consider the environment and the culture one would also remember that Louisiana is a civil law jurisdiction governed by the Louisiana Civil Code and has a very different system of laws than the 49 Common Law states and the US Government in this regard. To begin to understand what this means see the next link.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/civil+law

To keep track of how Louisiana’s government  tracks environmental quality and see what issues have been addressed here see the next link. The Department of Environmental Quality has a close relationship with the federal EPA. 

http://www.deq.louisiana.gov/portal

To see the central electronic focus of the Louisiana government for this crisis see the next link.  There is little else that can be said of the many agencies and parishes responding  in this short blog post.

http://www.emergency.louisiana.gov/

Ironically, one of the State’s law schools had just held an academic conference on water quality and environmental law when this huge disaster occurred.  The environmental law issues have been important to Tulane Law School for a long time actually. See their link on the recent conference below.

http://www.law.tulane.edu/tlsOrgs/tels/telc/index.aspx

Perhaps some of my readership have seen James Carville and his wife addressing the President, the media and anyone who would listen about this crisis in the last few days. Well Mr. Carville will be addressing Louisiana State University’s Law School Graduating Class at commencement today I think. 

http://www.law.lsu.edu/index.cfm?geaux=newsandpublications.newsstories&pid=4097261D-1372-69E5-F7FF16FFC9B54892&bid=EF114F50-1372-69E5-F7A58C48228BF9F2

The President, Barack Hussein Obama, has been in Louisiana today addressing this crisis. I would urge all of you to take him up on his invitation to visit the White House online in regards to this crisis. Find two links for that purpose below.  

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/deepwater-bp-oil-spill

One issue that has not been addressed is that there may be limits in what our curent governement can do beyond the Liability caps. Ultimately, things like frezing production or leases are a good way that Obama (whom I dislike and oppose) has found to show that he can overcome limits in his basic legal power over guilty parties and the industry. It is a poor substitute for good policy but it is better than weakness and surrender. I applaud the subtle and not linked use of this ploy. However, BP must largely be motivated by reputation, by pressure through the UK exerted from Louisiana and the Gulf Coast and in the real world by the possibility of extr-legal vengeance. The US constitution does not allow someone’s rights to be changed by retroactive laws. This may happen in practice but it is bad for our law. I applaud anyone who finds a color of right for doing the right but it is not simple. The state Louisiana finds herself in as regards law is another strong argument for constitutional change. The laws on the books MAY have done great violence to the rights of people here for no good reason. But there are some not all bad reasons. That is a difference to be discussed in a latter post. Governor Jindalhas thrown himself into this fray admirably. He and I are very different people and I applaud his effort to find success within this system We shall see what happens next.

I personally am in a disillusioned funk. I will try to post more original analysis when and if I feel a bit more cheery and focused. Until then if you are doing something to help — good luck and God bless your efforts.

1 Comment

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, Environment, Geopolitics, Gulf of Mexico, media, Oil & Gas Industry, United States of America, Western civilization, Wetlands, White House

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,