Monday, April 25, 2011

Who do you trust?

An independent scientist...one of a handful not bought and paid for by BP?



A sick shrimp boat captain who is on the front lines and sees firsthand what is actually in the waters being fished?



Or.....

An ad campaign running on BP cash?

Gulf Shrimp Safe Enough for 1,575-per-day Diet


A government agency trying to make us believe that the numerous turtle deaths are brought on by shrimper nets....two weeks before the shrimp season even started?

Sea turtles drowning in fishing, shrimping trawls, says NOAA

The same government that is suppressing information about ongoing dolphin deaths?

Feds forbid scientists probing Gulf dolphin deaths from speaking to media

The same government that has clearly colluded with BP in order to cover up the magnitude of this ecological crisis?

White House, BP tried to spin oil spill science, emails reveal

I can keep going for miles and miles, the bullshit we're being fed runs as deep as the Gulf sea bed where millions of gallons of oil and dispersant are still lingering....continually washing inland as the ocean temperature rises with the summer heat.  Stick a prop in the mud nearly anywhere in Bataria Bay and see what comes up:



These are areas that are actively being fished.  The effects PAH's, dispersant, heavy metals, and even NORM (Normally Occurring Radioactive Material) have on the ecosystem of Gulf sea life and subsequently the animals which humans ingest is largely unknown.  The safety testing methods currently in practice are being questioned by numerous independent scientists, Dr. Shaw included.

The truth is....there are a lot of sick people along the Gulf Coast.  One year later, this spill has not disappeared.  This spill is producing major health problems across the Gulf region.  Whether those health effects are from direct exposure or seafood consumption....or both...we don't have enough independent research to provide honest, scientific answers.  That is by design.

For BP, the name of the game is plausible deniability.  Hide the problem:  sink it; deny it; pay off the scientists to propagate the message; buy off the Gulf Coast media sources; pump the tourism boards full of cash and let them tell everyone it's safe while simultaneously sequestering any independent, scientific research which may show the magnitude of the spill; stall the claims payout process as long as possible by making it a labyrinth to navigate thereby strangling the affected parties into a slow death; avoid health study impacts and "influence" Gulf Coast medical facilities to do the same.

Meanwhile, their cronies in the beltway write off their spill debt with taxpayer money to the tune of 9.9 billion in the first year:

The Next BP Blow Up: A $9.9 Billion Tax Credit

You realize that's half of the $20b they are required to put in the escrow account that Feinberg has no intention of depleting?  In fact, they have only put $5 billion in the account to date and they aren't required to put the next $5b in until this summer.  That means the liability for this spill is not only being subsidized by the American taxpayer, it means BP just turned a $4.9 billion profit off American taxpayers in one year.  I will bet anyone a six pack of Abita they will get a second $9.9 billion dollar tax credit in 2011.  Apparently dumping 7 million barrels of oil and dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico is a lucrative proposition.

Much, much more to come....




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jesus Christ.

This is beyond sick.

In addition to the physical and psychological effects of the spill itself, a propaganda operation this large introduces cognitive dissonances so big that it becomes a threat to mental health all on its own.

Anonymous said...

The silencing and spin is one thing, and the tax and money situation is a whole other disaster.

The spill appears to be metastasizing and spreading, like a cancer that starts in the breast and gets into the lymph nodes and other bodily systems.

There is an odd totalitarian quality to this. From your presentation, the spill and its aftermath have created what is almost an alternative universe: spill "science", spill "economics", a false reality, a simulacrum of reality, which floats on top of the real one in which people are sick and animals, birds, and marine life are dying.

Spill World is a terrifying place.

There are precedents for this money aspect. The clean up (haha) of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was counted in the GDP, and so that oil spill looked like a good thing for the economy, thanks to our kooky way of counting.

Our way of counting does not recognize many kinds of valuable work (rearing your own child or caring for elderly parents, volunteering at something useful) as having any sort of economic reality, despite the fact that our entire culture rests on this foundational, loving effort; we don't count standing forests which produce our oxygen as having value, but we do count the timber industry. We count wars and oil spills as economically productive. Fucked up, non?

Comparing the economic "benefit" of Exxon Valdez to the situation in the Gulf of Mexico reminded me of Hitler's line about "Who remembers the Armenians?"

This kind of thing has been done before, and most of us did very little to protest it or to change our ways of living. We are once again struggling to figure out how to respond effectively.

Thank you for sticking with this work.

Jason Brad Berry said...

Anon 1, it is beyond anything I could have imagined. I lived through Katrina and I thought I had seen cover up....I had seen nothing. All I can say is the BP spin machine is unrivaled...our government is barking to their corporate master. It's just truly amazing and I hope to reveal more of that in the very near future.

Anon 2 (although it looks like you may be same person as Anon 1), it is simulacra, spun into reality by BP with the help of our federal government. It very much reminds me of the scene in Jaws where the scientist is warning the city council that they can't reopen the beaches and they do it anyway. They are just ignoring the reality.

Anonymous said...

Off topic, and maybe you've covered this, but I mentioned your blog to a friend in California today, and she asked if your name was connected to the Grace Lee movie American Zombie.

Is it?

Thanks for the videos. I came back to watch them again.

Jason Brad Berry said...

No it's not but I did send her an email and said hi. She seems really nice.

Anonymous said...

This is Anon 3. Everyone in our household reads you when you've got a new post. Sometimes one person comments twice, sometimes more than one person comments. We're not just one person with a a confusing personality.

She is nice. Another friend of ours worked for her when she was in film school, so we wondered if you knew her.