Thursday, June 17, 2010

Joe Barton, You Sir, Are a Pig

I woke up to the sound of Joe Barton's voice calling the BP twenty billion dollar escrow account, to guarantee reparations for victims of the Gulf oilspill, a shakedown.  I heard something similar from other wingnuts spouting bullshit yesterday after the President's Oval Office speech.  I hope someone is taking notes and keeping track of the senators and representatives running for reelection who are saying this kind of sick shit, but I'm betting that only a handful of the very rich think and those whose pockets are fully lined by the lobbyists for the oil industry, like Joe Barton, share his sentiments.  Joe Barton's district is not one that will be fouled by a black tide since the 6th district doesn't have a beach, but his biggest donor is the oil and gas industry. Joe Barton is a corporatist pig.  Joe Barton is a shill for the oil industry.  He does not represent the people of the 6th district of Texas unless all his constituents are oil men,  Any politician who wants to protect BP, should go down in infamy as a politician who sold his integrity to the only industry which currently has the power to destroy our environment and our livelihoods.  God forbid we give contracts and award the building of new nuclear power plants to private industry.  God forbid we let private industry run nuclear power plants. Industry's only constituent is it's shareholders.  Industries only job is to make more and more money in less and less time.  Safety is only important to industry in so far as it doesn't interfere with profits and bonuses.

Seems to me I have heard some of these same comments about the escrow fund (calling it a shakedown, a slush fund) from the usual idiots on the far right like Palin, Bachmann, Rush and Beck.  But any politician who lives in one of the states that will be devastated by this catastrophe and who refers to the escrow fund established to cover the cost of the clean up and reparations to those whose livelihoods have been ruined as a shakedown, should be run out of town by an angry mob of pitchfork wielding citizens.