“Offshore oil rigs are out of U.S. government’s reach” states a recent print media headline. In fact President Obama—or any other president— had no authority to tell BP that it had to do anything until the oil actually reached U.S. territorial waters. Broadcast media, such as CNN, said absolutely nothing about this state of affairs, preferring to allow hysterical criticism of Obama to continue unabated. There is no comparison with the Hurricane Katrina episode: the Bush administration knew it was coming, and did nothing useful for days. It was political calculation: disperse the black population of New Orleans to safe Republican havens like Oklahoma and Texas, and leave Louisiana with a depleted Democratic voter base. But because blacks were the principle victims, white America became quickly bored with it, and turned away; “Good riddance to bad rubbish” seemed to be the prevailing, unspoken opinion.
Because most people are bored with reading, and prefer their news supplied in bite-sized morsels, they have preferred not to learn that all the major oil companies, it seems, have safely tucked away most of their offshore oil wells outside of U.S. territorial waters, thus outside of U.S. government control or regulation. In order to do this, these companies have chosen to drill in ever deeper and more hazardous waters. And costlier; in order to alleviate the cost of drilling in deeper water, oil companies have taken safety shortcuts. They have been abetted by the lax control of the “nations” in whose waters these wells have been built. In the case of BP’s offshore well operations, the Marshall Islands—a “nation” which consists of mostly a few tiny atolls—was not expected to put much of a barrier to whatever risky business BP thought it could get away with. And get away with it did, since the Marshall Islands “government” allowed private “regulators,” who were in the pocket of the oil giants, to oversee compliance with silly safety rules (or so they have been described). It also seems that all the oil giants had the same “disaster plan” as BP’s, which I’m sure will make people feel secure in the belief that the next time something like the BP spill occurs, we can expect more of the same (except that Obama will show sufficient emotion to satisfy those who like their presidents to be uncool and uncollected). On a more "positive" note, the U.S. Coast Guard, in charge of “defending” protected waters outside the U.S. territorial claims, has allowed foreign-owned companies like BP to take advantage of its own antiquated safety rules. But what does that matter? Haven’t we been told repeatedly by the right-wing and their corporate masters that "the market" knows “best,” that government should “lay-off” business, because government only makes a mess of things? Why is it when government has the least control, people start wailing about where “big government” when we “need” it? Why is it when government has the ability to exercise the most control, people wail about too much government?
The infuriating reality is that the media is driving the “disappointment” with Obama, with its pathetic appeal to the lowest common denominator thinkers for nothing more than ratings (i.e. money). Common sense, objective reporting, intelligent critique, just plain old honesty--that's all been tried before; it doesn't sell. John Cafferty of CNN the other day refer to some study that says that health care premiums will jump 9 percent in 2011, which he maintained in his boring way was an unfortunate bi-product of the Health Care Reform bill. Should the bill be rescinded if the Republicans take control of Congress? Maybe a better question is whether or not this is more idiocy passing for "news.” Health care premiums have been going up every year by double digits for decades and more--that's "news?" If Cafferty is unaware of this, then maybe he should find a new profession, like carnival barker at Tea Party events. Personally, I think a 9 percent increase is a fair swap for keeping insurance companies from denying care, or refusing to take patients with pre-existing conditions. But once more, the media plays with infantile emotions by forgetting about little things, like context or truth.
Americans are dim-witted in public affairs because the media is providing them with dim-witted information, presented by either howling maniacs or self-righteous paladins wallowing in negativity. The broadcast media has decided that “wah-wah” is easier to understand than coherent, rational deliberation. It sells. A rational person might squeeze a paragraph of useful information from a full 24-hour news cycle on CNN (or a coherent sentence from Fox News), but it wouldn't be anything that could not have thought up all by oneself in thirty seconds.
No comments:
Post a Comment