The Gulf Oil Leak,Government, Big Business, Politics And Our Way Of Life
Probably not politically correct but it's me.....
I voted Democratic in the last election. I have admitted it to most. In fact I'm rather proud of it. Yes I voted for the
negro black man. Most of my relatives voted Republican because they are Republicans. They are also doctors, law enforcement officers (they like that better than being calle the fuzz ;-)) and some are older, I'm willing to give them that that probably influenced their mindset. I'm probably one of two people who voted this way in my town so we don't talk about it much locally. I vote for whom I like.
I have a 1/4 black step grandson. I helped raise him till he was 3 or 4, we had him quite a few weekends anyway and sometimes for days. His mother was a divorced young mother and we had young children too so it was just natural. It's really hard to be prejudiced toward black people after you have held a black baby for days and weeks, drove him around in the night to get him to go to sleep, helped him take his first steps, fed him, bathed him etc. He graduated from High School last month and is going to college this fall on a scholarship because he is smart and hardworking, handsome too but we don't want him to get the big head. I often examine my motives on everything (I really do, not making this up, it's probably a character flaw but I will call a spade a spade) and this may be partly why I felt extrememly comfortable voting Democratic. Not to say those who voted Republican are prejudiced but that was the reasoning for some even though they don't admit it. I'd even voted for Mc Cain previously but he just didn't have the message that struck a chord with me this time. Not criticizing just explaining my mindset.
I was listening to some PBS type radio show yesterday (yes I listen to pbs and voted democratic and I go barefoot and sometimes drive too fast, heathen all the way around). The radio show was criticizing Obama for being in bed with big business. I'm thinking ahhhh our previous president got all of his wealth from oil and they are criticizing Obama for being slanted toward oil. Before this happened last I heard Obama was being criticized for being unfriendly to oil companies? Which goes to prove the man isn't going to win no matter what he does. And yes he is a man the same as every president before him. This unfairness is rather beside the point but I just wanted to point it out.
The BP oil leak in the gulf is a horrible thing. To those of us who grew up reading the Mother Earth News and George Orwell (and before anyone starts screaming socialism is what Orwell was about he was also about corruption, greed, and control) things are getting just a bit uncomfortable. Ok they are uncomfortable for everyone but the fact is we are pouring poison into a worldwide ecosystem at a rate of thousands of gallons a day. Then I heard part of what is coming out of the leak is colorless and there is more than one leak. The only good thing for the gulf is that it is a warm or hot ecosystem so the rate of decomposition and change is more rapid than the colder climates. Translation is heat and moisture makes the bad stuff go away faster. That being said it is still a tragedy the likes of which we have not seen before. As one who would/or would have moved to Biloxi MS in a heartbeat if my kids weren't here it makes me sadder than some. Yes BP should be punished, it will probably lead to their demise as an entity if this continues much longer, BP is just a company and people in the end though, punishing them will not bring back one pelican or fish. It could have just as easily been an American company that we have warm fuzzies toward that made the fatal mistakes leading up to the leak. The reason for the leak is being pointed out as cutting corners, bad safeguards etc. Which would utimately lead to treating the whole world badly and has through the pouring of thousands of gallons of poisons into our largest body of water.
We are going somewhere with all of this I promise. We have all heard that this generation that is now coming of age is the first who can look forward to a lowered standard of living from the one their parents had. Things are just going downhill economically. Why is this? Many say it is a normal cycle, some say previous greed led to our present downfall, the reasons are numerous and varied.
I believe
big business and their mindset is at least partly to blame for the lowered standard as well as the leak. Their greed and wall street specualtion has led to an economic system that does not sustain the people whom give it the ability to keep moving forward and who compromise the biggest part of our population. This is why I voted Democratic, big government is bad but we have seen and are seeing what big business does and I think it is getting worse. I seem to remember a Republican program, the trickle down effect where we would cut most social programs and basically give tax cuts and more weath to the rich so they would give back to the poor freely. Nice thought Robin Hood, I mean truthfully it's rather like a fairy tale isn't it? Then we had the economic collapse of 2008 but we can blame it on housing and the democrats. Why housing? People couldn't pay their mortgages? Why? They were spending too much elsewhere..... like on their fuel bills so they could get to work or move their freight or heat their homes because the price of oil had been driven up by speculation. But lets blame it on permissive Democratic programs from a decade ago? Don't get me wrong, I'd just as soon not deal with the government either and Democrats are no saints, sometimes they are just plain looney, sometimes they seem the lesser of two evils howerver. Big business has been doing about what they want for years and if someone says that isn't right they will tie it up in court till you go broke or die, if government says it isn't right? Big business pays for lobbyists to wine dine and coerce, if that doesn't work they contribute to campaigns.... At least with government there is some hope for change? Some moral responsiblity. I'm Pollyanna but surely there have to be SOME people who want to be in politics just because they think they can help or do a better job instead of getting their hey look @ me jollies?
I believe the Republicans are inexorably tied to big business and are all for the richest. That is fine if the richest truly want a middle class and don't mind paying their fair share. Why is their fair share larger? If you have $100,000 in income you are MUCH more likely to be able to spare $21,000 for taxes than if you have $10,000 and are asked to contribute $2,100. It just isn't there.. I know this is oversimplified but with the increased wages and the $250,000 higher tax bracket I couldn't belive how many people were raising holy hades. You aint making this much ever to make it plain and simple. In fact the politicans who implied it would effect you lied and they know they lied. It was like saying buy a barbie doll and you will look like one, it aint happenin people to put it bluntly. I probably know off the top of my head 10 people I could name in a minute who make that much, ok maybe 15. I know lots of people. The rest of you? Your taxes are not going up. This is what gets me, it's like oh my we can't raise taxes on $250,000. Why???? If you get remotely dirty or sweaty in your job you aren't making that much. If you have less than 10 people working for you you probably don't make that much. If you DO make that much you can afford to pay a bit more and if you can't you need to quit having parties for 100 every weekend or trade in the jaguar or something.....that is the FIRST reason why big business and Republicans are linked....
This all started to come together for me in the car driving home from the bank on a hot June day. Why was I driving home from the bank? Why? Big business has once again been giving us fits. I can't say too much but my husband has been in his field for 40 years. 20+ of these years he has dealt with this particular branch of the industry and this particular company. I may criticize my husband but careless with the actual process of business he is not. He has often risked his health (I think) because he told someone he would do something. I mean we are talking a man who can tell you what he was doing most days from a mileage diary and who sorts his paper money and cringes when I stuff mine in my billfold, of course he can usually tell you to the dollar how much cash he has and what his last fuel mileage was, anal is the word we are looking for, careless is not. Now a big company is saying he/we/the entire company is lying about careless at the best, malicious at the worst damage to a product (actually I don't think the product was damaged, I think the foreign customer just didn't want it). A product which we never even touched just had control of the environment and I know personally what they are saying happened didn't happen. They are saying something that is scientifically impossible in any case is what went on or else we deliberately and maliciously attacked their product, yeah I want to retire broke, always been a dream of mine....NOT. This could end up costing untold $ when actually we aren't getting paid for the work we did do and extra time involved at the present time. Would this have happened years ago? No. Why? Because the company did things differently, didn't expect something for nothing, actually believed people they had dealt with for years, many many smaller companies worked for them and life was good, they actually cared about people or seemed to. The same company used to subcontract many family members and local people and businesses in the 90s and early 2000s. Something started changing a few years ago...it was gradual but the effects have been horrific. Subcontractors were strung along and lied to and then abruptly terminated. New equipment purchases that were required? Tough t&%%* said the kitty, you now own a $40,000 piece of equipment you have no use for, pay for it as well as you can. In fact as I wrote these words I realized this had happened before with this company and us..we had done business with them in the same location for years...they asked us to buy equipment to do MORE business, we went out and bought the equipment it was well over $50,000 of EXTRA equipment. A bigger company got wind of it and saw the room for profit, buying the equipment for them was a drop in the bucket...we the small company got the shaft and the big company got the job, they were sloppy and lost it but that is neither here nor there. Shortly after that we quit doing business with them for a period of time.
You may think Oh, she is just a poor lazy loser. My husband and I have been self employed for almost 20 years, you don't do that if you are completely worthless. We've been bosses and lately employees off and on for a couple years. After being a boss I believe you make a better employee. My bosses may disagree but I think so. How were we treated as employees? By the individual people GREAT. By the large companies? Like dog poop. My husband and I both worked for large corporations. Mine was a given they treat people like dirt. His? It was a skilled job which required living away from home. They would call men down from several states away, employ them for a week and then send them home after they had quit their previous jobs. The men weren't doing a bad job. They just needed someone for a week. The corporation might call them back and they might not. Sometimes they would promise jobs and there would be none, the expense to get to the job could be more than the average family makes in a month. These men were all subcontractors as well as employees, we aren't talking unskilled labor, we are talking men who had had some degree of success previously in business and their own equipment. Whop, hit upside the head with no unemployment and no job. Then the company would lay people off for a month, get behind and need to speed up, call back the previous employees and hire more and repeat the whole cycle. This wasn't normal business but it was normal business in 2009 when a job like that was so hard to come by once again big business is in charge screwing with peoples lives to be blunt. We were lucky, some weren't. The economic damage from this all was bad enough but the psychological and emotional toll on men and families was horrific.
Part of the reason for all of this? Small companies and the self employed? They don't stand a chance anymore. In our industry large companies have been trying to drive us out of business for years. One of the last opportunities for a man to go into a lucrative position for himself is disappearing. Competing industries are partially to blame, excessive government regulations are partly to blame which are lobbied by the big business and other industries and the ability for large companies who shaft people with great glee and charge less than their actual cost in order to gain control and monopolize the market are to blame also. We have become a nation where the ability to bend the system to benefit yourself is called good business and rewarded. The ability to deliver a product or service on time and cheerfully is looked upon as mere menial labor and beneth us all. Think about it...
My solution? I'm not a politician or a reformer but I believe we need to take a long hard look @ life as we know it now. Greed and slip shod business practices have brought us a horrific natural disaster and an economic quagmire we are still slogging through. It's time to examine what is good and right, big business lies and cheats and cuts corners for greed. It has almost cost us our environment and it's time to stop. We may have to not drive as much. We may lose the generation x ability to jet here and jet there. I think we need to look @ how we teach and learn. I am all for learning and education I love to learn new things. I am totally against putting in your time for a diploma just because you need a diploma, school should be for learning, I've seen way too many graduates that didn't know their derriere from a well (their behind from a ......) they went and put in their time, they graduated but could they do their job efficiently--- no. Not only the college educated but merely technologically qualified employees. My last internet tech comes to mind... they probably $20 an hour, I went through 3 techs, I finally got it going not them and I have NO formal computer education and can't get a 9-5 job in a tech field for a big company because I haven't put in my time in a college. I really don't want one because I freelance but it's an example. You say there are too few jobs? Truly crack down on illegal immigrants. Make businesses who employ them liable and it a crime to employ them punishable by jail time. If illegal immigration had penalties like selling liquor to a drunk has penalties people would think about employing them. I know this isn't winning me any hispanic friends but we can't help our neighboring countries much longer if we can't sustain ourselves. I could have been a paralegal, people say I could have been an attorney. What does this mean? I can argue. Is arguing profitable? Just for the attorney as far as I'm concerned? Someone who is sue happy? It used to have a social stigma but no more. I don't have all the answers but I have many of the questions. Look @ yourself. Are you driving 50 miles just for fun and say a ball game, race or concert, when you don't have to? If you didn't do this could you maybe take some more time off and do something you enjoy that doesn't use energy like hike close to home? If more of us did this would we have had to drill so much in the Gulf? I know sports and music fans will have issue with this but truly everyone has a way they could slow down and support small business. If we truly cut down on travel, learned something, tried to get along with our neighbor, treated people fairly and with equity, and supported a small business this year it wouldn't be a big change for anyone but it would be a huge change for us and ultimately the world.
I know I'm not the only one who thinks they have part of the answer. I know I'm not the only one who can see some the problems. I know I'm not the only one who was shafted or has had big busieness shaft them lately and repeatedly. But I think all of the things I have written about are interconnected, we are all to blame, we are all guilty, but we are all capable of finding and making some sort of solution possible, otherwise an Orwillian world might be a best case scenario.
