Thank you BP!

For destroying the worlds oceans, for killing the wildlife, for making our beaches uninhabitable. And who knows what long-term effects this may have? Shame to hear about your stock prices today, down again. But will that help you open your eyes, your corporate vision, to see that being a good steward of your environment can actually benefit a company’s bottom line? What happened to your name change, to your tag line “Beyond Petroleum?” Seems as if this recent catastrophe is all about petroleum, and greed. Perhaps BP really means Bloated Power.  Should be named BS for the crap you have been peddling to the public. Should not the fourth largest company in the world, that is right, the fourth largest, not have a contingency plan? Don’t they plan things out in advance? What about what if’s? What if the blow out preventer fails? What if we boycott BP? That is my idea of a “what if”.

I, for my part, will not buy gas from BP ever again. I still don’t gas it up at Exxon/Mobile either by the way.  And when I do gas it up, it is filling up my Honda Hybrid.

And that is what this set is really about, it is about trying to make people wake up to alternative energy sources. In some respects maybe there is a silver lining (but I doubt it) to this disaster. Maybe now we will realize that we can no longer rely on fossil fuels.  Does anyone remember the recent coalmine tragedy? Oh yeah and the fact that 11 people died in this BP calamity. Or that in 2005, after ignoring safety regulations, cutting back on maintenance, and leaving a warning system disabled at a BP Oil Refinery in Texas, a huge explosion occurred that left 15 workers dead, and injured 170 others. Or that in 2006 a tiny hole in a BP pipeline, that they had been told to inspect 3 years earlier, but ignored, caused 267,000 gallons of crude oil to spread into the tundra near Alaska Prudhoe Bay. 

BP figures it is easier and cheaper just to pay off fines for wrong doings than to correct the issue in the first place. BP has paid $485,000,000 in fines in the U.S. alone in the last five years. Who knows how much worldwide?

And BP, while one of the worst, certainly is not alone in its negligence. Relaxed regulations have allowed large corporations to become even larger, while turning a blind eye on safety, and the well being of employees and the world. Massay Energy Company, the coal mine operator, where the 25 workers were recently killed, had a significant history of safety  violations, directly relating to not properly ventilating the mine, to remove the highly combustible methane gas, that along with coal dust caused the massive explosion.

And if we are not being killed, and our local resources raped by multinational US based or UK based companies, then we are being held hostage by OPEC.   The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is a cartel of twelve countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Ah, We buy oil from these guys right? That is like shopping for groceries at your local drug dealing, gun running, Mafia. Oh, wait, the Mafia at least has a code of ethics. Last I checked Iran was not among our most favored nations, and Libya used to be considered an enemy (didn’t we bomb them?), although Gaddafi is a snazzy dresser.  He and Hugo Chavez must have the same tailor, yes Chavez who taunted George Bush (OK, Hugo and I had something’s in common!), who officially holds the title President, but operates more like a dictator.  And he is Latin America’s biggest opponent of the US, who also happens to be his biggest client. Yup, the US is the largest customer of Venezuela’s oil. Angola and Nigeria, huge oil producing countries, with untold wealth in the form of oil, are afloat in corruption and the majority of the populations live in poverty. Algeria has had fifty years of violence and civil war.  Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while on the surface are friendly to the US, really just like providing us with oil, so they can become even wealthier.  Oh yeah, most, if not all, of the countries in OPEC would not even allow a organization like Zivity to operate on their soil and certainly would not allow self expression, especially involving the beauty of the female form to be shown. I am looking for a model to shoot with a full head scarf or burka on, except the robe covering her body would be wet with sweat from toiling for her man.  But I digress!

Ecuador seems to be the sole hold out in OPEC. They don’t seem to be too bad, and they have the Galapagos Islands, and the people wear those cool hats. But I forgot one country. Iraq is a member of OPEC. And things are going great there right? You don’t think for a minute that we might have invaded Iraq for oil right? NO way, George W was not smart enough to figure that out. But maybe Cheney was…