President Obama ordered BP to buck up 20 billion dollars for compensation claims. BP was forced to begin a painful process of sorting through hundreds of thousands of claims with the aid of a compensation lawyer in the name of Kenneth Feinberg. This is not Feinberg’s first big case of compensation. He was hired to deal with the 911 disaster which involved the deaths of almost three thousand victims.
Four billion dollars in claims have been paid out with hundreds of thousands of others dismissed.
There are few watchers worldwide who would dismiss the disaster as anything, but epic. However, in true form of a CEO of a company that has been allowed to get away with untold crimes in the past, BP CEO Tony Hayward used the disaster and its continued aftermath to whine about his own personal life being affected. ““We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.”
Elegantly said and compassionate...don’t you think? Then, to further insult the situation Republican representative Joe Barton (from Texas not surprisingly) calls Obama’s order of BP a shakedown. “I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House. I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown -- in this case a $20 billion shakedown ... I apologize. I do not want to live in a county where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, [it is] subject to some sort of political pressure that, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown.”
Other Republicans talk about conspiracy theories and extremists who created the spill for environmental gain. Huh? I’m sorry, but oil pouring into an ocean full of marine life is not something an environmentalist would do.
It is time these nincompoops started worrying about more than their own wallets. Obama did something that was very unpopular with the corporate world, the rich, the oil companies and the extremist Republicans. His thought behind what he did was simple - protect the people. After all, that is why he was hired for the job of running the country. It is a lesson some other politicians will never learn and a thought Canadians need to keep close to their heart for this election. Corporations are motivated by money first, so are some politicians.