Pacific Resistance to U.S. Military

SUBHEAD: From Japan to Guam to Hawaii, activists resist expansion of US military presence in the Pacific.

Interview by Amy Goodwin on 24 May 2010 for Democracy Now -  
(http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/24/from_japan_to_guam_to_hawaii)

 
Image above: Japanese protest on US Marines presence in Okinawa this month. From (http://usmvaw.com/tag/mcas-futenma/page/2/).

In Japan, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama sparked outrage this weekend when he announced he has decided to keep an American air base on the island of Okinawa. Before last year’s historic election victory, Hatoyama had vowed to move the base off of Okinawa or even out of Japan. On Sunday, he said he had decided to relocate the base to the north side of the island, as originally agreed upon with the US.

Hatoyama’s decision was met with anger on Okinawa, where 90,000 residents rallied last month to oppose the base. A number of activists opposed to US military bases were recently here in New York for the International Conference for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World. Anjali Kamat and I spoke to three activists from Japan, Guam and Hawaii.

Guests:

Kyle Kajihiro, Program Director for the American Friends Service Committee in Hawai’i. He helps to coordinate the DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ’Aina network that opposes military expansion in Hawai’i.

Kozue Akibayashi, professor and activist in Japan and with the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom and the Women’s International Network Against Militarism.

Melvin Won Pat-Borja, educator and poet from Guam and part of the We Are Guahan network opposed to the military base buildup in Guam.

AMY GOODMAN: In Japan, the Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama sparked outrage this weekend when he announced he has decided to keep an American air base on the island of Okinawa. Before last year’s historic election victory, Hatoyama had vowed to move the base off of Okinawa or even out of Japan. On Sunday, he said he decided to relocate the base to the north side of the island, as originally agreed upon with the US. The Japanese prime minister’s decision was met with anger on Okinawa, where 90,000 residents rallied last month to oppose the base.

Hatoyama explained his decision by saying, since taking office, he had learned to appreciate the role that the Marines play as a deterrent in the region, that Okinawa was the most strategic location for them. Half the estimated 47,000 US troops in Japan are stationed on the island.

Well, a number of activists opposed to US military bases were recently here in New York for the International Conference for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World. Democracy Now!'s Anjali Kamat and I spoke to three of them. They were from Japan, from Guam and Hawai'i.
Kyle Kajihiro is the program director for the American Friends Service Committee in Hawai’i. He helps to coordinate the DMZ-Hawai’i/Aloha 'Aina network that opposes military expansion in Hawaii.

Kozue Akibayashi is a professor and activist in Japan and with the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom and the Women’s International Network Against Militarism.

And Melvin Won Pat-Borja is an educator and poet from Guam and part of the "We Are Guahan" network opposed to the military base buildup on Guam.

We began by asking Kyle Kajihiro to explain the broader context of US military bases in East Asia and the Pacific.

KYLE KAJIHIRO: I think it’s important to consider how important the Pacific has been for the expansion of American empire. And Hawai’i was one of the first casualties in 1893, when US troops invaded and occupied the sovereign kingdom of Hawai’i to establish a forward base that enabled the US to defeat Spain in the Spanish-American War and then acquire its colonies, in the Philippines and Guam and also Puerto Rico and Cuba. And that sets up another conflict with Japan during World War II, in which the United States emerges as a global power with nuclear capabilities and acquires new colonies in the Marianas, Marshall Islands and Okinawa. So we see the legacy of that history played out.

And America has always considered the Pacific, similar to Latin America, as its—you know, its own domain, its special domain. They call it the American Lake. And, you know, that’s what we’re struggling against, is that idea that, you know, the US has this dominion and without consideration for the peoples and the human rights of people in that area

So, right now, we are seeing that the Asia Pacific is even, you know, becoming more important with the rise of China, and the US sees China as its main strategic competitor. And that, I think, is a lot of what’s driving the military realignment in Korea, in Japan, Okinawa and Guam to encircle China and basically neutralize its capabilities.

ANJALI KAMAT: Kozue, can you talk about what happened in Japan last week? There was a major protest, 100,000 people in Okinawa protesting the construction of a new US military base. Explain what’s going on with Japan-US relations and with US military bases in Japan.

KOZUE AKIBAYASHI: Okinawa is a part of Japan. It’s the southernmost part of Japan. It’s a small prefecture, out of forty-seven, where US military—75 percent of US military facilities, exclusively used by the US military, is located. So there is this high concentration of US military in Okinawa, and that is why we are highlighting the problem in Okinawa.

There has been a proposal of building a new base in Okinawa, a completely new one and state-of-the-art military facility in Okinawa, which was protested by people in the community for ten years, by now. We had this regime change last year, and the new administration promised that there will be no buildup in Okinawa. However, what is going on now is that they are negotiating with the US government and saying that we cannot help building this new one.

So that is when—and this has been disclosed in the past month or so, and that is why the Okinawan people are raging against and they felt the need to express their protest against this newly built—buildup of base in Okinawa. And that is how this 90,000 people gathered at this rally. And the population of Okinawa is 1.3 million. That’s a lot of people who gathered. And there are many people who cannot express their protest or against their—their protest, because the US military has been there for a long time. The military economy is part of their life. It’s very difficult for them to publicly say no. But this 90,000 peoples rally was—showed how strong they felt.

AMY GOODMAN: Why are Japanese in Okinawa so opposed to the base there?

KOZUE AKIBAYASHI: The live very close—in Okinawa, they live very, very close to the military base. It’s not an isolated location. The military base is here, and they have to find places where they could build their houses. It affects in many ways of their lives. Noise pollution is one of them. Environmental pollution is one of them.

AMY GOODMAN: The issue of rape?

KOZUE AKIBAYASHI: Yes, yes. That’s more pervasive, but deep-rooted problem that women and children, girls, face in the vicinity. Not only the close vicinity, but the entire island of Okinawa face danger of sexual violence by US soldiers.

AMY GOODMAN: And Melvin, if you can talk about what’s happening on Guam.

MELVIN WON PAT-BORJA: Well, basically, you know, with this proposed base closure in Okinawa, the remedy to this solution is really seen as transferring the bulk of these soldiers from Okinawa to Guam. And that’s kind of where we come in. You know, there’s been a lot of debate about where these Marines should go.

And, you know, the United States’ attitude toward this is that, you know, Guam is their territory. You know, they see Guam as sovereign US soil, and it allows them freedom of action, which is one of the major pieces of—or major factors in why they chose Guam, because it allows them to basically operate without having to deal with a foreign government.

And so, they plan to move 8,600 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, plus their 9,000 dependents. They also include an Army ballistic missile defense system, which will bring an additional 600 Army soldiers. And they plan to dredge a—they plan to dredge 71 acres of coral reef in Apra Harbor in order to make room for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

They also have plans to acquire 2,200 additional acres of land, and they already own about a third of the island. And keep in mind, Guam is only about thirty-one miles long and seven miles wide in the narrowest point. Our population is a little bit over 170,000 people. And the military predicts that, at the peak year of the buildup, we will expect a population boom of about additional 80,000 people.

AMY GOODMAN: So a 50 percent increase almost.

MELVIN WON PAT-BORJA: Basically.

ANJALI KAMAT: Melvin, talk about what it was like to grow up in the shadow of these US military bases in Guam. What is everyday life like? How does it impact you?

MELVIN WON PAT-BORJA: Well, you know, the interesting thing about the base presence in Guam is that, you know, we are a United States unincorporated territory. And so, you know, we are US citizens, and I think that’s one of the major—it’s seen as one of the major differences between Guam and Okinawa. But the reality is that, you know, we essentially are second-class citizens. As a, you know, unincorporated US territory, you know, we don’t have representation in the Senate. We have a non-voting representative in Congress. We don’t vote for president. But we still fall under all US federal laws and regulations.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you ever concerned that they were going to move Guantánamo to Guam?

MELVIN WON PAT-BORJA: I mean, you know, it’s definite—really, when it comes to Guam and, you know, military strategy, you really don’t know what’s going happen. And there’s no—we really have no control over what happens.

You know, in the military’s plan, in their DEIS, their Draft Environmental Impact Statement, they basically said that, you know, other alternatives for the base relocation from Okinawa included the Philippines, Korea and Hawaii. And all three of those places said no. But nowhere in the document does it say that we ever had the opportunity to say no.

And that’s kind of—you know, that’s pretty much the climate in Guam, is that, you know, we just—we basically are forced to accept whatever it is that the United States federal government and the military decides to do.

AMY GOODMAN: How did the United States come to incorporate Guam as a territory of the United States?

MELVIN WON PAT-BORJA: Guam was purchased by the United States from Spain through the Treaty of Paris. So Guam actually was technically owned by the United States before World War II. Now, during World War II, we were—when the Americans got word that Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and that they were invading, you know, they basically left. They abandoned Guam, and we were occupied then by Japan for two years. And then the United States came back to reclaim Guam, and they basically carpet-bombed the entire island.

And more people—you know, a lot of people kind of look at the personal struggle, you know, in Guam during the Japanese occupation, you know, where we were victimized and killed brutally. You know, a lot of—even my family, my grandfather’s brother was executed for smuggling food into prison to feed their families who were starving. They made him dig his own grave and killed him. And so—

AMY GOODMAN: This was World War II?

MELVIN WON PAT-BORJA: Right, and this is during the Japanese occupation. And so, you know, a lot of folks look at this occupation as a very—it’s a very sensitive issue. And so, in a lot of ways, you know, the Americans were seen as the liberators.

But what a lot of people don’t know is that more people died in the reclaiming of Guam than in the entire two-year occupation of Guam by the Japanese. And so, you know, we have this kind of a dual identity, this sense of, you know, being an indigenous person from Guam, being an indigenous Chamorro, and having loyalty to the United States, you know? And that generation is still alive and well, you know, and there’s still a lot of folks who really feel loyal to the United States.

You know, but in a lot of ways, we don’t have the same rights as other Americans. And that’s something that’s really important in the discussion between Guam and Okinawa. You know, a lot of folks kind of see Guam as being America.

You know, when they look at the bases in Okinawa, they think, you know, this is an American problem, and these bases should be sent back to America. And so, they look then at Guam and Hawai’i as being America. And so, you know, this is the alternative. But, you know, a lot of folks don’t realize what our political status is and the struggles that we face within the political system.

And so, you know, this is not just a simple thing of saying, "OK, this is America. Let’s moves them there. You know, the people of Guam want them." You know, the reality is that there is a lot of resistance to this buildup, and it is going to impact us in so many different ways—socially, culturally, environmentally, financially. And, you know, it’s not just a simple transfer.

ANJALI KAMAT: And Kyle Kajihiro, I want to bring you back into the discussion. Talk about how this political realignment works in Hawai’i? What does it look like from there? And also, talk about the environmental impact of these bases.

KYLE KAJIHIRO: Right. Well, since September 11, we’ve had the largest military expansion since World War II. The military seized about 25,000 acres of land in order to station their Stryker brigade in Hawai’i. And these troops are being trained to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. So we have, you know, this dual role in Hawai’i of being a victim of the American empire and also an accomplice in the building of that empire. And so, we’re addressing both problems.

The environmental impacts of the military are enormous in Hawai’i. We have—we would argue that the military is the largest polluter, with over 828 contamination sites identified. In Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa, which is the original name of Pearl Harbor, once the food basket for Oahu, with thirty-six fish ponds, is now a toxic Superfund site.

More than 750 contamination sites. And we can’t eat from this life-giving treasure that’s there. And so, these are some of the manifestations that are not apparent on the surface. And even economically, with the economic influx that comes in, of course, certain people get paid, but others pay the price.

And it’s usually the Native peoples who lose land, who are forced out of their housing, because of the rising cost of living. And we have a growing homeless population on the beaches, mostly Native Hawaiians living in tents. Meanwhile, thousands of acres of military land are just across the street.

AMY GOODMAN: Kyle Kajihiro is the program director for the American Friends Service Committee in Hawai’i. Kozue Akibayashi is a professor and activist in Japan. She’s with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. And Melvin Won Pat-Borja is an educator and poet from Guam. He’s part of the We Are Guahan network opposed to the military base buildup in Guam.

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Hardwired to Eco-Hell

SUBHEAD: Our society is hardwired to consume its way to eco-hell. When the dust settles there will be a proliferation of local cultures. Image above: An early rail handcart coasting downhill on a long grade in the mid 19th century. From (http://www.dicksdoings.com/dicksadventures/canada.html). By Jan Lunberg on 22 May 2010 in Culture Change - (http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/647/1/) As the U.S. continues the incredibly wasteful misallocation of resources known as car production and everything that goes with it, the externalized costs in terms of global warming, oil spills, and human isolation as consumers, only mount.

Who is in charge of this mad policy of ecocide? We all are, but we did elect a president named Barack Obama. He was supposed to be the answer to the blatantly destructive and incompetent George W. Bush. But Lo and Behold, Obama's allegiance proved to be the status quo. Got recession? More cars! Oil spill a la Chernobyl in the U.S. Gulf? Keep on producing cars and using oil!

So, having fooled ourselves again with an election, ignoring the warning by The Who in their landmark song Won't Get Fooled Again (1970), we look to the driver of our vehicle to see that he is a nut case with his accelerator pedal pushed to the floor. Global peak in oil supply? Pedal to the metal! What's that above him? A helicopter gunship mowing down people on the other side of the world, in the name of democracy and freedom.

Obama's calm, intelligent face, our multiracial darling Obama, is on the whole a maniacal puppet. And he’s wearing a mask, whether he knows it or not. Who or what is underneath?

Some who look beyond elections say the problem is essentially one of corporatism: that Obama is just another representative of the corporate elite, as were the Bushes, McCain and the Clintons. True, but is U.S. culture salvageable by targeting corporate rule?

The lateness of the hour tells us the answer is No. Although the modern large corporation is the most virulent form of exploitation of people and the Earth, and needs to be abolished, U.S. culture has gone way too far in its alienation, oppression and general distortion of human values to be cured or transformed by even a major reform.

What, then, are the implications for a nation and people who don’t even have a hope today of getting out from under the car (that's pinning them down on the bloody, oily pavement)? Ideally, even Tea Party activists realize that significant change or relief from economic and social pressures does not come from another election or series of elections.

What, then -- revolution? Is that the real goal of anyone wishing for fundamental change? What would this revolution entail? Would it be political, cultural, or both?

A series of goals or wishes by enough people amounts to a social movement or a coup. It has happened before, and the threat of this feels real to those who find the U.S. to still be somewhat benign. To them, the possibility of a worse form of government and loss of our already diminished freedoms looms large enough that one’s priority becomes that of somehow maintaining the status quo, while hoping for positive developments such as clean energy, an end to oil wars, and a roll-back of the Patriot Act.

However, the time for political change to re-chart the course of a nation is past. Collapse and disintegration have been assured, due in large part to dependence on cheap oil. When the dust settles there will be a proliferation of local cultures. Meanwhile, the extreme state of a society hard wired to consume its way to eco-hell is unchangeable.

This is a blind culture that cannot see its own true roots. Who came to North America to conquer and set up a foreign culture, and what was the prime objective? Sky-god fearing, private-property obsessed, master-slave opportunists: the antithesis of the indigenous nature-revering, communal, more egalitarian, diverse cultures that had found the key to surviving and thriving for a thousand generations.

This does not imply there was nothing good in the newcomers or in their exploits (Jefferson, Tom Paine, or their successors in great thought such as Thoreau and Muir). Indeed, the courageous new Americans loved their small farms, the amazing scenery, and the soul of the land that spawned perhaps the greatest new forms of music the world has ever seen.

How can the goodness of U.S. Americans and the land they inhabit (and have changed irrevocably) be safeguarded and turned into a force for positive change at a time of runaway destruction at the hands of ecocidal, greedy corporations and their tools in political power?

There is no political answer, but there is a cultural-change answer.

By abandoning a way of living that denies our true needs for healthy nature and human closeness, taking steps to conserve the land, air and water, we cannot help but find ourselves cutting the umbilical cord to the terminally ill host. What would we be losing? For one thing, car dependency: we can’t afford it anyway, financially or ecologically. We would then be looking to our neighbors and family for solutions to daily living, losing the isolation of total reliance on shopping and technology.

Organizing household and neighborhood composting, gardening and home repairs are more first steps toward restoring real community and socioeconomic resilience.

Human potential is unlimited. Those who believe deep change is not possible in the foreseeable future, while it is our only choice if we are to turn back the worst of petrocollapse that has clearly been unleashed, will be shocked by the upheaval to come in their own lives and throughout the modern world.

Such a revolution, with eventual political outcomes of a more local-based and nature-respecting basis than the conventional top-down growth-maximizing sort, is within us now, waiting to spread and flower.

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BP Shitstorm

SUBHEAD: Imagine a storm forming over the solar heated BP oil spill, and then 150 mph winds whipping up a hurricane of muddy crude. A real life shit storm.

Image above: Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA, inspects oil-covered reeds along the Gulf of Mexico while visiting the disaster site on May 20. Photo by John Moore. From source article.

By John Hamilton on 21 May 2010 for NPR News - (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127036434)

If a hurricane encounters the oil slick now covering parts of the Gulf of Mexico, the result could be devastating, scientists say. Not only could any hurricane increase the damage that oil does to coastal wetlands, but the presence of oil could lead to a more powerful hurricane, they say.

Nobody knows for sure, though, because there's no record of a hurricane ever crossing paths with a large oil spill.

Trouble Brewing

The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1, and forecasters expect it to be busier than usual. Meanwhile, oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico from the site where the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20 and sank two days later in 5,000 feet of water.

Since then, oil has been accumulating at the surface. And that could be raising the temperature of the surrounding water, says Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"You have this black surface, and it's doing two things," Emanuel says. "First of all it's absorbing sunlight. And secondly, it is curtailing evaporation from the Gulf."

Evaporation normally helps cool the Gulf waters, Emanuel says.

"So theoretically, the Gulf underneath this oil slick should be getting hotter than it normally would be." And hotter water helps create more powerful hurricanes.

It's hard to know if the water is actually getting hotter, though, because oil prevents satellites from taking accurate temperature readings.

Impact On The Environment

Environmental scientists are already predicting that oil from the spill will damage the vegetation in coastal marshes. And the damage could be worse if a hurricane pushed oil deep into a wetland, or into currents that would carry it down Florida's west coast

"That's a big concern," Emanuel says. "Hurricanes would be pretty effective at dispersing [the oil] and pushing it around."

Other scientists say the amount of damage may depend on timing.

A hurricane might even be beneficial if it arrives before oil has a chance to damage coastal marshes, says Irving Mendelssohn, who studies coastal plant ecology at Louisiana State University.

"It's very possible that the hurricane will tend to both dissipate and break up the oil faster," he says. That could dilute the toxic substances and result in minimal damage to plants, he says.

But Mendelssohn says there could be more damage if the hurricane arrived after oil had reached the coast.

"Then the hurricane results in greater erosion of the wetland," he says, "because the wetland has already lost its vegetation and is already in a degraded state."

Marsh plants are hardy, and usually recover from a single encounter with oil, especially the less toxic type involved in this spill, Mendelssohn says. His great fear is that some combination of hurricanes, ocean currents and the ongoing spill will cover the same marsh plants with oil repeatedly.

"That type of re-oiling will completely kill the plant," he says, destroying the wetland, and leaving the coast without a key defense against hurricanes.

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Obama's "New World Order"?

SUBHEAD: Speech as given at West Point points in new direction for American foreign policy. Image above: President Barak Obama greets cadets at West Point. From (http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/today/index.ssf/2009/12/local_afghanistan_veterans_sup.html). By Brad Parsons on 22 May 2010 - The media, particularly the Washington Post, New York Times and FoxNews are all mischaracterizing the content of Obama's recent Graduation Address this month at West Point. The full-text of the speech is here: Text of Obama's Speech to West Point 2010 Cadets. One of the blog posts that correctly critiques the above reports with the actual content of the speech is the following: Obama's West Point Speech: What Did He Say? But, even that blog post does not quote completely what Obama did or did not say about "New World Order." We decided to read the full-text of that speech for ourselves. Here are the only three paragraphs where Obama spoke directly about international order:

Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system. But America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of cooperation - we have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face consequences when they don't. So we have to shape an international order that can meet the challenges of our generation. We will be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well, including those who will serve by your side in Afghanistan and around the globe. As influence extends to more countries and capitals, we also have to build new partnerships, and shape stronger international standards and institutions. This engagement is not an end in itself. The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times -- countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; preventing conflict and healing wounds. If we are successful in these tasks, that will lessen conflicts around the world. It will be supportive of our efforts by our military to secure our country.

Make of it what you will. There can certainly be read into that a number of points of interesting potential "double-speak." But, what Obama speaks of does not appear to be the same thing as Bush I nor Bush II's "New World Order." .

Obama may stir summer mayhem

SUBHEAD: Obama's trust of the financiers, military and oil barons, if unchecked, will lead to widespread social unrest. Image above: Gun owners at 'Open Carry' demonstration in national park as near White House as is legally possible. From (http://womenonguard.blogspot.com/2010/04/open-carry-gun-activists-rally-near.html). By Ilargi on 22 May 2010 in The Automatic Earth - (http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/05/may-22-2010-as-goes-nose-so-go-toes.html) It's possible that unequalled-in-our-times historian Simon Schama carries sufficient authority to have people heed his words. It’s probably more likely, though, that those for whom Schama’s bell intends to toll will react in the spirit of Joey Ramone's best rock 'n roll lines ever, the equally unequaled:

"I don’t care about history; 'cause that's not where I want to be."

For all the talk about the Great Depression and its self-professed scholars, experts and historians, precious little seems to have truly sunk in that has the weight to counter the "This time it's different" meme. Which is a bad idea, since, as Schama knows like few others, when it comes to rhyming, history can rival Shelley, Keats and Shakespeare sonnet for sonnet. We would all do well, our politicians and wealthiest most of all, to heed the picture Schama paints:

The world teeters on the brink of a new age of rage

[..] in Europe and America there is a distinct possibility of a long hot summer of social umbrage. Historians will tell you there is often a time-lag between the onset of economic disaster and the accumulation of social fury. In act one, the shock of a crisis initially triggers fearful disorientation; the rush for political saviours; instinctive responses of self-protection, but not the organised mobilisation of outrage. [..] Act two is trickier. Objectively, economic conditions might be improving, but perceptions are everything and a breathing space gives room for a dangerously alienated public to take stock of the brutal interruption of their rising expectations. What happened to the march of income, the acquisition of property, the truism that the next generation will live better than the last? [..] [..] the psychological impact of financial regulation is almost as critical as its institutional prophylactics. Those who lobby against it risk jeopardising their own long-term interests. Should governments fail to reassert the integrity of public stewardship, suspicions will emerge that, for all the talk of new beginnings, the perps and new regime are cut from common cloth. Both risk being shredded by popular ire or outbid by more dangerous tribunes of indignation.[..] Those on the receiving end of punitive corrections - in public sector wages or retrenched social institutions - will lash out at their remote masters. Those in the richer north obliged to subsidise what they take to be the fecklessness of the Latins, will come to see not just the single currency, but the European project as an historic error and will pine for the mark or franc. Chauvinist movements will be reborn, directed at immigrants and Brussels dictats, with more destructive fury than we have seen since the war.[..] Claims that Washington has been captured for socialism are preached on right-wing talk radio as gospel truth. As they did in the 1930s with Father Coughlin, the radio demonisers are pitch-perfect orchestrators of hatred for listeners in bewildered economic distress. Against this tide, facts are feeble weapons. [..] if his government is to survive the November elections with a shred of authority, it will need Barack Obama to be more than a head tutor. It will need him to be a warrior of the word every bit as combative as the army of the righteous that believes it has the Constitution on its side, and in its inchoate thrashings, can yet bring down the governance of the American Republic.

Hear, hear. Unfortunately, Obama has elected to sit on his hands for over a month, and only then call a commission together to look into the true impact of the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens to be a disaster like few before, both within the United States and internationally. How he wishes to explain his four weeks not doing much of anything at all to the people of Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Cuba and Mexico is hard to envision. The modus operandi prevalent in Washington, to let the well-to-do culpable police themselves, whether they be Goldman Sachs or BP, carries an enormous political risk. And rightly so, because there is no indication anywhere to be seen that says this line of -in-action is in the best interest of the people who put their trust in the man. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs may stammer some incoherent syllables on what the law does and does not allow the president to do, but none of that will amount to zilch once nobody can deny any longer that 10 or 20 times as much oil has been leaking, and still is, than both BP and the American government have been claiming all the way back to April 20. Obama himself should have been on site from the earliest possible moment, taking advice from the best people he could find in the entire world, just in case BP was not telling the truth (for which it had great incentives), and just in case a worst case scenario would unfold when it came to closing the leak. Exactly in the same way that he has shown while dealing with the financial quagmire the nation, and indeed the world, is sinking ever deeper into, Obama has proven one thing to everyone who cares to look and listen: He is not a leader. He simply lacks the qualities and the instinct required for the position. Which is a shame, for his voters, his followers and the nation as a whole; nonetheless, it's time to stop kidding ourselves. And since the hopeful White (House) lies about an economic recovery are these days falling apart faster even than the oil can gush from the well-head, the lack of leadership looks set to have grave consequences for Americans, especially the most vulnerable among them. The finance crisis is like a viral affliction that attacks everywhere in the body at the same time. Keeping just the head intact and ready for TV is useless. To wit: Robert Wenzel at the Economic Policy Journal, quoted by ZH's Tyler Durden, has assembled a series of stats that Durden interprets as:

32 US States Now Officially Bankrupt

[..] we now know that the majority of American states are currently insolvent, and that the US Treasury has been conducting a shadow bailout of at least 32 US states. Over 60% of Americans receiving state unemployment benefits are getting these directly from the US government, as 32 states have now borrowed $37.8 billion from Uncle Sam to fund unemployment insurance.

Personally, I would prefer "functionally bankrupt”, so as to avoid any discussion of the legal meaning of the term "officially" in this context, but, frankly, that wouldn't change anything of substance in the debate. The system is rotting from the inside. And, to use a metaphor, the head surgeon, who should be applying and inserting all the anti-biotics available to him, is focusing on a nose-job instead, so to speak. You better look good than feel good. What's good for Wall Street is good for the nation. As goes the nose, so go the toes. If the president could hold off the unemployment benefit calamity for a while longer (and we have to wonder how long that will be), he would still be -almost- instantly confronted with the next gusher. As the Financial Times reports:

Unfunded state pensions face prospect of becoming federal issue

Illinois used to have a plan to pay off the gaping shortfall in the pension funds that pay retired teachers, university employees, state workers, judges and politicians [..] ... back in 1994, the state laid out a proposal that would have paid off most of what was then a $17 billion gap by 2011. But Illinois could not stick to the plan. With financial year 2011 less than six weeks away, the pension arrears of the 1990s look quaint. Instead of a balanced system, the state faces unfunded liabilities of about $78 billion, the biggest pension hole in the US, and contributions of more than $4 billion for 2011, the largest single element of its $13 billion budget deficit. Illinois is the poster child of unfunded pensions in the US. But state retirement systems could become a national concern, new research shows. Joshua Rauh, associate professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University said that, without reform, some state pensions might run out within the decade. [..] Mr Rauh said subsidising pension borrowing would cost a net $75 billion with new contributions to the national Social Security programme offsetting some of the subsidies. By his calculations, which assume [an] 8 per cent return, Illinois would run out by 2018 followed by Connecticut, New Jersey and Indiana in 2019. Some 20 states will have run out by 2025.

First, about the 8% return on investments: that is of course a preposterous assumption, akin to the desire to believe that the Deepwater Horizon well pumps only a few buckets per day into the ocean, and it will all go away by itself if only we close our eyes to it. Over the past 2-4 years, pension plans all over haven't gained 8%, they’ve lost enormous amounts of double-digit percentages of the money that pensions are supposed to be paid with. Without that ludicrous assumption, and with a more realistic zero percent return, Illinois pensioners are simply out of luck a handful years from now. That is the real world. The one a leader deserving of the name would live in. The one there is, however, elects to have the nation continue to live in the hologram of extend and pretend and hope and change and belief we see crumbling all around us today. If the stock markets tank for another week or month the way they have lately, the crumbling will reveal cracks, which, once exposed to daylight, will become fissures, which in turn will cause the walls to start falling in on themselves. If the president continues to deal with these things the way he has so far with Wall Street and the Gulf of Mexico, Simon Schama's fears of summer mayhem will close in on all of us ever more. Not just those of us in the US, but on both sides of the Atlantic, and who knows in what other places around the globe. .

Manaoha offers Free Movies

SOURCE: Ray Catania (may11nineteen71@gmail.com) SUBHEAD: Liliuokalani Agreements and Anti-Development Films; Sunday May 30 at 6:00pm, Kapaa Neighborhood Center. Image aboeve: Detail of "Queen Lili`uokalani" by Wayne Takazono. From (http://www.cedarstreetgalleries.com/bin/detail.cgi?ID=1883). WHAT: “1893 Cleveland-Lili`uokalani Executive Agreements and Their Impact Today” is Native Hawaiian scholar Dr. Keanu Sai's video on the 1893 President Cleveland-Queen Liliuokanlani executive Agreements and their impact on current issues today like burial desecration and Native Hawaiian rights to Hawaii's natural resources from mauka to makai. "Discover Kauai" is Koohan "Camera" Paik's highly watched Youtube video on Kauai's non-stop high income overdevelopment. Discussion will follow the movies and light refreshments will be served. WHEN: Sunday, May 30th 2010, 6:00pm WHERE: Kapaa Neighborhood Center SPONSOR: Event sponsored by Manaoha.org CONTACT: Ben Nihi Phone: 634-0469 Web: www.manaoha.org

Merkley-Levin Did Not Get A Vote

SUBHEAD: The amendment would have forced big banks to get rid of their speculative proprietary trading activities. Image above: Wallstreet's "Raging Bull" by Carl Heilman, 2006. From (http://minthouse.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/17).

By Simon Johnson on 21 May 2010 in Baseline Scenario - (http://baselinescenario.com/2010/05/21/focus-on-this-merkley-levin-did-not-get-a-vote)

After 9 months of hard fighting, yesterday financial reform came down to this: an amendment, proposed by Senators Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin that would have forced big banks to get rid of their speculative proprietary trading activities (i.e., a relatively strong version of the Volcker Rule.)

The amendment had picked up a great deal of support in recent weeks, partly because of unflagging support from Paul Volcker and partly because of the broader debate around the Brown-Kaufman amendment (which would have forced the biggest 6 banks to become smaller). Brown-Kaufman failed, 33-61, but it demonstrated that a growing number of senators were willing to confront the power of our biggest and worst banks.

Yet, at the end of the day, the Merkley-Levin amendment did not even get a vote. Why?

Partly this was because of procedural maneuvers. Merkley-Levin could only get a vote if another amendment, proposed by Senator Brownback (on exempting auto dealers from new consumer protection rules) got a vote. Late yesterday afternoon, Senator Brownback was persuaded, presumably by his Republican colleagues and by financial lobbyists, to withdraw his amendment.

Of course, Merkley-Levin was only in this awkward position because of an earlier lack of wholehearted support from the Democratic leadership – and from the White House. Again, the long reach of Wall Street was at work.

But the important point here is quite different. If Merkley-Levin did not have the votes, it was in the interest of the megabanks to have it come to the floor and be defeated. That would have been a clear victory for the status quo.

But Merkley-Levin had momentum and could potentially have passed – reflecting a big change of opinion within the Senate (and more broadly around the country). The big banks were forced into overdrive to stop it.

The Volcker Rule, in its weaker Dodd bill form (“do a study and think about implementing”), perhaps will survive the upcoming House-Senate conference – although, because this process likely will not be televised, all kinds of bad things may happen behind closed doors. Regulators may also take the Volcker Rule more seriously – but the most probable outcome is that the Fed and other officials will get a great deal of discretion regarding how to implement the principles, and they will completely fudge the issue.

Most importantly, everyone who wants to rein in the largest banks now has a much clearer idea of what to push for, what to campaign on, and for what purpose to raise money. This is the completely reasonable and responsible ask:

1. The Volcker Rule, as specifically proposed in the Merkley-Levin amendment.
2. Constraints on the size and leverage of our largest banks, as proposed by the Brown-Kaufman amendment.

When the mainstream consensus shifts in favor of these measures, or their functional equivalents, we will have finally begun the long process of reining in the dangerous economic and political power of our largest banks.

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EPA Going After BP?

SUBHEAD: EPA officials weigh sanctions against BP’s U.S. operations, but military national security may overrule. As it is USGS is taking orders from BP. Image above: Still frame from video of USCG Rear Admiral Sally Brice O'Hara giving interview to CBS-TV on 4/29/10 on BP Oil Spill. From (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6447215n). [Publisher's note: Remember Sally Brice O'Hara? She was the USGS rep in charge of the Unified Command, under Lingle Lingle, to resume the running of the Superferry to Kauai. Now she's working for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Why do I say that? It is important to realize that BP is the largest producer of America's non-imported crude oil. BP is the largest supplier of oil products to America's armed services, who as a whole, are the largest consumer of oil in the world. In effect, the military, coast guard, US executive branch along with British Petroleum , trans America and Haliburton, are one functioning organism, sucking the life out of the Gulf of Mexico for its survival.] By Abrahm Lustgarten on 21 May 2010 for ProPublica - (http://www.propublica.org/feature/epa-officials-weighing-sanctions-against-bps-us-operations) Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering whether to bar BP from receiving government contracts, a move that would ultimately cost the company billions in revenue and could end its drilling in federally controlled oil fields. Over the past 10 years, BP has paid tens of millions of dollars in fines and been implicated in four separate instances of criminal misconduct that could have prompted this far more serious action. Until now, the company's executives and their lawyers have fended off such a penalty by promising that BP would change its ways. That strategy may no longer work. Days ago, in an unannounced move, the EPA suspended negotiations with the petroleum giant over whether it would be barred from federal contracts because of the environmental crimes it committed before the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Officials said they are putting the talks on hold until they learn more about the British company's responsibility for the plume of oil that is spreading across the Gulf. The EPA said in a statement that, according to its regulations, it can consider banning BP from future contracts after weighing "the frequency and pattern of the incidents, corporate attitude both before and after the incidents, changes in policies, procedures, and practices." Several former senior EPA debarment attorneys and people close to the BP investigation told ProPublica that means the agency will re-evaluate BP and examine whether the latest incident in the Gulf is evidence of an institutional problem inside BP, a precursor to the action called debarment. Federal law allows agencies to suspend or bar from government contracts companies that engage in fraudulent, reckless or criminal conduct. The sanctions can be applied to a single facility or an entire corporation. Government agencies have the power to forbid a company to collect any benefit from the federal government in the forms of contracts, land leases, drilling rights, or loans. The most serious, sweeping kind of suspension is called "discretionary debarment" and it is applied to an entire company. If this were imposed on BP, it would cancel not only the company's contracts to sell fuel to the military but prohibit BP from leasing or renewing drilling leases on federal land. In the worst cast, it could also lead to the cancellation of BP's existing federal leases, worth billions of dollars. Present and former officials said the crucial question in deciding whether to impose such a sanction is assessing the offending company's culture and approach: Do its executives display an attitude of non-compliance? The law is not intended to punish actions by rogue employees and is focused on making contractor relationships work to the benefit of the government. In its negotiations with EPA officials before the Gulf spill, BP had been insisting that it had made far-reaching changes in its approach to safety and maintenance, and that environmental officials could trust its promises that it would commit no further violations of the law. EPA officials declined to speculate on the likelihood that BP will ultimately be suspended or barred from government contracts. Such a step will be weighed against the effect on BP's thousands of employees and on the government's costs of replacing it as a contractor. Even a temporary expulsion from the U.S. could be devastating for BP's business. BP is the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico and operates some 22,000 oil and gas wells across United States, many of them on federal lands or waters. According to the company, those wells produce 39 percent of the company's global revenue from oil and gas production each year -- $16 billion. Discretionary debarment is a step that government investigators have long sought to avoid, and which many experts had considered highly unlikely because BP is a major supplier of fuel to the U.S. military. The company could petition U.S. courts for an exception, arguing that ending that contract is a national security risk. That segment of BP's business alone was worth roughly $4.6 billion over the last decade, according to the government contracts website USAspending. Because debarment is supposed to protect American interests, the government also must weigh such an action's effect on the economy against punishing BP for its transgressions. The government would, for instance, be wary of interrupting oil and gas production that could affect energy prices, or taking action that could threaten the jobs of thousands of BP employees. A BP spokesman said the company would not comment on pending legal matters. The EPA did not make its debarment officials available for comment or explain its intentions, but in an e-mailed response to questions submitted by ProPublica the agency confirmed that its Suspension and Debarment Office has "temporarily suspended" any further discussion with BP regarding its unresolved debarment cases in Alaska and Texas until an investigation into the unfolding Gulf disaster can be included. The fact that the government is looking at BP's pattern of incidents gets at one of the key factors in deciding a discretionary debarment, said Robert Meunier, the EPA's debarment official under President Bush and an author of the EPA's debarment regulations. It means officials will try to determine whether BP has had a string of isolated or perhaps unlucky mistakes, or whether it has consistently displayed contempt for the regulatory process and carelessness in its operations. In the past decade environmental accidents at BP facilities have killed at least 26 workers, led to the largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope and now sullied some of the country's best coastal habitat, along with fishing and tourism economies along the Gulf. Meunier said that when a business with a record of problems like BP's has to justify its actions and corporate management decisions to the EPA "it's going to get very dicey for the company." "How many times can a debarring official grant a resolution to an agreement if it looks like no matter how many times they agree to fix something it keeps manifesting itself as a problem?" he said. Documents obtained by ProPublica show that the EPA's debarment negotiations with BP were strained even before the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. The fact that Doug Suttles, the BP executive responsible for offshore drilling in the Gulf, used to head BP Alaska and was the point person for negotiations with debarment officials there, only complicates matters. Now, the ongoing accident in the Gulf may push those relations to a break. Discretionary debarment for BP has been considered at several points over the years, said Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA debarment attorney who headed the agency's BP negotiations for six years until she retired last year. "In 10 years we've got four convictions," Pascal said, referring to BP's three environmental crimes and a 2009 deferred prosecution for manipulating the gas market, which counts as a conviction under debarment law. "At some point if a contractor's behavior is so egregious and so bad, debarment would have to be an option." In the three instances where BP has had a felony or misdemeanor conviction under the Clean Air or Clean Water Acts, the facilities where the accidents happened automatically faced a statutory debarment, a lesser form of debarment that affects only the specific facility where the accident happened. One of those cases has been settled. In October 2000, after a felony conviction for illegally dumping hazardous waste down a well hole to cut costs, BP's Alaska subsidiary, BP Exploration Alaska, agreed to a five-year probation period and settlement. That agreement expired at the end of 2005. The other two debarment actions are still open, and those are the cases that EPA officials and the company have been negotiating for several years. In the first incident, on March 23, 2005, an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery killed 15 workers. An investigation found the company had restarted a fuel tower without warning systems in place, and BP was eventually fined more than $62 million and convicted of a felony violation of the Clean Air Act. BP Products North America, the responsible subsidiary, was listed as debarred and the Texas City refinery was deemed ineligible for any federally funded contracts. But the company as a whole proceeded unhindered.

Workers respond on March 3, 2006 to the largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope after 200,000 gallons of oil leaked from a hole in a pipeline in Prudhoe Bay. (BPXA)

A year later, in March 2006, a hole in a pipeline in Prudhoe Bay led to the largest ever oil spill on Alaska's North Slope – 200,000 gallons -- and the temporary disruption of oil supplies to the continental U.S. An investigation found that BP had ignored warnings about corrosion in its pipelines and had cut back on precautionary measures to save money. The company's Alaska subsidiary was convicted of a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and, again, debarred and listed as ineligible for government income at its Prudhoe Bay pipeline facilities. That debarment is still in effect.

That accident alone -- which led to congressional investigations and revelations that BP executives harassed employees who warned of safety problems and ignored corrosion problems for years -- was thought by some inside the EPA to be grounds for the more serious discretionary debarment.

"EPA routinely discretionarily debars companies that have Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act convictions," said Pascal, the former EPA debarment attorney who ran the BP case. "The reason this case is different is because of the Defense Department's extreme need for BP."

Instead of a discretionary debarment, the EPA worked to negotiate a compromise that would bring BP into compliance but keep its services available. The goal was to reach an agreement that would guarantee that BP improve its safety operations, inspections, and treatment of employees not only at the Prudhoe Bay pipeline facility, but at its other facilities across the country.

According to e-mails obtained by ProPublica and several people close to the government's investigation, the company rejected some of the basic settlement conditions proposed by the EPA -- including who would police the progress -- and took a confrontational approach with debarment officials.

One person close to the negotiations said he was confounded by what he characterized as the company's stubborn approach to the debarment discussions. Given the history of BP's problems, he said, any settlement would have been a second chance, a gift. Still, the e-mails show, BP resisted.

As more evidence is gathered about what went wrong in the Gulf, BP may soon wish it hadn't.

It's doubtful that the EPA will make any decisions about BP's future in the United States until the Gulf investigation is completed, a process that could last a year. But as more information emerges about the causes of the accident there -- about faulty blowout preventers and hasty orders to skip key steps and tests that could have prevented a blowout -- the more the emerging story begins to echo the narrative of BP's other disasters. That, Meunier said, could leave the EPA with little choice as it considers how "a corporate attitude of non-compliance" should affect the prospect of the company's debarment going forward.

• ProPublica reporters Mosi Secret and Ryan Knutson and director of research Lisa Schwartz contributed to this report.

---

BP & USCG Threaten Reporters By Staff on 21 May 2010 for CBS-TV - (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/19/bp-coast-guard-officers-b_n_581779.html) Emerging reports are raising the question of just how much of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill journalists are able to document. When CBS tried to film a beach with heavy oil on the shore in South Pass, Louisiana, a boat of BP contractors, and two Coast Guard officers, told them to turn around, or be arrested.

"This is BP's rules, it's not ours," someone aboard the boat said. Coast Guard officials told CBS that they're looking into it. As the Coast Guard is a branch of the Armed Forces, it brings into question how closely the government and BP are working together to keep details of the disaster in the dark. Furthermore, this may not be the sole incident of its kind. According to Mother Nature Network's Karl Burkhart, his contacts in Louisiana have given him unconfirmed reports of equipment being turned away or confiscated. Rob Wyman, the Lieutenant Commander of the USCG Deepwater Horizon Unified Command Joint Information Center has sent us a statement in response to this incident. "Neither BP nor the U.S. Coast Guard, who are responding to the spill, have any rules in place that would prohibit media access to impacted areas and we were disappointed to hear of this incident. In fact, media has been actively embedded and allowed to cover response efforts since this response began, with more than 400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date. Just today 16 members of the press observed clean-up operations on a vessel out of Venice, La. The only time anyone would be asked to move from an area would be if there were safety concerns, or they were interfering with response operations. This did occur off South Pass Monday which may have caused the confusion reported by CBS. The entities involved in the Deepwater Horizon/BP Response have already reiterated these media access guidelines to personnel involved in the response and hope it prevents any future confusion.

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Batten Down the Hatches

SUBHEAD: I was deemed insane. Then fringe. Suddenly, collapse has gone mainstream. I’m not such a whack job after all. Image above: "Stormy Friday Part II" by Mark Teskey. From (http://t3imagery.com/topics/weather).

By Guy McPherson on 20 May 2010 in Nature Bats Last - (http://guymcpherson.com/2010/05/batten-down-the-hatches)

If you’re indebted to the federal government and its evil twin the industrial economy for your financial well-being or, like most Americans, for your very survival, the coming storm will not resemble a monsoon so much as a hurricane-style downspout. And of course it will come as a total surprise to the typical neoclassical economist, who has declared the recession over (and hasn’t recognized that the recession has been replaced with an ongoing depression that will be replaced by complete economic collapse). The industrial economy is circling the drain, and a hard rain is on the way.

I’ve been writing about the ongoing collapse for a few years, and have developed a comprehensive set of arrangements to deal with its ultimate endpoint. At first, I was deemed insane. Then fringe. Suddenly, collapse has gone mainstream. I’m not such a whack job after all, if recent news is any indication. This post provides a brief and partial overview of the dire straits facing the industrial economy age.

Let’s start with the housing market, on which the U.S. economy depends for economic growth. The last time the housing bubble popped, it rocked our suburban world. So the federal government blew up the bubble again, and it just might bring down the entire industrial economy when it pops anew.

Then there’s sovereign debt. Currently, Greece is the primary concern of most economists. That alone should tell you the irrelevance of Greece. The entire Eurozone teeters on the brink, with Greece being one of the few countries of such minor economic significance that it can be bailed out. Japan — the world’s second largest economy — could easily be next in line. And Greece’s debt to GDP ratio is downright tiny compared to that of the U.S. (112% vs. 421%, respectively), suggesting that the U.S. economy could take the Grecian route in the blink of an eye. The only difference between Greece and the U.S. is a printing press, and that alone cannot keep the U.S. from following Greece’s lead. Add to the world economic woes that 49 of 50 U.S. states are underwater, which hardly bodes well for entities that cannot go deeper into debt by printing money to kick the can down the road. The end of fiat currency looms large.

The American stock markets are about to go over the edge. A major crash lies right around the bend, as the entire industrial world is hitting the wall. The government stimulus is about used up, and China is ridding itself of fiat currencies and opting for gold instead (a move that could destroy the world’s industrial economy all by itself). Four big banks rule the American financial world and they keep getting bigger, but I doubt they can keep the show going much longer, even though they can essentially print their own money today (they borrow from the U.S. government at zero interest, and loan it back at three percent or more).

In short, the panic is on. The collapse of industrial society is imminent. Even Ben Bernanke is getting scared as the ultimate Ponzi scheme nears its end.

Among the more important issues we face: The industrialized world cannot live without deepwater oil, and the living planet cannot live with deepwater oil and its side-effects. This seems like a no-brainer to me, and the White House is covering up the extent of the gusher, but few people agree that the living planet on which we depend for our own survival should be a high priority. I’m a big fan of hastening the empire’s decline, if only for the selfish reason of saving our species.

Call me silly. But I think we’re on the verge of killing the beast.

How do industrial humans survive the coming storm? Or do we?

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Markets Poised to Retreat

SUBHEAD: S&P sinking back to May 6th "crash" level is a sign of bad things to come. Image above: Floor of NYSE when things went dicey in December 2008. From (http://fresnobeehive.com/news/2008/12/). By Lynn Thomasson and Rita Nazareth on 21 may 2010 in Bloomberg News - (http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8803908253839878060) Any investor who wants to gauge how serious the stock market’s retreat is need only know the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has fallen below its low on May 6, when panic selling prompted calls for reform.

The equity index retreated 3.9 percent yesterday in its biggest loss in 14 months, sinking to 1,071.59, and slipped as low as 1,055.90 today. That compares with 1,065.79, the low two weeks ago when $862 billion was wiped out in 20 minutes. The options market benchmark known as the VIX soared 30 percent to 45.79 yesterday, meaning expectations for volatility are the highest in 13 months.

Europe’s debt crisis has pushed the S&P 500 down 12 percent during the past month as concern grew that deficits in Greece, Spain and Portugal will unhinge the global economic recovery. Regulators have proposed six potential causes of the May 6 crash, including losses in exchange-traded funds and an unwillingness to match orders among some electronic traders.

“As far as we know, it’s not a computer error today,” Jerome Dodson, who oversees $4 billion as president of Parnassus Investments in San Francisco, said of yesterday’s slump. “The May 6 flash crash was driven by technical troubles and didn’t reflect any fundamentals. It’s surprising that regular trading would take us down to the same levels as a technical glitch.”

The S&P 500 surged in the final 20 minutes of trading today, posting a 1.5 percent gain to 1,087.69 as of 4 p.m. in New York.

200-Day Average

The decline in U.S. shares deepened yesterday after the June futures contract for the S&P 500 fell below its 200-day average for the first time since July 2009, a bearish sign to traders who base investments on price momentum. More than 550 stocks reached their lowest price in a year yesterday, according to data from U.S. exchanges compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the second-highest level since April 2009.

The chart patterns show concern the U.S. economy may weaken after expanding during the past three quarters. Reports yesterday showed more Americans filed for jobless benefits in the week ended May 15 and the Conference Board’s index of U.S. leading economic indicators unexpectedly declined in April.

“If this begins to bleed into people’s psyches, then it can perpetuate a negative sentiment that could weigh not only further on the index, but begin to impact the real economy,” said Kevin Caron, a market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Florham Park, New Jersey, which oversees about $90 billion.

Ireland, U.S. Debt

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index has fallen 5.7 percent in the past three days after Germany banned some bets against government bonds and financial institutions. Ireland, the U.K. and U.S. will post the largest budget deficits among advanced economies this year, ranging from 11 percent to 12.2 percent of gross domestic product, the Washington-based International Monetary Fund forecast on May 14.

“You can’t just say Europe is deleveraging and the U.S. is safe,” Komal Sri-Kumar, who helps manage about $100 billion as chief global strategist at Los Angeles-based TCW Group Inc., said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday. “Are equity valuations justified given the level of debt? The answer is no.”

U.S. stocks are valued at 19.7 times annual earnings from the past 10 years, according to inflation-adjusted data tracked by Yale University Professor Robert Shiller. That compares with the average of 16.4 since 1881.

Options Insurance

Today’s expiration of U.S. May options may heighten price swings as traders close out their positions, said Paul Zemsky of ING Investment Management. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, which measures the cost of using options as insurance against declines in the S&P 500, has almost tripled since April 12.

The expiration “definitely contributed to the move today and could continue to increase volatility tomorrow,” Zemsky, who oversees about $50 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation for ING, said yesterday. “It could cause the market to overshoot more than it normally would.”

While the stock selloff reflects reasonable concern that Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will derail global growth, U.S. corporate earnings and favorable valuations will prevail, said Laszlo Birinyi, the founder of Birinyi Associates Inc. Profits for S&P 500 companies are forecast to increase 17 percent this year, pushing the index’s price to 13.2 times annual income, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“I am not of the view that we’re going to go into a 20 percent downdraft,” Birinyi said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We are buying to take advantage of this weakness.”

Buying Opportunity

Billionaire investor Kenneth Fisher also sees the equity plunge as a buying opportunity. The chairman of Fisher Investments Inc., who oversees about $35 billion in Woodside, California, said the U.S. economic recovery will outweigh the debt crisis in Europe.

Gross domestic product in the world’s biggest economy rose at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter. Consumer spending increased by the most in three years and business investment on new equipment advanced at a 13 percent pace. The economy will grow 3.2 percent to 3.7 percent this year, the Federal Reserve said on May 19.

“If GDP is rising, you don’t have a recession,” said Fisher. “We’re getting the stock market correction that begins to let us put everything behind us and move on to the next leg. This is a bull market.”

That’s not enough to sooth investors still shaken by the May 6 crash, says Thomas Lee, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief U.S. equity strategist. It’s too “cavalier” to assume the economic recovery is in place as China take steps to slow growth and Europe cuts spending to rein in budget deficits, he wrote in a May 20 research report. He forecasts that the S&P 500 will end the year at 1,300.

“People are extremely nervous following the flash crash,” Lee said in a Bloomberg Television interview from New York yesterday. “It’s normally a wall of worry, but this is a mountain.”

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Decolonizing the Pacific

SOURCE: Brad Parsons (mauibrad@hotmail.com)
SUBHEAD: U.N. head urges five Pacific nations toward self-governance. They are Tokelau, New Caledonia, American Samoa, Guam, and Pitcairn.

By Staff on 20 May 2010 in The Hawaiian Independent -  
(http://thehawaiiindependent.com/world/read/u.n.-head-urges-five-pacific-nations-toward-self-governance)


 
Image above: A USAF B-2 Stealth Bomber (l) and F-22 Fighter (r) deployed on Guam. From (http://www.air-attack.com/images/single/860/F-22-Stealth-fighter-B-2-stealth-bomber-deployed-to-Guam-for-first-time.html).  
 Five Pacific nations and the larger powers that govern and administer them are being urged by the United Nations to advance toward self governance. At a forum held this week on decolonization in Noumea, New Caledonia, the United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon declared all remaining non-self-governing nations must have complete freedom in deciding their future—among those 16 states whose official status remains as non-self-governing nations are: Tokelau, New Caledonia, American Samoa, Guam, and Pitcairn.

The Noumea forum was the second time the United Nations has held a seminar on decolonisation in a non-self-governing nation. New Caledonia is governed by France, and French rule has long been challenged by the island state’s indigenous peoples. Ban said holding the forum in New Caledonia was significant in that it enabled the United Nations to highlight “the importance the Committee ascribes to hearing directly from their representatives about the issues they face”.

And, in a statement, Ban cited how New Caledonia is “going through a challenging and complex process of determining its political future in close cooperation with the administering Power, France”. Fifty years ago, the United Nations made a declaration designed to eradicate colonisation in all regions of the world. Today, 16 nations continue to be subservient to a controlling power, or administered by a dominant state. The United Nations strategy is to encourage self-determination, and to loosen the grip of controlling nations without creating social and civil unrest, especially in the Pacific.

“The (United Nations) Special Committee regards the hosting of the Seminar (in New Caledonia) as a significant manifestation of the improved cooperation between the administering Power and the Committee in advancing the decolonization process in general and in the Pacific region in particular,” he said. Tokelau is another Pacific island nation that remains classified as non-self-governing. Tokelau has been governed and administered by New Zealand since 1926, although its peoples have twice voted (with United Nations observers in attendance) on whether the status quo be maintained, or rather, that Tokelau become an independent state in free association with New Zealand.

That means that if Tokelau’s people decided on the latter, New Zealand would maintain a fiscal and bureaucratic/administrative responsibility to assist Tokelau while Tokelau would have free and full rights to self-governance. On both occasions, the latter held on October 25 2007, Tokelau’s people voted against change and self-determination. Tokelau’s option for change failed by only one percent of votes.

For Tokelau to become a self-governing nation, it required 66 percent of voters to support the proposal. At the end of counting today, 64.4 percent voted in favor – 16 votes shy of the required 462 yes votes. New Zealand officially respected the wishes of Tokelau’s people but clearly was disappointed that self-governance was not achieved via the ballot-box. Today, Tokelau remains officially governed by New Zealand, but in reality its domestic affairs are governed by Faipule—a council of elected elders led by a single representative from each of its three atolls. The Faipule vote on a leader or Ulu. The role of Ulu rotates so that each Faipule has a chance to represent Tokelau.

The process of governance is overseen by an appointed Administrator from New Zealand, currently David Payton—a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade senior diplomat. While domestic affairs are well represented by Tokelauans, its non-self-governing status means Tokelau is not able to represent itself at significant world conferences like the recent Copenhagen conference on climate change, other United Nations forums and general assembly, nor have an official flag, national anthem, nor bid for development grants, funding, or programmes that would best assist it to counter or adapt to significant global challenges (such as climate change).

Throughout the Pacific the road to self-governance has proven to be complex. However, Ban was this week determined to set in motion action that would see all remaining 16 nations become self-governing. He has sought co-operation from governing and administrative powers to loosen their hold and agree to “a realistic, action-oriented programme of work on a case-by-case basis for the way forward in advancing the decolonization process.”

New Caledonia’s French High Commissioner, Yves Dassonville, said those attending the forum in Noumea would note whether economic and social progress had been achieved in New Caledonia. His view stated that the New Caledonia community was willing to build a “common destiny based on shared values.”  

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BP Responsible for Catastrophe

SUBHEAD: Eyewitness testimony points to British Petroleum as the cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Image above: Photograph of Deepwater Horizon before it sank to bottom of Gulf. From Newsweek Magazine by Chris Graythen. [Editor's note: The two videos below are compelling and visceral testimony. They do contain advertisements. However, Scott Pelley's work for CBS is an example of why we continue to need professional journalism.] By Scott Pelley on 16 May 2010 for CBS News - (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml?tag=currentVideoInfo;segmentTitle) He says the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon had been building for weeks in a series of mishaps. The night of the disaster, he was in his workshop when he heard the rig's engines suddenly run wild. That was the moment that explosive gas was shooting across the decks, being sucked into the engines that powered the rig's generators. "I hear the engines revving. The lights are glowing. I'm hearing the alarms. I mean, they're at a constant state now. It's just, 'Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.' It doesn't stop. But even that's starting to get drowned out by the sound of the engine increasing in speed. And my lights get so incredibly bright that they physically explode. I'm pushing my way back from the desk when my computer monitor exploded," Williams told Pelley. The rig was destroyed on the night of April 20. Ironically, the end was coming only months after the rig's greatest achievement. Mike Williams was the chief electronics technician in charge of the rig's computers and electrical systems. And seven months before, he had helped the crew drill the deepest oil well in history, 35,000 feet. "It was special. There's no way around it. Everyone was talking about it. The congratulations that were flowing around, it made you feel proud to work there," he remembered. Williams worked for the owner, Transocean, the largest offshore drilling company. Like its sister rigs, the Deepwater Horizon cost $350 million, rose 378 feet from bottom to top. Both advanced and safe, none of her 126 crew had been seriously injured in seven years. The safety record was remarkable, because offshore drilling today pushes technology with challenges matched only by the space program. Deepwater Horizon was in 5,000 feet of water and would drill another 13,000 feet, a total of three miles. The oil and gas down there are under enormous pressure. And the key to keeping that pressure under control is this fluid that drillers call "mud." "Mud" is a manmade drilling fluid that's pumped down the well and back up the sides in continuous circulation. The sheer weight of this fluid keeps the oil and gas down and the well under control. The tension in every drilling operation is between doing things safely and doing them fast; time is money and this job was costing BP a million dollars a day. But Williams says there was trouble from the start - getting to the oil was taking too long. Williams said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six weeks. With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace. "And he requested to the driller, 'Hey, let's bump it up. Let's bump it up.' And what he was talking about there is he's bumping up the rate of penetration. How fast the drill bit is going down," Williams said. Williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that drilling fluid called "mud." "We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained. That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars. "We were informed of this during one of the safety meetings, that somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million was lost in bottom hole assembly and 'mud.' And you always kind of knew that in the back of your mind when they start throwing these big numbers around that there was gonna be a push coming, you know? A push to pick up production and pick up the pace," Williams said. Asked if there was pressure on the crew after this happened, Williams told Pelley, "There's always pressure, but yes, the pressure was increased." But the trouble was just beginning: when drilling resumed, Williams says there was an accident on the rig that has not been reported before. He says, four weeks before the explosion, the rig's most vital piece of safety equipment was damaged. Video above: Part One of CBS 60 Minutes feature by Scott Pelley on BP Disaster in the Gulf. From (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n&tag=contentBody;housing). Down near the seabed is the blowout preventer, or BOP. It's used to seal the well shut in order to test the pressure and integrity of the well, and, in case of a blowout, it's the crew's only hope. A key component is a rubber gasket at the top called an "annular," which can close tightly around the drill pipe. Williams says, during a test, they closed the gasket. But while it was shut tight, a crewman on deck accidentally nudged a joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force, and moving 15 feet of drill pipe through the closed blowout preventer. Later, a man monitoring drilling fluid rising to the top made a troubling find. "He discovered chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid. He thought it was important enough to gather this double handful of chunks of rubber and bring them into the driller shack. I recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary. And he says, 'Oh, it's no big deal.' And I thought, 'How can it be not a big deal? There's chunks of our seal is now missing,'" Williams told Pelley. And, Williams says, he knew about another problem with the blowout preventer. The BOP is operated from the surface by wires connected to two control pods; one is a back-up. Williams says one pod lost some of its function weeks before. Transocean tells us the BOP was tested by remote control after these incidents and passed. But nearly a mile below, there was no way to know how much damage there was or whether the pod was unreliable. In the hours before the disaster, Deepwater Horizon's work was nearly done. All that was left was to seal the well closed. The oil would be pumped out by another rig later. Williams says, that during a safety meeting, the manager for the rig owner, Transocean, was explaining how they were going to close the well when the manager from BP interrupted. "I had the BP company man sitting directly beside me. And he literally perked up and said 'Well my process is different. And I think we're gonna do it this way.' And they kind of lined out how he thought it should go that day. So there was short of a chest-bumping kind of deal. The communication seemed to break down as to who was ultimately in charge," Williams said. On the day of the accident, several BP managers were on the Deepwater Horizon for a ceremony to congratulate the crew for seven years without an injury. While they where there, a surge of explosive gas came flying up the well from three miles below. The rig's diesel engines which power its electric generators sucked in the gas and began to run wild. "I'm hearing hissing. Engines are over-revving. And then all of a sudden, all the lights in my shop just started getting brighter and brighter and brighter. And I knew then something bad was getting ready to happen," Williams told Pelley. It was almost ten at night. And directly under the Deepwater Horizon there were four men in a fishing boat, Albert Andry, Dustin King, Ryan Chaisson and Westley Bourg. "When I heard the gas comin' out, I knew exactly what it was almost immediately," Bourg recalled. "When the gas cloud was descending on you, what was that like?" Pelley asked. "It was scary. And when I looked at it, it burned my eyes. And I knew we had to get out of there," Andry recalled. Andry said he knew the gas was methane. On the rig, Mike Williams was reaching for a door to investigate the engine noise. "These are three inch thick, steel, fire-rated doors with six stainless steel hinges supporting 'em on the frame. As I reach for the handle, I heard this awful hissing noise, this whoosh. And at the height of the hiss, a huge explosion. The explosion literally rips the door from the hinges, hits, impacts me and takes me to the other side of the shop. And I'm up against a wall, when I finally come around, with a door on top of me. And I remember thinking to myself, 'You know, this, this is it. I'm gonna die right here,'" Williams remembered. Meanwhile, the men on the fishing boat had a camera, capturing the flames on the water. "I began to crawl across the floor. As I got to the next door, it exploded. And took me, the door, and slid me about 35 feet backwards again. And planted me up against another wall. At that point, I actually got angry. I was mad at the doors. I was mad that these fire doors that are supposed to protect me are hurting me. And at that point, I made a decision. 'I'm going to get outside. I may die out there, but I'm gonna get outside.' So I crawl across the grid work of the floor and make my way to that opening, where I see the light. I made it out the door and I thought to myself, 'I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I made it outside. At least now I can breathe. I may die out here, but I can breathe,'" Williams said. Williams couldn't see; something was pouring into his eyes and that's when he noticed a gash in his forehead. "I didn't know if it was blood. I didn't know if it was brains. I didn't know if it was flesh. I didn't know what it was. I just knew there was, I was, I was in trouble. At that point I grabbed a lifejacket, I was on the aft lifeboat deck there were two functioning lifeboats at my disposal right there. But I knew I couldn't board them. I had responsibilities," he remembered. His responsibility was to report to the bridge, the rig's command center. "I'm hearing alarms. I'm hearing radio chatter, 'May day! May day! We've lost propulsion! We've lost power! We have a fire! Man overboard on the starboard forward deck,'" Williams remembered. Williams says that, on the bridge, he watched them try to activate emergency systems. "The BOP that was supposed to protect us and keep us from the blowout obviously had failed. And now, the emergency disconnect to get us away from this fuel source has failed. We have no communications to the BOP," he explained. "And I see one of the lifeboats in the water, and it's motoring away from the vessel. I looked at the captain and asked him. I said, 'What's going on?' He said, 'I've given the order to abandon ship,'" Williams said. Every Sunday they had practiced lifeboat drills and the procedure for making sure everyone was accounted for. But in the panic all that went to hell. The lifeboats were leaving. "They're leaving without you?" Pelley asked. "They have left, without the captain and without knowing that they had everyone that had survived all this onboard. I've been left now by two lifeboats. And I look at the captain and I said, 'What do we do now? By now, the fire is not only on the derrick, it's starting to spread to the deck. At that point, there were several more explosions, large, intense explosions," Williams said. Asked what they felt and sounded like, Williams said, "It's just take-your-breath-away type explosions, shake your body to the core explosions. Take your vision away from the percussion of the explosions." About eight survivors were left on the rig. They dropped an inflatable raft from a crane, but with only a few survivors on the raft, it was launched, leaving Williams, another man, and a crewwoman named Andrea. "I remember looking at Andrea and seeing that look in her eyes. She had quit. She had given up. I remember her saying, 'I'm scared.' And I said, 'It's okay to be scared. I'm scared too.' She said, 'What are we gonna do?' I said, 'We're gonna burn up. Or we're gonna jump,'" Williams remembered. Williams estimates it was a 90-100 foot jump down. In the middle of the night, with blood in his eyes, fire at his back and the sea ten stories below, Williams made his choice. "I remember closing my eyes and sayin' a prayer, and asking God to tell my wife and my little girl that Daddy did everything he could and if, if I survive this, it's for a reason. I made those three steps, and I pushed off the end of the rig. And I fell for what seemed like forever. A lotta things go through your mind," he remembered. Video above: Part Two of CBS 60 Minutes feature by Scott Pelley on BP Disaster in the Gulf. From (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490378n&tag=related;photovideo). With a lifejacket, Williams jumped feet first off the deck and away from the inferno. He had witnessed key events before the disaster. But if he was going to tell anyone, he would have to survive a ten-story drop into the sea. "I went down way, way below the surface, obviously. And when I popped back up, I felt like, 'Okay, I've made it.' But I feel this God-awful burning all over me. And I'm thinking, 'Am I on fire?' You know, I just don't know. So I start doin' the only thing I know to do, swim. I gotta start swimmin', I gotta get away from this thing. I could tell I was floatin' in oil and grease and, and diesel fuel. I mean, it's just the smell and the feel of it," Williams remembered. "And I remember lookin' under the rig and seein' the water on fire. And I thought, 'What have you done? You were dry, and you weren't covered in oil up there, now you've jumped and you've made this, and you've landed in oil. The fire's gonna come across the water, and you're gonna burn up.' And I thought, 'You just gotta swim harder.' So I swam, and I kicked and I swam and I kicked and I swam as hard as I could until I remember not feelin' any more pain, and I didn't hear anything. And I thought, 'Well, I must have burned up, 'cause I don't feel anything, I don't hear anything, I don't smell anything. I must be dead.' And I remember a real faint voice of, 'Over here, over here.' I thought, 'What in the world is that?' And the next thing I know, he grabbed my lifejacket and flipped me over into this small open bow boat. I didn't know who he was, I didn't know where he'd come from, I didn't care. I was now out of the water," he added. Williams' survival may be critical to the investigation. We took his story to Dr. Bob Bea, a professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Last week, the White House asked Bea to help analyze the Deepwater Horizon accident. Bea investigated the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster for NASA and the Hurricane Katrina disaster for the National Science Foundation. Bea's voice never completely recovered from the weeks he spent in the flood in New Orleans. But as the White House found, he's among the nation's best, having investigated more than 20 offshore rig disasters. "Mr. Williams comes forward with these very detailed elements from his viewpoint on a rig. That's a brave and intelligent man," Bea told Pelley. "What he's saying is very important to this investigation, you believe?" Pelley asked. "It is," the professor replied. What strikes Bea is Williams' description of the blowout preventer. Williams says in a drilling accident four weeks before the explosion, the critical rubber gasket, called an "annular," was damaged and pieces of it started coming out of the well. "According to Williams, when parts of the annular start coming up on the deck someone from Transocean says, ‘Look, don't worry about it.' What does that tell you?" Pelley asked. "Houston we have a problem," Bea replied. Here's why that's so important: the annular is used to seal the well for pressure tests. And those tests determine whether dangerous gas is seeping in. "So if the annular is damaged, if I understand you correctly, you can't do the pressure tests in a reliable way?" Pelley asked. "That's correct. You may get pressure test recordings, but because you're leaking pressure, they are not reliable," Bea explained. Williams also told us that a backup control system to the blowout preventer called a pod had lost some of its functions. "What is the standard operating procedure if you lose one of the control pods?" Pelley asked. "Reestablish it, fix it. It's like losing one of your legs," Bea said. "The morning of the disaster, according to Williams, there was an argument in front of all the men on the ship between the Transocean manager and the BP manager. Do you know what that argument is about?" Pelley asked. Bea replied, "Yes," telling Pelley the argument was about who was the boss. In finishing the well, the plan was to have a subcontractor, Halliburton, place three concrete plugs, like corks, in the column. The Transocean manager wanted to do this with the column full of heavy drilling fluid - what drillers call "mud" - to keep the pressure down below contained. But the BP manager wanted to begin to remove the "mud" before the last plug was set. That would reduce the pressure controlling the well before the plugs were finished. Asked why BP would do that, Bea told Pelley, "It expedites the subsequent steps." "It's a matter of going faster," Pelley remarked. "Faster, sure," Bea replied. Bea said BP had won that argument. "If the 'mud' had been left in the column, would there have been a blowout?" Pelley asked. "It doesn't look like it," Bea replied. To do it BP's way, they had to be absolutely certain that the first two plugs were keeping the pressure down. That life or death test was done using the blowout preventer which Mike Williams says had a damaged gasket. Investigators have also found the BOP had a hydraulic leak and a weak battery. "Weeks before the disaster they know they are drilling in a dangerous formation, the formation has told them that," Pelley remarked. "Correct," Bea replied. "And has cost them millions of dollars. And the blowout preventer is broken in a number of ways," Pelley remarked. "Correct," Bea replied. Asked what would be the right thing to do at that point, Bea said, "I express it to my students this way, 'Stop, think, don't do something stupid.'" They didn't stop. As the drilling fluid was removed, downward pressure was relieved; the bottom plug failed. The blowout preventer didn't work. And 11 men were incinerated; 115 crewmembers survived. And two days later, the Deepwater Horizon sank to the bottom. This was just the latest disaster for a company that is the largest oil producer in the United States. BP, once known as British Petroleum, was found willfully negligent in a 2005 Texas refinery explosion that killed of its 15 workers. BP was hit with $108 million in fines - the highest workplace safety fines in U.S. history. Now, there is new concern about another BP facility in the Gulf: a former BP insider tells us the platform "Atlantis" is a greater threat than the Deepwater Horizon. Ken Abbott has worked for Shell and GE. And in 2008 he was hired by BP to manage thousands of engineering drawings for the Atlantis platform. "They serve as blueprints and also as a operator manual, if you will, on how to make this work, and more importantly how to shut it down in an emergency," Abbott explained. But he says he found that 89 percent of those critical drawings had not been inspected and approved by BP engineers. Even worse, he says 95 percent of the underwater welding plans had never been approved either. "Are these welding procedures supposed to be approved in the paperwork before the welds are done?" Pelley asked. "Absolutely. Yeah," Abbott replied. “They’re critical." Abbott's charges are backed up by BP internal e-mails. In 2008, BP manager Barry Duff wrote that the lack of approved drawings could result in "catastrophic operator errors," and "currently there are hundreds if not thousands of Subsea documents that have never been finalized." Duff called the practice "fundamentally wrong." "I've never seen this kind of attitude, where safety doesn't seem to matter and when you complain of a problem like Barry did and like I did and try to fix it, you're just criticized and pushed aside," Abbott said. Abbott was laid off. He took his concerns to a consumer advocacy group called Food & Water Watch. They're asking Congress to investigate. And he is filing suit in an attempt to force the federal government to shut down Atlantis. "The Atlantis is still pumping away out there, 200,000 barrels a day, and it will be four times that in a year or two when they put in all 16 wells. If something happens there, it will make the Deepwater Horizon look like a bubble in the water by comparison," Abbott said. In an e-mail, BP told us the Atlantis crew has all the documents it needs to run the platform safely. We also wanted BP's perspective on the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The company scheduled an interview with its CEO, Tony Hayward. Then, they cancelled, saying no one at BP could sit down with "60 Minutes" for this report. In other interviews, Hayward says this about Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon: "The responsibility for safety on the drilling rig is with Transocean. It is their rig, their equipment, their people, their systems, their safety processes." "When BP's chief executive Tony Hayward says, 'This is Transocean’s accident,' what do you say?" Pelley asked Professor Bea. "I get sick. This kind of division in the industry is a killer. The industry is comprised of many organizations. And they all share the responsibility for successful operations. And to start placing, we'll call it these barriers, and pointing fingers at each other, is totally destructive," he replied. Asked who is responsible for the Deepwater Horizon accident, Bea said, "BP." We went out on the Gulf and found mats of thick floating oil. No one has a fix on how much oil is shooting out of the well. But some of the best estimates suggest it's the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every four to seven days. Scientists are now reporting vast plumes of oil up to ten miles long under the surface. The spill has cost BP about $500 million so far. But consider, in just the first three months this year, BP made profits of $6 billion. There are plenty of accusations to go around that BP pressed for speed, Halliburton's cement plugs failed, and Transocean damaged the blowout preventer. Through all the red flags, they pressed ahead. It was, after all, the Deepwater Horizon, the world record holder, celebrated as among the safest in the fleet. "Men lost their lives," survivor Mike Williams told Pelley. "I don't know how else to say it. All the things that they told us could never happen happened." .