Nation vs. Corporation: 21st Century Warfare

Well, much to the glee of sci-fi devotees and dystopian lit fans everywhere, it appears that we finally have the first instance of an open and declared war between a nation (the USA) and a corporation (British Petroleum). Drill, Baby Drill!

 

The rhetoric going around is that the a "war-like" and "full scale military response" is to be sent to the Gulf of Mexico (yes, this is the 3rd Gulf War in 2 decades) to combat the "environmental terrorism" and the "act of war on our soil" that has taken place at the hands of the foreign invaders into our waters. The government is seeking to seize the assets of BP forcefully, as in most any non-ideological war. One has to wonder if the high muckety-mucks aren't seeing this as an opportunity to plunder someone to pay down our enormous debt with China.

 

It is interesting that the "Tea Party" has come more to the defense of the British and have not symbolically thrown barrels of oil into Boston Harbor (of course, BP is already doing that for them). But really, for such a reactionary and visceral political movement, why aren't they rallying behind ideas to reduce the dominance of carbon based fuels in our energy economy?

 

I heard a very interesting piece on Rush Limbaugh's program a few weeks ago. Quoting a story in a UK newspaper, an "expert" (probably with a white coat) said that the amount of oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in "the biggest environmental and economic catastrophe of our time" is equal to the amount of oil that is spilled EVERY YEAR in the Niger River in Nigeria. Apparently, though Americans are all up in arms about the destruction that this oil spill is causing and will cause in the next few years, this is the same level of pollution that is inflicted on the Africans each year for our sakes. Stated in the piece is that approximately 40% of our oil comes from this area.

 

When will it be obvious that Obama is really out to fight a war on private enterprise? On the other side, what would I expect my government to do in a situation this dire?