BP Buys Off Coastal Cities With Unrelated Gear

[HowToBe]

_http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/04/26/bp-buys-off-coastal-cities-with-unrelated-gear/

Since the gulf disaster, BP has “gifted” near gulf cities with tens of millions in the form of gadgets and gear like tasers, brand new SUVs, iPads and other laptops. This gift spree has virtually nothing to do with disaster cleanup efforts or helping victims.

Police are getting new tasers, why? Why is a sewer department buying a vacuum truck that doesn’t clean up oil? Why is a seemingly random parish spokesperson getting a $3,000+ laptop? Other areas are seizing the opportunity as well; Florida spent over half a million for rock concerts to promote their safe beaches. Of course the communities said the new gear was needed to deal with the spill, if indirectly.

The absolute waste goes on and on below. People unrelated to the disaster were receiving plushy checks while fishermen have long since stopped receiving retribution for the loss of their livelihoods. Also ignored, is the new gulf illnesses where no known help has been provided.

BP purchases seem strategic. Perhaps if a corporation pays off the law enforcement, city workers, and religious support, they are considered “good” again and are now welcome into the communities. Their profits are rising again, which might suggest some in the coastal communities have “bought” the gifting.

~Health Freedoms

 

[seek10]

That's how third world countries Operate. After all. we are fed with history that is concerned about kings, queens, Gods, God/Kings servants, Kings entertainers, NOT people.

 

[HowToBe]

Hm... I suppose that is true, although I am not knowledgeable enough to really respond to your comment. What really got me about this article was how strategic the "buying off" is. Triple-threat: appease the political, executive (law enforcement), and religious/social elements and you are scotch-free! I also had the thought that many of those being bought off may not realize that is the case (in fact, such ignorance is probably a requirement for it to work). A church, particularly, may tend to see a "goodwill gesture"/ "Gift from God" and see no reason to question the possibility that the gift is a manipulation. The same with law enforcement and city elements; a gift is a "Good Thing" because "generosity" is a "Virtue".

A big part of "expert predation 101" is to use a lure - a "gift that is not a gift" - to place one's prey directly within one's jaws, so to speak. Like those deep-sea lurefish which have a glowing light that hangs in front of their mouth and attracts other fish, or the snapping turtle whose tongue looks like a tasty worm to passing fish, or the snake whose tail looks like a worm to attract birds and other animals which it then kills and eats.

 

[psychegram]

Hm... I suppose that is true, although I am not knowledgeable enough to really respond to your comment. What really got me about this article was how strategic the "buying off" is. Triple-threat: appease the political, executive (law enforcement), and religious/social elements and you are scotch-free! I also had the thought that many of those being bought off may not realize that is the case (in fact, such ignorance is probably a requirement for it to work). A church, particularly, may tend to see a "goodwill gesture"/ "Gift from God" and see no reason to question the possibility that the gift is a manipulation. The same with law enforcement and city elements; a gift is a "Good Thing" because "generosity" is a "Virtue".

A big part of "expert predation 101" is to use a lure - a "gift that is not a gift" - to place one's prey directly within one's jaws, so to speak. Like those deep-sea lurefish which have a glowing light that hangs in front of their mouth and attracts other fish, or the snapping turtle whose tongue looks like a tasty worm to passing fish, or the snake whose tail looks like a worm to attract birds and other animals which it then kills and eats.

What was it the C's said about humanity being lost as soon we went for the gold? ;)

Reading this I couldn't help but think of stories of native peoples being bribed off their land with glass beads and various cheap trinkets. The process seems essentially the same here: these gifts are less than nothing to BP, after all. What's a few thousand iPads? In terms of raw materials and labour, especially (obviously Apple charges well more than that but, I'm sure BP got a deal, and anyway both companies are part of the same late capitalist global plutocracy ... from the point of view of that system, the bribery is dirt cheap.)

It's really a much wider process than that: look at the general proliferation of cheapening electronic iCrack as living standards deteriorate and our land is stolen out from under us. The fact that the trinkets inevitably - due to the market system - diffuse downwards through the control strata of society (obvious in the case of gifts but even more the case through the market system) undoubtedly helps to stabilize the colonial transition, since those strata take to the trinkets as status symbols and to at least that degree become de facto allies of the colonial forces.

At this point the process has probably proceeded too far to be reversed, in North America at least ... short of Nature's reset button that is. But I wonder if it could be resisted? If a society could be inured to this kind of bribery, to predation by lure, such that any attempt to bribe them would be met with a smiling refusal and a wink....

All of which is quite academic at the moment. What remains in North America is likely a rapid decline to third world status ... just one more colony of a global empire that was ancient long before it made the US its new face.

 

[HowToBe]

And currently I'm here in the middle of it poised to ride that wave... or get dragged under, whatever the case may be. I must admit I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment. Maybe I should save the details for a thread in another section, though.

Have to see the lies...