An early victim of BP's slick manouvere

BP, real slick

In the past few days a war of words has erupted over the oil spill floating its way toward the Gulf Coast. Like so many issues in today's America, partisan politics has somehow made front stage. Republicans, all too happy to take the limelight off the repeated Palin mantra, 'drill baby drill', have accused Barack Obama of failing to gauge the gravity of the situation and reacting too slowly. As Obama flies down to the Louisiana coastline tomorrow morning, it seems absurd that his reaction is being compared to Bush's failings post-Katrina. 'If this whole thing had gotten outta hand during the Bush administration Liberals would have had a field day' - Fox's Sean Hannity has clearly summed up the Republican line. Let us stop for a minute, dear Sean, and take a look at the evidence. It is increasingly apparent that BP, our blessed native oil barons, have done everything in their power to cover up the details and probability of such a horrific accident. The possibility that the main artery from the oil well to the rig could leak was never proffered by the longtime power-house. Hoping something may never happen seems to have been enough for BP. Be that as it may, what's done is done, the pipeline burst. So BP, here's your chance. Into action - aid every relevant organization and company in their attempts to minimize the effects of the catastrophe. Transparency, selflessness and decency. Perhaps a chance to show the world that the 'baddies' in the oil industry aren't so bad after all. Apparently not. Once the oil had begun to spill, BP moved to conceal the possible scale of damage - effectively lying ['withholding information' can surely no longer exist as a separate action] to the American people, and more disastrously in this case, the President. Only in the last 48 hours has the Obama administration been alerted by experts on the ground [sea] as to the true scale of the incident. So you see folks, it turns out Obama has acted on information, and BP have truly screwed the people of the Golf region for what could be months and years to come. Wildlife, seafood, beaches and more - the economic and environmental effects of the oil slick are hard to comprehend for Louisiana, Mississippi and the South in general.

To return to partisan opportunism that has, yet again, reared its ugly head in US politics. If the Republicans are going to compare Obama's reaction to the Bush-Katrina response, they may want to step back and halt their shouting. The two are incomparable. BP has caused this disaster, not mother nature. Indeed, there aren't any powerhouse hurricane companies around to my knowledge either. No company or organization to lie about Katrina, no one to 'cover it up' or prejudge that it was an impossibility. Direct your cries then, my friends on left and right, at good 'ol BP - not the President. Nice one BP, real slick.

Boom, then Bust: Malvinas and the Special Relationship

April, 1982. Argentine forces arrive at the Falklands' shores ready to triumphantly reclaim the British-held islands. Thatcher sees her chance to cash in on the poll-boosting, economy-strengthening pursuit of war. Her dear friend Ronald Reagan, knowing better than most that fiery look in her eyes and tightening of voice, concedes that any chance of peaceful settlement has gone. Argentina has failed to harness the support of other Organization of American States partners. US backing for Britain is declared - arms and soldiers offered, sanctions on Argentina - that sort of thing. BOOM - the Falklands secured, and US-UK relations as cozy as ever.
Jump forward to the present day. The Malvinas are once again on the Argentine agenda. The UK, as ever, stubborn to concede any rights - especially if those rights have anything to do with oil. What of Uncle Sam this time? Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are quick to insist neutrality - the forces binding the OAS seem a little stronger in the 21st century. "Has old Sam got into bed with the Argies?" - unbelieving voices drift west across the Atlantic. The reply, as strong as counter flowing Icelandic Ash... "No man, we just weren't enjoying being bunked up with you". Britannia, Ruler of the Waves, how could this happen...?
BUST - As Obama entered the Oval Office last year he surveyed his new stomping ground, I am sure, with pride. A man who knows what he wants, he went this way and that disregarding and repositioning the Presidential suite's clutter. Bush's antique confederate muskets? Chuck'em. Any remaining moose/bison/blow-up dolls from the Bush/Clinton decades? Gone. But what's this - The EPSTEIN? The bust of Churchill that symbolizes undying US respect for Britain? Chuck it.

It seems, in keeping with the times, that the Special Relationship should follow Boom and Bust. The Reagan-Thatcher love affair of the synth-decade could not feel any farther away today...

A Sign of the Times

Obama signs Health Care, 23/03/2010






Johnson signs Medicare, 30/07/1965

The President's Communist Plot

Today was a historic day for America, indeed a historic day for the World. In my mind, looking at the Health Care debate as an outsider from a European perspective, passing the Health Care Bill has brought America up to date with the rest of the western world. The moral, social and political repercussions of nationalising health care are not easy to predict or define in the American case, but I can only assume as a firm believer in social justice on the most primitive societal issues (voting/the penal system/health care), that this new Bill will ensure a more fair society for all. Watching the past weeks and months of debate in the house and the senate I have been left fairly bemused as to the exact workings of Congressional bills - to be more precise - how exactly reconciliation and repeal impact on the voting stance of each representative and what it is that the executive does to get their men and women 'onside'. The good news is that what's done is done - over the next few months people previously not covered will be so and the 'pre-existing condition' dilemma will be solved. Ted Kennedy will be smiling from cheek to cheek in his Arlington grave. What has dismayed me during this fascinating last push over health care has been the primal resistance to 'change' that has surfaced amongst some Americans. I understand and to a large extent believe in the conservative mantra 'if it aint broke don't fix it'. However the health care system, with it's powerhouse insurance companies and its disregard for those struggling in life, was clearly broken. Perhaps 'broken' is the wrong word, for the insurance companies procured dollar after dollar with the greatest fluidity, suggesting a well-oiled machine. I'll go with 'wrong'. Wrong on more levels than I wish to discuss here. The point is that some opponents of socialised health care chastised the bill as a 'yankee war of aggression' and a 'communist plot'. I realize I may be listening to people and quotes that don't matter, but they seem to hit home from wherever and whomever they come. I know America doesn't want to model itself on western Europe, I realise they take pride in the unique successes and diversity that the country undoubtedly represents, but surely it is clear to all Americans that in every democracy around the world - be they right wing or left wing leaning - is part privatized, part socialized. Nationalising health care is not 'socialist' in the sense that the McCarthy legacy in the US suggests - and it certainly isn't 'communist'. David Cameron's Conservative party may well win the upcoming election in the UK - and he intends like any sane member of the western democratic world to uphold and improve our national health care system. Being 'conservative' does not demand vehement opposition to 'socialized' health care, at least not the 21st century world I live in. That is why I have been surprised by the nature of the conservative opposition to health care, and I'm sure it all boils down to me being European and still not at one with what America really is.

The American Ying-Yang

I've just returned from Ashville - a south-park-esque city in the blue ridge mountains. Without doubt a very cool place - hippy, laid back and set in a pretty perfect surrounding. However I've come to realise something over the past few weeks - America doesn't do neutrality - there appears to be no fence for one to sit on. I say this because I've been received in either one of two ways - firstly with open arms - causing interest because I'm foreign - perhaps more so because I'm English - and hopefully partly because I might actually be interesting. Whatever the reasons for getting on so well - really embracing the person your talking to and vica verca - is not really of interest here. Hyper-friendliness and hyper-interest (in things and people foreign)is one side of the American 'ying-yang'. The other, a truly stubborn and aggressive opposition. Over the past week I've been chucked out of a frat party (I will explain) and floored in a bar. In Asheville I got chatting to a guy in a bar where we'd headed to listen to southern bluegrass. When we moved leisurely into a debate/conversation about the forefathers and confederacy etc it was like I had just tortured and killed his cat in front of him. He hit me - I bled - I ran - I hid in the bathroom - He was calmed and asked to leave. Now I'm all for having beliefs - but the inability to entertain contrary or divergent ideas whatsoever is really scaring. One side of the american, the nostalgic patriot out there in every single state - seems to me to contradict the virtues of freedom and liberty that they preach. The forefathers did not call out to all across the land and generations, 'understand only what you believe'. And for me thats the point. When being thrown out of the fraternity by a highly unpleasant young guy I think this ying yang theory was even more apparent. I was on the top floor of this massive place, enjoying the hairstyles and fashion in the photos of the frat classes of the mid 70's. Not laughing because they were in a frat (though that is quite funny), but because it was the 70's - and being part of the sanitized class of the naughties (t shirts/short hair etc) - i was enjoying the permed/flared/sideburned looks. My friend and I were then accosted by one of the 'brothers' and banned from the party and no doubt the frat for life. All of the frat guys we chatted to were great - the interesting/interested side of that dividing line - but this one guy was probably the most power-hungry, stubborn and blinkered person I've come across. Not only were we thrown out - he hurled abuse at us for a good ten minutes for laughing in his house (at these pictures). No smiling, no laughing, great party host indeed. Anyway the meaning of this little reflection is that being British and therefore semi-professional at neutral, fence-sitting - I just cant get my head around the american love it or hate it dynamic.

Cartoons of White Supremacy - North Carolina

North Carolina - A Parallel Universe?

A largely-black Republican Party. A White Supremacist Democrat Party. Sound like a parallel universe? A sick joke perhaps? No folks - welcome to North Carolina, circa 1900. It plays with ones mind when trying to picture members of the clan as 'democrats' and african americans out moose hunting with Palin and Cheney. I have always believed that any real sense of Black equality and liberty came with Dr King and the Panthers in the 60's and beyond - but in 1896, the largely-black Republican party built a fusion ticket with the poor white man's Populist party and took control of the state capitol and most of the relevant governing offices. Why then was Rosa Parks ordered to give up her seat in Montgomery, Alabama, more than 50 years later? Cos white men don't take so kindly to black folks stickin' their noses in, ya hear? Or something to that effect. Within two years, through fraudulent and violent conduct, the Supremacist Democrats had taken control of the state government. Poll taxes ($1 to vote), residency requirements and literary tests were introduced by the 'Democrats' to cut blacks out of the voting registrar. The voice of Black North Carolina was silenced. Real classy, makes you proud to be white. When Lyndon Johnson's democratic government overturned black disenfranchisement in 1965 with The Voting Rights Act, Black folks naturally sided with their saviours-elect. So here we are in 2010, Fox News is Fox News (I wouldn't have it any other way), and Rumsfeld and Cheney are the noble descendants of the once black Republican Party. Things have truly been turned on their head.

Allah loves Jesus

With 1.57 Billion followers, Islam is a pretty big deal. Indeed, in the past few weeks, I've had an enlightening revelation of my own regarding this world faith. I never knew, for example, that Jesus is accepted and embraced as an influential prophet by Islam - he is not some hate-figure or, if you will, some sort of anti-christ. Like all the other legitimate prophets, Mr. Christ spread the true word of God. So why in the world had I always presumed that Islam and Jesus was like Jay Leno and Letterman? No one ever actually told me that was the case, I just (as one does) presumed. Yes - Jesus is in no way considered divine by the Koran, and the idea of the Holy Trinity - well thats complete $**! to a Muslim. But I could never have guessed quite how inter-linking and paralleled the world's two biggest faiths are. Creationism? Yep thats in there too. Fine, God made the world from water (minor detail) and the Koran actually acknowledges there may have been a Big Bang to start it all - but the general idea, a 'skim-read analysis' - not so different. I suppose what I'm getting at is something I'm sure is felt by others around the world. I am (or at least have been up till now), entirely neutral religiously - unattached let's say. I know very little about the many details of the great faiths out there. But what really worries me, is that almost certainly, there are Christians (and possibly Muslims) out there who know less about religions that are not their own than I do. Ask your average Christian in my current part of the world what they think Jesus means to Muslims - well, you can answer that. I do hope my fears are misconstrued. All the best thought snackers.

Not just a game.

So the Who Dat nation won the superbowl. The down-an-outs, the never have-beens. What a difference 1,592 days make. A 100% superbowl record, an imminent visit to the white house and mardi gras fast approaching; all this in a week, 4 and half years on from the total devastation that ripped through The Big Easy when Katrina hit. I am not, as an Englishman, a fan of 'football' to any great degree - and I can certainly not claim to be a 'Saint'. But the New Orleans story - as many in the media and bars and stores around the country have said before me - is truly a great 'American' story. We have triumphs back home in the UK in sport, in academia and even - Britons hold your breath - in politics. But the all-encompassing nature and social relevance of a success like the Saints' superbowl victory, the light it seems to have shed on a city cast in darkness for too long - that is something foreign to me. I am honestly most grateful for our recent acquaintance. I may never watch a superbowl (or atleast the entire game) again in my lifetime - I still can't appreciate its intricacies all that much - but this one game has let me know how important and evocative such a sporting event can be in America. And to me, thats a pretty cool thing to have learnt.