What Can We Learn From the BP Oil Spill?
The one-to-two million gallons of crude oil (and natural gas) that have been leaking steadily into the Gulf of Mexico for the past fifty days are certainly a sobering environmental tragedy. The horrific explosion of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform on April 22 is now estimated to be six times times worse than the Exxon Valdez spill. Much sea-life and shoreline are at stake and thousands of jobs and economic recovery hang in balance.
I have been following the BP Oil Spill from the beginning and trying to make some sense of it. I’ve also joined the many people that have been praying for the peoples of the Gulf–that God would show them what to do to deal with this man-made disaster and its possible long-range effects on their lives.
There are a number of important lessons that are emerging from the catastrophe. I will share ten of them in relative order of importance (with “10” being the least and “1” being the most important lesson that can be learned). All of them are important.
#10 – Mistakes happen in a fallen world.
No company–including British Petroleum-should be held to an impossible standard. There is no such thing as perfection in a fallen world–just improvement. As long as man inhabits a fallen world, there will be times of disaster such as this one. There are few victories in life without risk and potential danger. But they are worth pursuing with an eye on human progress–and our sights should remain high. Let’s just learn from the mistakes and vow to not make them again.
#9 – British Petroleum must held accountable. BP is responsible for the disaster.
Under present regulations, BP could be liable up to $1100 dollars a spilled gallon or 2.8 billion dollars. If criminal intent is found, the fine could be astronomical. Make British Petroleum pay for their mistake, but don’t punish them in such a way that they can’t continue to be profitable to be able to pay their debt back to the Gulf States. The six month moratorium on Gulf drilling is a bad deal–both for the energy industry and for many other dependent jobs in the area.
#8 – Good regulations and contingency plans are vital – follow them!
The Federal Government failed in its regulatory duties by giving dubious awards to the BP rig that exploded and by failing to implement a stenuous emergency plan that had been pre-approved. BP also lacked strong emergency plan measures (and delayed that plan twelve days after the disaster) that could have contained the extent of the oil slick damage. There is a place for good regulations–especially when risky ventures are taking place.
There are also some ingenious and creative clean-up plans run by enterprising Americans and even some foreign governments that both BP and the Federal Government are not allowing to be used in the massive clean-up effort. If there should be a moratorium on anything, it’s bureacratic red tape. Nothing could be worse than the oil being left to defile the beaches and eco-systems of the Gulf region.
#7 – Bad energy policy led to risky drilling. This is the Federal Government’s fault.
The main reason for this gigantic mess is that due to bad energy policies that have prohibited oil companies from drilling in many states, and in shallower waters, British Petroleum and other companies have been forced into deep waters where there is a much higher degree of uncontrollable circumstances. If this had been an oil-shale well in Wyoming, it would have been capped immediately. If it have been an explosion in Prudoe Bay, the fix would have been quick and the environmental damage limited due to its distance from civilization.
BP was drilling at 5000 feet below sea-level because our unwise politicians have not let them drill where it’s safer and better. It’s time to stop the nonsense about energy drilling and exploration in the fifty states and shallow waters off both coasts. Both can be done safely and effectively if we have the political will to do what’s right.
#6 – We should begin drilling in ANWAR immediately. The best defense is a good offense.
There is no logical reason whatsoever that we should not be drilling vast amounts of oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Preserve (ANWAR)–and the remedy should be started immediately. We have a vast reserve of oil and natural gas at our disposal in Alaska in an area that poses little environmental danger. It’s time to stop being politically correct and drill the wells and turn on the spigots in ANWAR as soon as possible.
#5 – Oil is essential to the modern world and should not be phased out.
Bikes and sneakers have petroleum products in them. Deodorant comes from oil and gas. Milkshakes have a chemical based thickener. Oil is everywhere. It’s in carpet, furniture, computers and clothing. It’s in the most personal of products like toothpaste, shaving cream, lipstick and vitamin capsules. Petro-chemicals are the glue of our lives–even in glue, too.
“It’s the material basis of our society essentials” says Michael Wilson, a research scientist at UC Berkeley. “This is the Petro-chemical Age.” 93% of American plastics start with natural gas or oil. Why? Because the element essential for life–carbon–is found there. The carbon atom acts as the spine with other atoms attaching to it in different combinations and positions. This makes it indispensable for modern life and production.
#4 – We must unleash safe energy independence production in all fifty states and in shallow waters.
There has been a growing “conspiracy” in this country for over thirty years to restrain the United States from becoming energy independent. This insanity can be blamed on the radical extremes of the environmental movement and its political allies. The results of this have been disastrous–and the Gulf Oil Spill only makes us more vulnerable to sky-rocketing prices due to shortages and bad policy.
“Renewable sources” cannot save us–at least not in the next fifty years. We can’t power our vehicles or civilization on wind and solar power. That is a pipe-dream that needs to be openly confronted. We need to unleash the best of industry to drill oil and natural gas wells in our states and waters; to build nuclear reactors such as exist in France; to allow new techniques of oil-shale extraction to be implemented; to create new and better batteries; in short, to unleash a “Manhattan Project-style” explosion of all energy source solutions to curtail the forced dependency of America on foreign oil. It’s both crippling and nationally suicidal. Let’s Unleash, Baby Unleash!
#3 – The Federal Government is a lousy savior.
Both Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill proved the ineptness of the Federal Government to solve large problems. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, even though we had a strong leader in President Bush, the federal response was weak and late. The best work was done by local governments and private organizations and individuals. In the BP Oil Spill, the fact that Barack Obama is a politician and not really a leader added massive paralysis to the expected federal response.
Here’s the lesson: Governments are good at protecting their citizens in war, but they are lousy at most everything else they do. In this case and also in Katrina, the Federal Government should have made resources available immediately and then gotten out of the way of the local leaders and enterprising non-profits and individuals. “The era of Big Government is over.”
#2 – The EPA should be abolished or severely curtailed.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of the worst federal entities in America. It serves no useful purpose except to retard business, innovation, and progress in America. It was created by President Nixon in 1970 and has been a curse ever since. Interesting, the first Earth Day during its inaugural year was scheduled on the centennial of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday– April 22, 1970. That little known fact tells you a great deal about the goals of the environmental extremists.
Adding insult to injury on American prosperity, the EPA has recently been instructed by the Obama administration to put draconian carbon emission restraints on American business and consumers–bypassing the difficult-to-pass Cap and Trade legislation that has stalled in Congress. This would be a huge mistake, and must be stopped by our current legislators.
Let’s go a step further and abolish the EPA. Talk about a new “morning in America!”
#1 – We must vote for pro-energy-independence leaders in 2010 and 2012
There is no way to recover from the BP disaster and become an energy independent America without getting rid of the anti-development leaders that now control Congress and the White House. The American Dream and destiny is under siege from those who would reduce us to mediocrity and poverty through unwise energy development and restrictions.
We must free ourselves from the energy slave masters and create a boom of energy invention, development, production, and independence in this nation.
In 2010, vote for congressmen and women and senators that understand that modern society is based on oil and that its potential must be unleashed.
In 2012, vote for a free enterprise-savvy president who understands the respective roles of business and government, and frees both of them to do their very best for the American people.
Ignorant, Incompetent, or Revolutionary About the Economy?
All politicians these days run on the theme that they will create jobs–even if they don’t have the foggiest idea how to do so.
There’s a state representative in my district who boasts with each newsletter and press announcement that his number one priority is creating jobs. However, he’s a liberal progressive whose “day job” is to work on a governmental board that creates no wealth, just talks the talk.
Then there is Congressman Joe Sestak–yes, that Joe Sestak– who was offered a “job” in the Obama administration if he would step out of the Pennsylvania primary to make room for Arlen Specter. When interviewed about his priorities, he remarked “I want to create jobs for working families.” However, he’s spent most of his life as an Admiral in the Navy and now as a Congressman. He knows very little about how to create private sector jobs. Besides, last time I checked “all families” work. (Am I missing something?)
Which brings me to President Obama and his administration. They spent 862 billion in their first few months on a “stimulus package” that was supposed to halt the recession and create millions of new jobs. Here’s what the Heritage Foundation says about that failed effort:
“Our nation’s unemployment rate is hovering near 10% not because of record job losses…but because of record job non-creation. Private sector employers have gone on strike. Contrary to what the President’s economic wizards and New York Times columnists believe, massive government deficit spending does not stimulate job creation. President Obama does not have a secret vault of money he can just throw at the American people. The resources the government spends come from the economy. When the government increases spending, it crowds out the resources that business owners could have invested in their enterprises.”
Then came along last week’s Department of Labor jobs report, which showed private sector job creation fell by 190,000 between April and May of this year. Again according to the Heritage Foundation, “this bad news jolted markets worldwide including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which fell 3.2% Friday to its lowest level since early February. In total the U.S. economy has now lost a net of 2.2 million jobs since President Barack Obama signed his stimulus bill, and his administration is now 7.2 million jobs short of what he promised his $862 billion stimulus would help create by 2010. This morning on MSNBC, former Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-FL) pressed prominent Keynesian economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs on whether it was too early to declare President Obama’s stimulus a failure. Scarborough had to ask the question twice, but Sachs finally relented: “It did fail.”
Also keep in mind that the American economy needs to add 50,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. So the loss of 2.2 million jobs since the stimulus is abysmal indeed.
I think it’s time to be brutally honest about the leaders who are running the economy in our nation. This need for probing evaluation reminds me of a famous C.S. Lewis teaching in Mere Christianity where he shared the truth about Jesus Christ. He said that there are only three ways to look at the life of Jesus. Based on his life, words and works, he was either:
- A liar,
- A lunatic,
- Or Lord of heaven and earth.
All people must choose based on these three choices. There are no others.
Using similar logic, I believe there are only three rational choices we can make about the economic performance of our current national leaders. They are either:
- Ignorant when it comes to creating jobs,
- Incompetent in their governing skills,
- Or revolutionaries who don’t really want to create jobs but desire to fundamentally transform America into a different kind of nation.
Ignorance
It’s hard to believe that a group of people from Ivy League schools are ignorant about job creation, but wiser minds have been saying for decades that secular universities are educating people away from common sense. Many of our government elite have been trained in a liberal environment that is anti-free enterprise and pro-Big Government. Their ignorance comes from a man-centered worldview that denies freedom and accountability before God and exalts human governments as instruments of social improvement. They do not understand that governments do not create wealth–they only confiscate it and re-distribute it to non-productive sectors.
Here’s the time-tested formula for economic advance: Faith in God produces human liberty and moral character. Character produces vision, initiative, creativity and hard work, that when combined with limited government and low taxation, produce jobs, wealth and prosperity.
The opposite is also true. Secularization diminishes moral character and human worth producing less initiative and drive creating more dependency on others. Higher taxes and increased social spending inhibit the free market from producing wealth and growing prosperity.
God. Morality. Freedom. Prosperity. These are the American (biblical) ingredients for success.
Are our present leaders simply ignorant of these principles?
Incompetence
The Carter administration is often viewed as the most incompetent of the modern presidencies. Jimmy Carter also believed in Big Government solutions, higher taxes, and social re-distribution (it was his Community Re-Investment Act that sowed the original seeds of the mortgage meltdown of 2008). In foreign policy he was seen as a weak leader who dithered while American hostages were taken and multiplied “malaise” among the public. It took Ronald Reagan to point the nation back to God, morality, freedom, lower taxes, and peace through strength.
After eighteen months in office, it appears that Barack Obama is a gifted orator and campaigner, but a very incompetent leader. It’s no wonder. He’s never led anything in his life except a brief stint of community organizing. He has no executive experience, he’s painfully cerebral in reponding to needs and crises (four month delay in sending additional troops to Afghanistan, no response to Nashville flooding, and slow and inept response to protecting the shores of the Gulf States from the BP fiasco). And on foreign policy, he has emboldened both Iran and North Korea by his weakness and dissed America’s only democratic friend in the Middle East–the nation of Israel.
Is the Obama administration sincere, but just over its head in trying to lead our nation?
Revolutionaries
Most people believe that our president and those around him are really smart people. They just can’t be this ignorant about how to stimulate job creation! Not with all those Ph.Ds! They are also hard-working folks who can’t be guilty of gross incompetence!
That only leaves one honest choice: What they are doing to the American economy is deliberate. They know what they’re doing and they’re doing it fervently and incremently because at heart they are revolutionaries who want to fundamentally change America from a Christian-based, freedom loving nation to a secular-oriented social democracy like much of Europe. Many believe this is the major driving force behind the lack of job creation and massive growth of government. They don’t want to create more jobs–they truly want to create more dependency which increases their power and paternity.
The present Administration in the United States is not doing much for the nation. They are either ignorant of free enterprise, incompetent in governing skills, or revolutionary in outlook.
Maybe they are a little of all three. You make the call.
Today is a primary day in many states. I am praying that the American people take an honest look at their current leaders and pray fervently and vote wisely on June 8, in November, and in 2012.
Our future depends on what John Adams wrote on a plaque that hangs in the White House:
“May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof” (women too).”
A Mission of Destruction
“If God does not exist then everything is permitted.” –Dostoevsky
I ran across this famous quote in a booklet that I read this week. David Horowitz’s Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model is very helpful in understanding what is happening in America and what is at the heart of the human struggle. It’s easy in our cultural battles to think we are waging a war between left and right, Democrats and Republicans, socialists and patriots, or other competing views.
But that is not the heart of the matter. There is a mission of destruction in the world today that not only gives meaning to the perils of the present hour, but also explains our own personal temptations and failures.
There is a universal monster that is latent in each of us. And there is a being behind that monster.
Before we divulge the source, let’s take a little tour through Horowitz’s booklet which reminded me of the truth. Horowitz is a great authority on this subject. He was once himself a communist radical.
By now it is a well known fact that Barack Obama is a follower of Saul Alinsky, the political radical who was born in Chicago in 1909 and died in California in 1972. We need to look at Saul Alinsky to comprehend the political problems that we’re facing. We also need a better understanding of our current president, Barack Obama, to make sense of his leadership over the past eighteen months.
Alinsky greatly influenced Obama. Let’s begin with our 44th president.
Barack Obama
Obama never met Alinsky personally, but he studied his political ideas and taught Alinsky’s methods. On Barack Obama’s presidential campaign web-site, according to David Horowitz, “one could see a photo of Obama in a classroom teaching students Alinskyan methods. He stands in front of a blackboard on which he has written, ‘Power Analysis and Relationships Built on Self Interest.'” These concepts were at the heart of Alinsky’s view that power was to be “seized” by appealing to man’s selfish nature. Alinsky’s famous book, Rules for Radicals, describes the many ways that communities must be “organized” to incite revolution and bring change.
Until Barack Obama became a legislator in 1996, he worked with ACORN, the largest radical organization in America which was built on the Alinsky model of organizing. The Wall Street Journal says:
“In 1991 Obama took time off from his law firm to run a voter registration drive for Project Vote…The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Senate primary. Mr. Obama’s success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at ACORN’s Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became ACORN’s attorney. In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put ACORN first (it was not an alphabetical list).”
After Barack Obama became a US Senator, his wife Michelle, told a reporter, “Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.” Horowitz notes that her husband commented: “I take that observation as a compliment.” Following her husband’s speech at the Democratic Convention in August, 2008, Michelle Obama summed up her husband’s vision with these words: “When Barack stood up that day, he spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about the ‘world as it is.’ and the ‘world as it should be.’ And he said that all too often we accept the distance between the two and we settle for the world as it is, even when it doesn’t reflect our values and obligations…We have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.”
Where did Obama receive his vision? From Saul Alinsky. Alinsky says in Rules for Radicals: “As an organizer I start from the world as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be–it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working within the system.”
Now you know the origin of the phrase “Change You Can Believe In.” Obama received his vision for change from Saul Alinsky. So what did Saul Alinsky believe?
Saul Alinsky
Horowitz says that Alinsky’s “preferred self-description was ‘rebel’ and his entire life was devoted to organizing a revolution in America to destroy a system he regarded as oppressive and unjust. By profession he was a ‘community organizer,’ the same term employed by his most famous disciple, Barack Obama to describe himself.”
Alinsky came of age in the 1930s and was drawn to the world of Chicago gangsters whom he encountered professionally as a sociologist. He was a social intimate with the Al Capone mob family and though his biographer calls him an “anti-anti communist,” he had a fraternal relationship with many communist organizations. He didn’t join them them because he felt they were inflexible and dogmatic–whereas Alinsky was a political relativist. But they both shared the same goal. Alinsky said it this way: “We are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people.”
Horowitz comments, “Power is to be ‘seized’–the word is revealing. The present system will not allow justice to be realized, so sooner or later immoral, illegal, even violent means are required to achieve it.” Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicals to show his fellow rebels the way. Here are the salient points that Horowitz notes in his booklet. According to Saul Alinsky:
- There are “Haves” and “Have Nots.” The “Haves” oppress the “Have Nots” and must be overthrown. Alinsky is clearly Marxian in this concept and greatly admired Vladimir Lenin.
- Everything is relative. There is no God or right and wrong. Alinsky says, “the radical organizer does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing: everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.” Thus being a radical in the service of the masses is a license to do anything that is required to achieve that good.
- Deception is the radical’s most important weapon and it has been a prominent one since the sixties. Even though you are at war with the system, don’t confront it as an opposing army; join it and undermine it from within.
- This is a war for social justice–a heaven on earth–of social and not personal salvation. The unwavering end of the revolution is a communism of results.
But the most revealing part of Horowitz’ booklet and greatest insight into the heart and mind of Saul Alinsky, comes from Alinsky’s dedicatory page of Rules for Radicals where we find the following words: “Lest we forget, an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins–or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom– Lucifer.”
Lucifer
My jaw almost dropped when I read those words. Alinsky actually praises Satan as the first rebel/radical! Horowitz comments: “Thus Alinsky begins his text by telling readers exactly what a radical is. He is not a reformer of the system but its would-be destroyer. In his mind the radical is building his own kingdom, which to him is a kingdom on earth. Since a kingdom of heaven built by human beings is a fantasy–an impossible dream–the only radical real world efforts are those which are aimed at subverting the society he lives in. He is a nihilist.”
Horowitz, a Jew, concludes his analysis of Saul Alinsky’s political philosophy with this sober perspective: “Alinsky’s tribute to Satan as the first radical is further instructive because it reminds us that the radical illusion is an ancient one and has not changed through the millennia. Recall how Satan tempted Adam and Eve to destroy their paradise: ‘If you rebel against God’s command then you shall be as gods.’ This is the radical hubris: We can create a new world. Through our political power we can make a new race of men and women who will live in harmony and peace and according to the principles of social justice. We can be as gods.” (Emphasis is his.)
Lucifer was the first rebel/radical. His mission is to destroy. Saul Alinsky admired Satan’s rebellion and sought to duplicate it on earth. Barack Obama is an Alinsky disciple.
You and I
But they are not alone. The Bible tells us that all of us are fallen–rebels against God. Whenever we seek self-interest above the glory of God and his ways, we join in that cosmic rebellion. Dostoevsky was right. When we turn from God–rebellion, destruction and chaos are the result.
Yes, a revolution is taking place in our nation–provoked by rebel/radicals. But guard your own heart. You and I are only one choice away from the same mission of destruction.