[WildRose]

You know, I feel sorrow at the lives lost in this disaster and grieve with their families, but the fact of the matter is that the environmental damage to the Gulf is a bigger tragedy. It's a tragedy on so many levels that didn't have to happen, if you believe some of the accounts of the events prior to the accident. If no worker can speak his or her mind or refuse to follow a command even when it looks like what they're being asked to do is unsafe, or if a worker is committing "career suicide" by not following orders that appear to be insane, well, that speaks volumes for the arrogance in the industry. The work is dangerous, but lots of types of work are equally dangerous. It's a choice to work far away from your family and work at a high risk job, and big oil lures people with the promise of big paycheques to do so. The rig hand who wrote the piece suggests that those who use the oil he helps produce are "parasites", and I can't remember what else. If we collectively made the bold move of developing more renewable energy, we'd create well-paying, safe jobs that would be easier on our ecosystems and we wouldn't need that costly, blood-stained oil.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o I guess I am supposed to be impressed by these over-grown brats. Big guys with big trucks and big rigs and little heart, little brains, little compassion, little sense. Little of what we need going forward.

Wildrose is right. Everyone of those men on that platform KNEW that BP was screwing up. But that is the culture of little boys with big rigs. They have a big smirk written all over their faces. Just like Maddog. They thought they were getting over on the "parasites."

[dinopello]

The whole bloody mess is quite a Conundrum.

[Maddog78]

pstarr has admitted on more than one occasion that he is just a troll and says whatever is on his mind just to rile people up.
I make a good target cause he knows I'm in the industry.
He said he wasn't going to post here any more. He was going to concentrate on helping others grow dope and live in treehouses just like him. I guess he lied about that, too.


Good post, rockdoc123.
He wouldn't last one shift on a rig.
That's if he could pass the drug test to get out there in the first place.
Unlikely.

[efarmer]

To me petroleum rig folks are the same breed that if the world was a solar or green utopia would be out on the risky edge of infrastructure laying deep sea power cables, drilling geothermal, in essence, doing the roughneck and also the highly technical field work associated with the sort of work they are drawn to do. Many of us wishing that there were alternatives to petroleum in scale, or that people would realize that there are not and change their lifestyle voluntarily is evidenced here all the time.
But we keep doing what we have done, largely because we made the machine that does it and the culture that depends on the machine pumping out the goods, and regardless of our minority views, the machine will run until it crashes or the long shot miracle of a different way to run the existing machine emerges that will allow it's 30 year inherent inertia to migrate to something else that makes sustainable sense.

I remember the early days of Rolling Stone, when the world was full of the counter culture vision of a new world, it's pages were full of interviews of people talking about all the great stuff that would happen after the revolution, and the ads were full of what music to put in your head and how to festoon your rags with all the cool stuff. Today, the General in charge of Afghanistan is on his way to the White House for dissing the Commander in Chief in this magazine, 40 years on. I suppose this is after the revolution?

We are always going to have rough boys and girls, they are part of the bell curve of distribution and we celebrate them in our culture until they are involved in reminding us of something unpleasant the rough folks are doing because our culture is not doing anything more sustainable or wise, or can't, or even that we are individually discouraged that the world does not meet our high expectations.

[efarmer]

Pstarr wrote:

Your point is that rough guys and gals do work others are not capable of. Good for them and good for us.

And that the revolution failed. Is that a good thing? Or a tragedy? 2% of American workers are unionized. The union busters won. The world's workers have lost. Tony Haywood won. Is that a good thing? Or are you just a realist? Can't people cooperate? Or are they prevented with threats of violence, and corrupt politicians? Are we all corrupt politicians at heart?

We the people created environmental work-place laws to prevent this blowout. Those laws were ignored and the regulators were no where to be seen. The workers on the Rig were the last best defense the GOM had. They failed. BP failed. Who will be punished? We all are being punished now because no one was punished at the right time.

<end quote>

My point is that the rough guys and gals do what most people would choose not to find out if they are capable of doing, or when they made their mind up to try, would find themselves way back in line behind.

Not sure where to grab the revolution question. Goodies and comfort seem to outrun passion and idealism on a daily basis, and the young people of the time were in the cat bird seat for material goods acquisition once they hit the place where it interested them.

We did create the environmental work place laws to protect workers and ecology, and the capitalist system responded with off shoring of environmental impact and worker regulations and the people voted for the results with their dollars. Dollars keep winning, until a currency replaces them, and then I suppose it will.


Punishment only works for people who can't afford to avoid it via payment or operating in areas not subject to punishment.

I am to the place where what I think will happen does not match my ideals and dreams of where things should or could have been by now. I am also old enough to realize that it is better to do something in the direction I believe than to rail against what is or what seems to be probable in the future. It's a bitch to have a mortal carcass and only get a small nudge that integrates in the quantum of the humanity you are part of, I guess I am trying to not be mad at myself or anyone else about it.