Column: BP – Buying time, buying truth and buying people

By Alex McElroy

Americans have an affinity for symbols.

There’s our flag, whipping in the wind right now someplace, exuding strength, resilience and all forms of freedom. There’s Lady Liberty, the great American anachronism yet to acknowledge that the only tired, huddled masses allowed to breathe free are those with legal documentation or the humility to work for a fifth of minimum wage.

And now, we have another beautiful symbol of Americanism: the oil in the gulf. It’s thick, unmanageable, toxic and expensive and refuses to recess into our unconscious.

For some reason, we can’t get enough of the oil spill. And it couldn’t be worse for BP. This past week, the company took the first step toward allaying public scrutiny when it hired American Robert Dudley as its new CEO. But to prove that it really DOES care about Americans’ jobs, BP has taken to hiring as many gifted American scientists as it possibly can to join in its defense.

The company has approached numerous gulf area scientists, offering $250/hour and a healthy bonus to join BP as consultants. And now, as National Public Radio reports, some are worried that the brightest minds are being paid to keep quiet about the true nature of the spill.

Bob Shipp, a marine biologist at U. Southern Alabama, says that BP tried to hire his entire department to do research on the spill. But the contract prohibited them from publishing their findings without BP’s consent, or until after three years pass.

“They wanted the oversight authority to keep us from publishing things if, for whatever reason, they didn’t want them to be published,” Shipp said when interviewed for the NPR story. “People were muzzled as part of the contract. They were muzzled, and certainly it’s not something we could live with.”

Reactions have ranged from outrage to tired resignation, the acceptance that this is just how the system works. BP, as a large company preparing for court, is merely working for its best interest by wallpapering blank checks over truth.

But what are the ramifications of such an endeavor? It’s too soon to know how the oil spill will affect the gulf in the future, and with BP silencing those most capable of predicting that effect, the American public is likely to stumble blindly into the consequences.

Who knows if the waters are safe or not? BP’s consultants do. And when they discover the slightest bit of information that says the water is okay, I assure you it’ll spread faster than, well, you know.

But what of the other findings? The results that might, God forbid, make BP look bad? Those will remain locked up for the next three years or until, in an act of selfless courage screenwriters across the country have likely already written, a scientist publishes his findings without BP’s consent.

And there we have it, the popular inclination to assign a pressing issue to the future, where it becomes someone else’s problem. But something’s different this time. The oil won’t disappear. Three months later, and we’re still talking about it.

Welcome to the symbol of the current American landscape. The oil spill symbolizes our fear of the impending decline of American prominence. It’s dirty, messy and, though the powers that be would like us not to think about it for the next few years, we can’t help obsessing.

BP’s attempt to silence the brightest scientists is irresponsible at best, and borders on malevolence. And now, as a citizenry, we’re forced to make a decision.

Should we sit back idly and claim naiveté when it turns out, three years from now, that oil just so happens to harm marine life? Or should we find out why this spill makes us so uncomfortable, why now is the worst possible time to ignore that visceral anxiety that creeps in every time we hear that BP continues to buy silence?

Well, the choice is yours, because this is America, and for the next few years at least, you can still do whatever the hell you want.

– Alex McElroy is an Oregon State U. senior in English.

Read more here: http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2010/08/04/Forum/Bp.Buying.Time.Buying.Truth.And.Buying.People-3924051.shtml
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