It is not possible to imagine a better symbol of the miserable condition of the United States today than an oil company destroying a huge swath of the American ecosystem, society and economy, while the President sits by helplessly, saying that he is meeting with experts in order to find out “whose ass to kick.” Obviously, Obama should have seized all the equipment that BP had available to plug the leak, deputized their engineers, brought in the US navy and coast guard, and spent as necessary to deal with the problem within days, or even hours of the original spill, when it became clear that BP was in over its head.

That is what Lincoln did in 1861 when he took control of the railroads and telegraph lines around Washington DC, what Wilson did in 1916 when he nationalized the defense industries, what Roosevelt did in 1941 when he seized an aviation plant, and again in 1944 when he seized Montgomery Ward, it is what Truman did in 1947 when the government took control of the steel industry, in a sense it is what Reagan did in 1980 when the government fired the air controllers. These acts were all controversial but that is what strong Presidents did when facing threats no less severe than those in the Gulf today.

Why hasn’t Obama done anything like that? Ultimately the answer depends on understanding his individual character, but there are at least four large conditioning factors that will help us understand, if not the man, then the event.

First, since the 1970s neo-liberals have told us that we need small government, that markets are the best way of solving problems, that private industry is efficient and that government is wasteful. It is worth noting, at this point, that it was the Democrats who led the way in these delusions, beginning during the Carter administration, and that it is only the sham of politics that they sometimes associate themselves with populist positions. Whichever party is responsible, however, it apparently has never occurred to anyone that there is a difference between an oil company, which can only be guided by profit, and a government that can take collective, democratic needs and wishes into account. The whole sad tale shows how Americans have degraded politics and exalted markets and for what? Cheap prices?

Second, we can learn from the incident how Obama functions as a President. He is a manager, with a managerial ideology. This doesn’t only mean the priority of private interests and “cost-cutting” for such “entitlements” as equipment to deal with oil spills, not to mention health care and social security. In his case it means that he has no real authority of his own, that he has disregarded his base from the beginning, and that his method of governing is to call a meeting of the elites or powers that be, and have them come up with a solution. The powers can be generals, insurance companies, oil companies, and they can even be Republicans, but Obama is a deal maker, a trimmer, not someone trying to move the country in a new direction.

Third, we can see from the incident how in the neo-liberal era everything is understood in money terms. Thus, BP consistently promises that it will make everything right by paying claims, and Obama consistently insists that he will make them pay those claims. As if money can compensate for the destruction of communities, of marshes, of beaches, of wildlife and birds, of streams and trees and shrubs and whole ways of life embedded in the Gulf. What kind of nation suffers a wound of this sort, and thinks in terms of money? The same kind of nation that suffers a paradigm-changing blow like the recent financial crisis and acts as if controlling a few financial maneuvers will fix the problem.

Finally, we can learn from the spill that there is a difference between decisions based on values, and decisions based on data. This is a distinction Obama fails to make. His scientistic, anti-party, anti-political ideology, which he has used for health care and Afghanistan has certainly failed in the Gulf. A health care plan, a war, off-shore drilling: these are questions that need to be discussed in terms of our values, not supposedly scientific data. Yet when Obama announced that he was permitting offshore drilling three weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew he said “It turns out, by the way that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.” As if he knows!

Finally, as for the policy change itself, prompted by Obama’s deal making over energy, according to the New York Times, “The breadth of the expansion stunned oil industry representatives, who were expecting a much more restrictive policy accompanied by tough new safety and environmental rules. They were prepared to attack the new policy; instead, the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main lobby, praised it.” Enough said.


Bookmark and Share