The war on energy

April was a cruel month for the Obama administration in terms of dealing with energy problems.

It began with Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine explosion that killed 29 miners.  Massey Energy had accrued scores of safety violations for that mine.  It was a non-union mine where the workers accepted their proper attitude of  expendability for the privilege of working.  They relinquished an effective  voice over work conditions and the actions which could be taken to enforce mine safety provisions.

At this time, no cause of the explosion has been identified.  The country has followed the accepted rituals of acknowledging the expended, so now it can get over it and go back to the mines.  There are a few kooks out there who will keep moaning about coal devastating the environment by injecting pollutants into the air (they claim there is no such thing as "clean coal"),  who will say that mountaintop mining is a wasteful destruction of the landscape, and that mine safety is being ignored at the behest of large corporations that pump money into the campaigns of candidates who promise to  let their business go on as usual.  But those people are also expendable because their protests are unpatriotic and embolden tree-huggers.

And then big oil asserted its voice with the Deepwater Horizon funeral pyre leased by BP, a coal lump's throw from New Orleans.  After unsuccessful efforts to put out the fire resulting from its explosion, it sank, broke its pipes, and leaked oil into to gulf.  The ding-a-ling caucus is excitedly jumping up and down, clapping their hands, and ringing their dingers, chanting that Obama got his Katrina.  They say he did not act fast enough.  After all, he could have hovered over the burning pyre in Marine One and peed out the door.   But that would risk exposing his African-American-ness and inciting more racial epithets.
 
The man is so busy destroying American with his socialist agenda, his efforts to be the leader of the communist world,  his Nazi depredations against white folks, and all the other nefarious activities he directs from the Oval Office that it is surprising that he'd even notice a little thing like the twelve bodies aroasting on that funeral pyre.  The missing presumed dead were never named, so they must be included among the expendables.

It is somewhat ironic that the drilling rig blew up and started spewing crude oil about a week after Obama said it was alright to do offshore drilling in some places.  We can't imagine what objections anyone would have to keeping our energy supply flowing.  Except for tree-huggers and whale humpers.  We hope he will next make it a Constitutional Amendment to give everyone over the age of two the right to carry a concealed weapon.  It will keep those huggers and humpers in line.  And insure the flow of oil.  In our estuaries.  On our beaches.  In the fishes gills.  It is Obama's Katrina and he has the chance to outdo Bush in what can be destroyed and what expendables he can expend.  But we doubt he can accomplish anything of that magnitude.

The regressives have finally  joined his side.  They berated him for turning General Motors into Government Motors.  They hated it when he took over the American Medical Association, fired the doctors, and put health care in the hands of former McDonald's burger flippers.  They hated it when he gave the banks money to lend.  But they've changed their minds and now endorsed his takeover of BP, like he should have, and put out that damned fire.  But not before we could have some bodies to do our rituals over so we can get over them and get back to  drilling. 

But Obama is the one who has really seen the light in his efforts to emulate George W. Bush.  He has approved offshore drilling.  Now maybe he will drop that nonsense about financial reform.  And keep the oil flowing so we can return to leaded gasoline and cars that can really guzzle it.  And stop regulating the production of electricity with coal by taking taking those pesky scrubbers off the smokestacks.  He can let America go back to being America again.  And make us all free to be expendable,

Now that's something worth fighting for.