MEDIA AND SOCIOPOLITICAL CONDITIONS EERILY SIMILAR TO AMERICA.

By Julie Hyland  / 12 May 2010 [print_link]

In the 24-hours leading up to installation of Conservative leader David Cameron as prime minister, the campaign by the right-wing Tory press to bundle Gordon Brown out of Number 10 went into overdrive. (Photo: Gordon brown speaking at an IMF conference.)

For days following the inconclusive May 6 general election, Murdoch’s Sun newspaper and others supporting Cameron ran banner headlines denouncing Brown for “squatting” in Downing Street.

When, on Monday evening, Brown signalled Labour was to explore a potential coalition with the Liberals, the cacophony of complaints became vituperative, even incendiary.

In its editorial on Tuesday, the Sun raged, “In the space of five tumultuous days, Britain has gone from democracy as we know it to the brink of dictatorship.”

“The result of the General Election has been shoved aside by Labour,” it said and Cameron faced being “robbed of victory”.

The Daily Telegraph described talks between Labour and the Liberal Democrats as “A very Labour coup” and an attempt “to nullify the result of last week’s general election”.

In the Daily Mail, Richard Littlejohn said that the discussions represented “nothing less than an attempted coup.”

“It could not have been more blatant had he [Brown] ordered the tanks to roll down Whitehall and train their guns on the meeting of the Parliamentary Conservative party, assembling at the Palace of Westminster.”

It is instructive, given the role to be played by the Liberal Democrats in the new coalition government, that it was party leader Nick Clegg who first set-out the mantra so quickly embraced by the Tory press.

On April 20, Clegg had told the Daily Telegraph that “It would be preposterous for Gordon Brown to end up like some squatter in No 10 because of some constitutional nicety.”

Clegg’s deriding of “constitutional nicety” is especially noteworthy in light of the conspiratorial manner in which a new administration has been patched together and then imposed from on high.

That Labour is widely detested is beyond question. It deservedly received its worst vote share since 1983. What created the electoral impasse however, is the fact that none of the official parties were able to benefit significantly from Labour’s collapse.

The election results themselves are hugely distorted. This is not only the product of Britain’s anti-democratic “first past the post” system, but more fundamentally is due to the fact that one-third of the electorate saw no point in voting at all, and that for many of those who did, their “choice” was between parties whose only difference was over the timing of massive austerity measures which they were all agreed upon.

What stands out above all from the results is the alienation of the majority of the population from the official parties.

Research by the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) of the May 6 poll backs this up, by examining the votes cast for Conservative and Labour as a share of the total number of people eligible to vote, rather than those who did.

On this criteria, the Conservative Party won 23.5 percent and Labour 18.9 percent—giving the two parties “a mere 42.4% of the electorate between them”. While the slight increase in turn-out meant this was a rise from the 41.3 percent recorded in 2005, itself a post-war low, it is still less than half of those eligible to vote.

Even if one accepts the ballot result as an imperfect measure, however, Cameron was not the “victor” as claimed by the Sun. The ten million votes cast in favour of the Conservatives is outweighed by 15 million or so obtained by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, largely on the basis of keeping the Tories out.

For the likes of Murdoch and other representatives of the financial oligarchy, these votes are illegitimate and not worth counting. That is exactly what happened in practice in several areas of the country—and exclusively in major urban centres—with hundreds being denied the right to vote and turned away from polling booths.

The media was particularly incensed as to the possible involvement of the smaller nationalist parties in any arrangement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Their crime was that they may try to limit the impact of public spending cuts in order to shore up their own electoral base.

The Sun denounced the “ragtag collection of MPs in Scots, Welsh and Ulster seats,” whose price for political support would be “that their countries are spared cuts.”

The Telegraph took up the same refrain. Such a coalition would mean “the English taxpayer will be expected to keep those parts of the UK in the heavily-subsidised style to which they have become accustomed. This at a time of economic distress when deep cuts in the public services in England are inevitable.”

“Just as pertinent,” it continued, “England voted decisively for the Tories last Thursday (297 seats to Labour’s 191), yet is to be effectively disenfranchised by the Brown/Clegg stitch-up.”

In reality, Cameron’s “advantage” in England masks significant variations. The Conservatives lost out to Labour in almost all the major cities—not only in North East and North West England, Yorkshire and Humberside but in London too.

That newspapers which usually present themselves as the guardians of the “Union” should so openly identify themselves with “English tax-payers” against supposedly freeloading malcontents in the rest of the UK is extraordinary.

But it speaks to the class interests being defended. The Sun was entirely satisfied with Labour when it was opening up the economy to speculators, swindlers and crooks.

It applauded the invasion of Iraq, claiming that good government involved going against the popular will.

And it supported the hand-over of billions of pounds in tax-payers money to the City of London, i.e., to the self-same bankers and financial institutions whose actions precipitated an economic crisis that threatens the jobs and living standards of hundreds of millions worldwide.

When the media complains about having to fund “heavily-subsidised” areas of the country, this is just a code-word for workers jobs, wages, health, education and welfare provision.

When they complain about “dictatorship”, it is only because they fear they may not get the one of their choice.

Just hours after Brown had submitted his resignation as prime minister to the Queen, the same newspapers were describing his quit statement as “moving” and “dignified”. Meanwhile, the anointing of a prime minister whom most of the electorate voted against, as part of a government about which the public knows nothing, was cynically described as “democracy in action”.

JULIE HYLAND writes for the World Socialist Web Site.

The Kabuki Theater put on by the US political class is a refined example of cynical public relations involving the top echelons of the government, business class, and media.

By Tom Eley 12 May 2010 [print_link]

ON TUESDAY,  the US senate began hearings into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which took the lives of 11 workers in an April 20 explosion and has since poured millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the region with an environmental and economic catastrophe.

The hearing resembled a falling out among thieves, with multi-millionaire executives—who, until April 20, had collaborated in thwarting basic safety and environmental considerations—each blaming the other for the explosion.

McKay of BP blamed Transocean. “Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and its equipment, including the blowout preventer,” he said. “Transocean’s blowout preventer failed to operate.” Newman flatly denied that the blowout preventer was responsible for the disaster, shifting blame to BP, which he said controlled the operation, and Halliburton, which was responsible for the cementing around the well cap. “The one thing we know with certainty is that on the evening of April 20 there was a sudden, catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing, or both,” Newman said. Probert of Halliburton pushed back, indicating that BP and Transocean had moved forward operations before cementing was adequately set.

There was, in fact, some harmony between the accounts offered by the executives of Halliburton and Transocean, both of whom appeared to suggest that BP ordered the skipping of a usual step in offshore drilling—the placing of a cement plug inside the well to hold explosive gases in place. That this step was passed over was corroborated by two workers on the rig, who spoke to the Wall Street Journal on condition of anonymity. The workers also told the Journal that BP first cleared the decision with the US Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS). Both BP and the MMS refused comment to the Journal.

Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineering professor, has gathered testimony from Deepwater Horizon survivors that indicates the rig was hit by major bursts of natural gas, promoting fears of an explosion just weeks before the April 20 blast, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. This raised concerns about whether mud at the well head should be replaced by much lighter seawater prior to installation of a concrete plug. The decision to proceed won out, according to information gathered by Bea.

Whatever the immediate cause of the disaster, the clear thrust of the hearings was to focus public outrage on a single, correctable “mistake,” such as a mechanical failure or regulatory oversight, in order to obscure the more fundamental reasons for the disaster: the decades-long gutting of regulation carried out by both Republicans and Democrats at the behest of the oil industry that made such a catastrophe all but inevitable.

A similar calculation lay behind Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s Tuesday announcement that the MMS, which ostensibly regulates offshore oil drilling, will be split into two units—one that collects the estimated $13 billion in annual royalties from the nation’s extractive industries, and one that enforces safety and environmental regulations. Salazar’s claim that this would eliminate “conflicts of interest” in government regulation was nervy, to say the least, coming from a man with long-standing and intimate ties with oil and mining concerns, including BP.

Indeed, more farcical than the executives’ recriminations against each other was the spectacle of senators attempting to pose as tough critics of the oil industry. The US Senate, like the House of Representatives, the Department of the Interior, and the White House, is for all intents and purposes on the payroll of BP and the energy industry as a whole. Among the senators sitting on the two committees who have received tens of thousands in campaign cash from BP and the oil industry are Richard Shelby (Republican, Alabama), Mary Landrieu (Democrat, Louisiana), John McCain (Republican, Arizona) and Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska).

One of the few truthful moments in the hearings came when an exasperated Murkowski told the executives, “I would suggest to all three of you that we are all in this together.” Murkowski and Landrieu also expressed concerns that the disaster could compromise offshore drilling.

None with even a passing familiarity of the workings of Washington or the Senate can have any doubt that Tuesday’s hearings were but the opening of a government whitewash. The ultimate aim is to shield the major industry players and the financial interests that stand behind them from any serious consequences.

The assemblage of the guilty parties inside the Senate chambers took place as ruptured pipes on the ocean floor continued to gush forth oil at a rate conservatively estimated at 220,000 gallons per day some 40 miles off Louisiana’s coast. The rate could be many times greater, but arriving at a more accurate estimate is impossible because BP has refused to release its underwater video footage for independent analysis.

BP, which is liable for cleanup costs, has all but admitted it has no idea of how to stop the leak. Its attempt last weekend to lower a four story box over the piping failed when ice crystals clogged a portal at the structure’s roof, a result that was widely anticipated. BP is now considering lowering a much smaller box in order to avoid icing. US Coast Guard and BP representatives have also floated the idea of a “junk shot,” firing golf balls, tire shreds, and other refuse at high pressure into the well.

The drilling of two relief wells continues, with the aim of disrupting the flow of oil from the current well. This option will take a minimum of 90 days, during which 18 million gallons more oil will pour out at the low-end estimate. Even this option provides no certainty. “The risks include unpredictable weather, since the wells will be operational at the start of hurricane season,” according to a report in the Christian Science Monitor. “The wells are also being drilled into the same mix of oil and gas that caused the original explosion, and operating two wells in the area creates the potential of igniting a second explosion that is more powerful.”

If the spill cannot be stopped—a distinct possibility—the ruptured well could release a large share of the deposit’s underground reserves into the Gulf of Mexico, which totals upwards of 100 million barrels of crude oil. And even if the spill is stopped at a lesser volume, with each day there is a growing probability that the oil will devastate the entire Gulf from Louisiana to Florida and possibly reach the Gulf Stream, impacting the Atlantic seaboard.

In the interim, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given BP clearance to resume pumping chemical dispersants into the oil column as it emerges from the broken piping. BP also continues to dump large quantities of dispersant onto the ocean’s surface. The environmental impact of such heavy use of dispersants is unknown, but a growing number of scientists and environmental groups are warning that the highly toxic substance could simply be transferring the brunt of the spill from the shore to marine ecosytems.

“The companies love the idea of using a chemical to spray on an oil slick to sink it,” Rick Steiner, a former professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Alaska, told the World Socialist Web Site. “It’s ‘out of sight out of mind’ as far as the public is concerned because TV cameras can’t see it. This is the big oil company playbook: public relations, litigation protection, and image.”

Oil has now washed ashore in three places: the Chandeleur Islands off Louisana’s coast, on the coast of a navigable channel from the Mississippi River known as the “South Pass,” and on Alabama’s Dauphin Island. Fishing has been blocked over a wide area, effectively imposing layoffs on thousands of fishermen, many of whom are self-employed and therefore not entitled to unemployment benefits. Sightings of birds covered in oil and dead sea turtles washed ashore have increased in recent days.

In his testimony, McKay boasted that BP would make available “grants of $25 million to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida,” and that it has paid out approximately $3.5 million in damage claims to those affected by the spill. These figures, presented as an act of enormous magnanimity, are such a tiny share of BP’s revenues as to be almost inconsequential.

The company took home $93 million per day in profits—for a total of $6.1 billion—during the first quarter alone. The $3.5 million in damage claims paid out are significantly less than CEO Tony Hayward’s 2009 compensation, estimated at over $4,700,000 by Forbes.

TOM ELEY is a senior political analyst with the World Socialist Web Site.

As befits a custodian of ideological orthodoxy–

BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill, according to Broder and Zeller, “could flow for years and still not begin to approach the 36 billion gallons of oil spilled by retreating Iraqi forces when they left Kuwait in 1991” (emphasis added). This statistic is an out-and-out fabrication based on claims made during the first Gulf War that Iraqi soldiers—who US missiles killed by the thousands as they retreated from Kuwait—had first sabotaged Kuwaiti oil wells.

By Tom Eley 
5 May 2010  [print_link]

The April 20 blowout on a BP oil rig 50 miles off Louisiana’s coast, which claimed the lives of 11 workers, continues to gush millions of gallons of heavy crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico with no clear end in sight. The disaster has already led to major economic and environmental devastation, with the Gulf Coast’s multi-billion-dollar fishing industry suspended in high season.  {Oil rigs just facing the coast of Texas. There are still literally thousands of installations in the Gulf. —>>>> }

With the calamity resulting from the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon growing worse by the day, the New York Times, the leading publication of US liberalism and self-styled “newspaper of record,” declares in a Tuesday “news analysis” that the spill is really not so serious after all. The column, “Gulf Oil Spill Is Bad, but How Bad?” is a thoroughly dishonest piece whose clear aim is to chloroform mounting public anger against BP and the Obama administration.

The Times starts its column with a series of lies and half-truths. Dismissing “some experts” who “predict apocalypse,” authors John Broder and Tom Zeller declare that the “Deepwater Horizon blowout is not unprecedented, nor is it yet among the worst oil accidents in history.” In the Times’ estimation, whether or not it achieves historic status “will depend on a long list of interlinked variables.” With millions of gallons of oil spilled near a densley populated and economically crucial area, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is already among the worst oil spills in history, the Times’ “long list of interlinked variables” notwithstanding.

What remains to be seen—and this depends ultimately on stopping the spill at its source one mile beneath the water’s surface—is where the BP spill will rank among the worst ecological catastrophes in human history. It is this extraordinary depth that does, indeed, make the the Deepwater Horizon spill “unprecedented”—and what makes stemming the gushing of oil near the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico’s Mississippi Canyon so difficult.

This aspect of the spill is the direct consequence of the Obama and Bush administrations’ promotion of deep sea oil drilling. The Times’ goal is not to clarify the origins and scope of the disaster, but to sedate and confuse its readership. This the article attempts to do by offering distorted comparisons to other spills. BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill, according to Broder and Zeller, “could flow for years and still not begin to approach the 36 billion gallons of oil spilled by retreating Iraqi forces when they left Kuwait in 1991” (emphasis added). This statistic is an out-and-out fabrication based on claims made during the first Gulf War that Iraqi soldiers—who US missiles killed by the thousands as they retreated from Kuwait—had first sabotaged Kuwaiti oil wells.

On the other hand, the New York Times sprang to the defense of deep sea oil drilling. The only real concern it raised in a April 23 editorial, “Explosion in the Gulf,” was that the accident could provide “new fodder” to drilling’s opponents. “The explosion occurred just weeks after President Obama decided to open parts of America’s coastal waters to exploratory drilling,” the Times wrote, referring to Obama’s call to lift moratoriums on drilling off the Atlantic Coast, Florida’s Gulf Coast, and northern Alaskan water. “This tragedy is not reason enough to reverse that decision.”

Questioned by the World Socialist Web Site, Broder said the statistic is located on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) web site. A search of the site reveals a 1991 report from the National Oceanic Service claiming that the Iraqi military had dumped 900,000,000 barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf. Both the story and the statistic have since been discredited as Broder, who refused further comment, is no doubt aware. According to a 1993 study, commissioned by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission at UNESCO and several Persian Gulf nations, about 330 million gallons spilled, resulting in “few unequivocal oil pollution effects attributable solely to the 1991 oil spills.” Later estimates put the figure between 40 million and 63 million gallons, about 1 percent of the Times’ claim.

The Times also complacently declares that Deepwater Horizon “will have to get much worse before it approaches the impact of the Exxon Valdez accident of 1989.” In fact, by many scientific estimates the current spill may have already surpassed the Valdez. Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, estimated that already by April 28, nearly 9 million gallons had been released. SkyTruth, a non-profit environmental analysis firm, put the figure at 12.2 million gallons by Sunday. Broder and Zeller simply ignore these and other widely reported estimates. Yet even the low-end estimate put forth by the US Coast Guard of 210,000 gallons daily would mean that 3 million gallons have so far been dumped—with no indication that the hemmhoraging can be slowed before the disater approaches or surpasses the Valdez spill, which poured nearl 11 million gallons into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989.

After minimizing the spill, the Times concludes on an incongruous note, arguing that the Gulf of Mexico is already polluted—so really, why worry about a few million more gallons of oil. “The gulf is not a pristine environment and has survived both chronic and acute pollution problems before,” Broder and Zeller write. “Thousands of gallons of oil flow into the gulf from natural undersea well seeps every day, engineers say, and the scores of refineries and chemical plants that line the shore from Mexico to Mississippi pour untold volumes of pollutants into the water.”

By the same logic, one might argue that because people produce carbon dioxide when they breathe, there is no point in worrying about atmospheric pollution! The Times dresses up all of this obfuscation as objective journalism. According to Broder and Zeller, “No one, not even the oil industry’s most fervent apologists, is making light of this accident.” No one—except of course the New York Times! Tuesday’s “news analysis” continues the Times’ miserable record on the Deepwater Horizon explosion and deep sea drilling more generally. Scientists and environmentalists have warned for years that a blowout was likely on a deep sea oil rig—which would present enormous difficulties to stop. But the media failed to widely report these warnings. Even after the April 20 explosion, the media, led by the Times, dutifully parroted assurances from BP and the Obama administration that there was no oil spill. Like Obama, the media has largely ignored the workers killed and the families left behind in the blast.  While the Times of London managed an article listing the names of those killed, the Times of New York has not.

On the other hand, the New York Times sprang to the defense of deep sea oil drilling. The only real concern it raised in a April 23 editorial, “Explosion in the Gulf,” was that the accident could provide “new fodder” to drilling’s opponents. “The explosion occurred just weeks after President Obama decided to open parts of America’s coastal waters to exploratory drilling,” the Times wrote, referring to Obama’s call to lift moratoriums on drilling off the Atlantic Coast, Florida’s Gulf Coast, and northern Alaskan water. “This tragedy is not reason enough to reverse that decision.” The newspaper’s first aim is to defend the Obama administration, whose indifference to the explosion and spill has generated widespread anger—and many comparisons to the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005. Behind this is a more fundamental concern. The BP oil spill is bringing millions of people face to face with the essence of capitalism—the subordination of everything, including the very survival of the planet—to the destructive profit drive of the corporate and financial elite. The New York Times, a long-serving organ of this elite, seeks to forestall this dawning awareness.

TOM ELEY is a senior political analyst with the World Socialist Web Site.

El mojigato Ramos atenta atrapar a Evo Morales