Francis Meyrick

Our Grievances

Posted on August 27, 2010

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Our Grievances

8/27/2010

All most of us want to do, is stay very far away from Narcissistic politicians and their half baked ‘vote buying’ promises of ‘Free Lunch’ and the ‘New Nirvana’. We’ve heard it all before.
Change you can believe in. Cloud Cuckooland nonsense. Just the transfer of wealth from those who work, to those who do not. The attempt to force, not equality of opportunity, which necessitates hard work and industry, but rather equality of outcome, regardless of personal effort. A ruse, presented through tedious moralizing as being for the benefit of the people, but in truth rather more for the benefit of cunning, populist politicians, mostly.
We would just like to pay our mortgages and our bills, look after our families, save for our retirements, and do the important things in Life.
No chance.
The wacko elitists are in charge in Washington. The so-called Gogglebox Intellectuals, with an oft demonstrated stunningly poor grasp of History and Economics, who spend their evenings watching CNN and MSNBC.
Preferably themselves.
Puffed up with pride, arrogant in their blindness, they are determined to inflict upon us lesser mortals their will and power. A judge in New Orleans clearly sided with the Oil and Gas Industry. And decreed what was apparent to many of us, namely that the Federal Government’s case was poorly substantiated, grossly overblown, and wholly out of proportion.
The Great Ones in their Washington Tower appealed.
The Superior Court, bravely, backed up the New Orleans Judge.
And what happened?
In a supreme act of defiance, the Elitists merely jumbled the papers up a bit, and purported a whole new case. And in any event, using the power of the then Mineral Management Service, they made sure that the Oil Industry got this message:

“We don’t care what the Courts decide. We will screw with you anyway. We will pull your existing permits. We will introduce bureaucratic delays. We will introduce uncertainty. We will move the goal posts. We will make it hard and uncertain for employers to plan ahead. To invest. We will shuffle the cards to where only Confusion reigns. For we are in charge. We rule now. “

I personally had the surreal experience of landing on a drilling rig, which had previously been drilling in less than 500 feet of water. And there I stood, in the galley, studying the somber mood. Their permit had been pulled. And here were the bosses, trying to pep talk morale back. But everybody was worried. Many of these men were not long back since the last lay off. Many had used precious savings to keep up with mortgages and car payments. And now this, a blow from their own government. The rig was idled. Uncertainty reigned.

Almost as if to prove their haughty arrogance, we all watched in dumbfounded amazement as the Great Ones in Washington blatantly passed billions of dollars to Brazil. (a week or so after George Soros had acquired massive stock in that very same PLC) To promote… deepwater drilling off the coast of Brazil!
The cold fact that they seemed to see nothing incongruous about American taxpayers idled and fearful of their futures, whilst their tax dollars flowed abroad, in direct competition, impressed itself upon us. Did they regard it as taxpayers’ funds? Or, since they won the election, do they regard it as their divine right to dispose of the Federal Checkbook, however and for whatsoever purpose they solely decree?

We also watched with incredulity as the so-called “liberal ” (an abuse of a perfectly good adjective) Media reporting of events bore no resemblance whatsoever to the true state of affairs. We watched and listened in shock as so-called experts and talking heads made utter fools of themselves. But we also knew that the American Public, at large, was being manipulated and swayed. A tragedy was being cynically manipulated into a political football. Power Politics with People’s jobs.

Increasingly, people of the Gulf States and elsewhere are united in disgust.
Across party lines,
across cultural lines,
across denominational differences or racial lines.

If you work in the Oil Patch, in any way at all, in a service industry or otherwise, YOU KNOW that Jo Public has been served a stunningly jaundiced and flawed picture of the BP Oil Spill. And of our Oil and Gas Industry in general.

*** We want the moratorium lifted NOW. Not maybe November. With further uncertainty, delays, confusion, and “maybe what if’s “. These are ruthlessly calculated to delay or postpone major capital investments (read: jobs), because of screaming political uncertainty.

*** We want the Great Ones in Washington to get a grip on reality, and realize that wind and solar and flower power are fine and dandy, but are FAR from PROVEN TECHNOLOGIES. The WORK is still being done by the hydrocarbon molecule, and the men who toil in the Oil and Gas Industries are amongst the finest and most hard working souls a man could hope to meet.

*** We want Realism and Proportionalism. Does anybody think those deaths on the Deepwater Horizon did not shock the entire Gulf of Mexico to its very core? Many of us spend so much time away from home, that OUR SECOND FAMILY is the brotherhood of souls who share the risks and the hardships, the noise and the lack of privacy, the rough and the tumble, of what is honest, hard toil. Yes, there was a terrible accident.
But when the Challenger blew up, did we permanently ground every flying machine in the sky?
When the Twin Towers were so cruelly destroyed, did we do so likewise?
When school buses crash, and young children are hurt or killed, do we ground every school bus across the nation for months on end?
When we contemplate the thousands of persons killed and maimed every week on the roads, do we close all the roads in the country, and idle every motor vehicle?
When trains collide and dozens are hurt or killed, do we paralyse every train from Alaska to Florida for months on end?
When politicians are unmasked as corrupt and inept, devoid of scruple or morals, with their fingers in the cookie jar, do we shudder in dismay and close down the Federal Government for months on end?
Why then should the Oil and gas Industry, that has striven to maintain the highest safety standards, for decades, in a hostile and unforgiving environment, be punished en mass for the alleged derelictions of a handful of men? Why should the employment of hundreds and thousands of hard working men and women, be so grievously jeopardized by the failures of a few?

*** We want the moratorium lifted NOW. Not maybe November. With further uncertainty, delays, confusion, and maybe what if’s.

***NOW, Mr President, NOW.

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Last edited by Francis Meyrick on September 17, 2010, 8:29 pm


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One response to “Our Grievances”

  1. I thought when I saw you posted a new piece, I was going to read another of Moggy’s introspective, telling stories – ones that make you think and reflect.

    I’m not disappointed, even if this is another side of Moggy – and a good one.  It’s every bit as telling …every bit as introspective (how in the world do we let those caught in the act stay in office???) and perhaps even more important..that this time we don’t just think – but we act.  Evidently – the big assembly in Lafayette was NOT enough.  We need some organized effort of people to write, write and write again – to call, call and call again upon those politicos that inhabit offices that WE elected them to…and tell them we are MAD AS HELL…and WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!   And this time, we need to not forget – them what help folks here when they’re needing and them what don’t…..and if they fall in the latter group, my best suggestion is to tell them to prepare for an application of …..the Oily Finger!

    And Moggy – just this morning I was reading about how Katrina changed Lafayette in TDA.  That causes me to think….How in the name of all that’s holy can the government punish the oil industry for the Deepwater Horizon?  I could have understood a thirty-day moratorium to re-asess safety measures and chuck/replace those MMS creeters who were being seduced (allegedly with drugs, sex and rock’n’roll) but this is a punishment…  With the abominable failures of an entire Governent – Federal and State – in the case of Katrina, to evacuate people, to save lives….some of them little children and elderly and disabled who had no choice …to rescue the people afterward and forbade citizens who were willing to bring themselves, their boats and help to do so…how in the HELL to they have the unmitigated gall to punish the oil industry for this?

    Deepwater Horizon has sunk.  We mourn those gone and feel for those survivors, but they have a way now to cap the thing until a relief well can be drilled….I daresay safety/precautions must have increased as NO COMPANY wants this to happen.  On the other hand – we’re watching football being played in the Superdome – the site of one of America’s worst failures.  The government can try to point the finger all it wants….there’s a great big dome in Louisiana ought to have one painted on the top pointing right back at it.  

    Damn, I do hate hypocrites.

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