I can just barely stand to listen to anyone talk about this. I heard Bobby Jindal talking about it today and my stomach was in knots.

AMDG

This is all BUSHitler's fault you know.

Someone at National Review's blog said something along those lines a few weeks ago--that the rest of the country is not actually losing much sleep about this. It really ticked me off but I guess it's true. I mean, I'm sure the average person thinks it's bad and is sorry that it's happening, but it's like any faraway disaster--not something you feel personally.

I do try to keep that in mind, Louise. In fact--I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me before--this may have been something Bush-Cheney-Rove arranged, to make Obama look bad.

That's odd about the skimmers--he must be talking about something more specific. I don't think you can quickly manufacture the big vessels that do this, like the "A Whale", that is finally in the Gulf though I think still not cleared to go to work.

I really haven't heard too much from Republican politicians here that seemed like mere political point-scoring. I guess the situation is too serious for that.

Yeah, I didn't mean that any criticism would be point-scoring. There's been plenty of that (criticism). I was thinking of the kind of sweeping partisan denunciation that you hear so often: "This just proves once again how indifferent to the concerns of ordinary Americans the Democrats/Republicans are..." etc. etc.

I suppose that lack of response to the offers of help would turn out, upon examination, to have to do with Rules and Regulations. But I don't know. It certainly is weird. That's the sort of thing I mean when I say "If it were Nantucket..."

Yes, it' already something like six weeks ago that I remember reports of international help being declined. I suppose back then things didn't look so desperate.

Well, I read as much as I could stand. I just don't get it. I just don't get it.

AMDG

"I don't know, obviously, what's in the president's mind, but he and the people around him are from a class that tends to consider most of the south to be a repulsive place, a land of racist morons and a liability to the rest of the country."

This is undoubtedly one aspect of what's at play here. A couple years ago I read a piece by Paul Gottfried entitled something like "Why They Hate Us," (can't find it online unfortunately) about how and why Northern elites despise the South. There is no doubt that if this were a Northern shoreline being affected action would have been taken much earlier.

You can even see a difference in response to this crisis compared with that of Katrina. Part of it is undoubtedly because of the difference in attitude by the elites towards the respective occupants of the White House. But also remember that the key concern with Katrina was New Orleans -- a city. New England liberals and their Beltway cronies care far more what happens to American cities (wherever they may be located) because they own them politically and it is from them that they draw the vast majority of their support.

Almost all the major cities in the U.S. are controlled by liberal Democrats, and the election of Obama was largely an urban phenomenon (check out the demographic maps of the election county by county). Thus American cities like N'Awlins are basically seen as outposts of the "enlightened" centers of NYC, DC and LA, and far more attention is paid to them than to small towns and esp. to rural areas. Never mind that New Orleans is a city in the South -- to a certain extent all American cities are "Northern" to this crowd.

I know I am late to the conversation, but I really must dissent from most of what is being said here.
I think this post highly ironic, Maclin, as I recall you dismissing the notion that Bush's weak response to Katrina was in part because the victims were poor and black. I think that at least as likely as your "they hate us because we are Southerners" theory. Now, no doubt regional hostilities still exist to some degree, as do stereotypes. But I don't think Northern antipathy for the South is any worse than Southern antipathy for the North, and most likely not as bad. Ditto for the stereotypes. But in the Northerner, at least for many of us, there is also a romanticization of things Southern.
And I just don't see the indifference, either. People around the world are watching this in horror; the longterm environmental impact may not be just regional, after all.
And as for Northerners not caring much about the southern coasts, just who the heck do you think winters there? And retires there? Or simply vacations yearly for a welcome relief from the cold? I have family ties, it is true, but a lot of Northerners have great affection for their particular favorite Southern beach.
So why is the gummint so inept at responding? I don't know; why were they so inept at regulating the industry, at foreseeing the possibility of this kind of disaster? Maybe the government is just inept, period, no matter if it is the Stupid Evil Party or the Evil Stupid Party running things?

Regarding regionalism. Someone had mentioned a reaction to Exxon-Valdez as concerned but not urgent (sorry if my paraphrasing stinks). In the Pacific-Northwest, Exxon-Valdez is remembered as a real catastrophe, one that occupied the minds of people here to a large extent. Much more so the Mt St Helens explosion (which was incidentally an almost exclusively rural disaster). The disaster in your backyard is always the most important one.

To illustrate the point:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/06/29/nigeria.oil/index.html

This isn't meant as an excuse for the BP response, nor is it meant as an attempt to deflate your criticisms. The original post was, after all, about the Gulf of Mexico & Obama's response to this particular spill. But in a discussion that has ranged from the Manhattan Project (from the "Man in the Moon Fallacy" post) to Hurricane Katrina, is it a stretch to assume that the Nigerian oil problems haven't been discussed here because they're so far away and they're not American?

Of course if it was Nantucket there never would have been an oilwell. Just the nature of things, really.
My favorite theory: Alex Jones, a "9/11 Truth" talk show host, says that BP did this intentionally! But then he also said that Katrina was created by the federal government.
Those dirty rats...

OT - Maclin what sort of rate of income tax do Americans pay on average? Nick and I are sick of the waste our guvvermints exhibit with our money. just trying to get a feel for things elsewhere. Nick told me last night that income tax was only introduced for the war effort in WW2! 65 years later...

Thanks, maclin. Ours is a similar set up regarding the sliding scale although I think many people are paying more than 20% all up. We probably pay about that ourselves by the time we receive our family allowance, which is really a refund on the taxes which should never have been taken in the first place!

As a side note, Nick keeps threatening to move us all to Houston, Texas!

All I remember about the history of English taxes is that around 1800 you had to pay duty to employ a manservant but not to employ a maid, and journalists had a field-day at the expense of Members of Parliament.

In "Treason's Harbour," by Patrick O'Brien, where Aubrey and Maturin are having a discussion about patriotism, Maturin asks how anyone could love England with taxes at 2 shillings to the pound (ie one sixth of income).

Yes, Maclin, Nick is a geologist so he has done a lot of work for oil companies. No, I don't really want to live in Houston!

21% sales tax?!? Unless that's the only tax you pay, that's pretty outrageous. Ours is 10% and that's too high--it's partly because our property taxes are too low, and Powerful Interests keep them that way, leaving the sales tax as an easier way for the govt to raise money.