Wicked evil British Petroleum was unable to change its mendacious corporate culture (part of which was from AMOCO, or Standard Oil of Indiana, one of the other "Seven Sisters" with which it merged).
Not even the assistance of two of my heroes in whistleblower rights cases -- Judge Stanley K. Sporkin (Retired) and Billie Pirner Garde -- changed BP's evil ways.
Oil is approaching Florida's beaches as I write these words.
In the words of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, "we shall fight them on the beaches."
BP must be prosecuted criminally.
That is not enough.
BP needs to be sued for civil forfeiture by the Justice Department under RICO laws. Our government must confiscate BP and show other corporate miscreants what happens to polluters.
Failing that, the American and British governments could work together to nationalize BP and use its assets to pay the just claims of all the people who have been hurt by BP, from workers to shrimpers to hoteliers.
Most of all, we must learn that government must regulate oligopolists, not kiss them.
As Churchill said about the British government that kissed up to Adolf Hitler, "The Government simply cannot make up their minds, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.... The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."
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