I made a bet, after 11 rig workers died from the grossly negligent BP explosion on the oil-drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, that Attorney General Eric Holder would throw around the phrase “criminal investigations” to appease the public for a while, but with time would pretend the largest oil spill in history, and the men who died from the explosion, would simply vanish as though nothing happened. As a reminder to the president and his attorney general, the spill has continued to be a tragedy:
“One year after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a sorry legacy of enduring damage, a people wronged, and a region scarred remains. The BP oil rig that exploded killed 11 workers and spewed some 170 million gallons of toxic crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Whether we look to habitat and wildlife, employment and pay, or basic health and family welfare, the BP oil blowout has devastated the region. The people of the Gulf Coast still live with the disaster every day,” writes the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Consider how President Obama’s Justice Department has targeted California’s legalization of medical marijuana and what Glenn Greenwald wrote in his new book With Liberty and Justice for Some: “The highest government officials acknowledge and authorized [crimes]—torture, imprisonment without trials, the kidnapping and disappearing of detainees, warrantless domestic spying, and the destruction of incriminating evidence—[that] are among those for which the United States has routinely condemned other nations.” (p.50)
Evidently, smoking a joint when you’re sick is far worse than torturing a detainee. And if you happen to be an oil executive, you can do whatever you want, including killing people, because as Greenwald clearly explains, the rich and powerful are above the rule of law.
The attorney general apparently has far more important priorities than providing justice to the families of the men who died from BP’s neglect or prosecuting torturers. He’s dedicated to prosecuting doctors who recommend medical marijuana to cancer patients, and worse, he wants to prosecute newspapers and other media that advertise medical marijuana. Think about it: His biggest priorities are to arrest and prosecute sick, dying patients who alleviate their pain and suffering by using California’s legalized medical marijuana, to arrest and prosecute doctors who are simply serving their patients, and if that weren’t bad enough, he intends to target the media that advertise medical marijuana.
California officials and lawmakers have called on Holder to chill out. On Oct. 19, State Sen. Mark Leno and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, both Democrats from San Francisco, called on the Obama administration to cease its “senseless assault.”
“As if the DOJ doesn’t have better things to do … this is what they identify as the burning issue of the day,” Leno told New Times (Oct. 26). “I think they should sit down with us in the state and tell us what changes they would like to see so they can go back to the unattended business of their department.”
Exactly.
Meanwhile, BP executives happily jet away to the Arctic, where they can drill, pollute, and probably kill more workers with impunity.
And President Obama just can’t figure out why he has such low approval ratings.
Jacqueline Marcus taught philosophy at Cuesta College, is now retired, and is the author of Close to the Shore, a collection of poems published by Michigan State University Press. Send comments via the opinion editor at econnolly@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2011.