Who Goes to Jail? BP CEO or Shrimper

[kpete]

Who Goes to Jail? BP CEO or Shrimper

By Dennis Bernstein
July 11, 2010

On June 17, after watching BP’s oil blowout pollute the Gulf of Mexico for nearly two months, environmental campaigner and fourth-generation Texas shrimp boat captain, Diane Wilson, had had more than enough.

So Wilson seized the only opportunity she may ever have to confront BP chief executive, Tony Hayward, eye to eye, about his “criminal activities” as top dog at the oil giant.

That day, Hayward happened to be giving testimony before the Senate Energy Committee hearings. Wilson, who works with CodePink now, had been on the road and was heading home to Seadrift, Texas, when she heard Hayward would be testifying at the Capitol.
“I was coming back to Texas and I found out the CEO of BP was going to be in D.C,” said Wilson, in a telephone interview. “I felt compelled to come. I had to see Hayward. I had to. And I did.”

...................

“I got in and I snuck in some black paint,” she said, “and I sat there and waited ‘til he started testifying and then I smeared that paint all over myself, poured it on my hands, and I stood up and told him he should be jailed. He should be jailed, I told him.”

"BP is a criminal company that has ignored safety regulations at the health of our oceans and even its own workers,” Wilson called out to Hayward and the members of the committee,” before she was pounced on by security and hustled out of the hearing room.

“Tony Hayward and BP need to be held accountable for their criminal activities as well as paying every last cent they may have to the families in the Gulf affected by their willful, criminal neglect,” she told me, after she was arraigned in federal court on charges stemming from several acts of civil disobedience.

“Our message to Obama, and Congress: BP must pay to clean up this mess and our government must move to end offshore drilling and move us into a new century of clean energy.”

Now the woman who has been fighting corporate polluters from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Bhopal, India, is facing two years in federal prison and will go before a jury on Aug. 20, which she notes will be “the fourth month anniversary of the oil spill.

“And that’s when I’ll go to trial for, can you believe, doing unlawful conduct?“

more:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/071110a.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. It all boils down to who is more dangerous

bp just kills people and things, she is trying to change the way government works and thinks.
Clearly she is the most dangerous one in the room

[maryf]

2. wish she'd painted Hayward too...

expropriate BP...

[Cal Carpenter]

7. Indeed. They are jailing journalists and nonviolent protestors

but who is the danger to society? Who is responsible for immeasurable** disaster and destruction of ecosystems and livelihoods?

BP.

Expropriate BP, yes, but to do that we'd have to expropriate Washington DC into the hands of the people.. At this point the federal gov't is so concerned about BP's interests I don't think it would change a goddamn thing, except put more of the cost on the people.

**immeasurable because BP won't let any information out and the gov't is doing it's damnedest to keep it that way...

[maryf]

10. "expropriate Washington DC into the hands of the people."

Now we're talking...how about some General strikes to make some demands...plutocracy, oligarchy, fascism, call it what you want, the people need to get out into the streets and force some changes...

some truth that gets out would be a great thing to boot...we need more guerilla journalism...

[metapunditedgy]

3. A surprisingly small number of even "progressives" seem interested in demanding

jail time for BP execs, or even Hayward. I wonder why that is.

It just stuns me that a crime of this magnitude can be committed, and the outrage against the actual people responsible is so small.

[varelse]

4. I want them dead (nt)

[metapunditedgy]

5. I don't think that's going to help... The point is that the fair and just thing is

so impoverish them and put them in jail for a long time.

[glitch]

12. Absolutely. Followed by death and eternity in Hell. nt

[varelse]

14. I think it would serve justice (nt)

[RC]

6. The Gulf Oil 'Leak' has already done enough damage for Crimes Against Humanity charges to be brought

Tony Hayward didn't even know this well was in trouble! How is he competent to be running this company? Tony and his associates, the board of directors and any responsible parties in the chain of command, from the top right down to the drilling platform itself need to be brought up on appropriate charges.

And put BP into receivership.

[metapunditedgy]

9. Where are the calls for justice? The office raids to gather evidence?

And anything else the FBI would use against even a petty drug dealer on the street?

Even a few pointed statements from Obama would have a large effect.

[gulfcoastliberal]

8. K&R, can't say this is suprising in the fascist police state that the USA has devolved into. nt

[Starry Messenger]

11. Fucking sick.

[Odin2005]

13. Prison is for us little people.

[Initech]

15. God damn it. Why can't we prosecute the corporate scumfucks who deserve it?