17 big questions about the handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill

(NaturalNews) What's clear about the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is that the independent journalists are doing a better job of asking the really tough questions than the mainstream media. Sure, CNN, Fox and others are bringing some attention to the matter, and they've done some solid reporting on it, but they haven't yet found a way to ask the deeper questions like why the U.S. government seems to be colluding with BP to cover up the truth about the spill.

Just the other day, I found an article entitled, "16 Burning Questions About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill" on the TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com site (http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...). It was a really insightful collection of important questions, so I've repeated them below. The author of these questions wasn't mentioned on the page, so I regret I cannot properly attribute the list, but I do think they're worth reviewing, so I've included my own commentary and an extra question below.

Here are the 16 questions:

#1) Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used "as needed" by state governors. So what are all of these National Guard troops going to be doing exactly? Are the troops going to be used to stop the oil or to control the public?

Mike's comment: Good question. Much of the response activity to the spill seems to be about controlling the public's perception and limiting media access to the spill site rather than actually cleaning up the mess.

#2) Barack Obama has also announced the creation of a "Gulf recovery czar" who will be in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico region following the oil spill. So is appointing a "czar" Obama's idea of taking charge of a situation?

#3) Because it is so incredibly toxic, the UK's Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK's North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. So why is BP being allowed to use Corexit 9500 in the Gulf of Mexico?

Mike's answer: Because Corexit kills sea animals and makes them sink and disappear rather than allowing them to wash up on shore where the emotional outcry would be even worse than it is already.

#4) It is being reported that 2.61 parts per million of Corexit 9500 (mixed with oil at a ratio of 1:1o) is lethal to 50% of fish exposed to it within 96 hours. That means that 1 gallon of Corexit 9500/oil mixture is capable of rendering 383,141 gallons of water highly toxic to fish. So why was BP allowed to dump 1,021,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 into the Gulf of Mexico, and why aren't they being stopped from dumping another 805,000 gallons of these dispersants that they have on order into the Gulf?

Mike's answer: Sadly, BP is running the show in the Gulf, not the government! The U.S. government has sold out to private corporations who now think they own the gulf and can run operations there however they see fit.

#5) If these dispersants are so incredibly toxic to fish, what are they going to do to crops? What are they going to do to people?

Mike's answer: They're obviously going to poison the entire Gulf Coast region if hurricanes whip up these chemicals and deposit them on land. We could be looking at a complete wipeout of the Florida citrus industry, for example, if all the worst conditions converge.

#6) If the smell of the oil on some Gulf beaches is already so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to wildlife that encounter it?

#7) Is it a bad sign that birds from the Gulf region are flocking north by the thousands?

Mike answer: Remember the Tsunami in the Indian ocean a few years back? The animals fled first, while the clueless people stayed behind and got clobbered by the deadly wave. I think a similar thing could be happening in the Gulf. All it takes is one hurricane to turn the entire region into a toxic stew of chemical poison.

#8) Why is BP being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites?

Mike's answer: Yes, this is the real question. BP is running security in the Gulf the same way Halliburton runs security in the Middle East. The corporate contractors are now the police force in the area, and they're running the Gulf as if they owned it! This is a clear indication that the corporations have taken over our government.

#9) Why is BP openly attempting to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo?

#10) Why has the FAA shut down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? What don't they want the American people to see?

Mike's answer: There are lots of answer to this one: The feds probably don't want people in small airplanes taking aerial photos and posting them online (because the Obama administration is working overtime to cover up the truth here, much like the Bush administration did with the flag-draped coffins coming home from war in the Middle East). It could also be that they are planning something really crazy like a deep ocean nuke to collapse the well, and they don't want civilians falling out of the sky when the mushroom cloud appears.

#11) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida says there are reports that there are additional ruptures in the sea floor from which oil is leaking. If there are quite a few of these additional ruptures, then how in the world does BP expect to completely stop this oil leak?

Mike's answer: BP actually doesn't expect to stop this leak anytime soon. They are clearly in full-on spin mode, just trying to deny the truth and spin the words to buy themselves more time to offload stock shares before the whole thing comes tumbling down.

#12) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters?

Mike's answer: Because BP broke the ocean floor, and now huge volumes of gas hydrates (which contain methane) are bubbling up from places that were previously trapped safely underground.

#13) At some testing stations in the Gulf of Mexico, levels of benzene have been detected at over 3000 parts per billion, and levels of hydrogen sulfide have been detected as high as 1192 parts per billion. Considering that these levels would be highly toxic to humans, why hasn't the general public been warned?

#14) Why are so many Gulf oil spill disaster workers showing up at local hospitals complaining of a "mysterious illness"?

Mike's answer: This is going to be the Gulf War Syndrome of the Gulf Coast. Or the 9/11 asbestos question affecting firefighters. There will be a wave of toxic side effects from the use of chemicals in the Gulf, and both BP and the federal government will predictably deny any link between the chemicals and the health effects for years to come.

#15) If "70% or 80%" of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all to stop the oil, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore?

Mike's answer: Nothing, of course. The oil is going to reach the shore, and there's nothing BP or the feds can do to stop in. In fact, it seems as if they are trying to interfere with the cleanup by halting the barges that were supposed to be vacuuming oil just off the beaches.

#16) It is being reported that the deep sea oil plumes are creating huge "dead zones" where all creatures are dying as they are deprived of oxygen. If this oil spill continues to grow could the vast majority of the Gulf of Mexico become one gigantic "dead zone"?

Mike's answer: Indeed, that is precisely what looks likely to happen. The Gulf of Mexico could become a massive dead zone, adding to the long list of humanity's crimes against the planet. See my related CounterThink cartoon at: http://www.naturalnews.com/029015_a...

I've also added one more question of my own:

#17) Why is our government colluding with BP to cover up the truth about the spill?

Remember the BP press conferences on cable news? A U.S. Coast Guard representative was standing right there beside the BP spokesperson, almost as if she were a subordinate of BP. This is insane! If anything, the US Coast Guard should be telling BP what to do, not the other way around.

And why is the US Coast Guard restricting reporters' access to the spill areas, threatening them with arrest if they "trespass." Trespass into PUBLIC waters? Doesn't anybody realize that BP does not own the Gulf of Mexico and if we want to take our boats out into the Gulf to get some video of what's really happening there, that's our right! But the U.S. government is now working for BP, it seems, and they're trying to protect BP's image by restricting the freedoms of ordinary Americans.

Sound familiar? That's why I think this Gulf of Mexico disaster is another 9/11 reactionary freedom squasher in the works. Just wait... you'll see what kind of freedom-destroying ideas are put forth by our lawmakers in response to this catastrophe. When it's all said and done, it won't only be British Petroleum that loses; it will be all of us.

The Corporatocracy and government collusion

What we're really witnessing here with the BP disaster is our own government colluding with the powerful corporatocracy to cover up the truth all while making it worse by interfering with legitimate cleanup efforts.

It's almost as if the federal government were actively working to worsen the problem and expand the impact of the disaster. But that brings up the question: Why?

Why would our own government worsen a catastrophe? The answer, of course, is right in front of you. Just visit ground zero in New York City and remind yourself of all the various ways the U.S. government expanded its power following the collapse of the twin towers. "Never waste a good crisis" is the mantra of Big Government today, and the easiest way to steal even more power away from the people is to turn a small disaster into a big disaster, then leap in with a "government solution" that enacts some large, oppressive new act that never would have been possible before the disaster.

So what kind of oppressive new laws does the Obama administration want to put in place in response to this disaster? Perhaps government control over all oceans, or government control over all seafood. Maybe they want to outlaw oil over the next 25 years and force everybody to transition to some other form of energy (which may not actually be a bad idea from an ecological perspective, but at what price to freedom?).

There are a thousand other conspiracy theories that try to guess at what the government's true agenda might be in this moment. While it's hard to say which of them (if any) might be true, one thing is crystal clear: The government does not seem interested in solving the problem in the Gulf of Mexico. It is covering up the truth, threatening mainstream journalists who try to photograph the region, restricting air travel over the well site, restricting boat travel anywhere near the spill, and basically lying to the public on a daily basis about what's really happening there.

That alone should make any thinking person suspicious. If the situation were really under control, why would they have to lie about it?

US government poisons its own citizens

There is precedent for believing that the U.S. government might try to poison its own citizens in order to achieve a political goal. During Prohibition, the U.S. government actually released poisoned alcohol in order to harm (or kill) those who were defying the law and drinking liquor.

That story is published today here on NaturalNews.com. Read it to learn more about what our own government may be capable of doing when it wishes to exercise power of the People.

Corporate atrocities against nature may ultimately destroy human civilization

(NaturalNews) What's most striking about the present BP oil catastrophe is not that it is an aberration but rather part of a dangerous pattern of mankind's propensity to destroy nature. To destroy life in a large region of an ocean isn't even new: The world already has over two hundred "dead zones" where fish can't live because the ocean water has no more oxygen left thanks to the runoff effects of man-made chemicals.

Not content with mere deforestation and the vast destruction of biodiversity on land, Man has now expanded to destroy the oceans through overfishing, ocean acidification from CO2 emissions, agricultural runoff, flushing pharmaceuticals down the drain and unleashing crude oil directly into the ocean waters. It almost seems as if mankind were somehow bent on destroying itself by first destroying everything else on the planet just to see what happens.

Human beings, by any honest accounting, are repeat offenders engaged in crimes against nature. This article, by the way, isn't some clever way to try to push us all toward a U.N.-controlled world government where every human action is regulated by environmental cops; it's merely an observation of what's really happening right now on our planet. I'm a Constitutionalist and remain strongly opposed to UN control as much as any properly-informed American. In no way do I support suppressing our individual freedoms or liberties. In fact, the problems here are not with the People but rather with the corporations.

The criminal corporations

It is the corporations that are committing these crimes against nature: Big Pharma's mass poisoning of the waters, BP's oil catastrophe crime against the planet in the Gulf Coast, the manufacture of Depleted Uranium shells by wealthy "defense" contractors, factory farming by meat producers, the poisoning of our farms by Monsanto and its campaign to dominate nature with genetically modified seeds... you get the picture. If you really look hard at the issues, it's the corporations who are destroying our planet and thereby destroying future survivability for the rest of us.

It is the corporations, in essence, that are the criminals who are now destroying the very world around us, and if We the People continue to let these corporations engage in such actions, it won't be long before we wake up and find ourselves enslaved in a Corporatocracy that has stolen from us the very world in which we had hoped to raise our children.

What is abundantly clear now is that corporations will do anything to make money, from the cruel and inhumane factory farming of cows to dumping millions of gallons of toxic chemicals in the ocean to try to sink the dead sea animals in the Gulf. Corporations would set fire to the entire planet if that act could somehow boost profits by 50% next quarter.

The unbridled greed that drives these corporations is simply incompatible with sustainable life on our planet. Through their careless, greed-driven actions, corporations are threatening YOUR life and the lives of your children.

I say enough is enough.

An armed revolt against the corporations?

There is already some mainstream talk about arresting the CEO of British Petroleum for his crimes against nature. It will never happen, of course, because these corporations wield too much power over government entities. We've seen it time and time again: Corporations are almost never held accountable for their crimes.

It is becoming increasingly clear that any action to hold these corporations accountable for their actions must come from the People -- most likely in the form of a dedicated revolt, or perhaps even an armed "mass citizens' arrest" of the corporate criminals.

Imagine ten thousand armed, angry citizens from Texas, Louisiana and Florida converging on the BP headquarters in Houston, led by a local Sheriff, marching in and arresting all the top CEOs of British Petroleum. That's the kind of action that needs to start taking place if any justice is ever to be found in our modern world of corporate corruption and government collusion.

When it comes to corporate crimes, the justice system has utterly failed. The corporations that commit crimes are almost never held responsible. Consider the aftermath of the Goldman Sachs fiasco in 2008 - 2009, when Wall Street banksters ripped off the American people to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, and then got bailed out by the U.S. government with trillions of dollars in gift money. How is that justice?

Similarly, after drug giant Pfizer was found to have committed massive marketing fraud that violated federal law, the company was deemed "too big to fail" and was simply given a free pass by the government to stay in business, defrauding customers, states and nations. Pfizer set up a shell company to take the fall for its crimes, then went right back to business as usual. Read the story on CNN if you want to learn more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/0...

As CNN reports: Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you. That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, was caught illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns. When the criminal case was announced last fall, federal officials touted their prosecution as a model for tough, effective enforcement. "It sends a clear message" to the pharmaceutical industry, said Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division. But beyond the fanfare, a CNN Special Investigation found another story, one that officials downplayed when they declared victory. It's a story about the power major pharmaceutical companies have even when they break the laws intended to protect patients..."

Whether it's Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Food or Big Agriculture, every large and powerful corporations gets away with murder because laws are never properly applied to them. BP is destroying an entire ocean -- and the livelihoods of millions of people -- and will probably get off with a large fine and a slap on the wrist. In two years, it will all be back to business as usual, polluting the oceans, destroying life and ignoring safety rules and regulations once again while the American people suffer.

More dangerous than terrorists

Corporations are a greater threat to our lives than terrorists. That much should be clear by now: When corporations poison our food supply with toxic chemical ingredients; when they poison our bodies with fraudulently-marketed pharmaceuticals; when they poison our oceans with careless oil drilling... they are threatening our lives and our livelihoods. They are destroying the only world we know, and they are proving themselves to be far more dangerous to our collective future than any terrorist organization.

The real terrorists, it turns out, have "Inc." after their name. And if we really want to go after the terrorists who present a clear and present danger to our health and lives, we must rise up against the corporate machine that now controls our media, our food, our sick-care system, our patents, our elected officials and our energy. We must gather our forces to make legally-justified citizens' arrests of those at the top who are responsible for these atrocities against nature and the People. We must unite out of a common desire for survival against the corporate criminals who are destroying our very futures as we speak.

We must seek the aid of the local Sheriffs, Constables and community law enforcement officials who would join us in making these arrests, and then we must march on the corporate headquarters of these criminal corporations, right through their front doors and into their corporate offices where arrests will be made at gunpoint.

And why gunpoint? Because corporations do not respect law, nor ethics, nor morality, nor compassion towards others. They only respect one thing: force. So we must reluctantly use force -- backed by the common sense of common law -- to make these corporations stop destroying our planet and our livelihoods. I'm not saying we march in there and shoot them; I'm saying we march in and arrest them and bring them to trial in local courts, with local jurors who can make local commonsense decisions about what to do with these criminal corporate executives.

The feds cannot be trusted on this. We must deal with these corporations on a local level, with the widespread support of the everyday people whose lives are being destroyed by these corporations.

The extinction of the human race

This is more than just holding corporations accountable for specific crimes such as poisoning the Gulf Coast; it's about our very survival. We're not merely talking about small, local damage to specific regions or industries here -- we are talking about the possibility of the extinction of the human race.

If the world's powerful corporations are allowed to continue operating as they have done, they will destroy our world and cause the collapse of human civilization. We cannot survive when suffocated under a cloud of chemical toxicity, financial fraud, genetically-modified seeds and widespread environmental destruction. Corporations are incapable of acting within the guidelines of long-term sustainable living. Their power and reach are now so great that they have the capacity to destroy modern civilization (which is quite fragile already).

Rising up against the corporations now means fighting for our very survival. What BP has made as clear as day is that we must now make a choice: We can choose to appease powerful corporations and exempt them from any real enforcement of rules, regulations or common sense; or we can take a stand against them, arrest their top executives, shut down their operations, revoke their corporate charters and set course in a new world without the destructive influence of endless greed backed by incessant profit-taking.

The worship of profit has become a scourge on human civilization. Unbridled greed is now our curse. "Economic activity", taken as a lone figure without the context in which it was generated, holds no measure of real value, and it should never been pursued for its own sake.

We must now shift our consciousness to a new era of the protection of life. We must value quality of life, not imaginary numbers in a bank account, and quality of life is a complex, interdependent equation that necessarily involves the sustaining of all the diverse ecosystems that now remain on our planet. For humans to live sustainably, happily and abundantly, we must stop destroying nature and start protecting it. We must be its steward, not its exploiter. And those corporations engaged in the mass destruction or poisoning of living ecosystems must be courageously arrested as criminals and prosecuted for their crimes against both the People and the planet.

There is no other way that we will survive the next century. Poisoning our planet on such a massive scale in an inexcusable act. We the People will either rise up against it, or we shall be destroyed by it.

I, for one, am willing to fight for our survival. Because I don't want human civilization to just be a sorry footnote in the history of life on planet Earth.