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the points you lay out ace are all very nice & in some alternate fantasy capitalist universe they'd be adhered to (the initial points about obligations of various organizational layers)..but all you've really done here is restated the "bad apple" explanation for why things go wrong with capitalism. in your fantasy capitalism the system is perfect but people let it down. in your fantasy capitalism people are entirely dominated by capital, but that's cool with you, good even because capital does not let you down the way imperfect humans do. capitalism is a kind of god-term.
particularly given the realities of the regulatory arrangement in this situation. which you don't seem to have bothered researching even though there's alot of material you could have read posted to this thread. the regulatory arrangement was set up around assumptions exactly like yours, ace. that bidness knows better than regulators, that capitalism is a perfectly rational system, that profit uber alles works as an orientation for the greatest good for the greatest number and that profit taking and environmental "stewardship" aren't mutually exclusive. this in the face of instance after instance after instance in reality that show none of these metaphysical assumptions obtain in the actually existing world (strip mining anyone? for a particularly egregious example)...
in reality, ace, the regulatory arrangement was such that it is amazing that something like the deepwater horizon hadn't happened before. the regulatory arrangement was such that it more or less guaranteed something like this would happen again. profit-taking leads to cutting corners particularly when you dont take seriously the regulations that enforce environmental considerations. there's abundant information to back this up in the thread, and even more out there in the world of information.
i assume that when you write that statement about "some liberals" wanting to "punish an entire industry" what you really mean is that not everyone buys your bad apple theory nonsense. in that you are correct. but it's not about punishing an industry: its about recognizing the regulatory problem that petroleum corporations have created around themselves through their political and lobbying activities that resulted in a set of rules that made this disaster in the gulf of mexico possible.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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