Laugh track... I like that idea!

Still, the comment said it all, didn't it? Anyway, I knew you'd get bent... that's why I wrote the way I did. Welcome back to the Bund.

The news today? Bleak, huh? The oil will continue to flow for another week at least, and the first of the "casualties" is washing ashore today... sea turtles. Several dozen of the creatures have washed up along the Mississippi shore, from Pass Christian to Ocean Springs. No visible signs of oil on the beasts, but the chances of the turtles having ingested the oil is pretty strong.

BP seems to have read Ryan's post, though. In a statement made yesterday, their environmental spokesman said money aimed at clean up and relief would not be withheld pending court case decisions. Being a bit of a cynic, I am assuming they have already determined that some amount of cost is going to be thrown at them, so they are being up-front with the more visible aspects of the clean up cost. Good for their image, and might make dealing with the Feds and the State machines just a little easier. This is also good for the long-term goals that the company must maintain. BP (and the other Big Oil companies) will want to keep drilling in the Gulf and off-shore of many States, and saving their image as best they can will make that process less painful in the future. Fighting the process or waiting for the Courts to decide who is responsible for what will only make them look like villains in the eyes of the public... something they cannot afford right now.

With all the hub-bub over the last few years from the anti-Bush elements calling for withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the pro-illegal immigrant crowd calling for an end to border restrictions, the more mainstream conservative "Tea Party" movement that sees danger in the direction the government is moving, and the ultra-conservative (almost reactionary) factions that see the US government as our only REAL enemy, I was led to ponder today's anti-government movements and opinions with those of the past.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the shooting of 13 Kent State University students in 1970. The Guardsmen who did the shooting claim it was in response a violent protest of the American invasion of Cambodia, which Nixon had announced on TV only the week before. Of the students who were killed, only two were actually involved in the protest. The other two were on their way to class, and one was an ROTC member (actually wearing his uniform, too). Four dead and nine wounded after thirteen seconds of gunfire from 77 Ohio National Guardsmen.

If nothing else, this nation has learned to live with protest. For all the anti-Bush hate that was spewed out over the course of his two terms, no protesters were shot and no actual violence erupted that wasn't shown to be instigated by the protesters themselves (I'm thinking specifically of the Seattle WTO protests in 1999). While the Tea Party movement is typically derided and dismissed in the mainstream media as "radical" and/or racial in its makeup, its meetings and efforts have remained the model of moderation and rational discourse, I think. More dangerous elements voicing opposition to the government's efforts (like the Michigan militia group that tried to kill cops to start a revolution against the Feds just this year) might think they see "kindred spirits" in the Tea Party... but they actually show the failings of their own ideology instantly, and do not directly counter the actual message of the Tea Party at all. The same goes for those in the Southwest, who take a very solid position against illegal immigration and for greater border security being labeled by the mainstream media as no different than the neo-Nazis and the "skinheads" who scream hate and violence against minorities out of ignorance and sycophantically follow the ideology of dead madmen. The association is false, and those making the association are shown to be as ignorant and as bigoted as the fringe elements themselves.

This nation saw its foundations laid on the protests of those championing personal freedom and individual rights against unfair and unconcerned government. We saw the Boston Massacre and what it did to light the fires of eventual insurrection, and we saw similar fruits born of the Kent State shootings. No violent revolution, perhaps, but the efforts of the government to maintain the status quo were ended within 4 years, and the ability of the government to dictate what was and wasn't "policy" without taking into account the "voice of the people" was forever reduced. Both the Johnson and Nixon administrations saw their policies as "untouchable" by the public, and were never seen to have tried to communicate the "why" behind the "how". Reagan changed that (or began the change) and Bush Sr. perfected it. Clinton forgot it completely, and Bush Jr. didn't use it enough.

Let's hope our next President has a better grasp of American history.