Steven Huber
Soc 122, M-W @5:30
Democracy Now Analysis #5
5/3/2016
30 Million Gallons Under the Sea: Five Years After BP Disaster, New Drilling OK'd by Spill Site
This documentary explains how people don't have any respect for the environment they live in. To be specific, how offshore oil drilling has resumed near the BP-operated oil rig that exploded five years ago in the Gulf of Mexico. The BP oil rig explosion was the worst industrial environmental disasters in U.S. history. One of the stipulations of the punishment to BP is that they couldn't drill in the Gulf of Mexico again. Well these big industrial companies are so shrewd that they always find a loop hole to make money. BP did this by selling all their property in the Gulf of Mexico to a Louisiana-based oil company and is now drilling into the Macondo reservoir. So basically BP made their millions by selling something they couldn't use and the new oil drilling company is making their millions by drilling in an environmental disaster area that wasn't supposed to be drilled anymore. This situation hits on two social movement areas that we have covered in class. One topic that we covered in class is environmental issues and the other topic being criminal justice. The environmental issue is portrayed in this documentary because of the damage that these off-shore drilling companies are physically having on the environment. Criminal justice is portrayed by the way big industry does things that would be highly illegal and punishable if the working class or the poor were in the same spot. Yet since these industries are so rich and powerful they can buy off everyone including our "the peoples" government. The proof of this is how even President Obama has his hand in the cookie jar. The laws he put in place to protect the environment from future oil spills are only for show. They focus on the problem at hand, not at what restrictions could be put in place to stop future spills. Pretty much with people caring more about money than they do about the future of their children. The environment and our lively hood doesn't have a chance.
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