Once upon a time, there was another oil spill. On March 23, 1989, the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, hit a reef in Prince William Sound and released over 10 million gallons of crude. People were as outraged then as they are now. About a year later, the Australian rock band Midnight Oil took to guerilla tactics by protesting in front of the Exxon building in Manhattan. I remember hearing about it a day after it happened, on the FM station I listened to. No video. No Twitpics. Just a DJ reading some news copy.
Can you imagine a company actually closing their blinds to pretend what was happening outside their window, wasn’t? And even though this didn’t get much press back in the day, if it were to happen now, it would be all over the planet in an hour.
For the record, Midnight Oil was the kind of band that kicks walls down.
Finally, if you read that Wikipedia article in the link above, it looks like Exxon still hasn’t paid damages. I don’t think BP will get off as easy.
***
Matt Totsch
Jun 16, 2010
Oh I’m sure Exxon paid “damages”, maybe not the full amount to the correct people/organization. But they definitely paid someone off and I’m sure BP will follow their lead.
Dcgrrl
Jun 18, 2010
Thanks for the memories, Jim. I was/am a big fan of Midnight Oil. This made a big splash where I was – NOT in the Exxon offices myself – on a college campus in Washington, DC. I agree that BP is going to have a very hard time getting away with this. BP has already tried to pay off local fisherman, and been caught. They tried paying off cleanup crews, and been caught. Time to quit while they’re behind.