Consider this: http://www.seizebp.org/
The Answer coalition is asking for a movement to have the assets of BP seized provide substantial aid to the Gulf region inhabitants whose security and livelihood are threatened by the oil spill. There is an organization now called SEIZE BP.
Is Barack Obama an advocate of the people -- or corporate interests? The advocacy group's statement begins:
Seize BP responds to Pres. Obama's Oval Office Address
President Obama needed to be able to say with certainty to the people of the Gulf Coast, who today go to sleep fearing that they will not be able to put food on the table, pay their rent or their other obligations because of the spill, that tonight you can sleep safe knowing that the funds needed to make you whole would be secured, in trust, and available immediately. Click here to read the full statement."
More of the statement:
Why "negotiate" with corporate criminals?
Rather than using the power vested in him as President and fulfilling the obligation vested in him to protect the people, he instead insists on “negotiations” with an entity that has engaged in criminal and reckless acts of deadly proportions.
President Obama has been given a choice: Serve the people or be subservient to corporate interests. The corporate interests of BP are in irreconcilable conflict with those of the people of the Gulf Coast and of the United States.
The workers and families in the Gulf Coast need action. Not rhetoric. Not sympathy and not the channeling, or mirroring, of their anger and frustration through the figure of the President. Their suffering is real. Their fears of life-altering catastrophe are well founded. The coastlines of five states are under attack.
The White House, responding to building national anger and the echoing cry for relief, brought out all of the symbolism of Presidential authority and leadership that have been so sorely lacking over the past two months of crisis. For the very first time in his presidency, which has seen the financial crisis—to which his administration responded with a massive banker bailout—Obama used the authority and the familiarity of a speech from the Oval Office to communicate directly with the nation as a whole.
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