Boycott the boycott

So what do we do? Well, if you’re the president of the United States, apparently you take a wait-and-see attitude, head to a Barbara Boxer fundraiser in San Francisco  and send Attorney General Eric Holder out to a press conference and threaten legal action. Really? Legal action? Don’t worry about the damage, threaten to collect after the fact. Typical attorneys. At least Obama said he was mad and that he wanted to know whose asses he would kick. But that does little to save the poor oil-covered pelicans and assuage shrimp fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. At least he made a speech last night. He’s good at speeches. But how about a press conference, you know where he answers questions that aren’t preplanned?

Others are faring no better. The most pathetic moment in the recent television coverage of the disaster was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal pointing to a dying pelican saying how mad he was and the reporter following the angry scene with his own kneel-down on the oily beach next to it to illustrate the damage. Can’t someone pick up the damn bird and get it to a Dawn bath pronto instead of using it for a television "moment?”

And if you’re on the Hen Party known as Facebook, you can join a growing Boycott BP movement or if you are short-sighted enviroweirdo you can stand in front of one of the handful of BP stations in the United States and pour sticky brown liquid on yourself. Both pointless. Look, I know it’s hard to look at all the damage created by the spill and not want to do something. After all, we’re Americans and we’re used to being able to do something about things. When you have a president who appears to not want to take charge, then we have to do something right? Thus the boycott.

I’ll stay away from the people who want to pour sticky brown liquid on themselves. That’s just theater of the absurd played by people looking for attention. I put them in the same category as Code Pink, PETA and some of the overeager star-spangled people who love tea. Gotta love the First Amendment.

But the Boycott BP movement is just stupid. First, the obvious. If such a boycott were to work, would you really want to cut money to the people who need money to stop the spill and then clean it up?

Here is the not so obvious. BP only has a handful of stations in the United States and most of them are owned and operated by American small businessmen and women — not the British corporation. Also, because of how gasoline is refined and delivered, no one knows how much of what company’s oil is where. It could be at Costco, Arco or it could be at any other station. So to truly boycott BP, one would have to eliminate any and all fuel usage to be sure. Perhaps that’s what we should do. But there’s that tricky thing called reality. There truly is no other feasible alternative right now (emphasis on right now) to fossil fuel if we wish to conduct ourselves like the First World nation we are — you know with companies, grocery stores, farms and homes with heat and air-conditioning and working stoves. Think the electricity for a plug-in car comes from a windmill? Think again. It comes from fossil fuel.

The BP oil spill was a big mistake — with a capital B. No one should condone the dangerous actions that led to this disaster. BP should learn from it, we should learn from it and the federal government should have gotten on it immediately. Shooting golf balls and the mud "top kill” methods of stemming the flow were ridiculous stall tactics because no one really knows how to stop it and BP officials probably were just trying anything until the oil stopped flowing on its own. And the federal government should have jumped in because its primary responsibility is to protect its citizens regardless of the fact that no one knew what to do. Nearly two months later, the leak is still flowing. If the Gulf strike was contained, BP execs would have been dancing a jig. But it wasn’t and sadly there is no dancing — only damage and despair. Yes, the damage is stiflingly sad and we should consider our energy use and its cost to the planet. But let’s not get stupid over it just because the federal response was slow.

Jon Mays is the editor in chief of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com.