Black Gusher Action!

Below you will find information for a series of protests centered around the Seize BP movement. I’ve copied and pasted info from their site and included demonstration information for San Diego (oceanside), Los Angeles and San Francisco. There are actions taking place all over the country and even though this took nearly a month to organize there are ways to protest (though I’m still in favor of drowning Tony Hayward in a vat of crude).

In case the current disaster isn’t enough to inspire some sort of boycott or action, here is a reminder of BP’s storied history (courtesy of wikipedia):

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline

BP has been criticised for its involvement with Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, due to human rights, environmental and safety concern

Colombian pipeline

In July 2006, a group of Colombian farmers won a multi million pound settlement from BP after the British oil and gas company was accused of benefiting from a regime of terror carried out by Colombian government paramilitaries to protect a 450-mile (720 km) pipeline.

Mist mountain project

There have been some calls for BP to halt its “Mist Mountain” Coalbed Methane Project in the Southern Rocky Mountains of British Columbia. The proposed 500 km² project is directly adjacent to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Canadian oil sands

BP is one of numerous firms who are extracting oil from Canadian oil sands, a process that produces four times as much CO₂ as conventional drilling. The Cree aboriginal group describe BP as being complicit in ‘the biggest environmental crime on the planet’.

Refinery safety violations

Under scrutiny after the Texas City Refinery explosion, two BP-owned refineries in Texas City, Texas, and Toledo, Ohio, were responsible for 97 percent (829 of 851) of safety violations by oil refiners between June 2007 and February 2010, as determined by inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.^[70]

For those who wish to protest silently or with “wallet.”

here is a list of BP products you can justly avoid:

BP
AMPM
Arai
Arco
BP Travel Centre
BP Connect
BP Express
BP Shop
BP 2go
Castrol
Air BP and BP Shipping

Seize BP: Campaign Statement and Petition

The government of the United States must seize BP and freeze its assets, and place those funds in trust to begin providing immediate relief to the working people throughout the Gulf states whose jobs, communities, homes and businesses are being harmed or destroyed by the criminally negligent actions of the CEO, Board of Directors and senior management of BP.

Take action now! Sign the Seize BP petition to demand the seizure of BP!

200,000 gallons of oil a day, or more, are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico with the flow of oil growing. The poisonous devastation to human beings, wildlife, natural habitat and fragile ecosystems will go on for decades. It constitutes an act of environmental violence, the consequences of which will be catastrophic.

BP’s Unmitigated Greed

This was a manufactured disaster. It was neither an “Act of God” nor Nature that caused this devastation, but rather the unmitigated greed of Big Oil’s most powerful executives in their reckless search for ever-greater profits.

Under BP’s CEO Tony Hayward’s aggressive leadership, BP made a record $5.6 billion in pure profits just in the first three months of 2010. BP made $163 billion in profits from 2001-09. It has a long history of safety violations and slap-on-the-wrist fines.

BP’s Materially False and Misleading Statements

BP filed a 52-page exploration plan and environmental impact analysis with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service for the Deepwater Horizon well, dated February 2009, which repeatedly assured the government that it was “unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities.” In the filing, BP stated over and over that it was unlikely for an accident to occur that would lead to a giant crude oil spill causing serious damage to beaches, mammals and fisheries and that as such it did not require a response plan for such an event.

BP’s executives are thus either guilty of making materially false statements to the government to obtain the license, of consciously misleading a government that was all too ready to be misled, and/or they are guilty of criminal negligence. At a bare minimum, their representations constitute gross negligence. Whichever the case, BP must be held accountable for its criminal actions that have harmed so many.

Protecting BP’s Super-Profits

BP executives are banking that they can ride out the storm of bad publicity and still come out far ahead in terms of the billions in profit that BP will pocket. In 1990, in response to the Exxon Valdez disaster, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the Oil Pollution Act, which immunizes oil companies for the damages they cause beyond immediate cleanup costs.

Under the Oil Pollution Act, oil companies are responsible for oil removal and cleanup costs for massive spills, and their liability for all other forms of damages is capped at $75 million—a pittance for a company that made $5.6 billion in profits in just the last three months, and is expected to make $23 billion in pure profit this year. Some in Congress suggest the cap should be set at $10 billion, still less than the potential cost of this devastation—but why should the oil companies have any immunity from responsibility for the damage they cause?

The Oil Pollution Act is an outrage, and it will be used by BP to keep on doing business as usual.

People are up in arms because thousands of workers who have lost their jobs and livelihoods as a result of BP’s actions have to wait in line to compete for lower wage and hazardous clean-up jobs from BP. BP’s multi-millionaire executives are not asked to sacrifice one penny while working people have to plead for clean-up jobs.

Take Action Now

It is imperative that the government seize BP’s assets now for their criminal negligence and begin providing immediate relief for the immense suffering and harm they have caused.

Seize BP Week of Action
Thursday, June 3 – Thursday, June 10

Los Angeles, California
Saturday, June 5 at 12 noon
Palisades Park at Ocean Ave. & Colorado Ave., Santa Monica (near the Santa Monica Pier)
Contact: 213-251-1025 or la@seizebp.org
Click here for a map.

Oceanside, California
Saturday, June 5 at 2 p.m.
Bp station, 160 Davison Ave
Bring signs and loud voices for a peaceful protest.
Contact: nfkut2001@gmail.com

San Francisco, California
Tuesday, June 8 at 5 p.m.
BP Offices
90 New Montgomery St. (near Mission St.)
Contact: 415-821-6545, sf@seizebp.org