President Barack Obama said Sunday that his administration and law enforcement officials are investigating who is responsible for a bombing attempt in New York City’s Times Square on Saturday night.
Obama, visiting Louisiana to inspect the oil spill efforts, said he’ll do what’s necessary, “to protect the American people, to determine who is behind this potentially deadly act and to see that justice is done.”
It must have sounded odd to the families of the oil rig workers lost in the rig explosion of now two weeks back. Or the families of the Massey Energy miners, 29 of whom lost their lives in an explosion last month.
In the Times Square case, nothing exploded, no one died. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility but officials aren’t giving that much credence.
In the case of the Deepwater Horizon rig, there was a real explosion, eleven real deaths, more injuries and quite possibly some violations of safety regs. But still no Presidential use of that word justice. How come when the threat’s packed into a car on the street it’s a matter of seeking justice, but when it’s corporate malfeasance, or oil spewing onto the beach it’s a matter of money?
To BP — a company that saw $6 billion in profits this last quarter — talking only about money makes little sense. Besides, if companies want to be treated as people for electioneerring purposes, isn’t it time we started talking about walking them away in cuffs?
The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.
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