There are good reasons to criticize BP and bad reasons to criticize BP. David Gergen offers a bad reason, an appeal to some of Americans worst instincts:
Here at home, one hears that by Wednesday dawn, we will know whether BP’s latest big try to stop the oil spill will work. If it does, we can begin to feel that we are moving in the right direction, but if it doesn’t — well, no one is quite sure what Plan D looks like. Is this really where we have come: that the fate of our precious coastlines and the waters off our coasts are in the hands of a single foreign-based company?
Is the fact that BP’s corporate headquarters are located in London genuinely relevant to the unfolding disaster? Had it been located in, say, Dallas or New York would it have made a difference?
BP’s chairman of the board is Swedish and its top management includes Englishmen, Scots, Americans, and South Africans. It’s as good an example of a global transnational company as there is.
Complain about the spill; that’s perfectly legitimate. Complain that BP didn’t do enough to prevent it or move quickly to stop it. That’s legitimate, too, although it remains to be seen and I’m sure we’ll have a better understanding once the, undoubtedly, endless hearings are conducted.
But complain because it’s headquartered in London? Poppycock.
Particularly bizarre when we’re talking about a British company. I get the xenophobic appeal, at least, when it’s Middle Eastern or even Venezuelan. But by our closest European ally?
The economy is bad so this stuff happens. Arizona passes an immigration law unlikely to make any difference driven by similar concerns.
Steve