Good Morning Attaturk.
I can’t believe that I am the first to comment this morning. I remember back when this was such a big deal to be first in the comments.
We have moved on from that.
Now, about your post, my wife and I were talking about that “small people”
comment. We both felt that when he spoke those words he was truly speaking the way he felt about the people on the Gulf and really, all of us that are not well connected.
There are those who are excusing it as being from Sweden, he does not know the right words, I call bulls#$t on that. He was speaking his mind.

they care about hobbits?

Can small people still vote?

Oh fuchrissake, the “small people” comment itself shows how much he cares about “small people”. This reminds me of Leona Helmsley’s statement that “only the little people pay taxes”. The vast majority of “big people” in their income bracket don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone except their own kind of “big people” and making sure they pay no taxes and are not held accountable for any damn thing they do to “small people”. And that also includes Obama.

This is a great post, I stumbled across your post while looking for popular internet advertising method. Thanks for sharing, I’ll be sure to come back.

You’ve killed it so completely that we thank you very sweetly.
Ding, dong, the Gulf is dead.

Good morning, pups. It’s Collins and Kristof today. Ms. Collins, in “The Boring Speech Policy,” says the president’s Oval Office speech may have been a disappointment. But given what’s happened this week, it could have been worse. Mr. Kristof is looking forward to Father’s Day and in “Dad Will Really Like This” he suggests for Father’s Day, let’s forgo the neckties and give instead to father-friendly organizations.

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got apple walnut muffins. Rumor has it that we may get some rain this evening or tomorrow. This would be a very good thing, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Which makes typing hard… Have a great day.

and for the corporate socialists of the Obama admin.
it’s business as usual, approving phony drilling plans for their
benefactors in the oil industry http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/06/new-drilling-leases-gulf-of-mexico

Is that Dick Cheney in the White House behind the Obama mask?

And justice for the big people …not so much. Our justice department, commenting on bp, doubts that criminal charges, being for small people, will reach the executive suite other wise known as the have mores or the 1%ers, the rich, the owners definitely not small people.

I hope the small people have a great day and the big people step in dog shit all day.

As a footnote, Svanberg is dead wrong. Obama cares not a turd for us small people. We progressives, especialy, are almost too small to see these days.

All the Rage

BP sees us very well in the sunlight, they’ve got a ginormous magnifying glass.

As flies to wanton boys are we to BP.

“Small people” translation =’s “Serfs”.

Possibly the word you’re searching for is, “[Edited by Moderator. Let's not have ethnic insults here, even as snark]“.

Karl Rove once said his goal was to insure Republican domination for a generation. People thought he was merely talking about the election of Republicans when he may well have meant the domination of a particular ideology and means of “doing business.” Looking at his statement from this perspective and the actions or lack thereof of the current administration he might have been more prescient than anyone thought.

This will be unpopular…..I think the guy who suggested they fall on their swords had a good point. Personally I would like my hand to be on the handle.

Since I don’t give a rats ass any longer what any of these people or politicians do, I guess it’s a moot point. But now that I fully realize that our government is an occupying force that represents none of us, what is there to care about except for close friends and family, while I watch what I can do nothing about.

What we have all accomplished is nothing short of horrific, and it goes downhill from there.

bad Judgement, but true

sorry

Look at Michelle Bachman’s statement that it’s a transfer of wealth. This is their objection in a nutshell. While Bachman gets farm subsidies, financed by the taxpayer, she wants nothing to go to the working people. We are here to line their pockets, not the other way around.

Beg pardon, guv’nor.

You don’t have to apologize to me. I think I agree with you. Reading the live blogging of the Prop 8 trial just had me confused. I still don’t see what government interference in peoples personal choice has to do with the stability of our society.

Perhaps I’m mistaken but it seems to me that there are more and more of these Marie Antoinette moments bubbling to the surface lately.

We have the small people in the Gulf region.

We have Limbaugh arguing that poor children starving over the summer (without free school breakfast and lunch) is a good way to combat child obesity in the US.

We have multimillionaire senator Diane Feinstein suggesting that the unemployed are lazy and will never work again if they continue to receive a pittance in unemployment insurance, so congress decides to cut it and other bare benefits to punish the unemployed for being, well, losers for not finding non-existent jobs.

Banksters and CEOs suck in millions with impunity, President Obama spends all his political capital consulting with big business, and Americans by the millions continue to suffer and seethe.

Something tells me this won’t end well.

The Rothschild Oligarchs can’t help themselves. It’s the way they are wired. They are intentionally destroying the United States, and depopulating the “useless eaters.”

http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2010/06/was-gulf-oil-spill-inside-job.html

Connect all the dots to the oligarchs, by name:

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/3820

Their grand scheme to destroy America, make it entirely undesirable, and compel certain people to move to “the Promised Land”, is in its final phase. Where will all of those Floridians live?

Priscilla – you had me at Banksters and CEOs suck. But, then again, I’m one of those lazy small people.

What if this BP guy, a non-English-speaking fellow, had said BP “cares about the little guy” instead of “small people”? Would anyone have been offended then? The truth is, he may have been thinking of the idiom but didn’t express it well. If it had been Tony Hayward, I would have been offended. But for someone whose first language is NOT English, he should be given a bit of a break.

Good morning.

First segment on democracynow is on whistleblowers and O administration execrable treatment of them.

Granted he got the idiom wrong, but you see, he’s chairman of the board of BP, and there are organizations that advise bigwigs on handling disasters, so there’s no excuse for saying or doing the wrong thing. Regardless of cultural or language problems.

Screw the idiom. He could have just said “people.” If he really cared about people they would have recognized that their methods and activities put the lives and livelihoods of millions people at risk. Claiming they now care rings hollow.

Richard Wolf on KO last night was giving this Swede a pass bc English wasn’t his first language. Spare me, Dickie-boy, Svanberg knew EXACTLY what he was saying. I guess I give Svanberg a half point for his bald honesty. Does anyone seriously believe that Svanberg did mean exactly what he said?

We are serfs, and like little children at the dinner table, we are neither to be seen or heard, unless we’re needed for grunt labor in unsafe conditions for paltry wages. Doesn’t take much to get a clue.

And in response to a prior post: Karl Rove’s Permanent Republican Majority was achieved a while ago. As is clear: doesn’t matter who is elected. Get over it.

People who truly care about others don’t go around saying they care about the “small people.”

He no doubt got to the top by stepping on, and screwing over, people he considers “small,” by not caring about anyone but himself while simultaneously convincing himself that he’s a fine fellow.

Screw him.

I agree in the idiom ‘small’ substituted for ‘ordinary’ or ‘common’ was unfortunate. I also think that the end portion of his statement was more off-the-cuff and less prepared than the earlier part…his entire delivery was strained because of the language barrier and until this event there was never any expectation by Carl-Henric Svanberg or the directors of BP that he’d ever have to face an American press conference.

On the other hand, BP’s a UK company, for crissakes. They speak pretty good English in the UK.

On the other hand, even big honchos can get nervous and excited before cameras and millions of viewers and simply ‘slip’ with the nuance of a word’s ‘correct’ meaning by using and incorrect synonym.

Like the fire on the containment vessel the other day, this is just another instance where BP seems to keep getting ‘snake bit’. I think Svanberg’s slip will blow over and NOT make him remembered as His Lordship. Best that BP leave oratory and diction to Tony Hayword. We have no choice to trust that they both are sincere as heck.

More troubling to me that that is Obama’s statement that “BP is a strong and viable company and it is all our best interest to see that it remains so.”

This comment came after Obama successfully extorted $20 b from BP even though, as O pointed out, the liability cap under law is $75 million. No dout BP needs to pay but we must also let BP fail if its laibilities exceed its assets.

Yesterday I predicted that after the $20 billion was acquired, O would ease up and ‘voila!’

How can Obama defend BP. How can he assert that it should remain strong and viable when within the past decade, BP has been responsible for disasters in other locations, such as an explosion at a Texas refinery that took 15 lives, as well as major spills from its pipelines in Alaska. Taking risks and cutting corners appear to be the norm for BP.

I assert that Obama will claim he wants to keep BP ‘strong and viable’ for the ‘folks’. (Read that ‘small people’) but in fact he wants to keep it alive for his cronies. Pay no attention to the fact that BP is a major player in cap and trade. Care not that BP has bought off environmental groups and employs prominant Dems as lobbyists and PR consultants. Pay no attention to the fact that many, many Dems and Obama backers will personally benefit from the passage of a ‘green jobs bill’ that will not clean up the spill or fuel my car and get me to work.

Oh yes, in whos best interest is it to keep BP strong and viable?

No they say ‘folks.’

But Obama wants BP to remain ‘strong and viable.” No doubt for all the ‘folks’.

It really is no longer enough to demonize BP when it is quite clear that BG (big government) is colluding with BP to remain ‘strong and viable’ when it should be federalizing the containment and clean up efforts. But Obama is quite content to simply ‘direct’ BP. IMO every drop of oil that reaches our coastline is Obama’s failure as well as BPs. There simply is NO separating the two.

We are indeed on the road to serfdom.

This administration has already assured that our taxes will rise so that we can all depend on the government for our healthcare. Our taxes will rise to pay for energy subsidizes that will cost jobs and burden ‘folks’ merely to enrich administration cronies. Our debt rises so that generations beyond the greedy baby boomers will pay to support the early retirements from cushy public sector jobs and so many of us will never be able to live as well as our parent’s generation.

Anyone here at FDL under 45 better be prepared for that hard truth.