I took some vacation time, at home, the week before the 4th of July weekend. I live on the Alabama Gulf Coast, and spend most of my time away, from there, working. I had not been home since before the oil rig leak, in the Gulf, had began.
I didn’t know what to expect really. My only source for information is the internet. Internet news stories ranging from BP propaganda, to end of the world scenarios, have had me very emotional.
My mother’s family were among the first English settlers in the area. My mother even had an uncle, by marriage, whose family, were Spanish subjects, from the Spanish colonial days.
I was born in Mobile Alabama, and the Gulf is a part of me, it is a part of who I am. Many of my happiest moments, as a child, were spent fishing, and swimming, in the Mobile Bay.
Just a mile, down the road, from where I live, there is a BP station. I have bought gas at the station since it was opened. I knew, however, that I would no longer be a customer there. While away, I felt sorry for the people that owned the station. I was resolved to never buy another BP product, for as long I as I live.
Having had family members, in the gas station business, and having been a gas pump jockey, during my High School years, I knew the station is a family business. I also know that the business owners can change the product at their gas pumps.
I had returned home over the weekend, and stayed, shut in, the house going through my mail. Monday morning, I ventured out, to make a dentist appointment, and do some investigating, on the the Gulf beaches.
Leaving the house, I had made up my mind, to drive past the gas station, at the next cross roads. Approaching the station, I was happily surprised, to see that it was now a Shell station.
I made a point to stop in and patronize the station. Saturday, I had bought gas at a Chevron, and didn’t need to buy more. The station owners had been as outrage, as everyone else, at the conduct of BP, and the Federal Government. They had taken the decision to end their association with BP on their own.
Entering the store, I noticed that all BP products had been removed from the shelving, and Shell Oil products, in their place. The store owners, and managers, were not available, so I couldn’t ask them any questions. To show some support, I bought a few items, that could have been bought, more cheaply, elsewhere, and moved on.
As you can see, from the above picture, the store was completely empty. No one inside, and no cars at the pumps. I took this picture in mid-morning, at what should have been, a busy time of day for the station. While I had been certain to never patronize the station, as long as they sold BP products, I was saddened.
The owners had taken the initiative to change their oil company affiliation, but passing motorists, could only see the BP green, and not the Shell Oil replacement sign. The Shell sign being, basically, a large bag placed over the, more permanent, BP sign.
Over, the many, weeks of the oil leak, I have listened in to talk shows, so far as, I could stand to listen. Many talk show hosts have been criticizing the BP boycott because it hurts the small business owners. If small business owners are hurt, by their association with BP, they can change their business associations.
Please beware of propaganda in it’s many forms. While many of the national talk show hosts try to make you feel sorry, for Mom, and Pop, they are really shilling for the corporate giant.
Some of the propagandists are quite clever. This article, from Newsweek, Boycott BP!, subtitled, Because it is better to give your money to Exxon, asserts that, if you boycott BP, you are giving your money to Exxon, as if their are no other oil companies.
It maybe true that Exxon got off light, from the Exxon Valdez spill, it wasn’t their company policy that kept it going for profit. As is the case with the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
The disaster, in the Gulf of Mexico, isn’t the only place that BP is leaving their mark. BP is dumping, as many as, 5 lbs. of mercury, in lake Michigan, per year, from their Indiana operation. The Chicago Sun Times has been calling for a boycott of BP for it. Please see Sun Times Says Boycott BP.
British Petroleum, is an un-needed, corporation, in the United States of America. We do not need a foreign company to steal our natural assets, and sell them back to us. BP drills, and pumps oil, from Alaska, and sells it to other nations, like Japan.
The vey fact, that BP does business, in North America, is the result of the policies of the Trilateral Commission, whose purpose, was to merge the economies of Japan, The United States, and Great Briton.
I often tell people about the Trilateral Commission and their purpose. They often tell me that they don’t think it could happen. Well, it happened in the 1980’s.
Were you sleeping?
