Diane Wilson’s Jet Set Code Pink Shrimp Takes On BP
TO the BP Annual General Meeting, where shrimp farmer and serial protestor Diane Wilson from Texas has daubed herself with oil to make a point that oil is bad.
Says she:
“I’ve come all the way here from the Gulf Coast. My community is gone, and they won’t let me in. I am coming to articulate the anger of thousands of Gulf Coast residents whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed while the BP board continues to prosper.”
Didn’t BP set up a $20bn fund to compensate those affected by the oil leak in the Gulf? Yes, it did.
The basic structure will partially mimic the 9/11 compensation fund, by setting up and publishing criteria for paying out claims. Anyone suffering an economic loss from the spill can file a claim. If claimants are not satisfied with the administrator’s decision, they can appeal to a three-judge panel. Obama said the process would make “every effort” to expedite claims.
So. The shrimpers are all dead in the water?
”Why? It don’t pay me to [go shrimping] when they’re going to pay my claim anyway,” says Cooper, a wiry man who is vice-president of the state’s shrimpers association.
Today it is BP’s money, not its oil, that is most visibly altering the Gulf Coast. The company has been trying – on federal orders – to protect not just the water but the way of life there. But BP’s waterfall of cash has changed people’s lives profoundly… some hardworking fishermen think it is in their best interest to be idle, losing market share they will need next year. And those who have not been paid are looking for legal and illegal ways to work the system.
Wilson is a former hunger striker against big business and also the co-founder of Codepink for Peace:
CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.
Overlooking for moment how Wilson managed to get from Texas to London (she swam, right?), we wonder what shrimp farming entails.
Here’s what Greenpeace says of it:
Farming shrimp causes gigantic problems, even beyond the environmental harm, it can often decimate the coastal ecology that communities depend upon.
Whose side are you on..?
Posted: 14th, April 2011 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
