POSTCRIPT: FEAR Can Force Corporations To Behave Ethically

If and when multinational oil drillers adopt strict safety procedures for their offshore operations because they FEAR rotting in a Brazilian jail for 20 years, Americans who are currently being victimized, terrorized, and poisoned by out-of-control, wild west oil and gas cartels in this country, will have Brazil to thank for their reprieve. Then maybe someday — soon — we can dream again of an EPA with the authority and backbone to regulate offshore drilling polluters, curb man-made earthquakes and stop the ruination of our freshwater underground reservoirs caused by phracking — before it's too late.

Who would have imagined that the protection and conservation of our environment, a proud and vital government role adopted by one great, visionary president, Theodore Roosevelt, could itself ever end up being outsourced? Said T.R. of the generational responsibility we all share to preserve our natural heritage for our children's children's children:

"Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the 'the game belongs to the people.' So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."

Are you listening, President Obama and Attorney General Holder?