BP and Spin Control

What I just heard on the radio  is too damned upsetting... I had a disclaimer in place here as I researched the links in this post, which is about the people whom are being paid by BP as cleanup workers for the spill in the gulf.  But I have since pulled it as the information that I am finding not only backs these claims up, but adds weight to them.

As I understand it, to get hired you must sign a contract that prohibits you from talking to the media under penalty of being fired.  So right there - few of the cleanup crews are talking to the media.  These are the only people who are legally seeing the spill first-hand since you are otherwise not allowed to take a boat out in the effected areas of the Gulf.  In many cases BP is using the local police to chase media crews away from filming oil on the beaches.

The result is as BP intended: precious little first-hand information about the cleanup is getting out.

Secondly, Louisiana Shrimpers Association acting President Clint Guidry has alleged that  BP is prohibiting cleanup workers from wearing protective masks.  One can only assume this is intended to prevent pictures from being published with such masks being present.  While some cleanup workers have grown ill and are blaming it on contact with the chemical dispersants that are being used.
BP has stated  that testing has shown that "airborne contaminants are well within safe limits."


Adding credibility to the Guidry's claim after growing ill as a cleanup worker himself, shrimper John Wunstell Jr. has gone so far as to file for a restraining order to stop BP from seizing and destroying worker’s clothes and prohibiting the use of masks.  BP's CEO suggested that an alternate cause for his condition was food poisoning.