Tina emailed a friend of hers who lives in Whiting, Indiana, home of the proposed BP pollution plant, about our disgust with BP. She sent me this email, published without edit - with her explicit consent.
I just wanted to let you know that I live in Whiting and I have two small kids and I am totally disgusted by the feudal state I live in that BP governs. I fought them for a few years regarding what I consider to be a human rights issue. Let me explain.In 2003 (I believe) BP Amoco succeeded in passing two bills in legislation. HB1858 and HB 1902. These two bills allowed BP to exorbitantly cut back on their share of property taxes. Let me put this in perspective for you. They take up about 3/4 of the town of Whiting. The rest are mostly senior citizens who spent their lives working in said refinery back when it was Amoco, before it was bought out by BP.
As a result our property taxes went up 1000%. Yes that is the right amount of zero's, I'll type it again. 1000%. Next, we were retrobilled for three years in arrears. That's right! Our mortgage
doubled. Our knees buckled. We are still making it but really we are not making it at all. We are in debt, we have re mortgaged, we cannot sell, the property values have plummeted as people panic and try to move out of the area.It's a disaster for the elderly, who abandon their homes, or sell life insurance policies, automobiles, and give up health insurance. As I said, these are the same elderly who worked to make BP Amoco what it is today.
We fought it, we fought it hard, but it soon became apparent that we needed to pay attention to our little family. My own family. We missed many birthday parties, play dates and parades because mommy and daddy had to go to the protest/meeting/etc etc etc.
I'm not giving up. But I need to get my family through these next few years. I need to stabilize our situation first.
BP I believe is the second largest oil corporation in the world. Their actions are reprehensible and deplorable. They behave as if they are the only corporation on the planet.
The more light can be shed on their ill doings the better.
some previous coverage of the topic:
Technorati Tags: BP, corporate_evil
This story reminds me of the feudal abuses in 13th-century France when it succumbed to the dynasties who controlled the money which funded the 100-year war between France and England. The feudal system was no good. The dynasties replaced it with something worse: the vicious cycle between economic expansion and wartime regression. Whiting is one more battleground in BP's ambitious battle against other corporate behemoths to reign over the Earth's energy resources.
--N.
The post turned out great! All kudos to you for making it simple.