{"id":4186,"date":"2010-06-17T09:27:35","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T13:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2010-06-20T05:10:16","modified_gmt":"2010-06-20T09:10:16","slug":"we-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/17\/we-care\/","title":{"rendered":"“we care”…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BP chairman talks about the ‘small people,’ further angering gulf<\/a>
Washington Post<\/strong>
By Ann Gerhart
June 17, 2010<\/div>\n

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg attempted an earnest apology Wednesday for the worst environmental accident ever to befall America, but it will be remembered for only two words:<\/p>\n

"Small people." <\/p>\n

Svanberg came with other BP executives to the White House, where \"Lollypophe said President Obama made clear that he is "frustrated because he cares about the small people." "And we care about the small people," added Svanberg, who is Swedish. "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care. But that is not the case indeed. We care about the small people." <\/p>\n

Just like that, a new slogan was born. It sardonically swept through cyberspace and landed in the gulf, where it was greeted with no more enthusiasm than the unrefined crude gushing from BP property. "We’re not small people. We’re human beings. They’re no greater than us. We don’t bow down to them. We don’t pray to them," said Justin Taffinder of New Orleans. <\/p>\n

"Purely a translation matter," e-mailed BP spokesman Scott Dean. And later Wednesday, Svanberg apologized for his apology: "I spoke clumsily this afternoon, and for that, I am very sorry." BP’s European executives have consistently struggled to strike the right tone in response to the oil spill. Svanberg was the guy who was supposed to demonstrate all the humility that Tony Hayward, the company’s chief executive, can’t quite muster. <\/p>\n

Early on, Hayward outraged Gulf Coast residents and officials when he pledged to honor "all legitimate claims," then scoffed, when asked for examples of illegitimate claims: "I could give you lots of examples. This is America – come on. We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that"…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\"LollypopWhen Carl first mentioned the "small people" gaff in the comments<\/strong><\/a>, it hadn’t yet registered on me what Svanberg had said. I was busy being impressed that Obama had called BP<\/strong> to the Principal’s Office and apparently laid down the law [I wish he’d do that with Goldman-Sachs about the bonuses]. But looking at the "small people" comment, is it a Freudian Slip of sorts – one of those times when what you really think [even if you don’t know it] comes rolling out of your mouth? Is it something he really meant to say – not knowing how it would sound? Or was it just something that translated from his native Swedish badly?<\/div>\n

Usually, in a Freudian slip, the meaning is immediately apparent to all, including the person making the slip. Svanberg didn’t know he’d done it. I’m having trouble thinking it’s a bad translation job since I can’t replace the word "small" with any other word that isn’t equally demeaning or condescending. When I was a kid, I remember a Tennessee politician trying to appear non-racist who used the word "darkies" [he wasn’t elected]. My wife thinks Svanberg might have meant "small businesses" since Obama had been using that phrase.<\/p>\n

I think Obama does care about "small businesses" and "small people." In fact, if Obama had used the term, I don’t think there wouldn’t be such a flap. He would’ve used it like "forgotten people" or something like that. I highlighted that part of Svanberg’s comments below because I was impressed that Obama had gotten across that "he is ‘frustrated because he cares about the small people’." But I think what’s wrong with what BP Chairman Svanberg said is the notion that BP "cares" about any "people" at all – or did before their Oil Rig blew up in their face. It’s abundantly clear that they didn’t care about safety – cutting corners  at every turn to do it faster and cheaper than was apparently possible.<\/p>\n

They’ve hired a PR firm to advertise their way out of this mess, and it’s not working, any more than the "care"  Carl-Henric Svanberg is trying to sell. There’s an old saying from England that arose aboard ships that had seasoned Sailors, and young, naive recruits called Marines. It meant if your going to tell a tall tale, "tell it to the Marines<\/font><\/strong>." My father had an oft quoted old saying too, "I don’t mind your peeing in my boot, but don’t tell me it’s water<\/font><\/strong>." It’s not saying "small people<\/font><\/strong>"  that matters about what Svanberg said. It’s saying "we care<\/font><\/strong>"…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BP chairman talks about the ‘small people,’ further angering gulf Washington Post By Ann Gerhart June 17, 2010 BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg attempted an earnest apology Wednesday for the worst environmental accident ever to befall America, but it will be remembered for only two words: "Small people." Svanberg came with other BP executives to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}