Curiously, the oil spill by British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico brings to mind the fate of the Mary Ellen Carter. That boat was Irish and presumably it served in the fishing trade. According to the song, as it approached its harbor the captain was drunk and the ship hit a rock and sank. The owners of the Mary Ellen Carter collected their insurance and told the sailing world that they were done with that small boat.
Members of the crew were put out of work when that decision was made. With the abandoned craft on the bottom of the harbor, those crew members set to work to raise her. Eventually they succeeded but in the process, they had all sorts of trials with the insurance companies and the ship outfitters. Their trials are neatly summed up in one lyric from the song. That lyric holds that “smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go.” The Mary Ellen Carter was raised from the harbor and put back into service. It is a standard folk song in the Irish repertoire.
But as I began to think about that line about smiling bastards, it dawned on me that the BP company that is responsible for the spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the modern day “smiling bastards.” You may recall that at the beginning, BP assured us that it was a small leak and that it would soon be taken care of. As time went on, the so-called “small leak” grew into something on the order of 100,000 barrels of oil being released every day by the gusher at the foot of the BP drilling. But the Chief Executive Officer of BP assured us at every step of the way that in a matter of a few days, this still could be taken care of. The language he used was a superb example of great enunciation in that he spoke in paragraphs. Tony Hayward, who is the Chief Executive Officer of BP, lied to us about how much oil was escaping from his drilling and he lied to us about the prospects for its cleanup. And so it seems to me that the sinking of the Mary Ellen Carter, which occurred early in the 20th century, has happened to us again.
Tony Hayward and his companions have misled and lied to us for the two months that the oil spill has gone on. So I think it is reasonably fair to conclude that in the case of BP, there were “smiling bastards” lying to us everywhere we went. I am sorry to conclude with this thought but the message is inescapable. We have been lied to by an Englishman who spoke perfect English and smiled a little bit. But nonetheless he simply lied to us. When he was finished lying to us, he went home to England to participate in the racing of his yacht. Tony Hayward and his corporation, BP, are simply lying bastards of the first order. If they smiled while they were lying, perhaps they were smiles only of self-satisfaction.
E. E. CARR
June 21, 2010
Essay 486
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Kevin’s commentary: I believe this is the song in questions. You don’t just stumble into music like this much these days. You kinda have to know what you’re looking for. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for songs that actually tell stories, and this one is a prime example. I had forgotten at the BP mess went on for as long as it did, but these essays have done a good job of reminding me. Hayward’s comment about just wanting to resume life as normal bugged me the most, if I recall.