Re: BP’s CEO Tony Hayward—You Want Your WHAT Back? (An Open Letter)

Tony, what the fuck are you thinking? No one gives a flying fuck what you want, or for that matter about your life as you’re currently living it. I don’t care that you are suffering. Sorry, but it’s just true. As the cardinal says to Michael Corleone in Godfather III, “It is right that you should suffer.”

You aren’t suffering nearly as much as the people along the entire Gulf Coast who depend on those waters for their livelihood. You’re rich beyond the dreams of avarice, Tony, so as such you cannot possibly understand the fear and dread these people feel as their lives collapse around them. For them, this is Katrina and Rita all over again. There’s no way for you to fully, completely take in the enormity of this disaster. Your money equals a jet-out-of-Hell-free card, as you know all too well; the people whose lives you’ve destroyed have no such lifeline. There’s no second home in the Hamptons or Hampstead Heath for refuge, only the brown waves of their ruined Gulf.

You aren’t suffering nearly enough. Not for me. Now, bear in mind I’m a pacifist and as such would never seriously advocate violence against anyone else. However, I do know one way you can indeed learn the pain of these people: the day you’re personally and professionally bankrupted into penury, I’d like to see a judge bind you to that area until such time as that spill is completely cleaned. You should personally have to work there in the oil, the residue, and you should risk yourself, your health, just as all those others down there are doing. And then—only then—should you begin your life sentence for complicity in eleven unnecessary deaths.

You want your life back? You self-centered piece of shit, Tony. You remind me of George W. Bush—”It’s hard work, it’s hard work.” Here’s what should happen: you don’t get your life back, your cozy, rich-as-God, pampered little life, until every resident of the Gulf gets theirs back. Why, you motherfucker? You took theirs first. That’s justice. You should have to work alongside these people, fall ill with them, and you should have no more recourse to medical help than they do in their everyday lives. You should have to live precisely the way they live, down to the last detail. No godforsaken corporate jets, no retinue, just you and your dull-bladed wit to see you through your days and nights.

Then—maybe—you’ll know what it’s like to suffer.  But not until then. I wish you a long life in which to learn this suffering, and I hope to Heaven you eat your absolute fill as the people there have been forced to do, by you. I hope you truly suffer with every breath and exhalation. I hope the results become evident on your skin, in your blood, the way it is for the people of the region. Not until then will you learn anything; not until then will you make the next evolutionary step towards active, participatory humanity. Until then I want you in the marshlands every day of your life.

Truly suffer, you son of a fucking bitch. Suffer.