Oh, boy. I got up this morning and read the top stories in the New York Times with my first cup of coffee. The headlines are U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits and Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say. As I get ready to go to the neighborhood cafe for breakfast with my friend, I remember the day after Obama’s election when we went there for breakfast; Obama’s face beaming on the cover of the newspaper, everyone in the cafe chattering and happy, the bright hope. . . .
No one wants to believe you let us down so bad. But you did.
What a betrayal of all that hope! Was it all just hype? Who knows? Could he have been that naive? Could we have been that naive?
There he was saying the ship of state is a huge ship, slow to turn around. and then there he was again standing up there saying - drill some more! And now here we are, a year and a half later, seeing a corrupt government agency roll over while the filthy rich oil companies drill away without permits and look at the result!
Scientists, environmentalists, activists in local grassroots groups, and academics keep digging up new information, forcing the government and the oil companies to run to cover the next revelation. First that snip of a video of the oil gushing out of the pipe was in the blogs, then it was picked up by a major media outlet and next the president had to confront the issue. How much is coming out? You can’t measure it? Why? Because BP refuses to measure. They flat out said no. And the scientists rely on government funding to take their boats and their instruments out there and attempt to do it without BP’s cooperation.
Down on the delta BP is trying to shut up the locals who have lost their livelihoods with cash payments. For a snip of reality see http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/reports for what it’s like on the streets of New Orleans even now as we speak.
And they’re spraying massive amounts of a “dispersant”, another toxic chemical. This from Riki Ott, a toxicologist who wrote two books about the Exxon Valdez spill:
“This dispersed oil is extremely toxic to young life forms. BP is saying that it’s not that toxic, not that much of a problem. That is extremely misleading.
It’s too much oil, too fast, not to have a pretty big impact on generations of wildlife that’s in the water column. Birds eating shellfish getting sick and dying, marine mammals, land mammals getting sick and dying. You have birds feeding oiled fish to their chicks, the chicks have stunted growth. . . .”
And we don’t even know all the ingredients in this toxic dispersant they are saturating the gulf with. Some of the ingredients are considered part of the company’s secret formula. They are destroying a whole ecosystem, a whole public body of water, and our government is powerless to find out exactly what it is they are spraying on it because it’s a secret?
All we get from the media and the government is a play by play of the clumsy efforts of a corporation that was caught out because they obviously had no idea what they were doing. But our government that we elected - that some of us had such hopes for - allowed them to drill this well. Without permits, without a backup plan, without the safety precautions that other countries doing similar drilling require. Otherwise, this wouldn’t be happening.
Our government, that we elected, allowed this to happen. Now what are WE the people going to do about it?
The first thing we can do is contact our elected representatives relentlessly until they get it.
To contact Obama, your senators and your congressperson, go to here.
Tell them if they can’t do the job, we’ll find someone who will. If we push hard enough, get enough numbers, they will move. They will have to. We still vote. If we can get our minds clear about what’s really going on, we can use that vote wisely.
That’s just the first step. And then the second step is we have to take to the streets. Sorry, folks, I know this is a hassle but if we don’t stop this now, it’s going to be even more of a hassle. Way more.
Demand that Obama and the congress clean up the government so that they at least begin to start enforcing the laws we already have. No excuses. Then demand we put all available resources into alternative energy and end offshore drilling.
Kick the oil companies out of bed. Their day is over. Unless Halliburton and BP, et al really are running this country and I guess we’ll find out about that soon enough.
Sign the petitions, email and phone your representatives and take to the streets. Join a march or organize one.
We are not alone. If we can do this, the rest of the world will follow.
Actually there are some who are way ahead of us. The World People’s Conference on Climate Change -15,000 people from 128 different countries - was held in Bolivia from April 20 to 22nd. In a speech on May 7, 2010 at the UN, President Evo Morales Ayma shared the conclusions of the conference which was held “because,” as he said, “in Copenhagen the voice of the peoples of the world was not listened to.”
This is from the opening statement:
It is imperative that we forge a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings. And in order for there to be balance with nature, there must first be equity among human beings. We propose to the peoples of the world the recovery, revalorization, and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom, and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, which are affirmed in the thought and practices of “Living Well,” recognizing Mother Earth as a living being with which we have an indivisible, interdependent, complementary and spiritual relationship. To face climate change, we must recognize Mother Earth as the source of life and forge a new system based on the principles of:
Read the rest of it here:
There’s another organization called Other Worlds are Possible Here’s a paragraph from their opening statement:
Throughout the world, solutions to some of the greatest challenges of the day are either nascent or fully thriving. Organized people’s movements - sometimes with help from supportive government - are changing the structures which cause violence, poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction. At the same time, they are creating better quality of life in their communities. In other instances, people are preserving ancient cultures where individuals live in relative equity and harmony with other life and their communities, and without expectation of profit.
Take some time and look through this site. There are fascinating alternatives happening right now, all over the world. It will feed your spirit to read about them. It made me even stronger in my commitment to shine the light on those dark forces that would take this blue pearl of a planet we all share and turn it into a stinking, slimey septic tank. When I think of the gulf coast that I love, those beaches I grew up on, the wind in my hair, the waves crashing in, the sea gulls cry - and then I look at the pictures of the orange slime and the oil-soaked birds, I feel like I have been beaten down with a big stick and all I can do is come back to people like these and share in the solidarity of those who fight for what they love, and write to you and tell you what I see.
