The Gulf, It's His Fault, No It's His Fault, No It's...

 

I’ve been watching this oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks now and I’ve been at a bit of a loss as to what to say about it.  The enormity of this disaster is so huge that if you sit down for a few moments and really try to wrap your brain around the effects this has had, and will continue to have, not just on the wildlife that you see photos of on the news, but on our entire ecosystem from the smallest bit of plankton up to every human being on the face of this earth, it is simply mind boggling.  And that is where the problem lies right there.  No one, not the news media, not the environmentalists, not our government, no one has been able to put this unconscionable, unfathomable disaster in any sort of terms that will make the public understand what has really happened here to the point that the masses will demand answers, demand change, and personally take action so that this will never happen again.  We have not, as a nation, as a world, become mad enough about this, and we need to.  So what I am going to attempt to do, is make you mad.
 
Let’s imagine for a moment that instead of that pipe spewing 210,000 gallons of oil a day at the bottom of the ocean, it was doing it on your front lawn.  Imagine that for some reason that no matter how hard they tried, the authorities could not stop it and since it started, an estimated 4.9 million gallons had been emptied on to your neighborhood.  In the process the fumes have poisoned the air for miles and thousand of people have been suffering from severe headaches and possible brain damage.  In addition the oil has made its way into the local water wells and water filtration plants and made the drinking water undrinkable. All local plants and vegetation have died and in turn all the animals that live in the area are dying from lack of food.  The sheer amount of oil has made it impossible for vehicles to navigate the roads so there are food shortages at all local supermarkets.  To help dissipate the oil, the government has decided to dump thousands of gallons of chemicals on the oil but the toxicity of the chemicals makes it so hard to breathe that some pass out and even die. Now imagine that no matter how hard they try, the oil just can not be fully cleaned up.  You are told that your home can not be saved, and because of the amount of oil that has been absorbed into the ground, it is unlikely that any vegetation will grow at least in your lifetime.  Imagine that everything you know about the world you live in has been ruined and it can not be fixed.  Now imagine you’re a fish, or a sea turtle, or a dolphin, or a sea gull and with out warning, without any fault of your own your world has been destroyed.  Those around you are dying and you don’t know why.  The food you eat is gone because it has been killed off by the oil. Your atmosphere is polluted, your home is destroyed, and you have nowhere to go.
 
A tragedy like 9/11 is easy for us to comprehend.  We see the planes fly into the Twin Towers and we get physically ill.  We watch them collapse and we shudder at the loss of human life.  We sit dazed, confused, we cry and we ask why? We come together, we see the common enemy, and we get mad!  We demand action, we take to the streets, we vow never again!  But for this, we do nothing.  For this we say how terrible and we do nothing.  We drive our cars, we drink from our plastic bottles of water, we buy our gas from BP still, and we do nothing.  We do nothing because all we see is the occasional dead turtle, the oil covered bird, and the photos of some oil floating on the top of the water.  It is impossible to see the devastation in its entirety that this disaster has caused, and will continue to cause, because it is simply to big to comprehend.  It is impossible to see the loss of life that has occurred, a loss that dwarfs the number of lives lost in 9/11. And because most of that life is not human, we do nothing.
 
To comprehend what has happened is simply impossible, but we need to.  We need to get mad.  We need to demand action, because if we don’t the collective enemy will not be the government, it will not be corporate America, it will be us.  We will go on driving our cars, drinking water from plastic bottles, and demanding nothing.  And when this happens again, who will be to blame? You will. Are you mad yet?

 

These are the names of the eleven Transocean workers who died. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families.

 

Jayson Anderson - Toolpusher
Dewey Revette - Driller
Donald Clark - Asst. Driller
Stephen Curtis - Asst. Driller
Dale Burkeen - Crane Operator
Roy Kemp - Derrickhand
Karl Kleppinger - Floorhand
Shane Roshto - Floorhand
Adam Weise - Floorhand
Gordon Jones - MI Swaco
Blair Manuel - MI Swaco

 

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