In April, 2010 British Petroleum had a well {Deep Horizon} blow up in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Lousiana. Eighteen men perished. And the worlds' largest oil leak began. The "Oughts" of the 21st Century seem to have given us an unparalleled amount of natural disasters, wars and horrifying events that almost give us pause to wonder if this really is the end of the world as we know it. Earthquakes, Floods, Storms, Wars and Rumors of Wars plague us daily. The century began with the 9-11 attacks that brought down the Twin Towers. Suddenly we Americans were at war in Afghanistan, the Destroyer of Empires, and Iraq, The Destroyed Persian Empire which seeks to constantly rise like some vampiric spirit to consume the blood of young men and women as it fails again and again to find a center of governance. It almost seems Iraq was better off with tyrants than with democracy, at least young American lives were not being lost there and the radical Islamist movements could not take hold. At least the people were less hungry and less destitute under Saddam. The Middle East has become a quagmire at the bottom of a very "slippery slope" indeed. The Middle East is our giant oil provider. But this giant needs to be fed cash and blood on a daily basis in amounts that are obscene. Troubles in Afghanistan were worsened when the evil Taliban government was driven out and the Opium growing War Lords allowed to take hold again. A war to gain the hearts and minds of the rural populace of Afghanistan is not working. Mad suicide bombers stand in line to wait their turn to die for the cause of Religious Tyranny. We are not fighting "troops" but rather madmen who would give their lives for a false doctrine promoted by even greedier, power-mad Mullahs and Sheiks. Like Russia, Britain and Greece before us Afghanistan is sucking our economy dry with a "war" which has lasted eight long years. And the fomentor of 9-11, Osama Bin Laden, has not even been tracked down yet. He wanders about Afghanistan and Pakistan evidently at will.
On top of all this came the giant Tsunami that wiped out more than two hundred thousand lives in an instant. Then came Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans and showed the American Government completely impotent and incapable of dealing with a major disaster. Earthquakes rocked Chile, China and Haiti, killing untold thousands. A volcanic eruption in Iceland brought Europe to a standstill. And the Economic Disaster of the past year has threatened to topple governments like Iceland and Greece. The fomentors of that disaster also have not been brought to justice. I weary of telling people this but Goldman Sachs and others are guilty of War Profiteering. Seeking to gain a profit off their own struggling nation during a time of war is an offense of treason punishable by death. Helping the governments of Greece and Portugal to fail while making money off of betting they would fail, should have them in the Hague for Crimes against Humanity. Among the other profiteers during these hard days of war and disaster are the petroleum and oil industries who increase gas prices and have now fomented one of the worst ecological disasters ever.
We can blame Big Oil and Big Finance for a lot of things. But I am wondering if people understand that the blame should be laid squarely on the shoulders of...all of us. With a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico of this magnitude we need to stop playing the blame game and start the capping of that awful leak and the rescue of OUR environment. You see we always call it THE Environment. As if we did not own it. We do. We created it. We are the ones who demand Louisiana shrimp on our dinner plates. We are the ones wearing alligator shoes. Human beings are the ones who want to have deep sea fish in our restaurants, coral jewelry on our bodies, exotic pets in our fish tanks and a beautiful Caribbean Sea to sail around in on our luxury liners and yachts. Well if we want that, then we must OWN it. If we cry every time we go to the gas pump and scream at the injustice of having to pay Middle Eastern Nations who have Medieval Governments that oppress their own people for their oil; when we urge the government to "drill baby drill!" so that we can have the oil to make our plastic WalMart doo-dads and to fill up oversized vehicles so we can cruise extensive asphalt highways at our leisure, we had best wake up and realize that oil spill is ruining OUR environment. But WE created it! We need to stop blaming BP and start helping them cap that well. Where is the Army Corps of Engineers? Where are the Nato and UN experts in oil related disasters? the Russians have actually used nukes twice to stop deep ocean oil well leaks. O.K. how about three or four Bunker Buster bombs? Could they crimp a pipe? I don't want Obama to stand up and blame BP oil for something which the American Public not only allowed them to do, but begged them to do. And begged them with such fury in the last election it became an actual slogan destined to become a tangible political action. They drilled, baby. In YOUR Gulf of Mexico. This is OUR doing ladies and gentlemen. Ours and ours alone. It is time we as a nation and a global partner stopped being "aghast" at the disasters we have literally manufactured and start taking steps to avert them, and when they do happen, to clean them up.
We also created the war disasters of failed democracy in the Middle East. And now it is up to us to fix those broken states and their broken economies. How do we do it? Start by saying, "This is our mess. We can fix it." Instead of blaming the cultures of the Middle East. Or blaming past political structures that we allowed to take us to war. I'm not saying Bush and Cheney should not shoulder that responsibility. They should. They will simply shrug and tell us that they were doing what the American People wanted them to do...after they convinced us that was what we wanted them to do. Sometimes blame really can be laid at someone's door. And it should be in the case of war. yet ours is a government by the People, For the People and Of the People. Finally the blame rests with us and whom we elected to get our needs met.
Our nations and even the public knew what we were getting into when we began to make deals with the Middle Eastern nations in the early 1900's. We demanded oil and we let certain people like Standard and BP go in there and get it for us. We all are to blame, everyone of us who says "The environment" instead of "My Environment" i to blame for this oil leak. Every time you empty a can of paint thinner into your home sink, drain your car oil onto the road, spill gas at the station, or buy a Hummer or some other gas guzzler, you are destroying your own environment. Your kids have to drink the polluted water. They have to get the diseases it causes, and you will have to pay for it out of your pockets or your taxes. If you allow your local government to deregulate the pollution standards protecting your rivers, streams and waterways, lakes and estuaries, you are destroying your environment. You can blame anyone you want. If you blame the factory polluting the river, they will pick up stakes, take the jobs they gave your community and go to Thailand or China where they will pollute the environment there. Eventually there will be no more factories when they have succeeded in poisoning every square inch of arable earth in this world and giving cancer to everyone. Yes, they are to blame too. But they are also just people. People like you. trying to earn a living to feed themselves and their families. they don't like high gas prices either. And they want to make their products cheaply so you and they can buy them. But the compromise has become too imbalanced. We are destroying the very planet we live on and raking at each others throats with harsh blame, not realizing we are ALL sinners in the Eyes of God. All of us. We are all to blame. And we are the only ones who can fix everything. We can only do that together, working as one unit. If we demand oil,then we need to demand it be taken safely and securely. But should an accident happen, let us get to the root of it and learn from it. Let us save OUR environment for all of us. Stop the Blame Game. Stop the Great Leak. And for heaven's sake, Stop Complaining! We did this to ourselves.
