This morning I woke from a lucid dream--an environmentalist's nightmare, actually. It's midnight on the Gulf of Mexico. An oil slick spreads through the gulf's waters like some Dickian alien organism. Thousands of people gather to assist clean-up of an ocean of animals seeking sanctuary. Gobs of sticky black goo render the effort nearly impossible. To make matters worse, the beach resorts will not give priority to rescue trucks over cabbies who block access to wait for fares. Revelations couldn't have described a dystopian scene more apocalyptic and grotesque.
The disaster remains a sensitive topic not only for the pundits and talking-heads but more importantly for the people who are directly affected in the region--residents, business owners, fishermen, environmentalists, everybody. Unfortunately some of these folks have turned a natural, national tragedy into political ammunition against Barack Obama. Now, I'm not an Obama cultist. I wish the president would take a harder line against Wall Street and corporate greed. I wish he would come out of the closet to overturn and reform many of this country's xenophobic policies. (Doesn't the phrase "Liberty and Equality for All" appear on some, like, really important historical document or something?) I wish he would focus less on safe bipartisan rhetoric to keep paranoid Republicans secure. Really, I wish he would just blast most of the ignorant assholes in this country with supersonic radiation that causes their brain matter to melt through their ears. But that's not going to happen and you know why? Because he's not Superman.
(A disclaimer here: I don't believe that ALL Republicans are paranoid assholes. Just most.)
In the case of the Gulf Disaster, I believe response-to-date has been largely ineffective. We can see this on live feed. We've been hearing that this is "Obama's Katrina," that Obama has somehow inherited responsibility for the spill. (Read Josh Sternberg's insightful article at The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-sternberg/should-government-be-resp_b_592093.html) Do I believe the president is taking it easy? No. Do I think BP is taking it easy? Maybe. They have a bottom-line, afterall. So who's the real culprit here? Government deregulation? (Thanks, Richard Nixon! Thanks, GOP!) Offshore drilling operations? Or maybe it's the billions of people who drive cars, use public transportation, fly planes, etc. The most important question after we stop this thing, of course, is how can we prevent this from happening again?
Why are fatalistic Americans so focused on response rather than prevention? Disasters, terrorism, health. Let me remind everybody that a few years ago a portion of the eastern seaboard's electrical grid shut down, for one night New York City went dark. The great fortress that is America is not nearly as strong, from an infrastructural standpoint, as we would like to think. Why? Because we don't pay our taxes. Instead we accept income tax refunds like welfare checks. (http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/15/hodge.non.taxpayers/index.html)
We are ALL guilty. We broke it, so we bought it. If Superman were here today he would scold us all for being so irresponsible. Then he would just fix everything and save the day of course.
