"Advance or perish!" 

Did he really say that? 

Did the crowd start laughing uncontrollably? 

Dude?  Where's my country?

I've been her for a couple years at least and I will miss this place if it is taken away.  Is it really Josh doing the taking, or are there other forces a foot?  I just wonder while there is fascism rising and a Fox freak get the Lincoln Memorial with such a fantastic imagination and so convinced of his ability to mesmerize he could say, "I didn't plan to do this on the anniversary of Lartin Luther King Jr's speech.  Does anyone really believe that?  Are they laughing uncontrollably?  Because they are not, I am sad. 

What did I learn from my years here at TPM, sometimes writing less is better.

Dude?  What happened to my country?  We give this lunatic air time?  Absurd. 

Maybe I can't write well, but I can title with the best of 'em!  This title about The Good News and an Islamic community center is just so punny!  And yes, it sure was intended! 

Here is The Good News!  Republicans now get it!  After years and years of the Left trying to explain it, the Right admitted they got it.  We heard their meme all week.  "No one is saying they can't build an Islamic community center there.  We're just questioning whether they should."

It is a shame that this news came too late for some, but with 20/20 hindsight here are some examples of incidents where the Right did things that they could do, ... but should they have done them?

Steal an election.

Contrive a relationship between 9/11 and Iraq, and then invade. 

[Okay, that's actually two, but this is soooooo easy!!!!]

Wear weapons to a politcal rally.

Shout at elected officials at a town hall, preventing others from expressing their opinions.

Suggest that there are only "zones" of free speech in this country.

Nominate Sarah Palin for Vice President.

Waterboard.

Give Glen Beck any public recognition, never mind a stage at the Lincoln Memorial and a microphone.

Nominate the former CEO of a military contractor for Vice President. 

Use the "N" word "liberally" over the radio, or make any derogatory racial references, for that matter.

Well, as is above-noted, I do titles better then writing and I really like the way little ideas can emerge on TPM  to become enormous.  I will especially miss the giant ideas of the man who likened himself to an ant.  But one might say, he did more then lift his weight with his words!  So I will offer this thread to those who might think of things the Right has done that they could do, but should they have been done?  What things can you recall? 

Next time we hear the Right declare that they can say something or do something, we just might admit, "Yes you can!  But really...should you?"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/08/paul_on_the_road_to_damascus.php?ref=fpblg

This link is to a brief post about Rand Paul, no relation to Ayn Rand, but obviously an acolyte of the creative interpretation of a dead woman's writing, which is really not too far from some religions when you think about it, but if you think about it too much, beware, you will not longer be able to join the randy cult.  They despise thinking!  Educated people are NOT to be trusted, unless, of course, their name is Ayn Rand.  We should only trust the marginally intelligent like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Sarah Palin, to name just a few.

I'm finding myself disappointed that randy Rand is not female and it burdens me with the admission  I may have misogynous tendencies.  I mean, I go ballistic when Sarah Palin says something stupid.  I had a deep rumble of disgust that just has to be expressed, and so she inspired me to write some of my best sacasm.  But Rand Paul?  Not so much.  The disgust is not the same.  Of course, I must admit I have grown very tired of Stupid Sarah.  But this tiredenss has brought me to be grateful to the MainStream Media for keeping Stupid Sarah out in front for the Reich.  I mean, maybe there was someone somewhere saying something logical and coherent in the GOP when Sarah rose to media fame at he rcoming out party where she just awd teh crowd with a witty presentation at the Republican National Convention.  I mean, it is possible, but these literate and eloquent people can't make the news because Stupid Sarah has sucked all the air out of the room, and if it's not her, it's Bachmann Overdrive, still stuck in second gear and baffled why she can't replace Sarah as the poster girl for the laissez-faire crowd.  Or maybe there is a new Engle here to consider.  Seriously, they are all just making America weary, and that is our greatest challenge in the coming elections.  Since people cannot take them seriously, people might assume the GOP whack jobs can't get elected, but if rational people do not vote, stupid people will!  So, please, please, please, don't forget to get out the vote.

Now I did begin this post about Rand Paul, no relation to Rand, but a son-of-a-Paul!  The link to the TPM article notes randy Rand is suggesting that Muslims donate to the 9/11 victims' fund.  Lucky for him the mosque-a-rade sh*tstorm is so huge no one is paying much attention to Rand, even though TPM gave him a couple of paragraphs.  Those TPM folks sure are nice, aren't they?  The lost opportunity to kick Rand Paul is that he has placed himself into GOP no-man's land.  He can not win!  Those 9/11 victims, well, they are all millionaires now, or at least one might be led to believe this if they listened to FOX news.  And even if they are, it is only because the 9/11 Fund was seized by the GOP to prevent the wealth was gettting spread around to EVERYONE, and ensured the real wealth only went to a choice few.  And the nerve of those few!  Thinking that since their loved ones were killed on 9/11, they should have a voice about the national reaction to the attack.  They should leave the narrative to the more creative minds of The Party, no, not the Communist Party, the other aspiring One Party system in this country, the GOP! 

Anyhoo!  If the MSM was paying ANY attention to Rand, and he really put his neck out there, they would crucify him for advocating that those 9/11 b*tches not get another dime from anyone!  [Note:  I don't think they are b*tches, but the Friends at FOX have been wanting to come out and say the "B" word for so long, I just thought I would help them out. 

What if Rand changes his charity!?!  His first choice was the victims.  Maybe he could raise money for the real heroes of 9/11, the 1st Responders!  They're suffering horrible respiratory illnesses 9 years after the tragedy.  Asbestos was everywhere after those buildings were turned to powder.  Okay, that was JUST a rumor, but that lady who declared the area safe for those heroes had her offices extensively cleaned before she ever entered them.  You know, just in case.   The Muslims could donate to their health care.  Afterall, this government should not be giving these heroes a dime.  That would be socialist!  Better that they rely on the benificence of the wealthy then expect everyone to give a little something. 

It's important to recognize the wealthy will decide who gets charity.  This is NOT the purview of the community!  Dare you not to ever think so.  I mean, even if the public was to provide millions of dollars for a sports arena, it is important we put the name of some corporation on the name of that edifice to entertainment, even if the percentage of actual contributions is proportionally meager.  And lets face it!  Veteran's Stadium, recognizing the people who served their country, needs desperately to be replaced with the real guns for hire, Blackwater, presently known as Xe.  Come on people.  It's the 21st century and anything that contains the words social, or community, or decent, should be denounced!

Poor randy Rand!  He can't win!  If he advocates for the 9/11 victims he's fighting his brethren in the Reich, and if he advocates for the 1st Responders?  Well, the Reich has no love for them either.  Yo!  People!  Stop trying to help each other and abdicate any self-determination or social consciousness you may seek to the corporations.  It's the Reich thing to do! 

Political primping is all we have to show in answer to the question, "Who wants a Mosque anywhere near Ground Zero?"  It's a loaded question.  It comes with a demand for a real American to step up and declare religious freedom is for everyone.  It comes with a demand for a real American to step up and declare, it's private property and they can build what they want, [as long as it is up to code].  You see, there are principles here from both sides of the aisle being cast aside.  But I cannot help but think of Randi Rhodes' favorite line, or at least one that stuck with me from years ago, unless I wasn't listening when she said it of late, "In chaos, they can steal."  This is about religion?  HARDLY!!!  This is anbout multinational corprations mosquerading in religious robes!

This is about churning religious sentiments to enable the wars/occupations to continue.  This is about profits and corporations that need a military to protect their interests.  This is about shaming all Muslims for the acts of a few deranged, suicidal maniacs.  This is about recruiting the rest of the nation to give a damn about what happened in NYCity in such a way that they can take ownership of the tragedy without having to actually acknowledge any of the atrocities we have committed in the Middle East, or even recognizing that NYCIty is a stronghold of the Democrats and organized labor.   This is grandstanding to perpetuate the hatred of people who look like they might be Muslim.  It matters now how Muslim they are, because we blame all of them, especially Saddam Hussein.  Was he a Muslim?  In name only.  He was a military dictator.  95% of all photos of Saddam were in a uniform.  We never saw him with a robe or a turban.  Religion was not his thing, but he sure looked very, very Muslim, whatever that means!

If we make 9/11 about jihad, then the Reich can declare a crusade, you know, quietly in their very own houses of worship!   If we make 9/11 about an offense to Christianity, then the Christian Reich can buy-in from the Bible Belt!  But 9/11 was NOT an assault on religious institutions of any kind.  It was an assault on our commerce, on multinaqtional commerce, even.  These were the shrines of the world traders, these World Trade Centers!  It was not the First Baptist Church, or Kingdom Hall or Our Lady of Lourdes.  This was a very, very secular attack.  religion was simply the shiny, sparkly thing that would lead the hijackers to sacrifice their lives.  But was this really about Islam?  HARDLY!  But we'll see a lot more mosque-a-rading about it.  Afterall, if you have a military contract, it's good for business! 

The lights came on as I was reading the Old Golden Decoys revelations about Shirley Sherrod.  There's no need to write his post again.  Just go read it, if you missed it.  It's right here:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/o/l/oldengoldendecoy/2010/07/lshirley-sherrod---the-pigford-vs-vilsack-lawsuit.php?ref=reccafe

Ha!  I just had my own revelation!  I guess they can be contagious.  First, Sherrod has one of her own,  a revelation that the black farmers and the white farmers are both suffering the same affliction, poverty, and they both need help.  Being a decent woman she shares her story and the transformation it had on her.  Then OGD is inspired to read about who this Sherrod woman really is by searching for what she had done prior to this moment.  Then, Vilsack realizes he screwed up by firing her, apologizes and offers her the old job again.  He's found strength in weakness.  Now I'm feeling some enthusiasm and am going to just let 'er rip!  I already opened the can on OGD's post, but maybe there's enough spark here to make a post.  I'm getting all exhortational here, but we have to stand up!  We have to speak!  YES WE CAN!!! 

It doesn't go "Yes, Obama can!"  Or, "Yes, they can!"  It is, "Yes we can!"  And we can do it right now!  I went over to the NY Times site, and Sherrod is already off the front cover. We should put her back!  The Reich wanted to bring this up and broadcast it on their 24 hour news program and perpetuate their meme.  What about ours?  We have a hero in our midst.  Now that the curtain has been pulled away from the Wizad of Oz, the Reich and the MSM hope to bury her, that we will forget about her, but we can elevate her. 

If there is one thing that always gives me an exquisite pleasure, it is when someone thinks they're a smart ass and wants something really badly from others, and then when you give it to them and just keep giving it to them, they're running for cover, trying to hide.  They asked for it.  It wasn't what they thought it was.  It wasn't what they wanted after all, and now it's too late!  We ought to be blasting the personal history of Shirley Sherrod and celebrating what she has done in her life.  We have the moral high ground here, good, solid, liberal/progressive moral high ground! 

It would really be a treat to hear the Reich groan and ask themselves, "Why did we ever bring this up?!?"  It seems like they are already trying to get the Genie back in the bottle, if the front page of the NY Times is any indication, but we can do real magic with this!  We can have a serious discussion about social justice, which Glenn Beck has been railing against and defining as some version of evil that permeated the Christian Churches throughout the land and threatens White power.  We should get her life story back on the front page.  It should permeate the Sunday papers!  We should, as Rachel Maddow has recently, expose the devious tactics of the Reich and expose their hideousness.  They have to fight behind the scenes because the American public would not agree with their goals, if they were to actually understand what they are.  It is why they are so subversive most of the time.  These creatures cannot fight in the open.  That is where they lose.  That is where we win! 

Let's put Sherrod back on the front page and talk about a life worth celebrating!  Let's not waste our breath talking about Brainfart and his demented self-aggrandizement.  He recently declared that he was public enemy #1 for liberals and Obama!  Really?  The man is simply the acolyte of the Dark Lord, serving a vile stew to the media.  He's the Reich's Dan Rather, having reached too far and forever losing any hope of building a respectable career.  Of course, Dan Rather still has much to offer and we shall see him again, but Brainfart?  He's over.  May your reading of this post be the last you hear of him.  It's time to talk about Shirley Sherrod!  They asked for it!   We deserve it!  Yes we can! 

Oh, and thanks OGD!

Wonder what it would look like, if Pig Oil was deregulated?  Look in the Gulf of Mexico.  Oil is unregulated and free flowing out of the well and, with as much fervor as a Republican promising the free market forces will self-correct our slumping economy,  we are also praying that mother nature will bring the Gulf back into balance.  Here's my outllook on that and any sane person would think this is reasonable.  I project the Gulf will not be balanced in my lifetime.  After that, well, what do I care?  Seriously.  I will not be here to see it.  Maybe, if we let the market forces flow freely, we won't see that "balance" return to our economy in our lifetimes either.  But that's no reason to challenege the proposition t could happen.  Not without being called a liberal and discredited with a single word,liberal, offered to the mesmerized ignorant masses. 

If we had taken care of our business, the people's business, the business of regulating, governing, I could still enjoy the Gulf.  I could return to Fort Walton, get on a fishing boat and go fishing.  I was too late to repeat my cousin's feat when I went fishing in 1976.  He had caught king mackeral until their chest cooler was full.  Then they were filling garbage cans with ice and king mackeral.  The USA had let the Japanese fish the Gulf unregulated some time after this trip and the massive schools of mackeral disappeared over night in huge gill nets set by huge factory ships.  The king mackeral were no longer plentiful because we had let them be fished so freely.  By the way!  Know who declared the 200 mile fishing limit?  JC!  Not Jesus Christ, but Jimmy Carter!  He got a bad rap, but so does Obama.  I'll speak about that soon.  It's another unregulated theme, though, so it should tie in nicely.

All we caught when I went on my fishing trip in the Gulf was one king mackeral, a fish, as above-noted, previously found in enormous schools, one three foot sand shark, and we almost caught a tiger shark, estimated at 7 feet, that snapped at a deck hands hand.  Fortunately, he missed the hand, but the crushing force did snap the brand new stainlss steel hook.   Snapped it right in half!  The deck hand was glad to still have his hand,  though.  I wish we could have saved both.  I'm glad I have that memory.  I'm sad my nephew will never know that. 

We had a free future full of possibilities when I got off that boat. Today, we have oil, with oil expected tomorrow, and for weeks, and months, and years of oil in the forecast.  But is that really a forecast, a weather prediction?  One might say that our future in the Gulf is now dicated by Pig Oil.  Really, we have no freedom.  We have no choices.  We are now all subjects of Pig Oil.  We kind of have been for a while, but before the Gusher in the Gulf, it was not nearly this obvious.  We could not see it so clearly, or more accurately, so opaquely, and our GOP politicians are eagerly defending this corporation. 

Sure, British is the first word of their name, British Petroleum, and over 200 years ago we fought the British, and a couple decades later we fought them again.  But now we have surrendured.  Pig Oil OWNS this country and our politican have capitulated.  {HA!  Capitulated capitalists!  Say that 10 times fast!}  Why the other oil companies are not licking their chops to see BP whither and die is beyond me.  What a tremendous opportunity to increase your market share. feast on the cadaver of your competitorr.  But that is the true nature of the socialized culture of Pig Oil.  It's not pure capitalism.  It's socialism!  They would rather spread the wealth around among their own kind.  Yes, they have killed thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of marine creatures, but they might witness the demise of one of their own corporations.  Now THAT would really make them sad, so so there is no rejoicing in BP's struggle to survive this mess of their own making.  BP is more their countrymen then, say, an American!

Self-regulating?  HA!  BP could not even handle the tiniest regulations created after weeks and months and years of negotiations with the government until the laws that were passed were the absolute least regulation one might hope to expect from them.   They could not even toe that line.  Even that least and tiniest rule was too much for them to bear.  So, why would any human being within ICBM range of reason ever believe tPig Oil could regulate themselves better then the government defies all logic.  But theGOP puts that idea forward time and again with a straight face, and those trained to loathe the liberals mindlessly bob their heads, like the floating carcass of a manatee in the maritime world turned to a petroleum soup, courtesy of Pig Oil.  Get rid of government!  Right!  The Gusher in the Gulf is the perfect exampleof what we will get, and, though I know more examples will fall of deaf ears, check out Niger if you think this is the exception.  It is far from it.

Obama effected a stroke of genius.  He took a strong leadership role and, in the deft manner of a brilliant and experienced politician, he brought BP to the table and convinced them to pay claims RIGHT NOW!  No, these are not full and final settlements, but they do bring some relief when those impacted by this catastrophe of B.P. [Let me spell this out so you don't confuse my meaning,  by this catastrophe of Biblical Proportions] really need it, RIGHT NOW! 

In the spirit of the 21st century, he developed a hybrid.  We now have a government created, privately managed claims service.  There is a fund RIGHT NOW of $20 billion dollars going to the victims of this catastrophe of B.P.  In 1989, there was a big oil spill.  It was kind of the size of this catastrophe of B.P.,  except it was not BP, and there was no one willing to step up and obtain/provide the relief the victims of that spill could have used.  Those victims?  They were just paid last year, from a fund of around $5 billion dollars.  A quarter of this 21st century fund, two decades later.  Obama brought some relief to these victims in record time!  Has the liberal MSM recognized this tremendous feat?  Are they extolling the virtues of cooperation and communication and bipartisanship?  Fuck no!   

The MSM calls it a shake down, until they finally realized how pathetic that characterization was, but they got out in front of any praise for the achievement.  Obama is getting a bad rap, just like Jimmy Carter.  I noted a few comments ago, that Obama might fall the same way, a victim of a thousand cuts.  You see, the hostage crisis brought down Jimmy Carter.  It was as if he had taken them hostage himself, the way he was blamed for it.  The MSM counted how many days since the hostages were taken for weeks and weeks, every day on every channel, and last night I saw it on MSNBC.  72 days!  Yes, 72 days since this catastrophe of B.P. brought to us by BP, but by the time the MSM is through with this, there will be only one name associated with this spill, and that will be Obama.  Barack Hussein Obama will not be the last victim of this catatrophe of BP, but he will be the greatest.  At the end of the day, his Presidency will dissolve like oil by a dispersant and he will fall victim to unregulated Pig Oil.

This is just entering my head and it has a strong energy.  Maybe I should be patient and let it simmer some more, but I believe in the great minds here at TPM.  I trust that they can delve deeper into this then I could alone.  At any rate, what I wanted to talk about was BP, Battered Patriot Syndrome.

If we remove judgment from the delusion we have of the Tea Party folks and accept that they see themselves as patriots, we might be able to work with them now.  They call themselves patriots.   They honor patriotism.  Even if their devotion is misplaced, it is devotion.  Even if their devotion lacks any depth, it is devotion.  If we accept that these people love their country and would die for it, and send their children to fight for it, then we really ought to be helping these people.  Many have and will die for it.  Many have and will send their children to their deaths for it.  These patriots need to understand their country is not a fractured entity and that liberals are not intent on the destruction of their country.  They need to see that we do believe sincerely, "This Land is Your Land.  This Land is My Land" and we have room for everyone.   They need to know we are not enemies of capitalism.  We just think it needs a bridle for corporations to be worthwhile to the nation we all love.

Did it strike anyone as incredibly unfair the way we are treating this President?  He just negotiated $20 billion in aid, up front, to the victims of the Gusher in the Gulf, those who live on or near the Gulf of Death, or who once made a living there.  Who will witness the dying there.  My previous posts shared my experience with Exxon.  It took more then 20 years for us to see any money, unless we had the good fortune to know how to get a contract cleaning up the spill.  But even then, when the fall came and the weather closed down clean-up operations, Exxon pulled up their stakes and left.  This President is doing things so much better then the men from Pig Oil.  His magnanimity was so great, he didn't even demand the process remain in his hands, but allowed it to go to a third party.  He removed the government from having their hands directly in the process.  Essentially, he shook down BP for $20 billion, and then gave it all away! 

The patriots of this country, the self-declared real Americans, are so entranced with the notion Obama is the enemy they cannot see what just happened.  We, the Left-leaning reguars here and across the country, fail to recognize how enormous this announcement really is.  We are stunned because we have been beaten up and waterboarded to delerium.  We all suffer from BP, Battered Partiotism.  We should be proud as hell of our President and of a government that made this work.

Folks have recently been mentioning the tragedy of Nigeria. 

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/64621,news-comment,news-politics,nigeria-is-the-worlds-forgotten-oil-tragedy-bp-deepwater-horizon-obama-gulf-mexico 

We should be thinking not just of the recent rupture that occured in May, but of the decades long suffocation of their environment under the soggy blanket of crude, lost due to nothing more complicated then carelessness.  We should be holding the laissez-faire capitalists feet to the fire about this.  There are little if any regulations in Nigeria, so where are the natural market forces that are supposed to be guiding these oil producers away from reckless management of the resource from which they obtain their wealth.  They do know better.  They have complete information about what needs to be done to do it safely and it is absolutely irrefutable that their greed will exceed their need to be a good neighbor.  It happens time and again.   Look, it just did in Nigeria ... again ... and in the Gulf of Mexico.  It happened again and it still happening.  Only a good government can compel them to recognize their responsibilities to the community and the environment around them, and I, for one, am proud to say that, at least in this one moment, we have a good government.  We have a great government.  It is not perfect, but it really is the best. Who is better?  And when was the last time we could really say that and mean it? When was the last time we could be so proud and patriotic?  Okay, let's forget the election of Obama.  That was a moment of potential.  This is a moment of action.

So why do oil companies continue to commit these environmental atrocities?  They too suffer from BP, Battered Patriotism.  In their zeal to throw off the "yoke" of regulation by an outside force, i.e. the government, they have spilled billions of dollars worth of revenue across whole ecosystems.  Were it not for a strong democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people, there would be no compensation, as there is none for the Nigerians who are admonished to kiss the cloven hooves of Pig Oil because they have a job working for Pig Oil.  Forgetting that it is also because of Pig Oil that there are no other jobs in their towns. 

Will the battered patriots realize under Obama their country is working for them again?  He just cut the claims process by 20 years!  Now THAT is doing it better.  THAT is efficient.   Our opportunity to reach the regular folks on the Right is right now, because battered people are caught in ruts and moments when they can hear how to get out are few and far between and last only that long, a moment.  Let this pass and who knows when we will see it again.  Lose this chance and they will return to lashing out at liberals because they really do not know who is hitting them, and so they blame and strike at the Left.  The Left just handed them the help they really need and that is not some profanity.  That is not what tears us apart.  That is what lifts us up.  It is what brings us together.  And it is what willl make us great....again.  Our highest peak in greatness, such that we might lay claim to that, was after World War II, when we all came together and helped one another against a real enemy and it was because we redistributed our wealth that we earned the recognition we held.  We also greatly increased our wealth while doing it!  It will take us coming together again to return to that.  This is a moment to make the leap of faith, to have hope.  Not hope in Obama, but hope in us realizing we are not separate, we are one, we are the government, and we look out for everyone, not just Pig Oil, not just our party, but our country and its patriots, Right and Left.  

We just had a great victory for the people.  We did NOT redistribute the weatlh, we made the guilty pay for their crimes, or at least to begin those payments, to show some effort to make things right.  We did this because a government of the people, by the people and for the people can do great things.  Unity is the cure for BP. 

As many of you know, I had the unforgettable experience of participating in the oil spill recovery effort following the Exxon Valdez tragedy.  Fools think there is some parallel between the Exxon Valdez and the Gusher in the Gulf, but from a human perspective and even from an environmental perspective, the two are not very similar.  In this post I will share another experience from a two hour effort I made at cleaning a pile of rocks, but first let me explain my observations.

From the human perspective, there were very few people impacted by the Exxon Valdez Spill.  Oh, yes, the ones who were impacted one might say were much more significantly impacted for the most part, but compared to the populations in the Gulf, they were few and far between.  Hundreds of miles of coastline wre uninhabited by humans.  Between Valdez and Seward, there were no towns and these two towns, Valdez andSeward, were hundreds of miles of coastline apart.  A few folks probably lived here and there, and their living, not simply their livliehoods, was dependent on the sea.  Going to the store is rare for these outlier pioneer folks.  They would go tothe store maybe once a month, maybe less.  In winters their excursions to commerce were rare.  But in the Gulf of Mexico, there are other jobs, but how the populations will respond when they lose their seaside attractiveness will surely change the economy.  Tourism will take a dive, but the region is far from uninhabitable.  It is simply now without the benefits of a life-friendly ocean.

Environmentally, the shoreline is mostly sand in the gulf.  In the North Pacific, the shoreline is all volcanic.  There are sharp edged rocks and towering cliffs in the Kenai fjords and a few pebble beaches here and there..  Some the managers characterized as high impact coastlines, and others low impact, but the North Pacific is a stormy sea, and come winters tides and the severe storms Alaskans are prone to merely refer to as "weather", the surfaces of those coastlines are battered time and again through the dark season.  In the Gulf of Mexico?  Well, not so much.  There are the uncommon hurricanes that pass through years apart, but Alaskan weather reaches hurricane force without all that drama. Again, it's just weather to the old timers.  These storms have contributed to the recovery from the Exxon Valdez spill in many places.  I am sure that today there are surfaces free of oil.  That catastrophe was 21 yars ago.  In the Gulf of Mexico, it will not be so in the lifetime of anyone reading this post. 

There are differences between the Alaskan spill and the Gusher in the Gulf.  This new tragedy will be far worse, and no lessons were learned by Pig Oil to prepare for this inevitable event.  None but the manner in which to lead people down dead ends and provide false hopes.  Because distractions and delays save money.  There no need to save the oil, because it is of no use to BP now, but obfuscating incessantly saves money, and they will continue to perform the rites of victimization until, after repeating it enough, people believe they wre treated unfairly.  The Gulf will die, yet some people will still feel pity for BP.  It's the media magic brought to America by advertising dollars and an information industry catering to those purchasers of the air time.  But that is enough of a rant.  Let me share my story

Oil recovery was a challenge of the human spirit to be sure.  It was an effort that demanded commitment and perseverence.  First, we took boats to the scenes of the crime.  We stayed on big boats during the short evenings, and the relatively mild, summer "weather" days, when we could not risk going to shore.  At leaqst, to the cheechakoes unfamiliar with the sea, we dared not try to take them to shore.  But most days were nice during the summer and on those days we took little boats from the big boats to get to the shore and clean up the crude.  We tried here and there to gather the toxic mess, making decisions to stay here or not based on how successful we were in recovering the oil, because it did not land everywhere equally.  We were about 600 miles from the shipwreck, after all.   

My fellow oil recovery technicians, we were labelled technicians by VECO, had varying levels of commitment.  Of the dozen of so workers from my boat, maybe 3 were actually from Kodiak.  The rest had travelled North to make money in the recovery.  No altruists were they.  This was a boondoggle to be exploited.  Often times they would simply stand in groups chatting and making around $16/hour in 1989, feeling like they were entitled to the money just for being there.  Me?  This was my home.  The money was great, but I wanted the oil gone.  So, in spite of their lacksadasical attitudes of these gold diggers, I would work, slowly, but persistently.  Of course, one might easily observe my efforts were barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things, but I did something, at least.  "See this bag?  Well, this bit won't be on this beach."  And so I kept cleaning.

One day, we came to a shore with a variety of features and I found this basin of sorts, about the size of a Cadillac.  It was only about two feet deep and it had stones of various sizes collected throughout.  They all had oil on them and I felt like I could move them.  I took ownership of this little bowl while my co-"workers" stood around smoking and chatting.  There was a seemingly endless supply of these white felt-like cloths, one foot square, that were designed to capture the oil on contact.  They were called diapers for cleaning the shit up.  So it was that I brought a laqge stack of these diapers to the edge of my bowl and began cleaning, one rock at a time.

It was a hot day and the oil was warmed by the sun.  It came off easily.  As I sat near teh bottom of this bowl, I cleaned one rock and then another, picking them up, wiping them off, putting them down, and picking up another one.  I had gone in a circle all around me, but it seemed there was always another rock to clean, and I went  about half way round again when I thought.  Let me start at one end and go to the other, moving the stones to one side after I cleaned them.   And so it went, for about an hour.  I started on one side of the bowl and I cleaned a rock and moved it to my right.  Then I took the next rock, cleaned it, and moved it to my right, making a void between the clean rocks and the oiled.  I was excited because I felt like I could create a clean little refuge here in my basin.  About an hour later, I made it to the other side.  Done!

A man walked up and started cleaning the rocks on the right side of my basin as I stood up.  What?  Those are clean, I thought, but he held up the next rock and it was clearly soaked in oil.  You see, since the oil had been in this basin for so long, the porous volcanic rocks had actually soaked up the oil and, with the hot sun, though I had polished those rocks on the outside a short time earlier, they were now blotched with oil again from inside them, the slimy substance oozing out of the rock.  To see these rocks one would have thought they has never been touched.

Well, I just looked at my three large bags of diapers and reminded myself that the sludge that coated them would not have to "weather" off those rocks in the coming years, and it was still better then when I had arrived, even if one could not see any difference.

There were other places to go after the oil, and we moved on.  We just kept moving.  Could we ever see that our efforts made a difference?  No, not really..  But there were bags and bags of debris with lots of oil in them, so we knew it was better.  Maybe only a little, but it was better, and that was all we could hope for at the time, for things to get a little better.

The Gulf is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.  The Gusher continues.  But keep moving people. Whatever you take away is taken away.  It means something.  Not much, but at least something.  Keep moving.  When all is said and done, you efforts are much faster then Mother Nature will ever be in the Gulf, and your help does make a difference.  Look at the bags, though, not the shore because it not easy to see you did anything at all.  It's that big.

A couple weeks ago, I warned that Pig Oil would create euphemisms related to the oil spill, such as calling weathered oil, [which it occurs to me sounds like something Tommy Hilfiger designed], as mousse a chocolatey French dessert.  Mousse was all the rage back in 1989, when the Exxon Valdez was slathering the North Pacific.  Well, today the Commandant of the Coast Guard had a whole new word, disaggregated.  I know what he is trying to say.  I think there is another word he could use.  A couple weeks ago, it was all about dispersants, and now, well, with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dispersed floating oil droplets, some the size of football stadiums or larger, and others the size of golfballs, floating around the Gulf of Mexico, going in God only knows how many different directions, we would rather not use that word.  Please replace dispersed with disaggregate, so we won't recall how Pig Oil declared they would use it regardless of what the government said.

Here's another word Pig Oil would rather not use, because it smacks of socialism ... government.  After the Exxon Valdez, you see, the Bush Crime Syndicate managed to help Pig Oil avoid government intervention.  Why?  How?  Well, by making a mockery of government as a whole.  "You can't tell us what to do!  We're Pig Oil!"  So, you see, when the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, demands Pig Oil stop using dispersants, Pig Oil grows fingers on their cloven hooves and the middle one goes straight up in the air at our government! 

Government went right back to sleep after the last massive oil spill in Alaska.  What government might have done at the time of the Exxon Valdez drunk driving episode, was form an oil recovery Navy with specialized vessels standing by to respond to oil spills wherever they might happen in the world.

Gee, here's a name not to use in vain, the United Nations.  Maybe the UN could demand this Navy be formed?  Aren't the oceans a planetary concern, anyway?   Does anyone really think Canada won't feel the effects of the Gusher in the Gulf on their shores?  Cuba?  The Domincan Republic?  Haiti?  The Bahamas?  Really?  At any rate, from the negligent envirocidal results of the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, one might have come to the conclusion that all of Pig Oil should have united to create this Navy, you know, on their own because it was the right thing to do, or at least, they should fund the creation of such a flotilla.  They should have had 21 years of stockpiles from all of Pig Oil standing by for this eventuality.  Instead, they were woefully unprepared.  Sure, their stockholders were well compensated throughout this entire time, even as Exxon paid off the discounted $5,000,000,000 fine.  But did Exxon have anything to offer BP once the oil rig lost it's head?  No, of course not.

It takes a government to create that sort of thing.  Private enterprise, capitalists will not do it.  They never have and they never will.  How many chances do we have to give them.  How many clean shores do we have left?  We need a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I wish we had one.  Maybe we are getting one.  But what we had prior to Obama failed miserably to protect this planet, this nation, and our peope from Pig Oil.  It's time we told the Pigs what to do and give them the middle finger they so richly deserve as we tax their fossil fuels to create a Navy able to respond to the next disaster.  Since we have failed so miserably to prevent these disasters, we may as well pay for the equipment to clean up the next one. 

Before anyone starts crying that they will pass those costs on to the consumers, let me say, that is exactly how capitalism works, STUPID!  The consumers pay for everything.  The real question is not whether we will pay.  The question is, what will we get for the money?  So far, all we have is a Tea Party in the Gulf of Mexico.  Oil that is.  Texas Tea.  Oh, I'm getting riled about about another topic now, but I think I'll just end this post now.  Tea Party?  A polite desciption for a markedly impolite gathering of vulgar, hostile, political agitators exhibiting fascist traits.  Tea Party?  Indeed.  Can we find a dispersant for them?

Yup!  I meant to spell that with a "P" because I am fond of acronyms.  Pig Oil stands for Petroleum Is God, Opposing Individual Liberty.  I know it doesn't really have a ring to it, but it is certainly more then enough to start a post here! 

What really stuck in my craw today originated in Louisiana, where's craw is always followed by dad, or, at least as long as we can keep the oil away from the places where crawdads live dad follows craw.  Louisiana is also where the Governor has just sold out, not just rented out, SOLD OUT.  Oh, I know the Jolly Jindal is using strong language and an irritated tone.  It kind of surprised me to hear a Republican going rogue, I mean really, really rogue, and barking at BP, but then I listened a little closer and realized that he was being loyal to his corporate leige after all, as is all the rage for  Republicans everywhere.  

What the hell is Gregor talking about now, you ask?  Bobby the Boy Wonder declared that he has approval from the US Government to build a sandy berm, and if BP wasn't going to do it, he would do it himself!  Strong words, those.  Let me translate.  Jindal said, "BP, if it's okay with you and you're not interested in doing it yourself, we would like to build a berm?" 

His remarks were an admission of surrender to Big Oil.  If you did not know it, Louisiana, your Governor has abandoned the defenses of your state.  But don't go feeling all lonely about it.  The President did the same thing, damn Kenyan furner that he is.  {Okay, that Kenyan furner part was sarcastic.  I support Obama in most cases.  I do not question his citizenship, but that does not mean I will not criticize him for not making the mystery dispersant, through the bicamerally [I think I just made up a word.  Cool, huh?] democratic Congress illegal, and then confiscating everything BP has before they put any more of that lethal substance in the Gulf! But I digress.} 

I have to assume something here.  I assume the beach, or whereever he wants to build this berm, has no oil on it at this time, or at least, when Jindal jumped up and down with his adamant declaration of timidity, there was no oil in that location at that time.  So, if there was no oil, he has forsaken any sovereignty to do whatever he likes with the unspoiled Earth in Louisiana, you know, as Chief Executive of the State.  He need not ask BP whether he can build a berm from BP.  I would agree he should check with the Army Corp of Engineers.  But BP?  Really?  The Governor of the State of Louisianas needs to ask them if it's okay?  You know, he did see the President kind of go like that, so maybe I should cut him some slack, but when did he start following the President's examples about anything?  It also boggles my mind why he would even be waiting for their answer, waiting while the oil gets closer to ruining that area for decades to come, the area this berm supposed to protect.

There is a question of liability, which I see everyone dancing around to avoid.  First, if there is oil, then NOT letting BP clean it up might prevent financial recovery from BP for any effort made to clean up their oil.  Also, if there is oil, then getting in contact with that oil is like going out of your way to fabricate a claim against BP.  You see, there's this thing called the Jones Act that states something to the effect that, unless one has property that has had physical contact with oil, there can be no claim.  So, maybe, those people will not get any part of the $75 million liability limit.  Good to know, too, cuz if I run someone over with my car, and my insurance only covers, say, up to $100,000, cuz I'm such a nice guy and all, and that's what my policy says, then the victim(s) cannot come after my house.  It works something like that, right?  What, they are an exception?

The contact thing is really a cool tool for BP, too, because it gives them all kinds of power.  Like Monsanto's patented seed pollen crossing into a neighbor's field, wheverever it goes, Monsanto owns those folks to a degree.  Check out how Canadian Courts gave a share of the neighbor's profits to Monsanto after that farmer had an exceptional crop!  Darn it!  I'm digressing again, but I think we should call this the Plague Phenomenon, or some such thing.  It involves contact with oil.  If anyone has contact, or knows where it is, they have to tell BP and then back away, far, far away.  Like it has cooties or something.  No one can even look at it, evidently.  The more is spreads, the more control BP has over any and all property along the Gulf.  It's kind of like, their oil touches you, they own you, except there is no Pottery Barn policy here.  They break it, they buy it, except you still actually own it and you will pay taxes on it.  Pig Oil will just control it and anyone who wants to get near it.  Never happened before, but those Pig Oil people, they are exceptional. 

As I get tired of writing all this depressing stuff, it occurs to me that I have rep[eatedly used the term exception, or some derivative of  that word.  {Sorry about the derivative reference.  It's still painful, isn't it?  How interesting that words are kidnapped by events sometimes.  Too soon?  Is it too soon to use that term, derivative?  DANG!  There I go again!  Sorry.  Back to my exceptional word now.}  It seems that the cliches we have for ourselves and, you know, any person, really, do not apply to Pig Oil, which was recently anointed a person, an immigrant person even.  Whoa!  Good thing they didn't spill any oil in Arizona, huh?  Things are bad for immigrants there these days.  But are they bad for Pig Oil?  Of course not!  They are the exception.  Get it?  That goes for laws too.  They are the exeption.  Frankly, I think they do Exceptionalism better then the Americans, which, AGAIN, Pig Oil is not.  They just use America when it suits them.  One might even say, Pig Oil is not aware we are #1!  Seriously!  There were oil spills in the Gulf of Oman, when we went to war and, for some reason, there were Major oil spills all around then Gulf.  Well, those Arabs said they did not want oil in their seas, so a boat was brought in that skimmed up the oil?  If we were #1, wouldn't we get that kind of treatment?  I mean, just how long does it take to get one of those boats to the Gulf of Mexico anyway?  Can't get it cuz Arabs are #1 and every Pig Oil man knows that?  Oh.  I see.

I was also thinking about how people want to blame the government for this oil spill and I wondered,  "How does that work?  What if it were me?"  I drive like mad through town because I own a cab and the faster I drive, the more money I make.  See?  Who should slow me down?  We're talking making money here!!!  Well, I run over 11 people and kill them.  My car flips and skids and breaks into innumerable pieces fatally injuring many, many more.  But they will not die instantly.  The economic damage is immeasurable as well.  Can I just say that, even though the speed limits are clearly posted, and I have been stopped many times for speeding, my little accident is the fault of the government?  Can I beg for an exception?  If I was killing people and destroying the environment all around me, that's how I would want it.  It only makes sense now, you know, if it were me.  Oh! There's one more thing!  Anywhere there is so much as a shard of glass or the smallest chip of paint, any of those places, I want complete control over those areas.  No one goes near them, and I get police and other authority figures {Oh, I think figureheads might be a better description of these "authorities"}  I want a lot of them around those places to ensure no one gets near them.  They are now my exceptional places.  And those "government" people, they work for private industry now, because I am so exceptional.  What a deal!?!?!?  Can I get on that program?

There's another program I want for myself too. I may have another post about it soon, but it's still forming in my head, like a real French mousse, I have something sweet and chocolatey just chilling.  It's about the deal we made with the devil.  Did we make the terms, or were they forced on us?  I mean, in response to the question, "You're buying the oil, aren't you?" Does admitting you are using oil indicate you agree with how Pig Oil does business and treats the environment?  Was that something we signed when we filled up our cars?  Because, I kind of thought we elected a govenrment to make laws that ensure those seeking oil did so safely.  I thought that was how things worked when we had a government, "of the people, by the people, and for the people".  I'm just not sure we have that anymore.  Hey Bobby?  Governor Jindal?  What do you think?  Louisiana?  You got anything to say about that?  I know Pig Oil does, and they disagree.  Not even respectfully.  After all, we just elect politicians, but Pig Oil BUYS them!

No, the blow out wasn't planned, but I'm going to share a little story and it might explain all the dawdling on the part of these BP Oil Men.  The Blow Out might not have been on purpose, but as long as it's gushing, THINK of all the good it could do for future drilling!!!

Let me take you back, first.  In 1989, I was on my hands and knees on  a beach with an Exxon Rep and about 30 other Oil Recovery Technicians contracted with Veco, clothed in thick rain gear and even thicker gloves.  Staring in wonder at this huge pizza-like brown shiny shape lying in the sand before me, about the size of a car.  This guy was from Canada, but really, when you work for Exxon, Exxon is your nation, your first loyalty.  But it was something I recall, his being from Canada, because I thought it as odd.  But to Oil Men, nations are archiac poltical structures that merely serve as organizations to mesmerize people and convince them to send their children to fight and maybe die for more oil.  I was kind of recovering my lungs at the time he shared an observation of the surroundings.

You see, we were about 600 miles from Valdez, Alaska, in Shelikof Strait, pretty much straight across from the Kodiak Island Village of Karluk.  http://www.tanignak.com/Island%20Journey%20with%20the%20Evangel%205.htm  The Karluk River flows past the village of Karluk and had once had the largest salmon harvest of any river in the world.    http://fishbull.noaa.gov/50-1/barnaby.pdf  But that's another story.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.  Oh, and I'm sorry for the distraction.  But sometimes beauty has a way of staying with you no matter where we have been.  I'll get back to the other side of the Strait now.

My lungs were in rebellion because moments earlier I had gently, but firmly, shoved my gloved fingers and hands through the volcanic sand beneath about 6 inches of mousse, the spin-full description of weathered Alaskan crude oil in vogue for that disaster, oil weathered and frothed into the consistency and color of brownie mix.  This substance was an insult to actual mousse, and the French in general, but we all know how the Reich feels about the French.  After all, the French had their own oil spill http://fishbull.noaa.gov/50-1/barnaby.pdf (Sorry for the Wiki reference, but it's a good start on background about their spill) which the French were not joyfully receptive to having endured.  So to Oil Men, the French are worthy of ridicule and contempt.  There I was, trying to leverage my arms to lift a single piece of this gob into the garbage bag right beside it, my face up close.  Yes, it smelled a little of oil, but I would take the small insult to my senses to save the land beneath it, far more greatly offended. 

As I lifted and separated a 20-pound hunk from the rest of this ugly sludge, I caught a large whiff of a highly toxic substance, ...hydrogen sulfide.  Invisible to my eyes, buried in the thick, thick sauce, a  sea gull had been caught in that small island of oil as it floated to this beach.  It must have lost it's fight with the ooze out on the water, days earlier, because it easily ripped right in half as I lifted, and the stench of rotting flesh almost caused me to instantly puke.  I nearly fell over backward trying to get away and I coughed hard a whole bunch.  It was one of those wracking coughs that brings tears to your eyes.  It lasted a few moments, but I recovered.  I staggered to my feet and walked up wind for a ways.  I inhaled deeply and noticed the not-quite-pure-anymore air blowing gently past this wilderness and down the Strait.  There was now just a hint of crude oil mixed with the salty smell of kelp.  "How long before that odor would go away, I wondered.  Would I live to see it?"

When I returned to the filthy task of recovering this nasty slime, the Exxon guy came over to me and knelt down beside me to particpate in this nearly meaningless task of taking away the minutest percentage of oil that had drained from the Exxon Valdez.  I told myself, one bag off was one bag less that nature woud have to "process", for lack of a better word. Oh, I know, one way or another, we were going to give it back to nature.  I just wanted it out of the ocean and more neatly concentrated someplace.  In an attempt to bond with the Oil Man, who I thought would be ashamed to represent the company that was responsible for devastating the archipelago most of the other 30 people on the beach called home, I offered a simple exclamation, in a soft and tired voice from my recent coughing fit.  "What a waste!"

The Oil Man replied to my expression with agreement, or so I thought.  "Yes", he said.  And then he went into a monologue that I was speechless to interrupt, but was important in my life because it enabled to me to see the world through his eyes.  The Oil Man went on about how these huge mountains and wide open, wild spaces were useless, and there was nothing you could do with them.  He spoke about this for almost a minute before I finally found my voice and said, "Bullshit!  This land has everything you need to live and one would never actually need to even go to the store, unless one wanted company.  This place is awesome!  I know a guy who could stay our here all year long under a tarp if he wanted to do it!" 

The narcissism of the Oil Culture slithered into his response, "Yeah, but that tarp is made out of petroleum!"  I realized that he may have felt the world HAD to revolve around his industry, so I responded, "It could also be a canvas tarp." making a full separation from oil.  "The point is.   This place holds unending abundance and all we people would ever do was destroy it."  The Oil Man had no response.  Maybe he saw the world through my eyes for an instant.  I can hope.  There was a silence that followed for a minute or two, and then he just got up and left me to get the last 4-5 square feet of the 6" deep puddle of mousse?!?!?

These eyes of the Oil Man through which I came to see that day.  These eyes that haunt me still.  These eyes fester in my mind and bring me to suspect another possible reason the Oil Men might not be so anxious now to clean up the Spill, or stop the gusher.  This environmental holocaust could do so much for their cause.  I am able to suspect there may be some among the Oil Men who would say, "If this stuff coats the entire Gulf, no one will live here!  Once it's all dead, who would bother regulating us here?  These fish are not manageable and these waters are not drinkable.  We can eat farmed fish and buy water in bottles.  Oh!  This will bring capitalism to new heights!  It will be beautiful! 

Spill, Baby, Spill!

I'm not going to write much tonight.  I will posit a simple question based on information that is available practically everywhere in the public domain.  Exxon spent $1 billion on cleaning up their oil spill.  It was a target they set when they realized the enormity of the hole in their drunk driver's supertanker.  $1 billion dollars.  Exxon made enormous profits these past few years AND paid a discounted $5 billion dollars on what was originally a $15 billion dollar fine.  I'm not going to type in all those zeroes because the math is too confusing and I want this to be simple.  $1 billion plus $5 billion equals $6 billion dollars that we know Exxon spent following one of their tankers running aground.  There may have been more money spent, but probably less.  I mean, Exxon really wanted to show they spent a LOT of money AFTER the spill, so do you think they might have played with the numbers a little bit, just a little?!?!

Okay, I heard there are these acoustic devices that can shut down an oil pipe, required by some nations, but not in the US.   Oh, thank GOD, shout the Libertarians!  Thank GAWD the government didn't impose those horrific regulations on private industry.  It would have altered the functioning of the magic market if it were regulated like that.  Democracy as we know it would have been irretrievably destroyed!

Sorry, I get distracted.  Well, at $500,000 a device, and I just saw Matyra post a link to information that there are 3,000 oil rigs in the Gulf. 

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/m/a/matyra/2010/05/where-is-our-oil-a-team-where.php?ref=reccafe 

Well, if the devices were a half-million and a billion is a thousand million, then in $2.5 billion , every well in the Gulf of Mexico would have had a device to stop these gushers.  For $6 billion dollars, each oil rig could have had two! and then, and this is the part Libertarians ought to really celebrate, there would have been $1 billion dollars left over for share holders!  Yeah!  Think about that for a minute.  $1 billion dollars to trust fund babies and 401k holders and a bunch of other people with excess incomes who don't live from paycheck to paycheck.  Do I hate those people?  Not the 401k holders, of course.  I have two now!  But those other people....grrrrrr.

My point is that the anger of the oil industry folks at the mere thought anyone should suggest they spend money to protect people, people who they actually loathe except when they pay for fuel,  their anger is so extreme it has blinded their entire organization to a simple truth.  If they had voluntarily put the acoustic device on their rigs, just ONE, they would have saved $3.5 billion dollars.  Oil companies do not learn. They are arrogant sociopaths blinded by their own lust for power, now revealed to actually be blithering idiots in desperate need of regulating, because, if they had been regulated, share holders would be getting a lot more money...a helluva lot more money.  I would imagine that might be true for the banks too, but this ain't about banks.  Oh!  And it ain't about coal mines either.  I'm just saying, if they did just little bit of arithmetic before they fought the proposition they should have the acoustic devices, they could have saved billions of dollars. 

In all honesty, I can deal with dollars, but I cannot fathom the destruction that is not valued, like the environment and the tourist industries throughout the Gulf.  All of it would have been avoided if the oil companies had stepped up and said, "Well, in 1989 a disaster cost $6 billion dollars.  Maybe we should spend the half million on each rig to prevent another one"  That's $6,000,000,000.  So, I suppose the next question might be, how much is a $6,000,000,000 oil spill in 2010.  Answer.  I don't know, but I think it's going to take more zeroes this time and I know that just because BP won't be the only one spending money doesn't mean that the cost of the recovery won't be incredibly higher then that, dollars directly out of the pockets of regular folk who live there.  In fact, we are just beginning to know that the Gusher in the Gulf is a whole lot bigger then the Exxon Valdez, so these numbers don't really mean much anyway.

 Oil Companies...they never learn.  It takes a government to raise an industry.

Extra point question:  How many oil rigs have put in an order for an acoustic device as of this date, one month after beng shown what can happen when oil wells rupture? 

Did any oil companies learn anything yet?  

How about now? 

Didn't think so.

First, let me be clear.  This is an all-hands-on-deck emergency and should have been treated as such from the beginning.  Want to get the leak stopped in the Gulf?  Simple solution.  Stop every other leak in the Gulf of Mexico first.  You know, stop the controlled leaks on every rig in the Gulf.  Stop every single off shore rig from pumping oil until the Gusher of BP[Biblical Proportions]* is stoppped.  Second, the Feds need to bring every thing they have to this disaster.  EVERYTHING!  Stop the fighting over who's resposible.  Resposibility is a private matter.  It is not the government's fault this disaster happened.  Do I blame the government when I get a speeding ticket?  No, don't be ridiculous.  Why is this different?  It is not.  But now that the oil's in the water, this is everyone's problem.  Clean it up together and we will fight about legalities later, for decades to come.

Make no mistake, this is not a problem for Louisiana, or Texas, or Florida.  It is a problem for the entire Eastern seaboard.  Hyperbole?  Measure the distance between Valdez and Kodiak, Alaska.  In cold weather, oil travelled that far in tremendous quantity.  I was there to clean it up.  In the Gulf of Mexico, it's much warmer and the substance thinner.  It's going to go much further. 

It was very hard to sit down and write about this tragedy.  I obtained my scuba certification in a place called Pennekamp Park in the Florida Keys.  http://www.pennekamppark.com/  Visit the site quickly.  This place will soon be gone.  The only living coral reef in the continental United States is about to disappear.  It disgusts me there are people having finger pointing battles while this gusher blows toxins toward this amazing environment. 

When are the God-folks going to declare the Divine intention of this disaster?  When is Rush Limbaugh going to admit he was wrong when he declared private industry will police itself and needs no regulation.  That is the issue we, the people, need to drive home and take to the mid-term elections.  That the GOP is the party of corporate liberty, not your liberty, and they promote these companies having their way with whatever they choose: banks; oil rigs; forests; oceans; the air; anything on the planet and any of its people.  The corporations demand the freedom to use and abuse them. 

Corporations are God and the GOP their prophets.  Worship them and you can ignore a great deal of human suffering.  The liberals are miserable and the conservative oblivious, masking their pain with anger.  Better to be mad then miserable.

It's almost midnight here.  This writing is terrible, but it's a start.  I will have more to say in the coming days.  There's a Gregor Gyser about to unleash.  Want to know what is going to happen with BP and their pals?  They have a disaster plan.  They really do.  They always did.  Follow the blueprint of the Exxon Valdez disaster, and you can predict exactly what will happen.  Afterall, Exxon won.  Sure, 20 years later they paid $5 billion dollars after the courts lowered the penalty from $15 billion.  The shareholders made obscene profits while they were doing it, in spite of it being demanded of them.  Exxon lost?  Think again.  The Alaskan Coast communites lost.  Exxon won, and so will BP and their accssories to this environmental holocaust.  There's no money in clean up, that is not part of their plan.  The plan?  Read the papers during the last massive oil spill.  It will be exactly the same.

BP = Biblical Proportions was borrowed from The Norman Goldman Show.  Gusher?  Well, that is my idea. - GZ 

If you're not crazy and you think you are a Republican, think again.  You're party is represented by its leadership and you support that leadership.  If you do not support that leadeship, then please do the GOP a favor and refrain from referring to yourself as Republican.  It is the only way you have any hope of ever changing the direction your Party is headed.  The GOP is headed into irrelevancy on its present course.  The more the leadership screams and shouts, and swears and acts out, the more obvious it becomes to the sane people of this country and the world that the GOP, as a Party, suffers from Group Crazy.  If the leadership spends all their time catering to the crazy, they must be crazy.  Save your Self!

At the end of the day, there is only so much history that the Right can re-write.  Try as they might to label themselves Patriots and veterans of the Tea Party, everyone knows these demostrators, these poltical agitators, are incapable of a democratic discussion on any topic, and therefore, with all their screaming and fist pounding, they are dragging themselves and the Republican Party into a delirium from which they, and the Republican Party may never recover.  Save your Self!

The GOP proclaims they know what the American people want.  What they do not tell you is that they have a definition of American people which departs from any truly American ideals.  Oh, they will tell you of their values, but these are not real American values.  These are the values of the American people as they define them, i.e. members of the GOP, conservative, white, pro-life, Born-again Christian, Americans.  If you do not ascribe to each of these "beliefs', then you are not considered by them to be one of the American people.  Oh, and you have to be crazy.  Save you Self!

Get out!  Get out now!  Nothing good will come of your remaining with this dwindling band of bobbleheads, all nodding in agreement with such absurd notions as the one that the Democrats brought the violence and hatred on themselves.  Violence and hatred is expressed by people who cannot control themselves.  There are no deeds that can be done that beg for violence and hatred toward that person.  At least, that is how sane people respond.  One will hate the deed, but not the one who did that deed, and if punishment is meted out, it is after a trial with laws and a jury of one's peers.  Okay, in moments of passion things may get out of hand, and it is understandable, but NEVER justified.  That is not the hallmark of a just society.  Did that sound like social justice?  Did that make your hair stand up on the back of you neck?  Save your Self!

If you did have a visceral, inexplicable reaction to the mention of social justice, you do not have much time left.  You have watched too much FOX News, listened to too much Glenn Beck, and are near abandonment of your own Self-Consciousness.  Save your Self! 

Social justice was the culmination of the blood sacrifices of the real patriots, the Founding Fathers, the real ones!   The achievement of social justice was why, less then a half century ago, the world really did look up to the United States.  If you cringe at the simple term, social justice, but have managed to cotinue reading this post, I have only one thing to say, Get out of the GOP now.  Save your Self!