Op-Ed: Reflections on 'The Big Spill'

Washington - This article examines and attempts to make sense of the senseless oil spill disaster which was waiting to happen, but was not prevented.

Listening live today to U.S. President Barack Obama's remarks on what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico made me reflect with a deep sense of revulsion and disgust on this eco- disaster. Yes, Mr. President, I agree with you, "we are fouling the earth" as you say . But "we" is not "us" but "them", the oil companies. What is still happening and unfolding each day is without doubt a scourge of biblical proportions; on a scale which not even the experts and scientists can maybe envisage or comprehend . Politically speaking, this mega-disaster is a kind of "judgment day" for the current administration. Let's not make any mistake about it: this on-going spill and its consequences and how the administration handles this mess, will determine, if this president will be re-elected to a second term or not. The off-shore oil rig "gusher" seems also to be an apocalyptic revenge or retribution. Against whom you may ask? It's almost a kind of divine punishment on those who have plundered the planet for far too long and at a much too high a price, ecologically speaking for the rest of humanity. There is something also grotesquely incompetent, which borders on criminal or depraved negligence, mixed with wanton foolhardiness about all this. That is, this whole mess was preventable, it was avoidable, it did not have to happen, as if it were some-kind of a foretold curse or supernatural malediction on us all. If the culprit or company (BP) had simply adhered to the most elementary operational safety standards, then the Gulf would not be a "dead zone" like it is today.

usaepagov

These sediment samples were collected out of Cocodrie, La in the Gulf of Mexico. EPA is collecting both sediment and water samples to assess potential oil spill impacts on aquatic life near shore and are analyzing sediment for 29 chemicals that are components of oil.

image:69147:0::0

Meanwhile, the BP Gulf of Mexico calamity is being reduced by the mainstream media to a kind of soap opera. Each day news segments are aired. Let's call it, "The Big Spill", a kind of sordid reality show, where we tune in each day to see a carnivalesque spectacle or display of cabinet secretaries, governors, and one totally bewildered and overwhelmed president, acting their (scripted by their spin doctors and advisers) staged parts on the little screen. Only after the fact, do they say, there were supposed to be "fail-safe" measures in place, or "blow-out" preventors. Which begs the question: where were the government regulators to ensure all these measures were in place just in case of a spill. Where is "Plan B" now that the other options have been exhausted to fix the leak? Obama's White House engulfed by a tidal wave of black gook "Obama's Katrina" has become Louisiana's worst nightmare. Well, by comparing the two disasters, I am perhaps being too generous, too benevolent in my views towards BP. Hurricane Katrina was an "act of God", a viz major, occurrence. A freakish category five force destructive deluge on one city. The BP "gusher" is strictly speaking, a man made disaster and therefore not a natural one or an unusual weather happening. This spill risks devastating the whole state's coastline, its wet-lands and bayous of the Mississippi river's entire estuary or basin as well. Yet this event, seems so typical of the world we live in now: one where short-term profit trumps the long term well-being of our planet. "Human error" (recklessness) caused this mess not mother nature. She's sane and responsible. She's not like those greed possessed lunatics, who drill for oil off -shore, without any concern for the fragile eco-systems they operate in. BP technology proves its worthlessness In a sense, this spill has exposed just how powerless both government and corporations are to get the "genie back into the bottle", or in the case of BP the oil spewing out from the leaking underwater spout, back into the petrol drums and onto the gas stations. Mankind in its unrelenting bid to achieve evermore profits, in faster and more efficient and productive ways( that is by using cheaper drilling techniques), has unleashed such destructive forces, which we may not be able to even countenance, let alone control or subdue. As scientists and engineers try to cap or "plug" the spill's source, (a perforation deep beneath the sea-bed of the Gulf) , we all look on helplessly, aghast, and are dumbfounded at how after almost a month later, ineffective these almost "infallible" men are and their great engineering gadgetry is, to permanently stop the spill. The "can-do" nation which is able to design and fly the most sophisticated " stealth bombers" , or launch precision missiles at the moon in search of water deposits , or pilot remote controlled drones in Pakistan, ten thousand miles away, can't get its act together to seal a hole underwater. The next off -shore drilling disaster is just waiting to happen ( perhaps in Sarah Palin's Alaska or Schwarzenegger's California?). If another, potential, eco-catastrophe occurs, then the next time, "we" will all certainly be worthy of blame, for allowing "big oil" corporations and their cronies, the politicians beholden to them (at unlimited costs to the environment) and their interests and not ours, for getting away with it . So as the saying goes "never again"!