I think we will look back on the BP disaster as a tipping point.

Its impact on national and world consciousness will rival that of 9-11. In a case like this, the most important thing from the corporate perspective is to first, minimize the significance of the disaster and second, to shift blame.

The corporate overlords seem to have lost control of the message entirely on this one.

It's hard to minimize the impending destruction of that heavily populated, economically significant, favored fantasy land of everyone's imagination that is the Gulf. And everyone seems to know who to blame. For example, Rush's meme about "eco-terrorism" crashed on takeoff. Contrast this situation with the Exxon Valdez. In that case, they were able to cover up much of the extent of the damage, at least from the view of the general public, largely because it happened in such a remote area. Nobody really much cared about Alaska. They didn't have fantasies about retiring there on a yacht. Also, Exxon was pretty much able to pin the whole rap on a drunken sea captain. No such luck in the Gulf. Everyone knows that it was deliberate corporate malfeasance, aided and abetted by deregulating politicians, that lay at the core of the tragedy.

As for the effects of this disaster on world consciousness, this could be the blow that ends the public's "abuse cycle" with Big Oil. After this beating, we're maybe finally gonna leave that sonuvabitch for good. We really mean it this time.

And it may be a wake-up call on the environment. The problem with "global warming" as a mobilizing cause is that it's slowly incremental (boiling the proverbial frog), erratic, and taking place in a complex, chaotic, and unpredictable system, the global climate. It's a lot easier to get the point of an oil-drenched bird than it is of a half-degree rise in mean temperature (even though the latter is part of a far more lethal process in the long run).

In short, global warming is pretty abstract. Oil on the beaches is concrete. 9-11 was concrete. People mobilize to concrete threats far more readily than to abstract ones.

Your comments make sense...

*sigh*

except appoint commissions to study the matter. He says "We're" spreading dispersants and stuff, as if he were BP. Obama is having a F*cking mind meld with BP and can't figure out that he is not BP.

It's all DLC crap. He is determined to remind everybody that he is for offshore oil.

He is acting like he has to say these things in order to win over GOP lawmakers to potential future legislation. He is acting like he thinks he's the LEGISLATOR IN CHIEF. No. That's Pelosi's job. Obama's job is to be the CHIEF EXECUTIVE. You know. EXECUTIVE. As in running a bureaucracy, the government. When is he going to do that and start kicking ass? He can't because of all the campaign cash he took from BP. He's got one finger in the wind and another up his....

If Bobby Kennedy were running the show he would have poured through every Federal statute looking for excuses to seize assets, arrest people, put people in JAIL. And he would have found those excuses, guaranteed. If government wants to nail somebody, they can. Al Capone got nailed on tax evasion. The government has the resources to stop this leak if they are determined enough, even if they have to put a gun to BP's head.

We have never had a weaker Democratic president. The GOP smells blood in the water and is blaming Obama for failing on the oil leak. They're calling it Obama's Katrina. Any day now this disaster is going to bring down polling for Democrats and Obama and the public is going to take out their frustrations on Democrats in the Fall, not Republicans.

Why has Obama allowed these creeps to get away with this? Because he is a

wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, wimp, woosie wimp, chicken, fraidy cat, wimp, wimp, wimp,

Did I mention that he's a wimp?

Problem is that in order to go somewhere and join with others, you have to pay BP's nickel to get there.

I see the opposite of your potential outcome, Jackpine.
I see the gulf being ruined and there not being any reason not to drill off Florida. We are addicted and we will rob and steal to get our fix.

It's over. We are doomed.

How's that for melancholy?

Personally, I like your optimism much more.

Randi Rhodes spoke on this some yesterday. She quoted from the film Blood Diamond.

Apparently, a village was pillaged for it's diamonds. After the diamond seekers had left, a man said "I hope they don't find oil here." The oil companies have the power and it's time to take it back. It's just such a complicated web of mess after money pile after shady "business men" that the untangling of what these corporations have been allowed to come on a global scale may literally take years, possibly decades, to unravel and destroy.

...with their poisons, and have been http://marcusinafrica.blogspot.com/2006/11/chief-onitsha-josiah-jonah.html">doing so for some time.



(http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcusbensasson/sets/72157610410398567/">More photos)

- Will no one rid us of these oil priests?!?!?!

first have to remove the influence of oil money from elections.

This is the problem that all others stem from - powerful corporations and their money buying influence and elections.

So, are we moving toward a more equitable system of elections? Fuck no! Now we have the SCOTUS Citizens United decision that exacerbates the problem. Right at the very moment in history when we most need to rein in corporate excesses we get this Citizens United shit snowball. This serves to illustrate just how out of touch (bought?) the SCOTUS is.

that this disaster may be the event that brings back environmentalism as a critical, global, vital necessity.

Not a secondary issue. We'll see.

I agree with you completely...

I've been posting that I believe that this is an extraordinary crisis and there are a few here who think that we're just gonna get over it, or words to that effect. I for one do not believe that this is going away or solved anytime soon, and that the word catastrophe is not strong enough to describe what's going on.

People had 'best-better' wake the hell up...

I honestly don't think that much will change.

I really hope I am wrong.

I see this doing for alternative energy what the Goldman Sachs scandal did for Wall Street reform.

Hopefully, some in Congress will see the need to fund R&D for alternative energy sources. I know my plans in this area include putting photovoltaic shingles on my roof and I'm looking into getting a variance to put one of these in (I get almost constant wind at my house):



http://www.helixwind.com/en/S322.php

After that, we will be looking at maintaining one fossil fuel powered vehicle for longer trips, but an electric car for use locally, which is the vast majority of our automobile usage since we use public transportation to get from our suburb into the city forty miles away.

Somehow I'm not surprised.

:eyes:

http://www.helixwind.com/en/factsheets.php

All of their products are backed up. They have the most efficient designs in home turbines available.

Try harder this time.

Try opening the files next time.

I opened four more just now. Still no table of wind speed vs. power output. If would seem that you have found this information, but for some reason are not sharing. But maybe you haven't. Maybe you're a dog, maybe you aren't. On the internets, one never knows.

I want the larger, but may only be able to get a variance from my village for the smaller, if I'm able to get a variance for either.

The graph shows 3800kW-hr annual energy production for a wind speed of around 9.5 m/s. They seems to be obscuring an unimpressive power output by plotting annual energy, and plotting it vs wind speed in m/s, rather than mph. Whether they are doing this intentionally I suppose is open to debate. I would say they are.

The numbers work out to 3800000/(365*24)= 434 watts at 21 mph. That's a lot of wind but not a whole lot of power.

Here's a different manufacturer that plots power vs wind speed in a more useful manner - kW vs wind speed in mph: http://www.windenergy.com/documents/spec_sheets/3-CMLT-1338-01_Skystream_spec.pdf. That graph shows an output power of 2000 watts at 22mph. If I was in the market for a windmill, I would then compare installation cost, maintenance costs, and noise level.

I know for a fact my village has repeatedly denied variances for HAWT, but are open to the idea of VAWT, hence Helix Wind as my choice.

If I had the choice, I'd go with the one you suggest and it was my first choice when I was researching turbines. I was sold on the exact one you linked but found out they are a no-go in my village.

As I said, even the turbines I'm looking at may not be granted a variance.

My village sucks.

The home I'm hoping to retire to is in a rain forest, on a north-facing slope, so solar would be worthless. I didn't know where to look for wind generators.

did for Wall Street reform." If that's the case, then we are truly fucked. The Wall Street "reform" is another propaganda blast from the corporate-financed and -controlled Obama administration. The reform that was needed, the Volcker rule, is the reform that was needed, but it was stomped on like a roach on the kitchen floor.

"Hopefully, some in Congress will see the need to fund R&D for alternative energy sources." It's not the R&D we need so much as funding for the average home and business to INSTALL the devices such as the solar shingles and wind generators you refer to. We already have the technology to change the energy use patterns of our nation and the planet. What we don't have is the POLITICAL WILL to implement it on a nationwide basis.

I'm a contractor and a Certified Green Professional (for what it's worth). I just spent a few days at the National Green Building Conference. There are many wonderful new products on the market and many competent and well-trained professionals to install them. What there are NOT is enough homeowners and business owners who can AFFORD to pay for those improvements on their buildings in this economic climate.

The new Home Star program which our federal government proposes to bring us into the greening of America is predicated on homeowners being able to shell out multiple thousands of dollars in order to install solar/wind/geothermal technology upfits in order to gain a TAX CREDIT. This is a worse than disingenuous band aid for a hemorrhaging wound.

The Obama administration saw fit to give TRillions of dollars to Wall Street and the Banksters to prop up their Casino Game, but it cannot come up with enough money to give grants or low-interest loans to Americans so we can rapidly move our nation toward energy independence and sustainable living. If the Obama administration were to put as money into greening America as the Wall Street thieves gave out as bonuses in the last two years, we would see a rapid move in the right direction. But it will not do so.

That is a shameful state of affairs.

a lot, if we just "scaled up" the quantities purchased through whatever subsidies are needed.

A half trillion dollars would have gone very far toward breaking our dependence on oil PLUS boosting the real economy, never mind a full trillion. Instead, we get a trickle here and a trickle there, while a trillion was pissed away on thugs. :(.

and move people out of literal shacks and tear those down. They are a blight and energy black hole that we keep feeding dollars into. If it refurbishable, sure go ahead, the rest, tear them down.
As an aside, the Gulf (Dead Sea ala Letterman 5/21/10) seems to be making every apocolyptical science fiction seem prescient - our dim, dark futures.

empty homes being used and the old energy sinks being torn down. Great idea. Of course, that would be "socialism" or "communism" or some other dreaded "ism", so it's never going to happen.

They constantly excoriate Obama for spending the country into bankruptcy. This criticism is nearly 24/7. In the face of this constant criticism how could the Administration possibly provide the investment necessary to move toward energy independence through renewables?

Sometimes I think the entire economic crisis was engineered so as to prevent investing in energy infrastructure thereby maintaining the status quo. Maybe they came up with this diabolical plan during Cheney's secret energy meetings.

perhaps global catastrophe.

The govt directly pays you to go onto each and every street; each and every school and municipality.. and make it green. WPA program to remake our power grid. The middle class has been hit pretty hard. These are extra expenses. In good times, these would be great investment/ home improvement items that would make sense.. esp. with the tax credit. However, most cannot afford the loan to do the work to their homes like this. Subsidies and tax breaks still predominantly go to big oil, when it should be going into Green Energy.

This is not some far out notion either. Many, many, many people I talk to cannot understand why our govt isn't just hiring construction workers to do Green Re-Model work to neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and municiple buildings. It doesn't make sense to them that Congress and Obama haven't swept people into WPA type programs... Yet, we continue to wage wars that do NOTHING for us. This is why people are upset with Obama... Its because he isn't Progressive enough in his response to this crisis.. He continues to preach this b.s. about tax credits.. tax credits to big business who don't need another break.. they already broke America.

My original idea for an economic recovery--a real one, not a transfusion of public lifeblood into private veins--was a major public works initiative to build a green infrastructure including high-speed rail to replace most flights, superfast internet everywhere, etc.

You are hoping Congress will do the right thing. That says a hell of a lot about where we are today. Your power to influence reducing our dependence on oil, is "hoping". What's in it for Congress? You see congress-critters get their money from the big corporations, not you. You have little or no influence.

my house next year and include solar panels. You've given me new ideas...

yes, there are more people willing to face the concrete than abstract threats. So true.

I hope you are right that it is a tipping point. It could be. They can't cover this up like they did Valdez.

People will see it...will they have the energy and will to respond?

Check back with me in 10 years

the gulf's ecosystems recovered.

Largely forgotten and oil still in the sound. They ran out the clock on being responsible and ended up paying a penny on the dollar with barely a peep in protest.

which America will be conditioned to accept as "not that bad", and in any case irreversible. In 15 years, Americans may well have forgotten that there is anything new about the New Normal. They have that ability, as we know, from their past behavior.

The Exxon Valdez disaster was a cause célèbre for a few years, and in raising the profile of environmental concerns with some voters, it may have contributed to the election of Bill Clinton. But less than 15 years after the Exxon Valdez coated a pristine Alaskan coastline in oil and death, Americans were back to electing Republicans -- Republicans soaked in oil, no less. George W. Bush had a couple of oil companies in his C.V. not to mention his father's history in the business. They were dummy corporations set up to give Junior an income, and never found any oil. So maybe he looked harmless enough to America: after all you can't spill oil that you never found in the first place. But his adult companion/adviser and V.P., Dick Cheney, was covered in oil - both oil drilling services and imperial wars for oil. Americans had become adjusted to a new normal after Exxon Valdez through the experience of the Gulf War.

This event had an impact in 1989


But this image was soon displaced from its central place in the American political imagination - and for many voters completely overwritten- by this one:


The era of Wars For Oil had (re-)arrived. Left leaning voters, voters who placed environmental issues high on their list of concerns continued to remember Exxon Valdez and swear Never Again. Their kids watched Captain Planet on TV, and they voted for Clinton. Lots of other voters, though, were tuning in to a New Normal. They looked at the images of the Gulf War and forgot Exxon Valdez completely, or else filed it under "not that bad in the Big Picture, when you come to think of it". Environmentalism was steadily being displaced in the political imagination by anxieties of geopolitics and resource scarcity: we were told essentially either "their" madman would control all the oil, or ours would. Americans got their John Wayne on and concluded en masse that it was better for us for our madmen elected leaders to be in control of the oil than "crazy dictators" and "Muslim extremists". We decided we would fight for global control of oil, for access to oil, and we would see more sights like these. We were ready as a nation to vote for a Bush again and Oil Slick Dick.

ten years. I disagree with your prediction.

In 10 years it will probably still be spewing out oil.

This is one for the history books. You check in 10 years, please.

If they care about what they claim to care about then they must recognize Capitalism as the primary danger to the biosphere. If this doesn't do it I don't know what will.

To be sure, too many environmentalist come from the upper income brackets and will find this news unpalatable. To them I can only say: Which side are you on?

This event was not an 'oopsie', this is the result of reckless pursuit of profit. There's a lot of that going around nowadays. Capitalism is in crisis, the hunt for profit becomes ever more desperate, more and more corners are cut, chancy schemes are the order of the day.

We must kill Capitalism before it kills us.

Where's it from?

And I agree entirely with your sentiments:

This event was not an 'oopsie', this is the result of reckless pursuit of profit. There's a lot of that going around nowadays. Capitalism is in crisis, the hunt for profit becomes ever more desperate, more and more corners are cut, chancy schemes are the order of the day.

We must kill Capitalism before it kills us.

From a British site, I think. Feel free... I did.

Keep it up, agitate!

The MSM might control the airwaves but we can make it inescapable on the nets.

if we had "let the whole economy tank" back in the fall of 2008, would this have been the start of it? (The death of capitalism.)

??? I don't know. Capitalism is surely ripe for a demise. But no one can predict what new economic system might take its place. Almost everyone was afraid to find out.

and this:

I thought we'd wake up after the oil embargo in '73 or '74 or whenever the hell it was....

Unfortunately, he had no miracles for us, so we then elected Raygun and went back to sleep.

But our addicted society couldn't take the truth so they elected Raygun.

Thirty three years and two days before the Deepwater explosion:



Instead of acting like adults and doing as the President recommended we pitched a fit at being told our indulgences were ruining our country and helped the Republicans under mine Carter's policies.

Edited to add date.

of the oil industry that prevented a move toward conservation. This was the start of media consolidation when these corporations realized the value of propaganda. And this is why we are in the trouble we are in as a nation. These mpg standards enacted under Obama should have been in place in the early 1990s. And they could have been if not for the oil industry influence and propaganda.

the same RW media and oil money we face today. Their first act was to use the media to characterize Carter as weak in the face of Muslim extremism. From that moment onward Carter was essentially a lame duck. The battle was half over then. Then we heard how tough Saint Ronnie was going to be. These were corporate generated mass illusions foisted on the American people through a complicit media.

i agree

now

the opportunity is there. what will we do with it.

we'll look back (or our future generations, bless their hearts) and say this was when we killed the Gulf....and so it began.

:hi:Jackpine:hug:

DR--:loveya:

I don't think it'll add any additional impetus to people to start changing their patterns of cheap, convenient energy consumption. It'll be forgotten in 2 years.

summer the roads led to the beach. Inexpensive family vacations to be had. The kids now will be saying I remember white fluffy sands there...I think it will be firmly in our Collective Unconsciousness

It is beyond sad that this has to occur to have that happen.

Good OP, JPR

it will be way past too late. This one makes it already too late for that entire area.

Just not for the better. The public reaction was immense and sustained, and the Bushies rode it for 8 years while they raided the Treasury. It was pretty easy to deflect any splatters of blame from themselves, and get everyone hatin' on those furriners.

The Bushies had ever possible advantage.

Its time to Nationalize the the Oil companies.

If that doesn't fly, at least Nationalize out NATIONAL oil reserves..That is keep our oil in National hands, not corporate hands. We own and run the exploration, development and production of the crude oil and sell it to the oil companies for market rates, not the pennies we do now. That could probably take care of the National Debt in a few years.

Cancel ALL Oil rights (land based, too) and take control and do an actual survey of what we already have drilled and CAPPED.

Look what happened:evilgrin:

nationalizing of the oil industry.

How about we takes steps to limit their political clout. How about we have publicly funded elections. Riiiight. Like that is going to happen.

:hi:

But I'm not optimistic. At all. Time will tell.

In 1979, Pemex well Ixtoc-1, near Campeche, Mexico blew out for 8 months into the gulf. Today's disaster is not even the first major spill into the gulf of Mexico. Other spills have happened regularly in the years since, all over the world.

Yet southern voters overwhelmingly chose "drill baby drill," anti-environment, anti-regulation senators and representatives.

Tragically, the birds and turtles and mangroves are reaping what Gulf state voters have sown.

their budgets as well as a boon from the government to help spur on more Electric vehicles or other non oil based fuels for transportation, cars, tractor trailers, jet planes, boats etc.

Solar cells and wind turbines will only help with generating more electricity not really reduce the oil consumption America is addicted to.


I doubt we'll see the kind of massive or significant changes in people's attitudes about oil usage though, with so many people more worried about the economy, jobs, etc once the disaster is out of sight they will forget about it and be happy to fill up their tanks for another decade or until gas prices spike. What I don't doubt is there will be a generation of young people who get tuned into the green movement more so than would otherwise and maybe they can get something done in the future when there is no other choice for us all.

I agree that we need to make massive changes. I see this as both a necessity and a grand opportunity.

I do see solar cells, wind, tidal, wave, and other sources of energy helping a great deal with reducing oil consumption--first, by directly replacing fossil-fuel plants, and second, by charging electric vehicles, etc. What we lack is a cheap and highly efficient storage system that would permit us to generate power when it's available (in daylight in the case of solar cells) and use it when & where it's convenient (driving your electric car at night).

He will appoint a COMMISSION in response to this disaster. Wow!

This is Obama's 9-11. Bush used his 9-11 to enact a neototalitarian agenda: if the worst Obama does is appoint a commission (Lee Hamilton needs something to do, after all), at least this outcome will be better.

People will realize that capitalism has killed the planet, shortly after they find out that this mess is beyond repair. There will not be enough money to fix the oceans. Sea life will die, and with sea life, land life shortly thereafter.

WW starting with a nuke instead of ending with one like the last WW.

Or maybe the oil boyz will use a nuke on the gusher! After they use the golf ball junk shot.

Pinch me....I want to wake up from this nightmare.

It has to burn itself out. Problem is that it may well take the planet with it.

Yes, we might look at it as a tipping point, but that might actually be the least of it. If this causes change, it's also because it caused widespread destruction, impoverishment and death, especially to some of the most conservative states. If this poisons the gulf or the Atlantic, we'll be thinking of that "tipping point" as the least significant thing about it.

the over farming of the midwest and the resulting Dust Bowl disaster...

Humans - well at least complacent Americans- seem to quickly forget the causes of disaster once the comforts return.

I sure hope you send it to any publication you can think of, it's that insightful.

Very very good.


I hope this turning point galvanizes enough people at all levels against the corporate/political profit edifice. (Remember, there ARE decent people in business and politics too.)


yer frend,
Blanche

Did people mobilize? And what does it mean to mobilize people. We need Congress to take special action. They wont. Tell them if they dont that people will mobilize and they will laugh in your face. This is a class war and Congress represents the other class. We didnt do shit about the Exxon Valdez and we wont do shit about BP.

I agree that this disaster might be the tipping point. The fact that Pres Obama is kissing BP's ass should tell you which way things are tipping. We are in up to our eyeballs in fascism and I dont see a way out.

But with the campaign finance reform dead until something gets passed in place of the old system, companies like BP can buy off people. They have deep pockets. I'm trying to stay positive, but there is a big hill to climb against the people who have run the system for years.

hell this made it finally very concrete to my mom. She is no dumb, but the concept was hard on her 80 year old brain... I mean we have had cheap oil all her adult life.

But awhile ago you asked me to offer my take on this thread so here I am.

I wish you were right, but I don't think you are. I would never underestimate the American capacity for denial, for ignoring unpleasantness that has no direct effect on their lives.

And while we who are paying close attention to the onfolding daily disaster of this "oilcano" feel very impacted, the bulk of our fellow citizens can very easily put it out of their minds as they eagerly await the finale of "Lost".

And as another poster said upthread, the "new normal" will set in, and people will carry on and drive their cars and book their flights and buy their plastic bottles of water.

What's really going to happen is that the economy will slide further down into the shitter. And while the ordinary citizens of this country scramble mightily to survive each fresh hell, the last thing on their minds will be saving the wetlands of the Gulf, much less putting solar panels on their roofs.

I see no reason to imagine that we will behave any differently than the impoverished Third Worlders who strip their forests bare out of their compelling need for firewood for heating and cooking. We, in the so-called "civilized world" are the most short-sighted and greed-ridden creatures of all.

No one in this country is going to willingly give up their accustomed comforts for the sake of sparing a brown pelican from dying a slow death. And once the brown pelicans are gone for good people will think "how sad", but they won't change how they live.

I would have thought that the Wall Street and Bankster shenanigans would have been enough to get people to stop using credit cards and banking with BOA and giving their money to the stock market, but that's not what happened. No one really wants to change their habits.

The abused spouse ain't anywhere NEAR fed up and ready to leave. The Gulf disaster will simply fade out of consciousness.

sw

Maybe I'm whistling in the dark.

I absolutely agree with you that this is THE END.

But, the end of what? Capitalism is a parasite on the productive classes (God, that sounds so 19th-century Marxist; production of stuff isn't the point of life). We will either kill the parasite or it will kill us. The societal equivalent of an immune system begins with public awareness--the ability to accurately recognize the enemy. By this analogy, the Tea Partiers are malfunctioning parts of the social immune system. They are inflamed, but the parasites have tricked them into misidentifying functional parts of the immune system as invaders, so they rail against the parts of the system that are still trying to cast off the disease.

OK, I got carried away by my metaphor there.

Back to "the end of what?" In short, either capitalism goes, or life on earth goes. I's that simple. The point of posts like this one is to try to activate more of the immune system. The shift in consciousness would be a major element in that activation. I am not so much prophesying the future as seeking, in some small way, to affect it.

And your metaphor is great, btw. :)

Doing all we can to "activate the (societal) immune system" is THE work at hand, no matter what.

I'll hope with you for that great shift in consciousness.

:hug:
sw

I found this comment from AOL website in reply to oil spill news (I know I know it's not a spill but gushing oil, but that's the word media uses.."spill".)

Someone wrote:

"We also have vast oil fields in alaska as well as south dakota and colorado , unfortunatly the EPA ond other organizations will not permit drilling there , that's one of the reasons we let BP drill in such deep water is to get away from the shore to please everyone but we now see what happens when the waters to deep , we need to drill on LAND and get out of the ocean , all oil drilled in america should stay in america don't ship it to other countrys and risk another exxon valdez lets eliminate the problem and when we are ready go to alternitive fuel sources."

x(

that concept and runs with it will succeed Obama in the presidency.

Where is our hero? I'm waiting for someone to step forward: some good-looking environmentalist? Please someone about 50? Where are you? Someone who can lead?

agree with the analysis. For the most part. The BP spill lacks the sudden-terror factor that 9-11 had, and the image does not sear into the consciousness in quite the same way, but it will have such an impact that a long-term reaction is inevitable.

For example -- ask how many DUers have changed their own personal views about energy policy because of the spill/gusher.
I know I haven't, as I've opposed Obama's announced expansion of oil drilling from the start, and been for the demands of 350.org and the general demands of the Bolivia climate summit, which say that we must keep global warming to a limit of ONE DEGREE CELSIUS.
To that end, I still oppose nuclear energy (supported by Jim Hansen, the climatologist who has outlined the tipping points that make 350 parts per million -- MUCH LOWER THAN ALREADY REACHED LEVELS -- of CO2 in the atmosphere the necessary upper limit.
To achieve that we need massive public investment in solar, wind, and hydrogen, AND NOT JUST RESEARCH BUT DIRECTLY INTO CONSTRUCTION.
We also need flat electric rates nationally, along the lines proposed unsuccessfully in a ballot measure in MA in 1976, so that huge commercial and industrial users' rates would be as high as individual residents, and they would conserve vast amounts of electricity. Together with the radical expansion (with public and public/private partnerships in electricity production in wind, solar etc), coal could be phased out as well as nuclear, while oil use in plants could more gradually be eliminated. We could work on research in carbon sequestration for natural gas (easier and less carbon than coal), as an interim measure before going to all alternative. In autos, we need to jack up mileage with heavy tax/subsidy at the point of purchase of new cars based on mileage -- what might be called an "SUV Tax", as it would be highest on gas guzzling new vehicles (unless they are hydrogen powered -- which should be jump=started with public investment, or to a lesser extent with VERY efficient hybrids). Vehicles with VERY high mileage (over 40 mpg) would have a subsidy, rising with the mileage, and highest for hydrogen and VERY EFFICIENT hybrids (based on estimated eco-footprint).

Now all this, in my case, commes BEFORE the mega-spill. Obama -- he is appointing a commission to recommend how to MORE SAFELY expand drilling, and the Palinites are sticking (albeit more quietly) to their troglodyte agenda. Public opinion is less favorable to expanded drilling, and some concessions in that area might be made, other than adopting safety standards mainly already applied by other countries -- but on the whole the same agenda will hold. To transform the whole policy framework from what the "enlightened" Obama Administration is pursuing to what I want will take both a major movement so directed, and time (the latter is very limited).

Look at nuclear -- 20 years after Chernobyl, and a 'renaissance' of nuclear is being advocated, including by a dismaying number of "progressives" including Jim Hansen. Wrong ideas die hard, and it's not like the fabulous exploitation of 9/11, which fit in so neatly with the agenda W Bush already had (eg for war in Iraq, as reported by Richard Clarke).

The rest involves a more collectivist approach to living. Some things, such as phone systems, power, and information services (Internet), would be far more efficient and effective if government run. Capitalism actually introduces many inefficiencies, like in the old days when every railroad had its own track gauge & you couldn't run your train on your competitor's track.

The problem is that mass awakenings tend to fade over time.

Some people would rather die and kill others than forgo their greed.

However, I think the public basically learned the wrong lessons from 9/11 and - if any lesson is learned from this ongoing disaster - I don't know that people will draw the right conclusions this time either.

..And the greatest use of hyperbole in an opening sentence on an internet message board goes to:
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Jackpine Radical!

But seriously, this really hasn't changed anything. There won't be a Senate climate bill voted on before 2011. The House bill doesn't really do anything up usage of new energies. Obama's $150 billion dollar campaign pledge for a new energy future (used over the period of a decade), a pledge made before economic collapse, pales in comparison to the 210 billion BP alloted for drilling between 2008 and 2012.

Also, a majority of Americans still favor offshore drilling. Also, there was a big spill in 2007. Also, none of these spills have ever dissuaded the use of oil. Also, this spill won't effect the usage of other dirty fuels.

Fix: write your senator and get a good bill out the senate. See if your state is one of the 29 states that mandates that energy companies get a certain percent of their energy from renewables, then write a petition if it doesn't. Think locally people.

Millions who may've been ambivalent about protecting the ecology are sure as heck furious now about what Big Oil has done. Perhaps they will now be more likely to support legislation and other actions to protect the fragile planet.

Thank you for spelling it out for us, Jackpine Radical.

And thank you for really getting to the heart of the matter.