The explosion on the oil rig in the gulf did not get our attention the way the horrible instant blow up of 911. September 11, 2001 was a startling wake up call that captured the world's attention. The shock gave way to a new political awareness. After the grief subsided and the mourning experienced, the city rebuilt and recovered. Though the lives lost will never be forgotten especially by the loved ones, the city is back in business.
Except for those on board, nobody heard the explosion of April 20th and the news of the disaster took many days to be fully realized. But for the future and the lives affected, this disaster may be more deadly and long term than even 911. Eleven people died instantly and their stories were lost in the reporting but for their loved ones left to mourn. Like a quiet miserable black death, the greedy oil seeps and creeps where it is cruelly destroying wild life and a way of life that may never return. The fragile Earth can handle just so much of man made disaster, but in the end, the planet will survive whether humans do or not. Will this be the planetary wake up call that will finally enlighten humans to the obvious and common sense realization that what we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves??
The answer is that it is not so obvious to most and common sense is not common but rare.
We continually give up our power to corporate and government thinking and both bumbling giants prove their incompetence in solving this looming and continuing problem. With egos as large as their ignorance, they are incapable of finding answers and at a loss as to how to get help or who to ask. If single individuals come up with innocuous ideas that seem to have some effect eg the example of the floating grain that absorbs the oil, they are dismissed while they disastrously bumble on with solutions as dark and confused as the oil itself. There are better answers from those trained outside of business, law and politics, and for this problem, that blinded tribe can only lead in darkness.
Obama says he consults with the scientific community on the problem, but why is there no action on proposed solutions? What is he waiting for and why is he spending his energy defending himself on his actions and true lack of understanding? When the disaster came to his attention, it did not catch his intelligence that this was potentially the plague of this century. He trusted the establishment on the financial crisis and we are still thrashing around in the darkness there and now he has trusted BP to give important answers and they too have come up way too shy of anything even remotely remedial. Obama cannot get a pass here. He was supposed to be the leader at the charge of "hope and change". People must be feeling hopeless because he has changed nothing but the minds of those who believed he was the great hope he claimed to be.
Leadership and corporate status quo aside, what do 'we the people' do now? When you lose your life in immediate disaster, its over and done, but what about losing your livelihood and known way of life, your environment, your family? It is certainly a deeper pain and a longer road out of sadness. Is it time now to pay attention to reality and the way the planet works? As the hurricane season approaches and the gulf stream does what it does what further misery is unfolding? Where is the killer black liquid heading?
Let the talking heads quiet down and start to listen to those who spend their lives studying our planet and its secrets and listen to what they have to tell us. Scientists have been warning for many years. And whether the planet is raging with more extreme hurricanes, tornados, damaging winds, drought, extreme temperatures has not a thing to do with man's activity we still need to pay attention. Something is happening and more misery will find its place if we do not wake up.
Knowledge is the answer and individual awareness is our only hope for finding good leaders and establishing enlightened leadership. Democracy is a dismal failure if we can only vote in the interests of our own personal needs and continue to be deficient in understanding the profound connections of earth, society and the need for a thriving cohesiveness.
