Water & Oil - Democratic Underground

H2O Man

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Tue May-25-10 08:47 AM
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Water & Oil

It's not surprising that there is a fairly wide divide in opinions on this forum, on issues relating to the oil “spill” crisis, and on what – if any – role that President Obama has or should play. Still, I believe that almost everyone here, including those who may enjoy disrupting meaningful discussions, recognizes the dangers this “spill” poses. My own opinion on these matters is probably different enough from others that I offer it in hopes that people can reach a common ground in dismissing it outright.

When President Obama was working to pass what in some ways resembles health care reform, he had to do some wheeling and dealing. He had to come to some compromise agreements with both republican and democratic politicians. In a very real sense, he used tactics that defined LBJ's style of politics. The most significant compromise that Obama made was in the area of energy resource production. An example of this is his policy on off-shore drilling.

It's not a coincidence that Obama and LBJ share similar consequences, for when one compromises with the Machine, one is placed in a compromised position. In the United States today, and indeed in all of “western” society, that Machine runs on oil. And as with virtually all man-made machines, there are parts that break down, malfunction, or simply wear out. For that is the nature of machines.

What can President Obama do now? What can the “experts” do today? I'm reminded of the decades that I spent working on a local toxic waste dump site, which the EPA had deemed to be two “Super Fund” sites. For many years, I labored under the assumption that the industry and the government had “experts” that actually knew how to clean the site up. In time, I came to recognize that behind the hundreds of thousands of pages of reports they produced, they really didn't know. They didn't have the knowledge or the technical abilities that would allow them to clean the site. Instead, they simply produced, without any exaggeration, hundreds of thousands of pages of reports over a period of decades.

Certainly, our society is not going to change its relationship with oil and similar sources of energy overnight. It's not going to happen for many reasons, not the least of which is that the Machine runs on oil. Oil has more juice in Washington, DC, than does any politician ….or, in fact, any group of politicians. Sad, but true.

In the area where I live, the largest contributor to the 130-plus acre toxic waste site was part of the military-industrial complex. Shocking, I know. They dumped, among many other things, thousands and thousands of barrels of “waste products” – PCB-contaminated oil and TCE – into an area that supplies NYC with water. Much of that waste was literally poured into a water reservoir. Brilliant way to get rid of it, eh? But machines do not think.

I learned that the government and industry (which combine to become the Machine) designate those places such as the neighborhood this Super Fund Site is located as “waste areas.” They believe that it is necessary to sacrifice some places that human beings and other living inhabit was waste areas. That is the nature of machines, even before parts malfunction.

We have several options, which tend to seem limited. We can continue to trust in the Machine, and invest our time and energy into re-electing politicians who continue to dance for industry. We can throw up our hands and lunches, and say that we are all doomed. Or we might recognize that both of those options are foolish, and put our heads together to try to find another way.

I do not pretend to have all the answers, much less The Answer. I know that people in our area told me that it was dangerous to press the government to follow the law, and force the industries that created the 130-plus acre toxic waste dump site to clean and contain the damage to the best of their ability, and to pay for families to move away from the land and water that was poisoning them. They were afraid that the industries would leave the communities around here high and dry. And, indeed, they might.

Yet, while we cannot possibly go back to a time before those industries were here, and poisoned the natural world, we can all take steps to move forward in a direction that is more in harmony with nature, and which produces far less toxic wastes. Those small steps are answers that will not come from the plush offices of experts in DC or state capitals. They are the answers that come to us when we are in direct contact with the natural world.

Peace,
H2O Man