On the Oil Spill out there in the Gulf of Mexico, there is not too much sense, with all the great writers, thinkers, poets, and opinionators out there to add one more electronic drop of ink (actually, oil since the e-infrastructure is still run on old brick and mortar carbon chains being fired into oblivion or transformed into components for computers) on how the corruption of corporations/government/your friends are sending this world – or at least the whole humans can live on the surface of the earth thing – to an early grave.  Or not so early grave…. If we’ve been here for 2 millions years as scientists believe.

From the first day of the gulf disaster this writer has been telling

a) friends

b) people at bars

c) his stuffed animal collection

…that this is an American Chernobyl (apologies to Dimitry Orlov of course) and that Obama is our Gorbachev (again, my thoughts were not published ahead of Mr. Orlov so again hats off).  True, Chernobyl did not do the SOVIET Union in, or end that Evil Empire.  That was surprising considering the extent of the damage to their nation and to the world.   If the BP Event Horizon does not manage to stuff this nation over the tipping point will also surprise – except this writer is amazed the extent of shit people are willing to allow happen, even when it directly harms them.  So, I guess the correct answer is “not surprised.”  I assume we will all just continue. G_d and stupidity are much larger than I can comprehend.

However, in a vision, G_d told me to tell you that Revelations was His Word and the waters will turn to blood and stop saying shit in that book is a metaphor.  The BP Event Horizon adventure in the oil trade may destabilize our national situation – economically, politically, and socially not because it is a singular event, but comes at a time when the nation is highly stressed by so many other failed adventures.  Exxon’s little adventure pales in comparison in not only in gallons but also that Alaska, which while it sends us stories of Bears eating dumbasses and a wana-be politico vagina creature (the name of which should not be uttered again and to call that a woman is to disgrace a lovely gender) does not have a large population, a high dollar per acre value, nor did that occur while the nation was extended all over the globe in war, gutted economically, and about to retire the greediest generation ever.   The BP adventure is hitting a very populated zone – the east coast.  True, the brunt of the “invasion” will be on the beaches of the South – a veil of land well-loved by elderly Jews and rednecks but both apparently lacking political power – but as it moves up to the middle east [of the United States] to the monied states where our nation started and then to the cities of the Northeast where our trust fund kids live, our chattering classes may have their glass jaws broken by many an angry landowner, beach goer, or trust funder who happens to love animals more than they fear the god of the free market and deregulation.

The masses may yet take to the streets.   Normal average non-crab hat wearing masses.  People who have worked hard and lost their jobs to foreign “free trade” agreements, lost their stability to outsourced industrialism, their savings to various fly-by-night financial products so complex the average person is like a country bumpkin giving their gold to a carpet bagger, or seeing their nation’s resources taken away without compensation.  We may protest a corporate class that has taken over our planet and taught us to consume our way to wealth, to take out credit cards to power, and to substitute family and friends for endless gizmos.  We may demand the corporate class close out tax havens and pay their taxes so that average people can have the services they need.  We may protest a government that is the largest in the history of the nation yet does less to provide us what we need and has grown larger in the face of over thirty years of politicos trying to “drown it in a bathtub.”  We may protest the longest war in US history and the money and lives lost in Iraq.  We may turn our anger to our political class that cares more for Israel than our own national interest.  A monied class that pays no taxes and tells us to defend free markets while at the same time using our tax money to bail out their failed products, financial schemes, and bogus activities in the largest display of corporate socialism and state capitalism we have ever seen.

However… perhaps nothing will happen.  To date, the people are not taking to the streets – outside of the usual IwearacrabhatallthetimebuttodayIdoitinprotest, performance artists who spend more time dripping liquid on their tits than the average person so are always at ready with liquid (just pick the colour – black for oil days, red for The Iraq days, pink for breast cancer days, white milky substance for the days they are young and need the money), the yelling professional protestors fresh from waiting in line to not get tickets to Burning Man again (Burners are seen as an apolitical amoral horde of banana dancers), and assorted CIA operatives who make certain that protests lack the dignity of Dr. King’s march on Washington and create an environment that asks the age old question “if a Phish concert had a love child with the Second Woodstock concert and then sent it to be raised by uncle Rainbow Gathering, is this what life would look like?”

Everything – to the date of this post – remains the same The government is continuing with plans to drill baby drill, the average person appearing unconcerned and going about their oil burning ways.

And so, at the city of Prypiat, life continued as it had in the usual SOVIET way as the Chernobyl meltdown released hazardous radiation that was invisible and yet engulfed the city finally killing its inhabitants and  leaving Prypiat an abandoned monument to the hazards of our Promethean faith in technology.

As to the oil pipe, it too is hidden under the water and while we can see the video feed, it has the reality of watching… a video.  Nevertheless, this summer will be long and sticky and more and more people come into contact with tar balls, and an oil slick.  Many will see the damage in terms they can relate to – on their feet and hands.  Many will watch as the eco system outside their front door falls apart.  Feel a change when the slick alters the water temperatures.  Cough when the air turns thick and heavy with fumes as the mess evaporates.  Perhaps they will get angry.  Maybe they will change their ways.  September may yet find us a changed nation.  We may hope yet for the change but it is not going to be found at the White House.  Nor with the ballot box.

To Quote an old invisible man in the sky:

These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

Editor’s note: This post was gently edited in 2016 for common errors and adding a cool pic that says “screw” which is a funny word.