"I'm seething with rage that our government has allowed, if not helped, BP to hide the extent of the disaster so far."

President Obama,
Standup FOR the American People,
Standup TO BP,
MEASURE THE DAMN FLOW.
It's Important and it's Doable.

I don't know if there's such a condition as "outrage fatigue." If there is, decent people around the world must be approaching its limits.

The author actually understates the case when he equates this greed-made disaster with a nuclear explosion. The damage from this spill will dwarf what a hydrogen bomb could do even if set off in downtown New Orleans or Atlanta.

The outrage is there but its sharing the stage with anger over the US wars, Israel's atrocities, Obama's perfidy, and corporate media treachery.

q

"Have we become so divorced from nature that this type of staggering devastation no longer registers with us?"

Yes! And it started a very long time ago when "civilization" started to value power, money and comfort over love of family, tribe and earth.
Our kids will not be able to fix those mistakes.
As Kurt Vonnegut so simply put it, (paraphrasing) we are like the yeast in a bottle of wine. We eat sugar and shit alcohol until we drown in our own excrement.

I've been outraged since I was a teenager realizing that our country was destroying Vietnam for no good reason. I've been outraged with every war and every little step in the destruction of our environment. I've been outraged at the destruction of forests to make room for more human beings in fancy houses with oil heat and air conditioning and big screen TVs and video games and SUVs in the garage with the 4 wheelers and boats and dirt bikes for "recreation" that destroys the woods and lakes. I'm outraged every day when I sit in traffic in a stink of diesel exhaust from the jacked up monster pickup beside me with the fancy wheels and a thundering stereo that never hauls a damned thing except a load of fuel that I surely would not want to pay for.

Mr. Clark, you ask what the hell is wrong with us?

In my opinion we lost our way a long long time ago. Mother nature will straighten things out.

Gordon,

I, too, am outraged, but not surprised at BP's actions, or lack thereof. They are entirely consistent with, if not dictated by, the "business" model that runs this economy - the bottom line is paramount and to stay "in the black" one's revenue must exceed one's overhead, to increase profits one must increase one's revenue to the max while lowering one's overhead to the minimum. Safety equipment is overhead, environmental studies are overhead, etc. Without requirements to do so, no "good" businessman would invest in either. Any enterprise run on this model can be expected to act in the same way. This is not rocket science, and as long as our economy is based on this model, there will be many more of these incidents, as there have been for decades. If you are surprised as well, you have not been paying attention.

I, too, am outraged, but not surprised, at this Admin. actions or lack thereof. They are entirely consistent with, if not dictated by, their subscription to this model - don't impede private enterprise by increasing overhead - and by their utter dependence on the practitioners of this model for the monies that underpin their power base. This was apparent before they were elected and is why I did not support it then, nor do I now. If you are surprised by this as well, you weren't paying attention.

This mess will have to play itself out, and until we understand that the economy is more than the bottom line and we elect folks who understand that as well, you can expect to have to be outraged many more times. But you won't be surprised .....

The outrage is that we were dumb enough to be sold this bill of goods that gov, is bad...darwinian capitalism run by amoral corporations that have long ago abandoned this country for cheap labor and resources elsewhere...using the military to secure their inerests..restrictions and rules are required to have any common good protected..other countrys are ahead of us on this one

The USSR was sagging under the weight of an inefficient and corrupt economic system, wasteful spending on weapons and also losing a war in Afghanistan. Then came Chernobyl. Collapse soon followed.

The USA is sagging under the weight of an inefficient and corrupt economic system, wasteful spending on weapons and also losing a war in Afghanistan. Then came the Gulf disaster. Collapse, hopefully, will soon follow.

glb very well said.

Somewhere I read a take on the Christian myth of the Garden of End that it was a lament regarding the shift from the nomadic hunter-gather to a sedentary agricultural way of life and the emergence of "civilized settlements" coupled with an unprecedented increase in population (as we now head towards an estimated 9,100,000,000 people by 2050).

How many times have we heard the refrain, in one form or another, "we are NOT animals" (if not, what in hell are we?) that perpetuates our continued divorce and disconnect from acknowledging we were not created specially and separately from the natural world but we arose from it.

I suspect we created "Satan" to deflect accepting responsibility for our often murderous, devious, lying, cheating, destroying....ways. We largely praise a movie such as "Avatar" then rush out to purchase the latest new and improved iPod (whilst ignoring the human and environmental cost in its creation). Ah, our hypocrisy.

As far as Obama, we elect puppets (the electoral system is rigged to assure its perpetuation). His actions and inactions speak louder than his words ("after all is said and done, more is said than done"). I fear we delude ourselves that he will suddenly refuse to serve his Masters and become the person he was sold to us as ("when will we ever learn"?). I fear those who manipulate and control us know us better than we know ourselves.

Wonder what will happen when all that oil in the ocean mixes with all the plastic out there? Guess it'll help marine life and sea birds pass the ingested plastics so they can feel a little better and less bloated before the oil kills them.

Thinking about the planet and the total madness that impacts every aspect of our lives leaves little room for hope. Seems like all that's left to do is look for whatever small good there might be in all that muck. Don't dare stick our heads in the sand. No telling what we'd find there.

i'm outraged that americans LACK ANY EMPATHY WHATSOEVER

we are the gods of greed"

so if the stock market stays up the disaster must not be that bad......

if the jobs lost aren't MINE then who gives a shit - the people who lost theirs must be stupid - or God loves me more.....

the author said: "My God, is that what we humans have become? The species that destroys the planet and then just turns to our kids and says, "Oops, sorry?"

no - this civilization won't say sorry - they'll more likey say "woo hoo - here comes armeggedon and the return of jesus"

as I've said many many times the vampires took over the world system and it's based on ignorance, fear, zero empathy and greed"

maybe ted kazinski wasn't so crazy! (that's a joke)

but the point is as long as corporations - which only exist to limit liability - can destroy w/ impunity and when the shit hits the fan they simply move the money and claim bankruptcy while the "ACTUAL PEOPLE" who ran those companies sleep safely and warmly in their beds every night not caring about anything but their own family and their bank account NOTHING WILL CHANGE....

if the million dead from an illegal war doesn't matter and the gulf oil blowout doesn't matter then we are fucked!

half the world goes to sleep every night HUNGRY and to these vampires ten million or a hundred million IS NOT ENOUGH.....

sorry but time to call these people what they are - EVIL just like hitler and mussolini.....IT'S PAST time to deal with them accordingly if this world is to survive...

"BECAUSE I WANT MY LIFE BACK!"

outrage is pointless unless it leads to personal revelation...

revelation...

can you imagine waking up and not going to work? not buying your food or home or right to live from someone else?

can you imagine feeding and sheltering yourself? living with few possessions without title to land?

outrage? the outrage should be that your land and life have been stolen from you, and the result should be taking these things back...

the outrage should be that your thinking has been directed against your own best interests, and the result should be you insisting upon the right to self-determine...

the outrage should be that current conditions are held in place by violence, at gunpoint, and the result should be that those holding those guns are either converted, or countered...

Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...global, unanimous rejection of the modern world...the Big Off...local acoustic, agrarian living...individual rights and responsibilities around sustenance, rewsource management, governance and defense...

let's get those gardens growing...

"Here's a better question: where isn't the outrage?" Because . . .

Obama is a vain, shallow little man pampered by his grandmom to think he deserves it all. He will get a second term courtesy the voting machines and stupid voters.

Now, the real connection: Zionism was granted a free reign way, way back, because the cronies-that-be foresaw the power of Middle East oil and they wanted it ruthlessly guarded.

No one gives a damn, least of all the Zionist, about fables of the Exodus, Third Temple, Masada or whatever.

They just want OIL!

Anglo Iranian Oil, MI5 and the CIA, deposed Mosaddegh in 1953 roughly the same time the Zionists were establishing themselves as a bulwark against Arab hegemony in the Middle East. Later Margaret Thatcher, whose husband Denis was an executive of Burmah Oil UK, privatized Anglo-Iranian into BP.

Zion, Saudi, Bush, Thatcher, they're all connected.

So BP will defile the Gulf and, like Exxon, get off the hook. The Zionist will rampage to their hearts content until the oil, in that area, runs out . . . then its every Zionist for itself and they'll pay a pretty heft price!

As for BP and Exxon, well they'll be off on another planet somewhere leaving us to cope as best we can!

As for Obama he's been informed of the consequences should he start to give us "hope" for "change we can believe in" so he's running cool for himself to a Clintonesque opulent retirement only he can believe in!

Unless we get off our butts and grow balls . . .

As was pointed out in an article on CD a few days ago on Nigeria;

"In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today."

We have ignored and tolerated what has gone on there for decades (remember Ken SaroWiwa, who died for our sins?) because the "externalities" that resulted from getting us "our" oil, didn't hit our shores. Now they have, again.

What goes around always comes around (I was hoping 9/11 might have taught us); even if we haven't figured out what it means to be part of nature, you'd think we would have figured THAT out by now.

So who's the bigger threat to our "homeland security" and that of so many other homelands, Al Queda or Big Oil?

The Reps are having a field day with this, and will use it to oust Dems, the idiotic Dems, instead of changing their ways, will, like the Church, in the middle of its fiasco, circle the wagons and convince the troops to come out in support of "their party" while neither side gives a damn about how to fix the real problem, and the localists will ignore politics as "irrelevent" as the large scale devastation continues unabated .....

We are fools indeed .....

I have faith in people and in Americans too.

They do love animals, witness the amount of money and care people lavish on their pets.

And everyone loves to take holidays in places of natural beauty.

There is no lack of love.

Life just gets in the way, people are busy and stressed trying to make ends meet and put off the important things until another time.

Then there is the feeling of omnipotence in the face of the powerful forces of industry and government.

People know what is right they just need to know what they can do.

And what is it that we can do?

Protest is a consumer good and is not change.

I don't have the answer

RE: What has to happen before we make radical changes in the way we live on this planet? What the hell is wrong with us?

The answer to that question is easy. Americans have not been radicalized yet. When they are, "radical changes" become possible. What "is wrong with us" is that too many of us still allow the colonization of our minds by corporate culture, from the MSM to politicians. We may bitch and moan, but we still buy into it. When that stops, a better future will will be possible.

"Free your mind and your ass will follow."

The marshlands especially, right along from mid-Louisiana into the East Texas shoreline, continue to lead the way today in the Gulf's overheating. That whole stretch has now hit 84 degrees Fahrenheit today at the beginning of June, about as hot as the Carribean Sea ever gets in Panama in June, never mind the Gulf of Mexico. I would expect this coastal area to be reacting more to an oil sheen than the deeper ocean, or possibly reacting to man's attempts to stop the sheen.

Up-to-date measurements are at:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/sst-atl-loop.html

This unusual overheating can't be good for the wildlife. Furthermore, it's an ever-increasing mortal hurricane danger starting about 1 or 2 weeks after the oil well is capped in August, the heart of hurricane season.

"What the hell is wrong with us?"

What's wrong with us is that we allow this rotten capitalist system to continue to exist. Until we (the collective working class "we") put an end to capitalism, nothing will change. Our lives will continue to get more miserable, our democracies will be little than window dressing keeping us confused and disheartened, our planet will be destroyed and the rich will continue to get richer accumulating the spoils of their exploitation of workers and the natural world.

What is wrong with us? We've taken action. We're targeting brown people in Arizona. 'Round up the usual suspects!'

'What the hell is wrong with us?'

We've surrendered.

Fall out from "Citizens United." How does one hold a corporation, even if it is a person legally, liable for criminal acts, assuming there were any? There is considerable reticence to holding individuals (directors, officers, employees) so liable.

Thanks for your passion and light!
Forever number One is really the Prodigal Son befriended after squandering the world's assets!

The chain of command, the chain of authority, seems resisting sending empty supertankers to siphon off the oil as done in Saudi Arabia!

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/05/26/18648971.php

Links to 2 free Internet books, cartoons, 40 videos and 2100 translated articles on the economic and political crisis await you at www.freembtranslations.com. Enjoy the feast!

Alternative economics emphasizes reducing working hours, redefining work and investing in the infrastructure. Access could replace excess! We can discover the stories in ourselves instead of gazing at the stories of office bldgs.

From the TV pics, it looks like the BOP is a clear cylinder into the well pipe.

A funnel placed right-side up into the top of the BOP could accept piece after piece of 20' rebar released into the pipe from a crane above, guided by the ROVs.

The rebar would either jam part way down or go to the bottom of the well. 1000-1500 of various sizes should restrict the flow enough to mud/cement the top. The rebar is dense enough to sink through the pressure of the upward moving oil.

It's easy to get and a simple plan.

Struggle, Tom Larsen, glb, Sioux Rose, et. al.: thanks for the prescient comments, the contributions to definition of the problem. May I add that the Gulf Deluge, as opposed to 'spill', seems very clearly the latest and greatest sign that the United States - in its particular breed of intra-national manifestation of global capitalism, religious fetishism of its 'manifest destiny'/'American Way', religious fetishism of its brand of politics and of its 'presidency', and official abhorrence of a saner, more socialistic, less militarized and less masculinized way of being - will have to die, will have to go through the kind of death throes that a very large number of its people surely will not want to see but will likely have to settle for, in order for us to make the radical changes in the way we live on this planet. That's right, Mr Larsen, when the corporate colonization stops... to which I add, when the 'Christian' colonization stops and Americans learn how to have a healthy rejection of and active daily disrespect for this filthy fundamentalist poison...

And thanks, glb, for pointing out the phenomenon that's high on my list of things to deplore and scorn in this society - the 'jacked-up monster pick-up...never haul[ing] a damned thing except a load of fuel.' A little correction though: that pick-up is hauling the imaginary gigantic cock of the deluded victim of a hyper- and dangerously-masculinized culture that dares to define this kind of horseshit as an expression of American freedom. That pick-up is one of the best metaphors for what the hell is wrong with us, Mr Clark.

And you're so right, Sioux Rose, about the karmic blowback. Here it comes, and we'd better brace ourselves, if we're still alive.

Barry Greene writes here:

"And thanks, glb, for pointing out the phenomenon that's high on my list of things to deplore and scorn in this society - the 'jacked-up monster pick-up...never haul[ing] a damned thing except a load of fuel.' A little correction though: that pick-up is hauling the imaginary gigantic cock of the deluded victim of a hyper- and dangerously-masculinized culture that dares to define this kind of horseshit as an expression of American freedom. That pick-up is one of the best metaphors for what the hell is wrong with us, Mr Clark."

A GREAT observation. I see those people on my two-lane country roads all the time. I pull over in my Prius, throw on my right blinker, and let 'em pass whether they are heading towards me or coming up from behind!

The women in the SUVs drive slower. Both sexes obviously have destinations, but why do the men have to use their cars to express their "masculinity" when there are so many other ways to do so?

To my thinking they are uncivilized and their waste of gasoline raises the price of it for all.

Think also of rush-hour traffic on the Interstates---for example around Cincinnati. Three or four lanes, depending, running at 70 mph or more. If you're not driving a fast tank, your fear is you'll be run over, like Rachel Corrie.

What brought us to this travesty? What can be done?

---
To quickstepper:

The idea of "outrage fatigue" is a good one. Similar to donation fatigue etc. having to do with "natural disasters."

Personal discipline is required, else your mind would blow up and your head would explode. Humility helps sometimes. We have yet to grasp the enormity of this disaster.

I am not suggesting passive watching from a distance. I am suggesting that this Gulf Disaster is a "singularity" of an order of magnitude perhaps unforeseen, while I excuse none of those corporate bastards for being "merely" human. They transcended "humanity" when they became "corporate." Just ask the Supreme Court!

-30-

I can't help noting, again, as earlier, the article on the Nigerian people's oil problem.
Their "leaks" dwarf the ones in the Gulf, yet where was, is, the outrage over that. If folks had been expressing as much "outrage" over that problem, as they have over this, perhaps we would have actually had policies in place that would have prevented this one and the others sure to follow ....

Once again, even for those of us on the "right" side of this issue "outrage" doesn't really seem to gather steam until the problem visits "our" shores. Every disaster that hits us has already been presaged somewhere else. For all the outrage expressed, it still seems to have a rather provincial flavor, though I am quite sure, if anyone is still on this thread, I am sure to meet heated denials ....

And our outrage doesn't seem to have any staying power; pissed as hell for awhile, then on to the next. Our attention spans are short. I have noticed that on CD, even if there has been an ongoing conversation on one thread, after a couple of days the thread has been abandoned and it is on to the next "outrage", where we start all over again. The format here, where threads get thinner and thinner, indicates that CD is not terribly interested in promoting long discussions, but even on other sites where the format might allow it, folks just leave and go on to the next ...

The give and take of lengthier discussions, questions asked and answered and the answers questioned again is what helps clarify thinking and we don't seem to be interested in doing that to any great extent. It is one of the most frustrating things about this on-line stuff, although I have noticed that phenomenon even in verbal exchanges. People seem to want to use conversation only to make their points or blow off steam, but not to probe .....