Memorial Day for the Gulf
If you want to let your so-called national leaders know how you feel about the BP catastrophe, here is the Congressional switchboard number: (202) 224-3121. You can call and leave a message for any member of Congress, including our own who, one assumes, just might be closely connected to Big Oil. This is very easy to do, calling, along with emailing them.

What is really needed is for national AND LOCAL leadership to tell people to cut their own personal energy consumption and reduce their carbon footprint---but most leaders have a gnawing “Fear of The Cardigan”---remember when Prez Carter told us all to cut down the heat and wear a sweater---he was right but that wasn’t sexy. The People fired him for telling the truth, but in a wimpy, uninteresting way. He should have waited 'til summer and told everyone to cut down their ac, and take off their clothes…timing is everything.

The American people (and the people of CC) are not such narcissistic babies that they cannot understand or do the thinking, sacrificing, and work that is now required of them to clean up the giant mess they made. The people can and will be held responsible because that is really Nature’s way---as it says in some great book, “You reap what you sow”. It is so much the individual’s and the family’s responsibility, as well as that of society, just likes any great cause. It is very understandable, a crystal clear issue, and NOW is the moment. It is also the responsibility of anyone who wants to be a leader in society to make the bold move. The U.S. has been “bitch-slapped” just like it was in 911 and Pearl Harbor.

This is a Big Moment in History. But just as with slavery, there is a long backstory here---as slavery took 400 years to come to terms with and to own as a personal, familial and national cause, so will the at least 200 year old environmental crisis. It is no new problem but goes to the roots of an exploitive, extractive mind set and economy where the national motto is “Where’s mine?” Fixing this is about restoring justice to all of life---larvae to leaders. Driving a big (empty-except-for-you) SUV is the moral equivalent of holding a slave!

Speaking of our local environs ironically named Corpus Christi or Body of Christ Town, when people talk of a Sparkling City, a resort, a recreation area, how is that compatible with a city that is really like one big coal mine? Polluting industries are the life blood of the area, the only real economy and engine of jobs, and yet we call for and ask for and encourage them all the more, hence, Las Brisas. We do little to get after alternative industries and enterprises that could preserve what beauty is left. Then we say, “Where are our fish? Clams, Shrimp? Birds? Why do my kids have asthma? O, God, look at our filthy beach. Let’s beautify it!”

This is putting lipstick on the proverbial pig! The people of CC were given much in the form of natural resources and beauty. There is a phrase I never get right, and it goes something like, “to whom much is given, of him or her much is expected”. Well, I think a lot more is expected of any ‘green’ organization or group than supporting a coal fired industry! Supporting this is what I call Eco-Treason. This is comparable to a war. Any leader who supports this type of dirty business is selling out the Future.

Senator Cornyn sent me a message yesterday in response to my constant barrage of letters, calls and emails. In this letter, he has the Bqqqs to do the usual fear-mongering and bleat out his message that our enemies will somehow get us if stop drilling for oil in the Gulf. He and other continuously conflate the problems of energy with the problem of Al-Qaida and of terrorism and the Middle East. That’s easy and cheap to do. But you don’t see them asking us to change or really supporting a diverse energy system.

Cornyn makes little mention about what he plans to do to support clean energy, let alone to ask US to sacrifice. Ha! For our leaders, it is ALL about FOF, fear of foreigners. Nowadays, when a crisis comes along, the bullies shout, “Get the Mexicans!” and hope that will distract the public from its real problems, and sadly, it works. It is not too far a cry from, “Get the Jews”. It is certainly not about “asking what you can do for your country”---and I think to myself, how the mighty have fallen.