111 Bleed it Out

Today I find myself (as usual) reminiscing. I remember the sense of well-being as a child and as a teenager. Not just the parents-are-footing-the-bill-for-most-stuff kind of well-being, but the overall sense that you have in the back of your head at any given time. What I mean is: the feeling that you have about the life around you, not just your home and family. The feeling that was even there when I was 5 and I knew I had an uncle in Viet Nam a couple years before, or that was there when I heard about the Challenger accident. Reagan's attempted assassination, the 70's oil shortage, "no new taxes", bell bottoms, disco and Flock-of-seagulls hair...none of them shook the overall feeling that most of us had of wellness.

Reagan's trillion dollar deficit(did you forget about that?)couldn't knock it, Kinney Shoe closing down didnt do it, inflation, deflation, Nixon's impeachment, Nixon taking us off the gold standard, Beirut, the Falklands, Grenada, the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union--none of it took away from the overall pride and self-righteous, smug satisfaction that we had all come to know and love. Yuppies bought and sold the foundation of America and still we shined. Industry gave way to technology in the 80's and 90's and still we shined. In fact, we thought we were superior to the world(except for those damned math-oriented orientals). Bill Clinton's exploits were offset by the BALANCED BUDGET. The whole way through the 90's and into the new millenium we still felt the wealth, power and satisfaction that came to be associated with what has become the United States of Sending Our Money Overseas to Foreign Workers Who Will Perform Our Jobs For Less. Oops. There it is. We greedied our way right into sending the rest of our money over "there". We have become a service-based economy, sending an almost un-countable fortune just to other, oil-producing countries who yet despise us for our freedom. We send vast wealth to hated lands to produce goods that are inferior because we dont want to pay for them at a fair rate(and you cant get the average schmo to work in a pie factory).

Our sense of pride kicked in for about three seconds during the trade center attacks and now, the worst ecological disaster in the history of man has prompted little more from general America than a grunt from being kicked by a baby chick. We look at the news and say how awful it is while people's livelihoods are being destroyed. Embattled Gulf'ers are now staring down the barrel of a very large gun. It is loaded with black, gooey death and nature is preparing to drop the hammer. The coming hurricane season is about to show you what happens when millions of gallons of crude are picked up and thinned out in the atmosphere. It has been known to rain a bit of, oh I dont know...benzyne, or worse, a vast sheen of oil on everything for a thousand miles.

You think it wont affect us here? I beg to differ. More federal dollars that ARENT going to 2 useless wars, bailouts for billionaires, bailouts for banks and companies that should have failed(if they had solid foundations they wouldnt have needed the money), will be diverted for cleanup. Yes, they will. Dont believe the bullcrap you're hearing about making BP pay for their mess. It's our mess too. We greedily suck oil without a thought until it creeps up to a price we think we cant, in good conscience, pay. Not long ago it went from a dollar something something to almost four dollars and boy, we were ready to trample the world and crack it in half to fuel our desire for "cheap" oil. We are now facing a disaster of unprecedented proportions and it is NOT, I repeat, NOT BP's fault. It's yours and mine. We own every dead bird, every idled fishing vessel, every inch of tourist-barren shoreline that wont see dollars for years to come. We demanded oil "NOW", like a petulant child, and we didnt care where it came from. Those of you who are smug enough to think you had no part in this are the worst, aside from the profiteers in the idiotic game of Wall Street. You are what's wrong with the country. "Gimme, gimme, gimme, but dont ask me for any help, and it's not my problem when you have one."

Facebook friend John Fitchett has spent time helping, NOT being part of the problem. He has weathered both natural and man-made storms around the Big Easy. He is there, right now, washing animals that WE caused harm to . He is treading hellish, gob-covered, filth-soaked beaches that WE caused to be destroyed. He could have turned a blind eye and said "I dont have a car. It's not MY fault.", and yet, he spent his time away from work cleaning up our mess.

There's no reason for us to fly down or drive down to the Gulf to help. It could be as simple as BELIEVING that there are alternatives that can be incorporated to eventually replace that hated medium. We can cut back(yeah, right. you'll really cut back on driving to walmart/starbucks/rue21) and decrease our insatiable demand. We can encourage each other and our kids to WORK and earn a dollar. Not be afraid of it. We can buy things that are made here, in the U.S. We can say Damn the feelings of the other countries and the policy that thinks we should send them dollars, denim jeans and democracy. We do NOT have to worry about EVERYONE'S welfare. Charity begins at home, remember? We should put real effort into saving our way of life, our REAL way of life, before it's too late. Get rid of your notions of isolated non-responsibility.

Brace yourselves, I think a storm is coming. Black rain will fall. It will coat you, your family, everything you have known. Our walls will crumble and fall and who will be there to pick up the pieces? You? The idiots we've elected that scramble to garner all they can for themselves? The rich that would stand on your corpse to reach the next higher apple on the tree? Or will it be you? Climbing down off your high horse to make an effort, to build some sweat equity in a country that was built on sweat equity. We are the laziest super power on the face of the planet. We dont have to be. At least, we dont have to wait until our oil-soaked corpses are piled up high enough to stop the flood of seemingly endless oil that is bubbling up in the once-beautiful waters that sustain so much life.

Oh, and for the love of all that we hold dear, will somebody take charge and show these people that there HAS to be a way, an AMERICAN way, to stop the flow from a 2 foot pipe a mile under water. America is bleeding folks. When the host dies, the only thing that is usually left are parasites and they quickly leave to find another host. I want to believe that wellness will be felt by the next generation and the ones after that. I want to believe that I will feel it again in my lifetime. Is the damage that is being wrought really worth what we are gaining? Reap as you sow. Honor the memory of the countless dead that made our country what it was and what it could and should be again. We are a bastion of hope for countless oppressed people. Do you really think your Aeropostale and Jimmy Choo's are worth our fore-fathers' suffering?

Blood for oil is taking on a solid meaning along the shores of the Gulf. Our boys' blood thousands of miles from here, the blood that lives in the souls of millions that call the Delta home. How far into the heartland will it have to reach before it makes you bleed? Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Goodnight all.