This local activist in the Gulf and
wife of a fisherman, if you have not yet seen her, is a real spark
plug.
In this ten minute
piece she explains how fisherman are working off their lost earnings
claims by earning money cleaning the spill. In other words BP will
factor in the "earnings" they paid to fisherman whom have lost revenue
from fishing and as a result any earnings from cleaning the spill will
come off their lost revenue supplements.
The lady was fantastic -- restores your regard for human nature to see her in action. But you know.... I don't totally blame the rich, the shareholders, corporate execs, etc, for this. This all happened from the disease on the human brain that says, economics has to come first, before the environment because money for human beings is more important than the animals.
Our politicians have almost all turned into corporate psychopaths, but it's only a bit worse imperviousness than what you see in the average person, likeable down-home fishermen and others who like to have jobs on the sea and in the bush yet they will vote for and support rich politicians that are environmental psychopaths because they believe that that kind of person will keep the jobs and income rolling. I thought the lady was really quite thrilling, but I took note that she was unwilling to say anything about the moratorium on oil drilling. Because many people down there are doing in their own way what BP did: It's going to cost us money???
Screw the risks to the environment and let's get on with the deep drilling. Sorry to hear what's happening to the environment, but we'll take the jobs. It was plain to see that some people down there, the fishermen, were deeply sorrowful and in growing shock about it, and you have no way of knowing what each person's opinion on the drilling moratorium is, or what it will be given another month from hell.
But I find myself looking for the human being that has been reformed out of the human problem that could cause this tragedy. What I see is many people who recognize very well enough that killing the fish has killed their jobs and jeopardized their ability to even live in the area anymore.
But they are desperate, and whether any have broken through the barrier that refuses to be pushed around by their desperation, and would support the moraotirum on drilling despite the loss of even more jobs, I don't know.
The tendency to see the issues in terms of "environment versus jobs" or "environment versus income" is so powerful, it's quite like that many people just keep on in their tracks in that perspective even while they are scared to death of this tragedy. I can't even say I know what I would do in their shoes.
The lady was unwilling to support or to confront the call from some of the local people for Obama to lift the moratorium, and maybe that was right because it would have undercut the unanimity they needed. Or maybe she just needed more time to think about it, but I wish I could know in the end where she is on that subject.
