Drill and Spill

So, it’s been several weeks since the BP oil rig blowout and subsequent disastrous oil leak. I live in one of the Gulf Coast States. We got hit with Katrina and Rita. Now this. I live midstate where the oil won’t exactly be in my backyard. I thought that this disaster would finally get the people of my state to agree that there should be stringent regulation on large corporations that not only have a blatant disregard for the environment but for our economy and our lives. Oil companies, coal companies, food processors, electric companies, Wall Street, tobacco companies, etc. They still think that protecting “endangered Big Business” is the only way to go. They argue that companies are regulated too much. They forget that society must have rules or it will not be sustainable. Corporate greed will kill democracy and can do so only with the help and complicity of its citizens. What kind of mindset wants to protect the very entity that is harming the air we breathe and the food we eat? Is it the Stockholm Syndrome? Is it stupidity? I have no clue. Warnings about the possibility of this oil drilling disaster and nuclear plant meltdowns like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have been around for over 40 years. The warnings are now fact. So many of our citizens have been acting like children, putting their hands over their ears and singing so that they won’t have to hear the bad stuff. We may go the way of the dinosaurs and that might not be a bad thing. The dinosaurs weren’t responsible for their extinction but we WILL be responsible for ours.