The Occupy Movement, fueled by the indignation of vast numbers of people who are increasingly disenfranchised and displaced by the modern marketplace economy, recognizes the primacy of place in social change that moves us toward a just and sustainable future. This aspect of the movement is articulated by the physical occupation of public spaces, and more recently of homes that have been foreclosed with their occupants evicted by a corrupt banking system.

The primacy of place in the movement reminds us that when people are denied access to the primary productivity of the land and the seas, they are relegated to a status of enforced dependency on an abstract marketplace primarily constructed to serve the interests of the rich and the powerful. The Movement’s emphasis on space also reminds us that we cannot live entirely within the realm of the abstract idea of the marketplace. We need real food, non-virtual water, wearable clothing, and shelter — all made available to us through the natural processes of the earth, captured and molded by human effort.

In what is perhaps a first step in (re)connecting with place in a world where the fantasy of an endlessly growing and satisfying marketplace is crumbling, the Occupy Movement articulates vital needs for human dignity: the need for efficacy — to be heard and to have one’s welfare and voice taken seriously within collective processes of decision making and action — and the need for dignified and adequate means to obtain physical sustenance to satisfy one’s basic needs. Both of these needs converge in the concept and construct of place.

Reviving place as a focal point of human life and community is essential to social justice and sustainability. When I invoke place in this context, I conceptualize it as a nexus of physical space (both the natural world and the built environment) and community life (that includes economic activity, interpersonal relationships between people and between people and environments, cultural identity and expression, and governance processes). We make our places, and our places make us. Place is a reciprocal relationship that continually emerges through the forces of nature and human activity.

In the techno-world of modern industrial societies, many of us have lost sight of place as an organizing principle in our lives. We find that virtual spaces may indeed satisfy many of our needs as environments for building social bonds and friendships and for purchasing just about anything we might need or want (as long as we have the money to do so, of course), but we still rely physically upon tangible places that provide the necessities of life, even if our needs are mediated and obscured by the modern phenomenon of the marketplace.

Whether we recognize it or not, we are intimately connected to places, though in the globalized world, the reciprocal bonds between people and place, once paramount to the processes of community prosperity and health, have largely been broken. We abuse the land and the sea, sometimes without even knowing it, but because we need nature, we cannot completely sever our ties to places.

Take, for example, our water. It comes to us through processes of the earth that occur in some particular place, even though most of us know little of the detail of how water appears in our taps. Food offers another example. Since we, as yet, only metaphorically eat words, our food must be raised, cultivated, hunted, or gathered from particular places with particular environmental characteristics, and most often it must be cared for and harvested by people living in those environments. Both food and water derive from particular social and ecological contexts. They are not abstractions, and their concreteness bonds us with natural and social processes that are hidden behind the facades of grocery store shelves and Internet shopping malls — the “places” where we make the purchases that support the way we live and provide the things we need to stay alive.

We live a paradox in which intimate physical relationships to nature and social processes of production are juxtaposed with ignorance and neglect of the places and people who sustain us. Our very lives are in the hands of people and ecologies that may be entirely foreign to us intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. We may never see the face of one person who has picked the bananas we eat throughout our lives, but we are connected to the banana pickers and to the ecology of the banana fields from which the fruit comes. Through our bodily existence and our own internal ecologies, we are connected to others and nature. In many ways, we are others and nature, for without them we would cease to exist.

And as human-caused depletion and damage of the natural world continues, the threat has become ever present: we may indeed cease to exist without a radical (re)conceptualization of, and (re)connection to, place.

Many indigenous societies have conceptualized the fundamental relationship between humans and nature as reciprocal, believing that people must respect and care for nature if nature is to provide for people. We cannot allow the continued plunder of the land and the sea to take place in our name, masked behind images of clean and orderly grocery store shelves, spotless storefront windows, and online shopping centers. I’m also convinced that we won’t protect that which we don’t know, and consequently don’t value. It takes years of paying attention and continual, mutual interaction to know a place, both the human community that is part of the place and the natural world within which that community is embedded. Growing into a place is a long term process of relationship building, and to do it well, we will need to learn to stay in place. In a world where careerists are rewarded for their willingness to relocate, this is no small challenge.

But we will have to stay put if we are to learn what we need to know to live sustainably on the land. To recover the health of our damaged places, we will need to learn what can and can’t be done sustainably within particular environments, and we will have to end the process of robbing that which we need from other places because as we deplete distant places, we threaten the survival of other people and the health of the biosphere — we behave as tyrants, and we threaten both nature and our own existence. We will need to (re)learn the art of neighborliness and of working together in spite of our differences, and we will need to make decisions embedded in a context of our love for each other and for place — and rooted in a desire to sustain that which we love beyond our short lifetimes. It’s time to rejoin the community of life, to belong in mutually sustaining ways. We need to (re)construct places in ways that bring to an end this era of loneliness.

The process will not be easy, especially because so much social power has been concentrated for so long in so few hands. But at least people around the world are recognizing this reality and working to change it. People are seeing the concentration of power and wealth itself as perhaps the central driver for social injustice in the globalized world. This recognition is a huge step in the right direction. It’s also important to recognize that virtually all of the processes that contribute to (re)building healthy places also serve to devolve social power to local contexts.

The (re)conceptualization and (re)construction of place can be both challenging and exhilarating. It’s an endeavor that can take many forms that coalesce in a long term process of articulating who we are in place — community gardens; potluck dinners with neighbors; bioregional resource management; reading, study, and discussion circles; governance work in local politics or in community organizations; farmers markets; community art and theater projects, formal and informal education; developing and using local currencies; localized production, retail, and banking; localized renewable energy generation; and simply authentic listening among friends and neighbors – any activity that helps to build a sense of community and to increase the provision of basic needs from localized sources. Community building and (re)localization of our economies will help us build the resiliency that we will need to weather the converging crises of climate change, peak oil production, and economic instability.

The Occupy Movement may well be the introduction to a new story about who we are in place. The plot line for this story will be grounded in communities and bioregions, not in the marketplace. And it’s a story for which there is no final draft. Chapters will be written and rewritten over time, and if we can write them in ways that continually deepen our efficacy, improve the health of our environment, and strengthen reciprocal ties between ourselves and our places, we just might come to occupy a place called home.

•  This article initially appeared in New Clear Vision.

This time there were 27 activists, including Americans, Canadians, Irish, Polish, Greek, Palestinian and — for the first time an Egyptian, Al-Masri Al-Youm English Managing Editor Lina Attalah. For 27 years, Israel has been violating the 1979 Peace Treaty with Egypt, which guaranteed “full autonomy” for the Palestinians within five years. So it was appropriate for an Egyptian to become the 27th member of the team of activists trying to break the Gaza siege.

Tahrir passenger Kit Kittredge said, “In our sails is the wind of worldwide public opinion which has turned against the illegal blockade.” Retired US army colonel Ann Wright said, “We carry inspiration from the Arab Spring and the worldwide Occupy movements. Where governments fail, civil society must act. We will not stand by and watch $30 billion of our tax money committed to buying Israel weaponry used to carry out this illegal occupation of Palestine.”

Attalah described how, as Israel warships approached, activists and journalists started throwing equipment into the sea, “fearing that the information stored on them could be used to implicate other activists who were not on board”. When the Israel military asked their destination, organiser Ehab Lotayef replied first, “The conscience of humanity”, and as the Israelis sprayed the peaceful protesters with salt water, “The betterment of mankind”. Attalah counted 15 ships, with “dozens of Israeli soldiers pointed their machines guns at us”.

Their communications system was jammed and they entered the Israel no-mans land. But not without an Israeli practical joke. The Israelis “offered to send one person to inspect for weapons, and if he found nothing, they would let us pass”.

But the ships were suddenly ordered to proceed to Ashdod in Israel, and when the order was ignored, the Israelis boarded the ships, brandishing guns, ready to shoot anyone resisting, and using tear gas and tasers. The Tahrir and the Saoirse were forced to crash into each other, crippling both ships, and their engine rooms flooded, exposing them to the danger of sinking.

What equipment had not been thrown overboard was stolen by the pirates. Israeli Mad Kayal said, “As a Palestinian, I was not surprised at how the IDF treated us; however, for the Canadians and other Westerners onboard, it was a complete shock.” President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, who in the past called Israel “an indispensable partner for the EU”, refused to criticise his “partner” for the arrest and imprisonment of Irish Euro MP Paul Murphy for three days.

In contrast, Attalah was treated with kid gloves, and — without any exchange of Israeli spies — was taken by an Egyptian embassy official to the border at Taba. She was upbeat in her report, relating how they got much closer this time — 50 km as opposed to 100 km in the past, and how Jewish activists, preparing for the expected Israeli attack, helped translate slogans “This is piracy” and “This is kidnapping” into Hebrew to greet the Israelis.

Shamefully, US State Department official Victoria Nuland warned activists, they “could face civil and criminal penalties in their efforts to deliver resources to the Gaza Strip,” and the US consul in Israel advised them to sign an Israeli deportation agreement. The activists refused, as the statement said they entered Israel illegally and would not attempt another effort to break the Gaza blockade, thereby giving de facto credibility to the seige.

Absurdly, US House Resolution 3131 introduced last month would require the State Department to investigate “the sources of any logistical, technical, or financial support for the Gaza flotilla ships” and produce “a report on whether any support organisation that participated in the planning or execution of the recent Gaza flotilla attempt should be designated as a foreign terrorist organisation”.

The story did not end with the deportation of the plucky activists. Israel cyberwarfare expertise is well known, but so is that of computer hackers Anonymous. They decided to avenge the Freedom Wavers, warning the Israeli military hours before they seized the ships: “If you continue blocking humanitarian vessels to Gaza, then you will leave us no choice but to strike back. Again and again, until you stop.”

A few days later, over a dozen Israeli government websites crashed, including Shin Bet, Mossad, the IDF, the Health, Justice, Housing, Science and Sports Ministries, the President’s Residence, the Immigration Authority, the Israel Land Administration and the Atomic Energy Commission. As Jewish philosopher Hillel the Elder said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Freedom Waves will continue to lap against Israeli gunships in their attempt to reach the shores of Gaza. There are tentative plans for a “Sailing for Freedom” yacht race next summer from Marseille France, a kind of Tour de Méditerranée, going to Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and on to Palestine. Turkey has committed itself to protect future naval convoys breaking the siege.

Land convoys are also being organised. The British group Long Live Palestine has called on people around the world to take part in a convoy of medical aid to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza, starting 27 December. Organisers are planning for Viva Palestina 6 – Return Convoy to be the biggest convoy of aid yet, and hope to involve Egyptians again and enter via the Rafah crossing.

In the overland five trips I have made to Gaza since March, 2009, I have seen the disastrous effect of the brutal Israeli land and sea blockade has had on the Palestinian people.  I have seen the terrible level of destruction that the 2008-2009 Israeli attack wrecked on Gaza, in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the 22 day attack, 5,000 were wounded and 50,000 were made homeless.  I was on the Gaza Freedom March in 2009 and I was a passenger on the US Boat to Gaza, the “Audacity of Hope” that was forbidden from sailing June, 2011 by the Greek government on behalf of the Israeli government.

As one of two American citizens on the Gaza “Freedom Waves,” I represented hundreds of thousands of Americans who are challenging Israeli and US policies concerning Palestine.  We are using a variety of methods to let Israeli government officials know that international citizen activists are not going to stop challenging their policies.  Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions programs, international citizens who attempt to protect Palestinians as they farm, fish and go to school, students confronting Israeli officials as they speak around the world and flotillas and waves of boats are part of the international effort. I am very proud to be a part of this movement.

Passenger on the “Tahrir”

Passengers on the Canadian Boat to Gaza, the “Tahrir,” left Turkey in good spirits Wednesday, November 2, 2011 despite having its passenger list whittled down by the Turkish Port Authorities who allowed only 12 out of 35 passengers who had travelled to Turkey to get on the boat.  The Turks cited regulations that decreed that only 12 persons could be on a boat rated as a “pleasure craft” to depart Turkey for international waters, no matter that the vessel was rated for 50+ passengers. My fellow Americans Medea Benjamin, Robert Neiman, Paki Wieland, Tighe Barry and David Schermerhorn became our ground crew in Turkey when the passenger reduction was forced on us.  On the day we left the Turkish port of Fetiyah, they rented a third boat to attempt to transfer in international waters the 23 passengers who had not been allowed onto the boats in port.

Working with our sister ship, the “Saoirse”, from Ireland, we hit the high seas full throttle headed to Gaza continuing the previous flotillas efforts to end Israel’s illegal, immoral  naval blockade of Gaza, which, in combination with Israel’s land blockade, has made the 1.6 million people of Gaza, prisoners in a tiny land that is roughly 25 miles long and five miles wide.

Our team, on the Tahrir, consisted of five journalists, including Democracy Now’s Jihan Hafiz, six international delegates and the captain.  We bonded quickly and settled in to our various chores.  Captain George delegated crew duties, journalists set up their satellites and computer stations, cooks and medics tended to physical needs and everyone vied for computer time to reach out to the world.

Canadian Boat to Gaza organizers did an excellent job stocking the boat with food, water and medical supplies plus $30,000 of medical aid to be delivered in Gaza.   The next two days were filled with blogging, filming, battling seasickness, sleeping, eating, non-violent training and preparation for probable Israeli confrontation and imprisonment.

Arriving in Danger Zone in the Daylight

Getting into international waters without the Turkish Coast Guard turning us back was our first success.  In hopes of not being boarded by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) during darkness, we slowed our speed so it would be daylight Friday morning, November 4, 2011, when we approached 100 nautical miles off Gaza’s shore and probable contact with the IDF.

Each hour brought us 10 miles closer to Gaza.  We were thankful to make it past the 70 mile mark where the Mavi Marmara was so brutally attacked in June, 2010.

Three Giant Warships Looming on the Horizon

A momentary excitement permeated the ship as the captain announced we were 50 miles offshore– until we saw the 3 giant warships looming on the horizon.

We got on the satellite phones and computers to get out our last messages.  I was on the phone with CNN and I remember them saying, “call me when something happens” and I said, “This is probably the last you’re going to hear from me as our communications will be cut….” and then they were.

17 Israeli Warships Surround and Force collision between Freedom Waves boats–Water Cannons blew out windows and almost sunk the Irish boat Saoirse

We were told by the Israeli Navy to change our course.  Organizers of both boats restated that we were sailing to “the goodness of humanity.”

Within a half an hour we were surrounded by 17 boats; gunboats, water cannon boats, zodiacs.

The IDF radioed that they wanted to inspect our boats, meanwhile two zodiacs were harassing the Saoirse by driving in circles around them, finally forcing the Irish boat to crash into the Tahrir causing damage to the Saoirse.

The Saoirse pulled away and was chased by the IDF commandos who proceeded to blow out their windows and fill the ship with water from the water cannons.  If the Saoirse’s auxiliary power had not kicked in, the boat would have sunk.

Meanwhile, the IDF blasted the Tahrir with water cannons.  Over bullhorns, IDF soldiers told us to go to the bow of the boat where they were hitting our boat with the most force with the water cannons. We tried to protect ourselves by staying behind the wheel house.

One passenger and a cameraman attempted to remain on the bow of the Tahrir but moved away as the commandoes jumped the rail.  Commandos snatched the camera and 25 masked commandos shoved their way on board screaming, “Shut Up! Sit Down,! Move! Get Up!,  Shut Up!, Move!”  over and over for the next half hour.

One Passenger Tasered by IDF

Two passengers stayed at the wheelhouse and one was tasered by the IDF commandos.  They were shoved out the wheelhouse and dragged to the benches where they were forced at gunpoint to sit.  Commandos continued to yell, “Sit! Shut up! Don’t move!”  Our male passengers were searched first with commandos pointing guns and tasers at them.  Everyone had to keep their empty hands visible at all times.

Computers, Cameras, Satellite Phones Taken

I asked if  we could go down below as it was getting dark and cold and they corralled us into the tiny galley room and “guarded” us  while other soldiers  searched our backpacks and suitcases and threw our computers, cameras,  and bags on the floor.  Computers, cameras and other electronics confiscated on the boat were never returned to us.

IDF Commandos Brainwashed into Committing Horrific, Illegal Actions

I felt sad and angry looking into the young masked eyes of the IDF soldiers who had been so successfully brainwashed into doing horrific, illegal acts for the Israeli government.  They pirated our ship, kidnapped us and tasered us and now many of them were asleep on the benches, every bit as tired as we were.

Strip Searched at Port of Ashdod

About three hours later we arrived at the Israeli port of Ashdod, where Israeli officials strip searched, demeaned and dehumanized us. However, nothing they did to us is comparable to what the Palestinians endure.

The officials in the Israeli Immigration and Deportation office processed us.  They told us that if we signed a document that stated we had entered Israel illegally, we would be deported the next day.  This was one of the many lies we were told by Israeli authorities. Another untruth that they told us was that after 72 hours we would be deported automatically.

Three Days in Israeli Prison

After processing at the port, we were separated again and taken in small groups to the Givon prison where once again we were strip searched.  Our packs pawed through by at least ten people and we were then handed a list of our possessions that they were going to keep.

Women’s Wing of the Prison

Five women including myself spent the next three days in our own wing of the prison.  We were locked in our cells, locked in the women’s section of the prison and then locked behind two more locked gates.  Still, the guards repeatedly counted us and checked to make sure we weren’t plotting an escape, as if we could dig our way out through the floors. Maybe they thought “the criminals” could break out with the flimsy toothbrushes we were given!  Again, only a small taste of what Gazans have felt for years.

No American Embassy Presence or Phone Call for Two Days

I didn’t get my phone call out, nor did we see any one from the American Embassy for two days, whereas a representative of the Irish Embassy to Israel met the Irish boat when they arrived at the Port of Ashdod.

When the American Embassy officials finally arrived at the prison, they recommended I sign the form saying I had entered Israel illegally.  I refused.

The Embassy officials did contact my family and continued to keep in touch with them during my stay in the Israeli prison.  However, the official later told me there wasn’t much the US Embassy could do since we were in Israel and Israel was calling the shots, despite the US giving $3 billion in military aid annually to Israel!

Inside the Prison

We were locked in our cells for hours on end and ended up having a sit down strike in the corridor demanding that we be allowed out of the cells more than once a day.  We were tormented all one night by an irate guard beating on our door and awakened many times a night so they could “count us.”  We were berated and treated like criminals the entire time.

Paying for My Own Deportation

Finally Monday night, November 7th, after almost 72 hours, the Israelis said I could “leave” if I paid for my own deportation air ticket.  I agreed so that I could get back to the U.S. and tell the story of the “Freedom Waves.”  I was taken to the notorious Ben Gurion Airport Detention Center with a fellow passenger, who flew out that night. I was locked up in the airport facility for another 14 hours until my flight left on Tuesday, November 8.

Israeli Defiance of International Law and Basic Human Decency

There is no surprise in Israel’s act of piracy in attacking two civilian boats in international waters trying to sail to Gaza, imprisoning the passengers, and stealing the cargo and personal possessions. This is yet another example of Israeli defiance of International Law and basic human decency.

In my interactions with the IDF commandos and the Israeli government officials at the Port of Ashdod, in the prison and at the airport, I was struck by the desensitized, robotic, inhumane behavior they displayed consistently—and, again, I only experienced a small taste of what Palestinians routinely face.

“Freedom Waves” to Freedom Riders

There’s another dangerous passage – this time over land – that’s about to set forth: On Tuesday, November 15th, Palestinian activists plan to board settler-only public buses in the West Bank and attempt to sit down and ride the bus, in the great tradition of the Freedom Riders that challenged segregation in the American South. These brave change-makers have called on the international community to stand in solidarity, and many actions are planned around the US where activists will protest Veolia, the French company that runs many of the settler buses and is the subject of an international boycott campaign.  If the Palestinian Freedom Riders are arrested and detained, it will be important for us to speak up and take action as well.

US Congress should be Investigated for giving $3 Billion in Military Aid Annually to Israel instead of Demanding that the State Department Investigate Citizen Activists

Because of this experience in trying to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, I am more resolved than ever to work to stop the US government allocation of military aid to Israel and policies supporting the Israeli government’s apartheid treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Some Congresspersons are now going after US citizens on the Gaza flotillas!

Who is part of a terrorist organization: International activists saying Israeli and U.S policies toward the Palestinians are unjust and illegal, or the US Congress?

I think the US Congress should be held accountable for the illegal and unlawful uses of the weaponry that the U.S. has provided to Israel – including the F-16s, Apache helicopters, white phosphorous and dense inert metal explosive bombs that killed 1,400 Palestinians, wounded 5,000 and left 50,000 homeless during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09.

Instead, 13 Congresspersons want those of us who have challenged Israeli and US policies on Palestine investigated for terrorist links and have introduced House Resolution 3131 toward that end.

The legislation introduced in the United States Congress in October, 2011, by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), would require the State Department to “submit a report on whether any support organization that participated in the planning or execution of the recent Gaza flotilla attempt should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization and any actions taken by the Department of State to express gratitude to the government of Greece for preventing the Gaza flotilla from setting sail in contravention of Israel’s legal blockade of Gaza, and for other purposes.”  Twelve other strong supporters of the Israel Occupation have signed onto the bill: Engel, Ros-Lehtinen, Sarbanes, Carter, Frelinghuysen, Young, Grimm, Diaz-Balart, Rothman, Roskam and Sires.  Coincidentally, these representatives, especially Ros-Lehtinen, receive big contributions of campaign funding from the right-wing Israel lobby.

Please call these Congresspersons at (202) 225-3121 and give them an earful.

Thus the 27 activists from nine countries aboard two boats were rounded up and hauled, along with their ‘provocative’ medical supplies, to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

t was a successful operation conducted by a well-equipped navy, one that is credited for sinking numerous Gaza fishing boats, while forcing fishermen to swim naked back to shore. Of course, one can hardly address such valor without mention of the May 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara, which killed nine Turkish activists and wounded many more.

But unlike the disordered attack on the Mavi Marmara in international water, the interception and boarding of the two boats – one Canadian (Tahrir) and the other Irish (MV Saoirse) – was swift, well-organized and supplemented with all the necessary sound bites to indict unarmed humanitarian activists and absolve an ‘elite’ navy force.

The boats were stopped between 60km and 90km from the Gaza coast. e Electronic Intifada had provided a live map, which followed their course shortly after they departed the Turkish port of Fethiye on November 2. The map “showed the boats were still in international waters when the Israeli army made contact” on November 4 (as reported by Maan News Agency). The Israeli military also admitted that the interception happened in international water (as reported in the Irish Times).

But all that matters little. The Israeli government is not a strong believer in boundaries. It is an occupation power, with military and espionage operations that reach far and wide, crossing Gaza to Damascus, Washington to Dubai. This versatility is what enabled a geographically small country like Israel to enjoy a formidable reputation of military brutality (for example, Cast Lead 2008-09) and electrifying unpredictability (for example, spying on the United States, the very country that consistently allows Israel to violate international law).

Predictably, the US government and mainstream media stood in unhinged solidarity with Israel in its latest escapade. Instead of warning Israel from harming any US citizens participating in the humanitarian mission, US State Department officials “renewed a warning to American citizens… saying that breaching an Israeli blockade aboard two ships headed to Gaza may be a violation of US law” (according to the Calgary Herald, November 4). A department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, also “reminded U.S. citizens that they could face civil and criminal penalties in their efforts to deliver resources to the Gaza Strip.”

The reporting of the story was meant to serve as a ‘reminder’ of the risks of such an act. In her New York Times report, Isabel Kershner anchored much of her article in Israeli military and official statements, giving negligible space to activists who were illegally detained. More, the report opted to remind Times readers that Gaza “is ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas” (NYT, November 4). The fact that Hamas was democratically elected by a decisive majority in January 2006 seemed immaterial. Also irrelevant was the fact that the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 prohibits collective punishment. Article 33 states that: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

It was particularly interesting to watch the short video clip released by the Israeli military on their website where a naval official called on the ships to turn around. The official used some phrases rarely used by Israeli spokespersons. “Your attempt to enter the Gaza Strip by sea is a violation of international law. We remind you that humanitarian supplies can be delivered to the Gaza Strip by land, and you are welcome to enter Ashdod port and deliver supplies through land crossings,” the unnamed official said.

If Israeli officials insist that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, why did the navy official make a reference to the delivery of “humanitarian supplies”?

As for the underhanded mention of ‘international law’, that referred to the politically-motivated Palmer report, which, with no legal foundation, resolved that the blockade on Gaza was ‘legal’. The inquiry (released in September 2011) was a tardy attempt at balancing numerous other reports that lashed out at Israel for imposing a devastating siege on Gaza, interrupted by a very costly war and a fatal attack on the Mavi Marmara. One such report, by the UN Human Rights Council, condemned Israel’s violation of “international humanitarian and human rights law” and called the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza ‘unlawful’ (The Guardian, September 22, 2010)

Israeli navy, military and government officials must have been congratulating themselves on a job well done, as international activists were arrested, herded into police stations and forced to sign their deportation papers. However, the latest mission – named ‘Freedom Waves’ – actually exposed as fraud the logic Israel used to justify its siege of Gaza. The October 18th prisoner swap that saw the freedom of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and few hundred Palestinian prisoners, was expected to bring an end to the Gaza siege altogether.

But it didn’t.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Just Foreign Policy Director, Robert Naiman claimed, “In practice, the issue of the Gaza blockade has been entangled with issue of the captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.” He cited a Washington Post article stating: “The blockade was widely seen as a punitive measure driven in large part by the outrage that Shalit’s abduction in 2006 generated in Israel” (October 26).

Now that Shalit is free, Israel is clearly uninterested in ending its ‘collective punishment’ of Gaza. The latest act of piracy is the latest indication that the blockade will remain in place, under an array of pretexts and justifications.

Thanks to Tahrir and MV Saoirse, we know that the siege as a response to Shalit’s capture, was a ruse, and that Israel has no immediate plans to end the perpetual captivity of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.

But we also know with equal certainty that the Freedom Waves will continue. “Despite this Israeli aggression, we will keep coming, wave after wave, by air, sea, and land, to challenge Israel’s illegal policies towards Gaza and all of Palestine,” said Huwaida Arraf, a spokeswoman for the activists. “Our movement will not stop or be stopped until Palestine is free.”

According to Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM), the Dignité was only allowed to leave Kastellorizo when it told Greek coastguard officials it was heading for Alexandria, Egypt, not Gaza. By Sunday night, it was nearing the Egyptian city of Port Said but came to a stop and then changed course, heading for Gaza after all. The captain, Zacharia Stylianakis, decided that Egypt’s political turmoil would make a visit there unadvisable, that it was perfectly legal to go to Gaza, so why not?

By Tuesday morning it was 50 miles away from the Gaza Strip when an Israel Navy ship started trailing the yacht and threatened to attack it if it entered the blockaded waters. Soon three gunboats were surrounding it. Of course, it was finally intercepted by the Israeli navy and taken to Ashdod port.

The delegates on board include French Communist Party firebrand Jacqueline Le Corre, ex-Euro parliamentarian Jean Claude Lefort, as well as representatives of the stymied Canadian, French, Greek and Swedish Flotillers. Israeli journalist Amira Hass, is reporting for Haaretz, and there is a team from Al-Jazeera TV.

Hass is author of ”Drinking the Sea at Gaza” (1999), a heart-wrenching account of Gazan society from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. She lived in, and reported from, Gaza during the 1990s and now lives in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Her book recounts the 1948 expulsion and flight to Gaza, and how village structures and traditions were reconstructed in the crowded camps of Gaza. “Even if most Gazan refugees are now ready to accept the political consequences of losing their land, emotionally they will always see the villages as home.”

That the Dignité chose Kastellorizo, in the far east of the Greek archipelago near the Turkish mainland, as its launch pad to break the siege is no coincidence. Many Kastellorizans fled the Nazis during WWII, finding refuge in Gaza. The present mayor of the island, Paul Panigiris, was born in Gaza, and he and his fellow islanders are staunch supporters of their besieged brothers. Their support for the Dignité was no doubt an important factor in “convincing” the Greek official to let it proceed.

The Dignité is not just the remnants of Freedom Flotilla 2, as depicted in the mass media, but a first wave of others. Its passengers were treated with respect by the IDF, even offered cookies and tea in Ashdod. A far cry from last year’s PR fiasco for Israel. According to Free Gaza, “it is a message to the Israeli government, to the international community and to the besieged people of Gaza: The Free Gaza Movement and the coalition of Freedom Flotilla II are not giving up until the inhumane and illegitimate blockade of Gaza is lifted.”

I’m in Atlanta, Georgia, at present, among the scent of pine trees and the reek of Southern denial.

The moribund economy has thwarted the city’s manic drive to silence its resentful ghosts by means of constant motion … Below the lilting Southern accents here, one detects rage … Not simply the ubiquitous hate-speak on right-wing talk radio.

But an animus bred by truth-deferred … that Southern pride is a lie of the mind — a blown banner … foisted skyward to distract the minds of my fellow Southerners from the ground level truths of a system rigged to enrich the privileged few and keep the many working for their benefit. (How do you think they filled the ranks of the Confederate Army to kill and die for the rights of rich men to own slaves.)

I arrived in Georgia by route of the U.S. interstate system.

Traveling U.S. interstate highways one suffers a confluence of so much contemporary madness and tragedy extant in the land … so much suppressed fear and aggression. Yet, through it all, the heart still yearns to see what lies over the next horizon.

Although, lamentably, what is revealed, all too often, proves to be as sterile, inhospitable, ugly, and inhuman as what was beheld at the last.

“Who has twisted us around like this, so that no matter what we do, we are in the posture of someone going away?” — Rainer Maria Rilke

Any situation, as is the case with interstate highway travel, in which to momentarily stop or even to slow down, one risks death should be regarded as an affront (if not anathema) to common sense and the longings of the heart.

When the landscape we pass through has been reduced to a meaningless blur, our lives grow indistinct as well.

The apologists of the present system tell us ad nauseam, and have convinced most, that a similar disastrous fate will befall the nation if the engines of global capitalism were to slow down even a bit. Interstate travel is emblematic of the manner a system based on ceaseless production and manic consumption degrades the senses and inflicts a dehumanizing assault upon the psyche.

When stopped at an anonymous interstate service island or some off-the-exit-ramp retail strip — those inhospitable nether regions evincing a paradoxical mix of sterility and toxicity — the permeating odor of exhaust fumes and processed food makes us woozy.

These places, only distinct for their ugliness, reek of how soul-numbing and joyless travel has become . . . now a task nearly devoid of any sense of the mystery, the option of exploration, or the possibility of serendipity travel once offered.

Travel has been reduced to a tedious ordeal, whereby our inchoate longings to escape the quotidian prison of our economically circumscribed existence are mangled and suppressed, only to rise as the hollow appetite of reflexive consumerism and the ineffable sense of unease, so evident in the troubled American psyche.

Enclosed in our vehicles, we hurdle from one sterile, impersonal location to the next sterile, impersonal location, and then on to the next. As forbiddingly huge trucks, loaded with the cargo of extinction, bear down on us, we grip the steering wheel — we know to stop is to risk death therefore we continue onward, believing we must drive and consume and drive and consume in order to survive.

Yet the knowledge nettles, just below the surface of our harried minds, that to continue down this road will, in turn, cause the world to die.

Even the landscape itself of the U.S. is stretched to the breaking point: Cluttered upon it are gigantic islands of garish light that torment the night …scouring away the stars.

As, all the while, SUVs and oversized pickup trucks — the overgrown clown cars of the demented circus of decaying empire trundle past — the extravagant size of the vehicles vainly compensating for how diminished and powerless those within feel in relationship to the course of their fates.

The corporate empire is imprinted in us. If one listens one can hear arias of decay — a death-swoon operatic in scale.

Manifested before us, it is as visible as the noxious vapors of pollutants veiling the horizon line at sunset; it shimmers like heat spires above traffic-stalled interstates; it reeks like the endless archipelagos of overflowing landfills spanning the length of the land.

Yet, as mortifying as it is, the vales and vistas of the U.S. spread before us … are as horrible and beautiful as a great cry of grief.

Manifested en masse, as our collective way of existing in the world — the flickering of our tiny desires have set the vast world aflame … There is needless suffering and death that history will affix to our own names … We are destroying our planet and her exquisite, irreplaceable creatures, as well as, our own sanity.

Feeling the full implications of this, how does one make it through the day and sleep throughout the night?

Following their defeat at the Battle of Shiloh, the shattered Confederate ranks fled for their lives. General A.S. Johnston, desperate to restore order and rally his men to return to battle, commanded a fleeing soldier to stop, demanding, “Private, why are you running?” The soldier replied, “General, I’m running ’cause I can’t fly.”

The act of being in perpetual flight (even the somnambulant variety) from consequences requires a great amount of energy; one must have the endurance of a marathoner sleepwalker to keep ahead of the sound of the fast approaching footfalls of reality at one’s rear.

Depression is what catches us.

I have been accused of being a poet … I know I am a wanderer through the landscape of the heart. I navigate by narrative, by words and feelings: It occurs to me: the term depression is a misnomer for feelings of despair brought on by powerlessness i.e., disconsolation over the death of an internal verity — or having our will thwarted by inexorable, outer forces.

Grief is a living prayer of our vulnerable hearts.

The salesmen of the eternal, big happy … are just that — salesmen … One is required to respond to the intoxication of the sales pitch and is not to question the condition of their heart … The commercial come-ons insist that the heart’s grief and a lost soul’s emptiness and panic can be fixed by some new bright and shiny: a new appliance, therapy, “hope and change.”

By the incessant promotion of the gospels of the hyper-capitalist sects of Happiness Uber Alles, the implicit message imparted is … suffering is a character flaw that can be mitigated, elevated — even redeemed by consumerism, antidepressants, acquiring a positive attitude — all the uttered homilies and donned vestments of the consumer state.

“The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.” — Carl Jung.

What kind of miserable malcontent would resist changing this social milieu and personal mode of being: Sitting stuck in commuter traffic; eating high-fat, low-quality food from a drive-thru window; languishing in a cubical … stranded in a low benefits, little chance of advancement job — until, of course, the job is outsourced; waddling around the mall … clad in off-the-rack, sweatshop sown clothing; dozing off in front of the TEEVEE with Cheetos crumbs stippled in the folds of one’s jowls.

Aint that the life — or what? By any means possible, we preserve the death-styles of empire.

This mode of being is far removed from the norms of nature and the revelries and attendant sublimations necessary to engage in civic life … Here, ruthlessness and rationalization banish reason; ambition trumps merit; expediency pushes aside wisdom; and empty sensation masquerades as experience.

Like interstate travel, the collective mind of the consumer state propels us forward to the next empty agenda, the next perfunctory task, the next meaningless purchase … But depression slows us down, inducing us to feel the grief inherent in our alienation … to cease the incessant, habitual hurdling forward and striving upward … to stop and investigate the mysteries of our hearts … to feel the sadness of the suffering earth …

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” — Samuel Beckett

But we must slow down: We are destroying our planet and her exquisite, irreplaceable creatures, as well as our own sanity.

Two weeks before the Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Well “spill” (what a dishonest word for that noxious, bleeding gash) into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I dreamed of a badly injured fish who had had half his face torn off by some brutal method employed by the practitioners of industrial scale fishing operations to exploit the world’s oceans …

The fish had worked himself upon a rock on a craggy shoreline; holding an eternity of suffering in his one remaining eye, the fish turned to face me … Ever since, this dream image has lived within me … I carry the fish’s suffering and I bear his dark rage regarding what our species has done to his/our home — this complex, mysterious, beguiling, dangerous, sublime, monstrous, and magnificent world we were cast into …

My sense of sorrow, at times, seems unbearable; my rage … bottomless … Who will speak for the voiceless — who will make amends for their suffering?

In childhood, I loved this body of water … loved it as one can love any living thing (which it is). I swam in it, collected jewel-like shells on its beaches of bleached sand, and went deep sea fishing with my father in its azure waters …
Wherein, I was in awe of its (seemingly endless) bounty and abundance. Its winds and waves intimated to me the nature of eternity and the Gulf’s living things drew me into the beauty and terrors of the living moment.

Approximately, ninety percent of the large fish (Tuna, Mackerel) in the world’s oceans are gone due to overfishing. Oceanographers predict in 50 years time the oceans and seas the earth over will be dead. (And these are conservative estimates.)

Much like the denizens of late Cretaceous looking dumbly at the sky and barely giving a second thought to that bright, shining thingy that appeared above, this is a calamity so large in scale and so all-encompassing in its implications that we human beings just can’t wrap our minds around it …

In fact, by our elevation of willful ignorance and mindless consumerism to a cultural imperative, we human beings, acting collectively, are the equivalent the planet-decimating Cretaceous comet.

I try to resist losing myself to misanthropic rage when I read statistics such as this one. Yet I am enraged at the waste — the sheer stupidity, mendacity, and hubris of it all.

I want to grab the human race by the lapels and shout, “Stop it. God damn it. Just stop it. How could you destroy something so beautiful and then just continue to go through your sub-cretinous day? What the hell is wrong with you? Didn’t anyone ever teach you the meaning of decency?

This is not a political debate. This is a choice between sanity and mass suffering; perhaps, even the survival of our species and a mass die-off.

But listening to the pronouncements of Washington’s political class and the mainstream media’s ceaselessly shallow, miss-the-point narratives is like eavesdropping on the palaver from a petri dish.

Excuse my sense of fatalism: At this point, the system is too far-gone to be redeemed; it is in the process of systemic breakdown. Although, this is not as awful as it sounds, for one must let the old go and let a natural process of decay take over.

When the rot is this advanced, at best, what you have is culture as a compost heap. Yet that doesn’t mean in times of decay, there cannot be meaning and beauty, because life itself becomes vivid and alive in contrast to the extant ugliness.

Without decay, there is no change. The world would be as pointless as paradise. If you wish to find the future forest, look to the humus upon its floor. The future is decay; and decay is the future. The old ego must sing, even within the compost heap of its own putrefied concepts.

And, as it does, it must sing of its suffering and the sorrows of the earth … singing like the severed head of Orpheus floating to Lesbos.

Arias of compost sing of new understandings but you cannot skip the singing school of grief.

Frank O’Hara suggests: “In times of crisis we must all decide again and again whom we love.”

Things are going to work out — but not in ways we can predict.

There is a mournful beauty, even a providential utility, attendant to living through at time of putrefaction: Compost (the anti-Astroturf) nourishes fledgling life and novel forms. A new paradigm will morph from the remnants of the old, putrefied system.

If Confederate ghosts could shout through the prison of their enshrinement — they would call out to us, “Don’t believe it. Having seen the meaningless waste of war, we know now that we would have chosen to live out our lives, breathing in the humid, Georgia air, having our troubles softened by the sight of dappled light filtered through pine needles, and being lulled to sleep at night by the song of crickets and cicada.

“Don’t you believe the lie, as we did, that dying in a rich man’s war is a virtue; don’t buy into the fraud that working all your life for a greedy few is a sound way to proceed through the fleeting and finite years of your time upon this earth.”

Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: moc.hortskcorlihpnull@lihp. Visit Phil’s Web site And at FaceBook.

Angela Tyler-Rockstroh is a Broadcast Designer/Animator who has worked with major Networks such as Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, HBO Family, PBS, as well as, with Michael Moore on his documentaries, “Fahrenheit” and “Sicko.”

I’m in Atlanta, Georgia, at present, among the scent of pine trees and the reek of Southern denial.

The moribund economy has thwarted the city’s manic drive to silence its resentful ghosts by means of constant motion … Below the lilting Southern accents here, one detects rage … Not simply the ubiquitous hate-speak on right-wing talk radio.

But an animus bred by truth-deferred … that Southern pride is a lie of the mind — a blown banner … foisted skyward to distract the minds of my fellow Southerners from the ground level truths of a system rigged to enrich the privileged few and keep the many working for their benefit. (How do you think they filled the ranks of the Confederate Army to kill and die for the rights of rich men to own slaves.)

I arrived in Georgia by route of the U.S. interstate system.

Traveling U.S. interstate highways one suffers a confluence of so much contemporary madness and tragedy extant in the land … so much suppressed fear and aggression. Yet, through it all, the heart still yearns to see what lies over the next horizon.

Although, lamentably, what is revealed, all too often, proves to be as sterile, inhospitable, ugly, and inhuman as what was beheld at the last.

“Who has twisted us around like this, so that no matter what we do, we are in the posture of someone going away?” — Rainer Maria Rilke

Any situation, as is the case with interstate highway travel, in which to momentarily stop or even to slow down, one risks death should be regarded as an affront (if not anathema) to common sense and the longings of the heart.

When the landscape we pass through has been reduced to a meaningless blur, our lives grow indistinct as well.

The apologists of the present system tell us ad nauseam, and have convinced most, that a similar disastrous fate will befall the nation if the engines of global capitalism were to slow down even a bit. Interstate travel is emblematic of the manner a system based on ceaseless production and manic consumption degrades the senses and inflicts a dehumanizing assault upon the psyche.

When stopped at an anonymous interstate service island or some off-the-exit-ramp retail strip — those inhospitable nether regions evincing a paradoxical mix of sterility and toxicity — the permeating odor of exhaust fumes and processed food makes us woozy.

These places, only distinct for their ugliness, reek of how soul-numbing and joyless travel has become . . . now a task nearly devoid of any sense of the mystery, the option of exploration, or the possibility of serendipity travel once offered.

Travel has been reduced to a tedious ordeal, whereby our inchoate longings to escape the quotidian prison of our economically circumscribed existence are mangled and suppressed, only to rise as the hollow appetite of reflexive consumerism and the ineffable sense of unease, so evident in the troubled American psyche.

Enclosed in our vehicles, we hurdle from one sterile, impersonal location to the next sterile, impersonal location, and then on to the next. As forbiddingly huge trucks, loaded with the cargo of extinction, bear down on us, we grip the steering wheel — we know to stop is to risk death therefore we continue onward, believing we must drive and consume and drive and consume in order to survive.

Yet the knowledge nettles, just below the surface of our harried minds, that to continue down this road will, in turn, cause the world to die.

Even the landscape itself of the U.S. is stretched to the breaking point: Cluttered upon it are gigantic islands of garish light that torment the night …scouring away the stars.

As, all the while, SUVs and oversized pickup trucks — the overgrown clown cars of the demented circus of decaying empire trundle past — the extravagant size of the vehicles vainly compensating for how diminished and powerless those within feel in relationship to the course of their fates.

The corporate empire is imprinted in us. If one listens one can hear arias of decay — a death-swoon operatic in scale.

Manifested before us, it is as visible as the noxious vapors of pollutants veiling the horizon line at sunset; it shimmers like heat spires above traffic-stalled interstates; it reeks like the endless archipelagos of overflowing landfills spanning the length of the land.

Yet, as mortifying as it is, the vales and vistas of the U.S. spread before us … are as horrible and beautiful as a great cry of grief.

Manifested en masse, as our collective way of existing in the world — the flickering of our tiny desires have set the vast world aflame … There is needless suffering and death that history will affix to our own names … We are destroying our planet and her exquisite, irreplaceable creatures, as well as, our own sanity.

Feeling the full implications of this, how does one make it through the day and sleep throughout the night?

Following their defeat at the Battle of Shiloh, the shattered Confederate ranks fled for their lives. General A.S. Johnston, desperate to restore order and rally his men to return to battle, commanded a fleeing soldier to stop, demanding, “Private, why are you running?” The soldier replied, “General, I’m running ’cause I can’t fly.”

The act of being in perpetual flight (even the somnambulant variety) from consequences requires a great amount of energy; one must have the endurance of a marathoner sleepwalker to keep ahead of the sound of the fast approaching footfalls of reality at one’s rear.

Depression is what catches us.

I have been accused of being a poet … I know I am a wanderer through the landscape of the heart. I navigate by narrative, by words and feelings: It occurs to me: the term depression is a misnomer for feelings of despair brought on by powerlessness i.e., disconsolation over the death of an internal verity — or having our will thwarted by inexorable, outer forces.

Grief is a living prayer of our vulnerable hearts.

The salesmen of the eternal, big happy … are just that — salesmen … One is required to respond to the intoxication of the sales pitch and is not to question the condition of their heart … The commercial come-ons insist that the heart’s grief and a lost soul’s emptiness and panic can be fixed by some new bright and shiny: a new appliance, therapy, “hope and change.”

By the incessant promotion of the gospels of the hyper-capitalist sects of Happiness Uber Alles, the implicit message imparted is … suffering is a character flaw that can be mitigated, elevated — even redeemed by consumerism, antidepressants, acquiring a positive attitude — all the uttered homilies and donned vestments of the consumer state.

“The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.” — Carl Jung.

What kind of miserable malcontent would resist changing this social milieu and personal mode of being: Sitting stuck in commuter traffic; eating high-fat, low-quality food from a drive-thru window; languishing in a cubical … stranded in a low benefits, little chance of advancement job — until, of course, the job is outsourced; waddling around the mall … clad in off-the-rack, sweatshop sown clothing; dozing off in front of the TEEVEE with Cheetos crumbs stippled in the folds of one’s jowls.

Aint that the life — or what? By any means possible, we preserve the death-styles of empire.

This mode of being is far removed from the norms of nature and the revelries and attendant sublimations necessary to engage in civic life … Here, ruthlessness and rationalization banish reason; ambition trumps merit; expediency pushes aside wisdom; and empty sensation masquerades as experience.

Like interstate travel, the collective mind of the consumer state propels us forward to the next empty agenda, the next perfunctory task, the next meaningless purchase … But depression slows us down, inducing us to feel the grief inherent in our alienation … to cease the incessant, habitual hurdling forward and striving upward … to stop and investigate the mysteries of our hearts … to feel the sadness of the suffering earth …

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” — Samuel Beckett

But we must slow down: We are destroying our planet and her exquisite, irreplaceable creatures, as well as our own sanity.

Two weeks before the Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Well “spill” (what a dishonest word for that noxious, bleeding gash) into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I dreamed of a badly injured fish who had had half his face torn off by some brutal method employed by the practitioners of industrial scale fishing operations to exploit the world’s oceans …

The fish had worked himself upon a rock on a craggy shoreline; holding an eternity of suffering in his one remaining eye, the fish turned to face me … Ever since, this dream image has lived within me … I carry the fish’s suffering and I bear his dark rage regarding what our species has done to his/our home — this complex, mysterious, beguiling, dangerous, sublime, monstrous, and magnificent world we were cast into …

My sense of sorrow, at times, seems unbearable; my rage … bottomless … Who will speak for the voiceless — who will make amends for their suffering?

In childhood, I loved this body of water … loved it as one can love any living thing (which it is). I swam in it, collected jewel-like shells on its beaches of bleached sand, and went deep sea fishing with my father in its azure waters … Wherein, I was in awe of its (seemingly endless) bounty and abundance. Its winds and waves intimated to me the nature of eternity and the Gulf’s living things drew me into the beauty and terrors of the living moment.

Approximately, ninety percent of the large fish (Tuna, Mackerel) in the world’s oceans are gone due to overfishing. Oceanographers predict in 50 years time the oceans and seas the earth over will be dead. (And these are conservative estimates.)

Much like the denizens of late Cretaceous looking dumbly at the sky and barely giving a second thought to that bright, shining thingy that appeared above, this is a calamity so large in scale and so all-encompassing in its implications that we human beings just can’t wrap our minds around it …

In fact, by our elevation of willful ignorance and mindless consumerism to a cultural imperative, we human beings, acting collectively, are the equivalent the planet-decimating Cretaceous comet.

I try to resist losing myself to misanthropic rage when I read statistics such as this one. Yet I am enraged at the waste — the sheer stupidity, mendacity, and hubris of it all.

I want to grab the human race by the lapels and shout, “Stop it. God damn it. Just stop it. How could you destroy something so beautiful and then just continue to go through your sub-cretinous day? What the hell is wrong with you? Didn’t anyone ever teach you the meaning of decency?

This is not a political debate. This is a choice between sanity and mass suffering; perhaps, even the survival of our species and a mass die-off.

But listening to the pronouncements of Washington’s political class and the mainstream media’s ceaselessly shallow, miss-the-point narratives is like eavesdropping on the palaver from a petri dish.

Excuse my sense of fatalism: At this point, the system is too far-gone to be redeemed; it is in the process of systemic breakdown. Although, this is not as awful as it sounds, for one must let the old go and let a natural process of decay take over.

When the rot is this advanced, at best, what you have is culture as a compost heap. Yet that doesn’t mean in times of decay, there cannot be meaning and beauty, because life itself becomes vivid and alive in contrast to the extant ugliness.

Without decay, there is no change. The world would be as pointless as paradise. If you wish to find the future forest, look to the humus upon its floor. The future is decay; and decay is the future. The old ego must sing, even within the compost heap of its own putrefied concepts.

And, as it does, it must sing of its suffering and the sorrows of the earth … singing like the severed head of Orpheus floating to Lesbos.

Arias of compost sing of new understandings but you cannot skip the singing school of grief.

Frank O’Hara suggests: “In times of crisis we must all decide again and again whom we love.”

Things are going to work out — but not in ways we can predict.

There is a mournful beauty, even a providential utility, attendant to living through at time of putrefaction: Compost (the anti-Astroturf) nourishes fledgling life and novel forms. A new paradigm will morph from the remnants of the old, putrefied system.

If Confederate ghosts could shout through the prison of their enshrinement — they would call out to us, “Don’t believe it. Having seen the meaningless waste of war, we know now that we would have chosen to live out our lives, breathing in the humid, Georgia air, having our troubles softened by the sight of dappled light filtered through pine needles, and being lulled to sleep at night by the song of crickets and cicada.

“Don’t you believe the lie, as we did, that dying in a rich man’s war is a virtue; don’t buy into the fraud that working all your life for a greedy few is a sound way to proceed through the fleeting and finite years of your time upon this earth.”

Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: moc.hortskcorlihpnull@lihp. Visit Phil’s Web site And at FaceBook. Angela Tyler-Rockstroh is a Broadcast Designer/Animator who has worked with major Networks such as Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, HBO Family, PBS, as well as, with Michael Moore on his documentaries, “Fahrenheit” and “Sicko.”

The U.S.-led international effort to repress piracy has focused on dispatching naval forces and employing drones off the coast of Somalia in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean as part of prevention and interdiction operations. In December, the State Department’s coordinator for counterpiracy and maritime security, Donna Hopkins, expressed her jubilation over the “unprecedented solidarity among nations” committed to eliminating the “common threat.” Indeed, U.S., NATO, and EU navies are accompanied by forces from over 30 nations, including warships deployed by China, Russia, India, and several others. All are authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1851 to use “all necessary measures” to combat piracy.

The “common interest” unifying these nations is the protection of maritime trade, which accounts for more than 80% of the world’s trade. U.S. planners have described the Gulf of Aden as “one of the world’s most important waterways,” in large part because close to 12% of the world’s petroleum passes through it. Somali pirates have exploited the vital shipping lanes by overtaking everything from chemical and oil tankers to fishing vessels and private yachts.

A new study conducted by the One Earth Future foundation estimates the total annual cost of maritime hijackings to be somewhere between $7 and $12 billion. The high price tag is primarily due to the hike in insurance rates and growing security costs taken on by commercial vessels as well as the dramatic rise in ransom payments, an estimated 60% increase in 2010 from 2009 levels.

To date the growing presence of international naval forces has done little to repress Somali piracy. Ecoterra International, an organization that monitors piracy, claims that “more than 50 captured ships are in the hands of Somali pirates, with at least 800 captives.” The number of total attacks have also increased, though the number of successful hijackings fell from 2009 to 2010—a small victory many analysts attribute to the international flotilla.

Pirates are responding to the international presence, however, by extending their reach deeper into the Indian Ocean through the use of “mother ships”or captured commercial vessels that serve as floating stations from which smaller boats can perform piracy operations. On December 11, 2010 Somali pirates ventured as far as 1,000 miles east off the Somali coast and only 550 miles from the coast of India to hijack a cargo vessel.  As a result of this expansive reach, “over 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil supply passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea is at risk from Somali pirates,” the shipping industry warns.

The growing threat is prompting some nations to take more aggressive measures. Last month, South Korean armed troops raided a hijacked cargo vessel and rescued 21 sailors. In what is suspected of being a display of power directed at North Korea, the South Korean government hailed the military raid as evidence of its “strong will to never negotiate with pirates.” But amid the fanfare experts warned that aggressive military action will likely cause pirates to adopt more violent tactics, thereby jeopardizing the safety of hostages who for the most part have not been physically harmed by their captors.

In fact, Tuesday morning marked the “first time US citizens have been killed in pirate attacks,” the Guardian reports, when Somali pirates murdered four American hostages after being captured on Friday, February 18. This deadly incident occurred after negotiations between the pirates and American officials “went south” due to a “dispute about the money,” according to one U.S. official. While circumstances surrounding the event remain unclear, U.S. officials claim that the pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at one of the Navy warships “shadowing” the hijacked vessel. U.S. forces then raided the vessel where they found two pirates already dead and all four hostages shot. During the raid, military forces killed two pirates and captured the remaining 15. The next day the  Associated Press reported that captains of other hijacked ships “have been ordered to tell navies not to approach or hostages would be killed.”

This dreadful event will likely be used to justify the need for more aggressive military action taken against pirates, a position U.S. leadership has held for several years.

Piracy/Terror Nexus

Prior to Tuesday’s incident, Vice Admiral Mark Fox, commander of the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Central Command fleet, asserted that “the same techniques” used to combat terrorism should be applied to piracy, adding that “[t]here cannot be a segregation between terrorist activity . . . and counter piracy.”

Until this week, U.S. intelligence officials had found no evidence of “direct ties” between Somali pirates and Al Shabaab, the “al Qaeda-linked” coalition of  militants waging war against Somalia’s internationally-recognized government. But on the same day the four Americans were killed, Reuters reported that Al Shabaab militants “freed pirate gang leaders detained last week” after settling “a multi-million dollar deal to receive a 20 percent cut in all future ransoms paid to the pirates.” In return, the militants will allow hijacked ships to anchor at the port town of Haradhere in central Somalia.

This development comes less than a year after Bronwyn Bruton from the Council on Foreign Relations explained “[p]irates . . .have strong disincentives to cooperate with extremist elements, for fear of being branded terrorists themselves” and warned that an aggressive response “could nudge pirates into profit-seeking cooperation with extremist elements.”

Applying “techniques” that can effectively reduce terrorism to piracy should be a welcomed step. But this is a far cry from Washington’s prevailing counterterror doctrine.

A “key component” of the doctrine demands denying alleged terrorist organizations the ability to use “ungoverned or under-governed spaces as safe havens.” When confronted with political entities accused of “harboring terrorists,” the U.S. application of the doctrine has often meant bypassing all available peaceful means and moving directly to preventive military action. The Bush administration’s record on Somalia offers insight into the merit of this application.

In June 2006 a coalition of Islamic courts and militias, united under the banner of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), liberated much of southern and central Somalia from the oppressive grip of CIA-financed warlords, who made the payroll by offering to hunt alleged terrorist suspects. Ethiopia, Somalia’s historic enemy and Washington’s regional client, pulled a page out of the “war on terror” playbook by accusing the Islamic movement of “harboring terrorists.” The UIC then appealed to Ethiopia’s paymaster by inviting U.S. officials to Somalia to investigate the allegations. The Bush administration refused and in December 2006 gave Ethiopia the “green light” to invade.

The U.S.-sponsored intervention eradicated the significant achievements of the UIC. Beyond establishing a level of peace and security unknown to the region for more than fifteen years and winning wide support from the Somali public, the UIC had a “severe dampening effect on the activities of maritime piracy in the waters off the Somali coast,” according to a UN Monitoring Group report. The Bush administration’s top foreign policymaker for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, referred to this situation as a “lack of internal stability,” whereas letting Ethiopia off the leash to devour the long-tortured nation amounted to a “strategy to help establish stability,” meaning crushing the UIC’s illegitimate act of sovereignty.

Ethiopia’s occupation drove Somalia into a state of war, repression, and overall crisis reminiscent of the days of the brutal Siad Barre dictatorship, which was propped up by Washington during the regime’s most murderous years before falling in 1991.

In terms of extinguishing the so-called terror threat, the region has been transformed from an environment  “inhospitable to foreign jihadist groups” prior to the occupation to one that allows  extremists “to seek safe haven, recruit new members and train for future operations,”  according to a January 2010 report to the U.S. Committee on Foreign Relations. The fall of the UIC has also been followed by the “phenomenal growth of piracy” off Somalia’s shores, as documented by the UN Monitoring Group. This fact, however, is routinely overlooked by the mainstream press in its coverage of the relentless “scourge of piracy.”

Nevertheless, inside U.S. policymaking circles the counterterror doctrine passes without serious scrutiny, while its scope broadens to the domain of piracy. Last month, the African press reported an alleged U.S. operation where forces  “descended” by helicopter on “a former base of the notorious Somali pirates and a current stronghold of Al-Shabaab,” kidnapped several local youths and flew them offshore for questioning regarding their involvement in piracy. The alleged operation is consistent with earlier prescriptions made by the National Security Council, which, in a 2008 planning document, asserted the necessity of “action on land to reinforce measures taken at sea.”

If true, the operation is additional evidence of the growing confluence of counter-piracy and -terrorism operations—a trend likely to escalate given the murder of the four American hostages and the new deal arranged between pirate and Al Shabaab elements.

International Solidarity?

Despite claims from Obama administration officials concerning the “unprecedented international solidarity,” nations from the Red Sea region questioned both the effectiveness of the international naval-buildup and the intentions of “foreign elements” during a conference held in Cairo in November 2010.

Government officials asserted that the “intensive multinational military presence” poses a “danger to Arab national security,” referring mainly to the U.S. as well as the potential for Israel to dispatch naval forces “on the pretext of protecting commercial shipping.” Peter Apps from the Washington Post reported in October that nations participating in the international naval flotilla are seeking “to stake a claim to increasingly important sea lanes,” which form a “key shipping route for oil supplies from the Persian Gulf.” Apps writes further that “none of the . . . new entrants come close to challenging the regional military dominance” of the U.S., adding that the lone superpower maintains “at least one aircraft carrier in the area with enough firepower to sink almost all the other flotillas.”

The effectiveness of the international naval-buildup was also challenged by officials, who agreed that piracy is a “symptom” of the ongoing civil war and therefore can not be solved by sending foreign navies to combat piracy off the coast. In other words, like terrorism tackling piracy requires addressing its “root causes.” Any attempt in this regard would require addressing the legitimate grievances of the perpetrators and the larger community, something the UN and foreign governments have fallen woefully short of doing.

According to a study on Somali piracy published this January in Third World Quarterly, “Somalis see the discourse on piracy as a clear manifestation of the double standards used in the international system.” Since the political collapse of the country in 1991, Somalia’s unprotected waters have been the site of criminal conduct in the form of illegal fishing by Asian and European companies and the dumping of Europe’s toxic and even nuclear waste. The study explains that “the world” has paid little attention to these crimes and for the most part has only condemned Somali pirates.

In fact, in the U.S. National Security Council’s December 2008 “action plan” to counter piracy off the Horn of Africa, there is not one mention of the crimes at sea committed against Somalia. The oversight is easily explained.  The U.S. maritime security policy is to “[r]educe the vulnerability of the maritime domain to . . . [criminal] acts and exploitation when U.S. interests are directly affected” (emphasis mine). Thus, unless U.S. interests are at stake criminal acts at sea, such as the use of Somali waters as a garbage and toxic waste dump,  fail to qualify as serious threats to the vast “maritime domain.” And as minor irritants they deserve only scant attention at best.

It should come as no surprise then that many Somalis have been outraged with the international response to piracy and unsympathetic to outsiders’ concerns over the threat it poses to world commerce and regional “stability.”

Limits of Law

The legitimate grievances of Somalis are now overshadowed by the U.S.-led international effort to prosecute pirates. The National Security Council planning document refered to above argues that “Somali-based piracy is flourishing because it is currently highly profitable and nearly consequence-free.” According to this logic, the threat of prosecution should serve as a powerful deterrent.

U.S. courts have already begun prosecutions. In November a federal court finished trying five Somalis who were captured during an April attack on a U.S. warship, making them “the first defendants to be tried for high-seas piracy in a U.S. court since 1819.” Germany has also opened up its courts, ending a 400 year lapse in the prosecution of piracy. These historic moments, however, are complicated by various legal challenges.

One challenge has been determining whether some of those captured at sea should be tried as adults or juveniles. In November, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for Children and Armed Conflict, said “The frontline [pirate] troops now are increasingly children and youth.” She went on to say that the “big pirates do not go out, they have become businessmen; it is the young children [15-17-year-olds] who are sent out.”

While jailing children and young men ensure that acts piracy no longer go “consequence-free,” the thought of convictions sending “a strong message of deterrence” is unconvincing given the misery on land that Somalis are fleeing.

In December, Sudarsan Raghavan from the Washington Post wrote, “The situation in Mogadishu [Somalia's capital] has become so bad that nearly 300,000 Somalis have made their way out this year, swelling the ranks of what is, after Iraq and Afghanistan, the third-largest refugee population in the world.”  For the past few years, the refugee and overall humanitarian crisis has been a consequence of the current phase of a two-decade long civil war. But now the region is inflicted with drought so severe that it has “overtaken insecurity as the main reason for people being displaced,” the Guardian reports.

Taken together, Somalia’s various crises currently leave 3.2 million people (more than 40 per cent of the population) in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, the “international community” is subdued by  “donor fatigue,” Raghavan reports. He adds that “in a post-9/11 world,” where “nations are preoccupied with terrorism, security and other global crises,” the UN has had serious difficulty raising humanitarian funding—including from Somalia’s “main donor,” the U.S.

As a result of the large pool of desperate children and adults for those running the criminal enterprise to tap into, meting out legal punishment will likely fall short of a “strong message,” at least as its intended.

To resolve the crisis on land requires ending the ongoing conflict between Al Shabaab and the TFG, which most analysts believe would fall within days were it not for the protection of the African Union’s Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). This is understood by all observers, including the Obama administration. But at the current juncture the administration and other major parties remain  unwilling to initiate dialogue with Al Shabaab, as recommended even within the foreign policy establishment. Instead, the Obama administration is preparing to take “more aggressive” action against the militia, a move many analysts believe could easily “backfire.”

Thus, at this moment in Somalia’s seemingly “intractable” conflict, steps could be taken to potentially reduce hostilities. But this is a tall order for the Obama administration as doing so requires defying the prevailing counterterror doctrine. Failure in this regard carries the possible consequence of reinforcing and prolonging Somalia’s various crises, including the one at sea.

The passage is indeed routine. On April 28, 1986 the Enterprise voyaged from the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea and canal into the Mediterranean in order to support “Operation Eldorado Canyon.” In that operation, U.S. aircraft repeatedly entered the airspace over the Gulf of Sidra, which Libya claimed as its territorial waters, challenging Gadafy’s “Line of Defense.” (This was before Gadafy decided to kiss up to the U.S. and other imperialist powers.) They deliberately provoked a confrontation and killed 56 Libyans including Gadafy’s 18 month old daughter.

The USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) was sent to the Red Sea in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1991. Aircraft carriers including the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) regularly ply the waters of the Red Sea and pass through the canal, projecting power and “maintaining security.”

The 5th Fleet, whose “area of responsibility” includes the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and East African coast as far south as Kenya, is headquartered in Bahrain. That country is anything but secure right now. The emir of a dynasty dating back to the 1780s is quaking in his sandals as his people defy the military and police and occupy Manama’s Pearl Square. They are inspired by the heroic Egyptian people of all ages and faiths who refused to abandon Tahrir Square in Cairo and brought down the despotic Mubarak. The people are rising up from North Africa to the Gulf—invariably (except in the case of Iran) against dictators backed by Washington and protected by the 5th Fleet.

Perhaps the peoples of the region wonder why the U.S. Navy feels it has any “responsibility” for an area 6000 miles away from U.S. shores. More likely, they understand precisely what the U.S. is responsible for: the protection of an intolerable status quo. What are the U.S. bases for — in Eritrea, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq — other than to maintain the security of the hated elites who back the U.S. in its wars, provide optimal conditions for U.S. investment, and provide weaponry for “security forces” who keep the people down?

Those who disparage these spontaneous uprisings as lacking in political consciousness: Do you not suppose that the masses rebelling understand the basic dynamics of imperialism? You don’t need to read banned texts by Lenin to understand that all the hated regimes rely on the U.S. for support, that the U.S. is all about profiting the few, that the U.S. is controlled by the rich who oppress everyone else. A young man at a demonstration in Egypt holds up a placard reading, “Egypt supports Wisconsin. One world, one pain.”  That says it all.

The arrival of the USS Enterprise coincided with the arrival of two Iranian military vessels (a frigate and supply ship) in the Red Sea. They have been approved by Suez Canal authorities (and thus the Egyptian military) to transit the waterway Monday en route to the coast of Syria, an Iranian ally. This will be the first time that has happened since the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

The Constantinople Convention of 1888 guarantees that the canal “shall always be free and open, in time of war as in time of peace, to every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.” So the Iranians might at any point have demanded their right to use it. This is no big deal.

The treaty does have an Article 10, allowing measures for “the defense of Egypt and the maintenance of public order.”  This was invoked by Egypt from 1949 to bar Israeli shipping from using the canal. Israeli forces had, after all, massacred Arabs and driven 700,000 into refugee camps and exile in order to form the Zionist state; Egypt and other Arab states attacked Israel only after the carnage was well underway. Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 and 1967, occupying Egyptian territory. But after the Camp David Accords of 1978, Israel gained access to the canal, both for commercial and military ships. Egyptian authorities allowed missile-class warships and missile-equipped submarines to pass through the channel into the Red Sea in 2009, aware that they were preparing for a possible attack on Iran.

The Iranians are entirely in their rights. But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman calls the passage a “provocation.”  Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk calls the move “very provocative.”  No doubt the U.S. State Department will echo this charge.  Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calls the situation “grave” and tells his cabinet the Jewish state will have to boost defense spending (which means, of course, that U.S. taxpayers will have to pay more).

Haaretz columnist, Aluf Benn, argues that Egypt’s decision to permit transit indicates that “Egypt is no longer committed to an alliance with Israel against Iran.” If so, it is the most positive achievement so far of Egypt’s “half-revolution”!

“Provocation”?! Haven’t the peoples of this “area of responsibility” of the U.S. Navy been provoked enough by the U.S. and Israel in recent days to laugh off this charge? Whatever they may think of Iran — and certainly feelings vary throughout this complicated region — they certainly can’t view a couple Iranian warships as anything comparably provocative to the Enterprise.

Every substantial report about the uprising in Bahrain mentions how the emirs or kings of the country have for over six decades hosted the 5th Fleet, and how the relationship holds incalculable strategic importance. Bahrain, for example, endorsed and facilitated the U.S. attack on Iraq during the first Gulf War and supported the 2003 invasion. Like Mubarak’s Egypt it’s been a “friend” of the U.S. Its friendship for the U.S., like that of Egypt, has been expressed through conciliatory gestures towards Israel including a degree of diplomatic recognition of the Zionist state.

In the last few days the Arab world (and the whole world) has learned of the duplicity of the U.S. and Israeli-backed Palestinian Authority. We’ve learned about the U.S. alarm over the UN resolution condemning the manifestly illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and how Obama tried to strong-arm the PA into requesting the tabling of the resolution.
The world has seen the sickening spectacle of the U.S. UN ambassador once again shielding the increasingly — shamelessly and overtly — racist apartheid-state from international censure by vetoing that entirely appropriate resolution endorsed by the U.K., Russia, China, France, Germany, India, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, everybody else but the U.S.

This was the Obama administration’s first UNSC veto. Why? Because, Ambassador Susan Burns lectured the world, to pass the resolution might set back the cause of a Palestinian state by causing the two sides to “harden” blah blah blah…

The rational mind — not just in the Enterprise’s AOR but everywhere — must wonder how the American officials can expect to retain any credibility. Having demanded the end of settlement activity, then backed off cravenly when Netanyahu refused — while maintaining the uninterrupted flow of aid to the apartheid state — how can the U.S. posture as a force for any good at all in this region for which it laughably claims “responsibility”?

“Hardening of sides”? Please!  The Palestinian officials aligned with the U.S. and Israel have been softening, offering huge concessions that when revealed to the people provoked outrage. That’s why chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, had to resign in disgrace. And the Israeli position has hardened because the Zionists know that they have Obama over a barrel; he knows that if he challenges the Lobby, it will likely destroy his prospects for a second term. There is no “peace process” towards an independent Palestinian state.

So the Enterprise, symbol of wars of aggression producing horrific, ongoing consequences, sails down the Red Sea.  A strike group for U.S. imperialism (associated in the Arabs’ minds with the implacable Zionist enemy) sails through the Gulf of Aden into the Arabian Sea, into the Gulf of Oman, into the Persian Gulf to “maintain pressure” on Iran, a country that has not attacked another in centuries. It claims to “insure stability” in a region where people relish the current instability and take pride in their state of dignified rebellion. The people are standing up, saying “Enough!” (Bas!) to dictators. Are they not implicitly saying “Enough!” to imperialism and Zionism as well?

Meanwhile Iranian warships, with the blessing of the new military caretaker government in Egypt, sail into the Mediterranean to remind Israel that an attack on Syria will have consequences. Now just how provocative is that?

Years from now, its full impact will be known, but already hundreds of thousands of people are harmed, local economies gravely impacted, and large parts of the Gulf contaminated by toxic hydrocarbons and dispersants, making seafood absolutely unsafe to eat.

Obama, administration officials, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and BP executives lied, claiming most oil disappeared, 96% of Gulf waters were safe and reopened, and seafood was safe to eat. False, according to mounting evidence confirming:

– layers of oil residue contaminating several thousand square miles of seafloor;

– elevated hydrocarbon levels in Gulf residents’ blood, suggesting an epidemic of future illnesses, including cancer and others as lethal;

– massive dispersants use prevented clean-up by skimming;

– no practical way now to clean up spilled oil; and,

– dispersants bioaccumulate, making oil toxins more bioavailable to sealife, easier to absorb, and more harmful if ingested.

The effects will linger for decades, maybe generations, making critics wonder if willful intent was involved, given evidence, including:

• Washington and BP complicity in misreporting, coverup and denying the disaster’s severity from start to capping to the most recent disturbing findings;

• virtual confirmation of the greatest ever environmental crime, contaminating large portions of the Gulf; destroying basic food chain elements that are building blocks for fisheries, birds, sea turtles and mammal populations;

• polluting coastal shorelines; and causing a massive public health problem with no federal aid to inform and mitigate;

• irreparable harm to the lives and livelihoods of potentially millions of Gulf residents;

• and BP’s history of violations, exposing the industry’s worst safety, maintenance, and environmental record, yet nearly always able to escape with small fines, penalties and settlements; no prosecutions; no pressure to operate responsibly; and no curtailment of government-let contracts, so no reason not to continue business as usual.

Yet after BP declared the Macondo well dead last September, the event died with it, disappearing from major media reports that were complicit with BP and Obama officials by misreporting it from the start.

No wonder critics ask: was Macondo’s blowout accidental or willful? Was deliberate sabotage involved? Were the Obama administration and BP complicit in the greatest ever environmental crime with enormous global consequences? If so, why?

A November report showed BP ignored warning signs and used inadequate procedures to secure Macondo’s integrity. Jointly prepared by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and National Research Council (NRC), it said:

failures and missed indications of hazards were not isolated events during the preparation of the Macondo well for temporary abandonment. Numerous (faulty) decisions (preceded) abandonment despite indications of hazards, such as the results of repeated negative-pressure tests, suggest an insufficient consideration of risk and a lack of operating discipline.

As a result, safety was virtually ignored, including employee warnings that Macondo was a disaster waiting to happen. Moreover, the report found BP used only six centralizers (well casing centering devices in the wellbore) even though “modeling results suggested that many more (were) needed.”

BP also didn’t incorporate a “float shoe” at the well casing bottom – a devise containing a check valve to automatically activate in case of emergency. It’s a vital extra precaution not used. In addition, BP chose not to remove drilling mud without first installing a “lockdown sleeve” on the production casing’s wellhead seals. It would have protected against shifting position built up pressure.

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, its regulatory arm, was also cited for “not hav(ing) formal training and certification….for its inspectors.” It means incompetents, not professionals, were in charge, leaving BP unregulated despite its poor safety, maintenance and environmental record — a red flag begging for close monitoring.

Most important is that longstanding safe operating practices would have prevented disaster, yet BP ignored them. Minimally, willful negligence should be charged. However, deliberate malfeasance is more accurate, revealing a manufactured crime for corporate gain despite short-term costs. Obvious red flags included suspicious BP stock transactions;  CEO Tony Hayward sold about one-third of his holdings weeks before the explosion;  Goldman Sachs sold BP stock worth over $250 million in Q I 2010, 44% of its investment: what did they, not the public, know? And Enormous Big Oil/Wall Street pressure was exerted to enact Obama-supported cap and trade legislation.  After House passage, it stalled in the Senate.

The bill would have let corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by charging consumers more for energy, and also create a new bubble through carbon trading derivatives speculation.

It was about profits, not environmental protection, especially a potential $10 trillion market for derivatives speculation, a plum needing an environment crisis to enact, like last summer’s salmonella scare. It provided impetus for lame duck session passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act – a food tyranny measure, benefitting agribusiness at the expense of small farmers and consumers.

Cap and trade is a stealth scheme to license pollution, raise energy prices, and provide a huge bonanza through carbon trading derivatives speculation. Corporate interests badly want it. It remains if the 112th Congress will oblige.

New York Times Deepwater Horizon Information

On December 25, writers David Barstow, David Rohde and Stephanie Saul headlined, “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours,” saying:

Months after the disaster, “Investigators have dissected BP’s well design and Halliburton’s cementing work, uncovering problem after problem.” Besides attention on the failed blowout protector (BOP), the explosion “escaped intense scrutiny, as if” one problem caused the other. False.

Deepwater Horizon “had formidable and redundant defenses against even the worst blowout. It was equipped to divert surging oil and gas safely away from the rig. It had devices to quickly seal off a well blowout or to break free from it. It had systems to prevent gas from exploding and sophisticated alarms that would quickly warn the crew at the slightest trace of gas.” The crew practiced responding to alarms, fires and blowouts, and “it was blessed with experienced leaders who clearly cared about safety.”

In fact, Deepwater Horizon’s disaster shouldn’t have happened, yet it did. Why suggests willful malfeasance, given the huge profit potential involved, as explained above. Eleven lost lives, many injuries, billions in cost affecting one quarter only, a contaminated Gulf, and potentially millions of harmed coastal residents are inconsequential by comparison.

Based on interviews with 21 crew members, documents The Times obtained, sworn testimonies, and written statements from nearly all rig survivors, a disturbing picture emerges, especially a singular fact:

Crew members “died and suffered terrible injuries because every one of the Horizon’s defenses failed on April 20,” a near-impossibility, but it happened. “Some were deployed but did not work. Some were activated too late, after they had almost certainly been damaged by fire or explosions. Some were never deployed at all.”

Everything that could go wrong did. Decisive steps weren’t taken. Communications “fell apart.” Warning signs were missed or weren’t heeded, and “crew members in critical areas failed to coordinate a response.” Paralysis, breakdown, and disaster resulted. “For many, the first hint of crisis came in the form of a blast wave.”

Yet crew members weren’t trained or prepared to handle worst type crises. Why not is key for Mocondo, what workers called a “well from hell,” plagued by problems. “Heavy drilling fluid, called mud, kept disappearing into formation cracks. Less mud meant less weight bearing down on the oil and gas that were surging up. This set off violent ‘kicks’ of gas and oil that sent the (rig’s team) scrambling to control the well.”

In March, trouble halted operations for nine days. It was a hint of worse to come, and just a matter of time before occurring. Management should have taken extra precautions. Failure begs the question. Why not? Instead of instituting fail safe measures, they were systematically avoided. “In effect, they were daring the well to blow out.” On April 20, it obliged.

What shouldn’t, and under safe operating conditions couldn’t happen, in fact, did. Once the BOP failed, nothing stopped oil and gas from “racing up the Horizon’s riser pipe. Nine minutes later came the first explosion.”

The crew trained for blowouts. Procedure called for “quickly installing a special valve on the drill pipe….Only minutes before the blowout, the drill shack” got “puzzling pressure readings” and sensed trouble. “The industry (long believed) BOPs were ‘the ultimate fail-safe’ ” device.

Transocean said Horizon’s BOP couldn’t prevent blowouts this extreme. However, evidence shows poor maintenance crippled it. Its problems included dead batteries, bad solenoid valves, and leaking hydraulic lines. None should have happened, and all could have easily been fixed.

Yet they were “overlooked and ignored.” Willful negligence or criminal malfeasance? Either way is damning, especially for an industry major with decades of expertise. Failure was inexcusable, suggesting willful intent.

“Transocean (also) never performed an expensive 90-day maintenance inspection that the manufacturer said should be done every three to five years.” So do industry and federal regulations.

Despite two explosions, Horizon still shouldn’t have sunk. Disconnecting the rig from the BOP would have cut off the fire’s main fuel source, giving rig and crew a fighting chance. Witnesses differ on details, but agree on one basic point: “even with Horizon burning, powerless and gutted by explosions, there was still resistance to the strongest possible measure that might save the rig.”

However, Horizon’s “death knell….was the emergency disconnect system itself. Like so many of the rig’s defenses, it failed” for unexplained reasons. “Horizon was still handcuffed to the well from hell.” Evacuating fast was essential.

Major unaddressed problems, initial explosions, subsequent small ones, intense heat, and poor evacuation drills left 11 crew members dead. Their epitaph should indict BP officials and complicit Obama officials for homicide. Justice demands holding them  accountable.

The newly opened area is about 60 miles east of the Macondo wellhead. About 9,400 square miles of fishing waters remain closed, 4% of federal waters, down from 37% earlier.

From the start, The New Times provided cover for BP and the administration, at first denying the existence of a spill, then minimizing the disaster. On May 3, writers, John Broder and Tom Zeller Jr., headlined, “Gulf Oil Spill Is Bad, but How Bad? saying “news analysis” indicates it’s really not serious after all, when evidence showed the potential for disaster.

On August 4, writer Justin Gillis headlined, “US Finds Most Oil From Spill Poses Little Additional Risk,” saying:

The government is expected to announce… that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.

This at a time, and later on, when independent research showed most oil remained. Corexit dispersants increased toxicity manyfold. Seafood was contaminated and unsafe. Vast areas of the Gulf and shorelines were (and continue to be) hazardous, and the risk to wildlife and human health was extreme. In other words, by downplaying the disaster, The Times defended government and BP lies, fearing the April 20 explosion provided “new fodder” for opponents.

Other Times reports highlighted the vanishing oil, low concentrations of deep sea toxic compounds, and conditions slowly returning to normal. In an October 12 update, The Times said:

… evidence is increasing that through a combination of luck (a fortunate shift in ocean currents that kept much of the oil away from shore) and ecological circumstance (the relatively warm waters that increased the breakdown rate of the oil), the gulf region appears to have escaped the direst predictions of the spring.

And preliminary reports (suggest) the damage already done (may) be significantly less than was feared – less, in fact, than the destruction from the much smaller Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989.

In fact, the truth is mirror opposite. BP and administration officials are responsible for the greatest environmental crime in history, an ongoing disaster, affecting vast parts of the Gulf, coastal waters from Texas to Florida, most or perhaps all wildlife, and the health of millions of residents, no longer safe since April.

Drill Baby Drill

On October 12, the May imposed moratorium was lifted, six weeks ahead of its scheduled November 30 date, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar declaring:

We are open for business…. We have made and continue to make significant progress in reducing the risks associated with deepwater drilling.” (Therefore), I have decided that it is now appropriate to lift the suspension on deepwater drilling for those operators that are able to clear the higher bar that we have set.

In fact, so-called “new rules” mimic old ones. Drilling remains unregulated and unsafe, so it’s just a matter of time before the next disaster strikes, besides natural seepage and annual hundreds of smaller, unreported spills. Cumulatively over time, their toxicity destroys global water and human health. Moreover, according to former NOAA supervisory researcher Jeff Short:

“Once you have a spill, you are pretty much screwed. That’s because oil spreads on water at a rate of one-half football field per second. Recovery can take decades,” so calling the coast clear and water safe is willfully deceptive, echoed by the dominant media, The New York Times in the lead.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Coverup

The level is staggering, numerous reports countering BP and administration claims. On September 3, Boston Chemical Data Corp. laboratory findings, commissioned by the United Commercial Fishermen’s Association, revealed toxic Corexit levels in test samples, meaning, besides oil contamination, Gulf seafood is extremely hazardous and unsafe.

Moreover, though BP denies it, Corexit spraying continues, mostly at night but some during day time. Fishermen report seeing it, in some cases hit by its mist. Reports say BP hired out-of-state contractors using unregistered boats, besides nightly aerial spraying. The administration’s response to the entire disaster remains firm — coverup and denial, helped by a major media blackout after BP reported sealing the Macondo well on September 19.

In early October, however, four working reports issued by investigators from the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling revealed systemic coverup and censorship to suppress the disaster’s magnitude, one very much ongoing.

They explained that stonewalling began in April and continued, one report concluding:

By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem.

In fact, willful misinformation was released. In contrast, independent researchers produced accurate findings. BP, the administration, and major media accounts suppressed them, including evidence of criminal negligence.

Local Reports Exposing the Big Lie

On October 23, New Orleans Times-Picayune writer, Bob Marshall, headlined “Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico,” saying:

“Just three days after (Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen, BP’s front man) declared little recoverable surface oil remained in the Gulf of Mexico…. Boat captains working the BP clean-up effort” reported seeing it, confirmed by Times-Picayune photojournalist, Matt Hinton, in a fly-over. In addition, “fishermen’s groups….insist their members have” spotted it all along, refuting official claims that don’t explain large fish kills, big enough to suggest widespread toxicity, affecting humans as well as wildlife.

On the six month anniversary of the disaster, marine biologist, Riki Ott, reported “people (are) now dropping dead,” adding:

I am dealing with about 3-4 autopsies right now…. I know of people who’s esophagus’ are de-solving, disintegrating…. I know of people with 4.75% of their lung capacity, with enlarged hearts…. All of these people have oil (and dispersants) in their bodies.

She added that “4 to 5 million people in the Gulf were exposed to oil (and dispersants) at dangerous levels that is going to have incredible public health ramifications… and possibly force the President out of office for lies.” In fact, he should be impeached and prosecuted for war crimes abroad and ones against humanity at home.

Deaths continue to be reported as well as people finding volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other toxins in their blood. According to one observer, corruption, cover-up and poisoning are occurring in plain sight. The entire region is affected and will be for decades, the dirty secret BP, government officials, and major media won’t explain.

Local accounts, however, are disturbing. On October 21, New Orleans WWL-TV reported:

“The oil is not evaporating. It’s not dissipating. It’s sitting there,” according to PJ Hahn, Plaquemines Parish Coastal Zone Management Department head.

On October 20, AP reported Byron Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, saying “oyster beds are all dead or dying…. I’m very pessimistic about it.”

In early September, Mississippi Department of Marine Resources officials found 80 – 90% of oysters dead, citing no cause. Clearly oil and Corexit are responsible.

On October 21, Cynthia Sarthou, Gulf Restoration Network executive director, said:

“There is still so much oil and dispersant in the environment, and the Gulf has not yet begun to heal because we have yet to determine what the injury is that it has suffered,” and its extent. For sure it’s massive and destructive.

On October 16, the Louisiana Shrimp Association’s Clint Guidry called using Corexit a “horrific mistake,” adding:

Potential ecosystem collapse caused by toxic dispersant use during this disaster will have immediate and long term effects on the Gulf’s fishing communities’ ability to sustain our culture and heritage.

On October 22, a pilot said he “was surprised (and saddened) to witness a seemingly unrelenting tide of oil hammering our beaches, bays, and estuaries.”

Other recent reports included:

– fishermen sprayed while sleeping in groups of boats tied together;
– a boat captain, Lori DeAngelis, said her vagina and anus are bleeding, adding: “This thing is killing me;”
– Lorrie Williams in Ocean Springs, MS said the oil sheen is “a lot worse” now than earlier, calling it an “absolute mess;”
– tides keep washing up tar balls and sheen on coastal beaches and other areas;
– large deposits are found buried in sand;
– researchers found “vast volumes” of oil on the seafloor, including “thick raw crude;”
– a massive shelf of exposed tar was found on Pensacola beaches;
– fishermen said “we’re starving; there are no fish in the waters” or not enough; and “any fish we would see, we would not eat;” and
– various other reports were just as disturbing – clear evidence of an ongoing disaster because of the worst ever environmental crime.

A Final Comment

On June 14, as conditions worsened, AP reported that Obama “pronounce(d) Gulf seafood safe to eat… things are going to return to normal…. I am confident that we’re going to be able to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before.”

In fact, then, now, and for decades, contamination will remain, hazardous to wildlife and human health, what he knew yet lied and said otherwise, fronting for BP and other industry giants.

Oil and dispersants contaminate much, perhaps the entire Gulf. It’s now poisoned and will remain potentially lethal for decades, maybe generations. Nothing in it should be ingested. Millions in the region are at risk. Families with small children should leave. No one should swim in coastal waters or eat any Gulf seafood, perhaps ever again. Responsible officials should ban it.

Instead, Obama, the Interior Department, NOAA, the Coast Guard, state governors, coastal mayors, regional health officials, BP, and major media reports gave the all-clear, saying conditions are nearly again normal, claiming the worst of the crisis was avoided.

In fact, a silent epidemic of cancers and other diseases will ravage coastal and inland areas for decades. The livelihoods of many residents are lost, and southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida may never be the same again, at least not for those now living there.

Moreover, 4,000 Gulf oil platforms now operate, the deepest and most hazardous by a consortium of companies, including BP. In addition, about 50,000 old wells pockmark the seabed, thousands with temporary or failing plugs believed to be leaking oil, gas and other toxins.

Yet deepwater drilling continues. Oil and gas pipelines keep compromising Gulf marshes, causing 15,000 acres to be lost annually, eroding wetlands and other areas. According to experts, unless restorative changes are made, the entire ecosystem will be lost in a generation.

On November 2, consider that before voting. Remember Obama’s complicity in the greatest ever environmental crime, but don’t imagine Republicans or Tea Party extremists will fix things. They’re all beholden to power, not popular interests at a time they’re being systematically eroded to divert money for militarism, imperial wars, bankers, BP, and other corporate favorites, ordinary people and ecological considerations be damned.

Molly Priesmeyer of the Twin Cities Daily Planet exposed a conflict of interest between U of Minn. and Big Ag:

Karen Himle is Vice President of University Relations, which is the office that determined the film needed ‘scientific review.’ She is married to John Himle, president of Himle Horner,  a public relations firm that represents the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council. The Council is a strong proponent of ethanol and industrial farming, both of which are critiqued in the film. John Himle was also president of the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council from 1978 to 1982 and his organization currently serves as a ‘member’ of the Council.

The University’s ‘conflict of interest’ policy was called into question last year by the Minnesota Daily, which also cited Karen Himle’s summary of her outside sources of income as including Himle Horner and Nebraska farmland crops.

While Himle Horner’s client records are not public (something that has drawn the ire of some in the community as former co-owner Tom Horner is running for governor), Himle Horner was still representing the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council as recently as this summer.

I believe this was an important issue to note since it could present a serious conflict of interest and raises further questions about whether Big Ag is mounting pressure on the U to halt the film’s release for ‘scientific review.

McPhee points out that the film underwent extensive scientific scrutiny. Every fact was verified by “at least three independent sources.” Assistant producer, Shanai Matteson, told Daily Planet that:

[T]he film was also reviewed by as many as 12 prominent university scientists, including Jon Foley and David Tilman (both from the of U of M’s Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior department); Robert Diaz, a professor of marine science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and an expert on ‘dead zone’ issues in the Gulf of Mexico; Eugene Turner, a zoologist at Louisiana State University who has done extensive research on wetland pollution and coastal erosion; and Nancy Rabalias, another LSU professor whose research has dealt extensively with pollution issues in the Gulf of Mexico.

Several local publications and radio shows covered the censorship, but it was after Tara Lohan at AlterNet exposed all this yesterday morning that the university reversed itself.

Information suppression is a key strategy of chemical polluters. Recently, California Watch reported that the Alliance for Food and Farming received $180,000 from the state to “correct the public’s misconceptions about pesticide residues.” Last month in Argentina, 100 thugs attacked local farmers who gathered to hear a scientific presentation on the toxicity of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. (See this interview of Andrés Carrasco, Argentina’s chief scientist at the National Council for Science and Technology, here.)

In the Gulf of Mexico, numerous independent scientists warn that despite safety assurances by government officials, seafood is not being tested for heavy metals or for toxic oil dispersants. News crews were ordered to stop digging in the sand, for which officials later apologized.

One hundred years of toxic chemical use is having deleterious effects on humans and the environment. People know this. Attempts at censoring the information only serve to highlight the issue. More than likely, attendance at “Troubled Waters” next Sunday will spike because of the controversy. One hopes.

On February 25, 2009, Environmental Research web.org writer Kate Ravilious did, headlining “Small unreported oil spills add up to major damage,” saying:

Big spills make headlines while small ones “often go unnoticed and unreported. But these little slicks could be just as damaging to the environment as large spills, according to new research findings.”

Barcelona, Spain Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya Professors Jose Redondo and Alexei Platonov developed a way to spot spills from satellite images. They show that “small oil spills are very common, and when added together they become comparable to large” ones. Their frequency makes them damaging, yet little about them is reported.

Studying European waters alone, they determined that major spills happen every few years, large ones three or four times a year, and smaller ones virtually daily. Extrapolated globally over time amounts to a major environmental problem, compounded by many small incidents and natural seepage — as much as 14 million barrels a year globally offshore.

“For example, it seems that there are four to five times more spills (large and small) in East Asia than in European Coastal waters,” and Middle East ones experience “significantly more spills.” Most often, negligence to cut costs is why.

According to Redondo and Platonov, “the cumulative effect and toxic dose (of small spills) is the same as a large spill, and will be detected in the long run,” as well as their environmental damage, slowly destroying the health of global waters.

Charles Clusen, Natural Resources Defense Council National Parks and Alaska Projects director believes up to 500 spills happen annually and will increase with greater production, plus natural seeps adding more. According to former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA) supervisory researcher Jeff Short:

“Once you have a spill, you are pretty much screwed. That’s because oil spreads on water at a rate of one-half a football field per second. Recovery can take decades.”

Another expert says offshore spills cause more damage than a terrorist attack. They’re unacceptable risks — reason enough to ban all shallow and deep water drilling and strictly regulate the rest. Besides daily spills, the Gulf of Mexico alone has experienced over 500 oil rig fires since 2006, most never reported, the latest on September 2. More on it below.

Exhibit A in Alaska was the Prince William Sound Exxon-Valdez incident. After over 20 years of natural weathering, it remains an environmental and human catastrophe, and it was minor compared to BP’s greatest ever environmental crime.

On land, drilling is hazardous, but offshore requires complex technology, greatly increasing the risks. According to UC Berkeley Engineering Professor Robert Bea:

“This is a pretty frigging complex system. You’ve got equipment and steel strung out over a long piece of geography starting at the surface and terminating at 18,000 (or more) feet below the sea surface. So it has many potential weak points,” compounded by negligence to cut costs. “Just as Katrina’s storm surge damage found weaknesses in those piles of dirt — the levees — gas likes to find weakness in anything we connect to that source.”

Drilling is a dirty, dangerous business. The long-term harm greatly outweighs the benefits. Besides spills and other accidents, the ecological damage is immense, contaminating waters and shorelines. Drilling releases toxic muds, containing poisonous heavy metals, including mercury, cadmium and lead, as well as dangerous amounts of arsenic, benzene and radioactive minerals. According to the EPA:

Drilling “may leave behind waste containing concentrations of naturally-occurring radioactive material (NORM) from the surrounding soils and rocks. Once exposed or concentrated by human activity, (it) becomes Technologically-Enhanced NORM or TENORM. Radioactive materials are not necessarily present in the soils at every well or drilling site. However, in some areas of the country, such as the upper Midwest and Gulf Coast states, the soils are more likely to contain radioactive material.”

“Radioactive wastes from oil and gas drilling take the form of produced water, drilling mud, sludge, slimes, or evaporation ponds and pits. It can also concentrate in the mineral scales that form in pipes (pipe scale), storage tanks, or other extraction equipment.”

Naturally occurring radioactive materials include radium and radon gas, potent carcinogens that accumulate in water, wildlife, plants and vegetables, and take 1,600 years to degrade. Combined with other toxins (after decades of offshore drilling) has left vast areas of global waters dangerously toxic — why nothing in them should be eaten.

The Latest Reason to Ban All Offshore Drilling

On September 2, operating 100 miles south of Louisiana’s Vermilion Bay in shallow water (several hundred feet deep), a rig operated by Mariner Energy, Inc. (a Houston-based independent oil and gas producer) exploded and caught fire, a company press release saying:

The company “confirms that a fire has occurred at a production platform located on Vermilion Block 380, approximately 100 miles from the Louisiana coast. All 13 members of the crew have been evacuated and safely accounted for. No injuries have been reported. In an initial flyover, no hydrocarbon spill was reported.”

False. Workers told rescuers they heard a blast, saw a fire, and had to jump into Gulf waters to be safe. One injury was reported. The Coast Guard said a mile-long, hundred foot wide oil sheen was seen near the site, then later about-faced saying no oil was spotted. It’s there and spreading, but there’s no indication how much or whether the release was contained. First reported at 9:20AM, the fire was extinguished about six hours later.

Mariner’s rig is a production, not drilling platform like BP’s. At year end 2009, it produced 47% oil and 53% natural gas. The company has interests in nearly 350 offshore leases, including over 80 in deep water down to 7,100 feet. More than 110 are in development.

According to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOE, formerly the Mineral Management Service — MMS), federal authorities cited Mariner and its related operations for 10 Gulf accidents in the past four years. They included platform fires, oil spills and a blowout. In a 2008 incident, one employee sustained serious injuries. In early 2010, the company was fined $55,000 for safety violations.

Consider its history. As a former Enron unit, it faced bankruptcy, saved only by private equity investors buying it at fire sale prices. On April 15, Apache Corp., America’s largest independent oil and gas producer, announced plans to buy Mariner, calling the deal “a strategic step and a natural extension into the deepwater Gulf… provid(ing) an exciting new platform for growth….” The agreement is still on, Apache saying it’s monitoring developments closely but hopes to complete its acquisition in a matter of weeks.

Final Comments

Despite offshore drilling dangers; the industry’s history of violations, accidents, and spills, some major like BP’s; and the growing contamination of waters and coastal areas, the rage to drill is unabated, few in Congress willing to challenge Big Oil’s muscle.

After the Mariner explosion, however, environmental groups are flexing theirs, wanting offshore drilling banned, Greenpeace USA’s oceans campaign director, John Hocevar, saying:

“How many times are we going to gamble with lives, economies and ecosystems? It’s time we learn from our mistakes and go beyond oil,” for sure stop drilling offshore to get it.

Jackie Savitz, senior campaign director for the environmental group Oceana agrees, saying: “We think all offshore oil drilling should be banned, but not just the deepwater drilling. Even oil spills in shallow water are bad. It doesn’t have to be in deep water to be a disaster.”

Environment America’s Mike Gravitz said Obama “need(s) no further wake-up call to permanently ban new drilling.”

In a September 2 press release, the Center for Biological Diversity said:

“Today’s explosion… is the latest in a string of accidents in recent decades illustrating the dangers of offshore drilling in shallow (or deep) waters.” It called for expanding the moratorium, explaining that “Offshore drilling is an inherently unsafe, toxic activity that, every day, puts people and the environment at risk.” Only one solution can work — a total ban.

After the BP incident, a coalition of 14 environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace, wrote Obama, urging a permanent moratorium, saying:

“In response to the BP drilling disaster, we specifically urge you to establish a presidential drilling moratorium which would permanently restore coastal protections for areas currently not leased for offshore oil and gas drilling, and cancel exploratory drilling permits for the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Furthermore, we urge you to use the full force of your office to push for a comprehensive bill that cuts oil consumption, curbs global warming pollution and shifts us towards clean energy.”

The group also called for a “top to bottom review of worker safety, blowout avoidance technology, and oil spill clean up plans for operations in the Outer Continental Shelf.”

Others believe only a total ban can work, shifting America’s fossil fuel addiction to alternative, clean sources. The choice is simple — either a healthy, safe environment or one contaminated and destroyed. There may be little time left to decide.

I picked up a photo of her at Mardi Gras, taken a few years earlier, and compared it to what she looked like now. In the picture her hair was longer, her face younger, her smile deeper. Now her arms were wasted and thin, her eyes sunken into her face, and her bottom front teeth were gone. On most days, she told me, she wore her dead mother’s dentures, but today she had forgotten to put them in. Her own teeth broke off when escaping the rising waters. She had fallen face first onto the concrete slab that was her front porch. The very spot where we were sitting was where it had happened. Over my left shoulder, running the length of the building, was a scar, a stain from the water line.

August in Louisiana is unbearably hot for a Northern boy. Beads of sweat poured from my face, down my neck. Patricia went inside, found an old roll of paper towels in a kitchen cabinet and brought me one. The quilted paper had a kitschy design — a giant heart with words that said, “Home Sweet Home.”

I looked at her and wondered how this could happen in my country.

A few weeks before, I was in Mexico City with Palast covering the Presidential Election. A presidency had been stolen. People were on the streets screaming “Vota por Vota, Casilla por Casilla!” Count the votes! “Vote by Vote, box by box!” I had seen the aftermath of a massacre in a small village outside Mexico City. I had seen people from all over the country rise up in anger taking to the streets. I had seen the Zapatistas march and Subcomandante Marcos himself flanked by young women acting as a protective barrier. I had seen the house where Trotsky was stabbed in the back of the head with an ice pick.

When I finally left Mexico City, I remember being deeply confused. The kind of confusion that tears at the soul and has the ability to completely dismantle any preconceived notions of how to view the world. I was inspired to see so many people fighting for democracy, and yet a deep depression sunk in as the plane took off. I knew their efforts would not matter. I had seen the American ‘consultants’, the DC hacks, in the offices of the ruling party and I knew it was over.

Now, here I was — back home in the United States — outside a decimated house near the levees, trying to understand why a New Orleans native, Brod Bagert, was calling a friend who worked with the fire department. Brod was asking his old friend what the number “5″ below the giant orange spray-painted X on the front of the house meant. But Brod already knew what it meant.

Here I was watching Brod, one year later, trying to convince himself that what had happened to his neighbors didn’t actually happen. After many long days of hearing countless horrifying stories and walking through miles of destruction, I now stood next to a grown man who was desperately trying to lie to himself simply because the alternative was too painful. I couldn’t hold back the tears. It was the first, and only, time in my professional life that I had to walk away from an interview. I hid out behind a smashed up, rotted out BMW and cried.

After a few minutes I returned to Brod. He hung up the phone, looked at Palast and me, and slowly choked, “Five people died here.”

He finally gave in to what had happened here: the sprayed “9-16″ above that X meant that those five bodies had been left to decompose for nearly 19 days before being discovered by rescue crews.

Brod rubbed his eyes and we went inside the house. His fathomless sadness hardened into anger. We walked through a sand dune littered with toys into what was once the living room. I tried not to imagine the mom and dad and kids as water crushed them against the ceiling; as they clawed for one more breath.

Brod took us down the street to his home, that is, the sticks that were left of his home. He was breathing hard, he was shaking. “Old ladies watched the water come up to their nose, over their eyes and they drowned in houses just like this, in this neighborhood, because of reckless negligence that is unanswered for.”

I think back now, to those words, spoken four years ago and wonder if it will ever be answered.

We then met Stephen Smith. He worked at the Marriott hotel, but had no car and no way to get out when the Mayor said to get out. Stephen pulled a dozen neighbors to a bridge over the rising water for four days as helicopters whirled overhead. Four days in the humid sun. No food. An old man gave his grandchildren his only bottle of water; then the old man died of dehydration. Stephen now works in a grocery store in Houston where FEMA ultimately dumped him. His kids live in Baton Rouge.

The next day Palast and I drove up to Baton Rouge to confront the company that was contracted to come up with an evacuation plan for the City of New Orleans. They had refused all of our interview requests, so we showed up at their offices to request a copy of the plan in person. We were quickly thrown out, they threatened to call security. They knew what we knew: There was no plan.

We drove out to the town of Baker. There, we surreptitiously passed through a security checkpoint before funneling into a massive FEMA trailer park. Here we met Pamela Lewis who told us her story of escaping the flood. Despite having MS, she pushed a boat with her 86-year-old mother, other relatives and neighbors through the streets of New Orleans. When she got to a bridge, armed men yelled at her, called her a nigger, and commanded her to turn around. They didn’t want a boat full of black people coming into their neighborhood. She then managed to make it to the Superdome where she was sprayed down by hoses, tossed on a bus, and then told to pay a fare and get off. She had no idea where she was.

We finished filming. Pamela stood in front of the car next to her trailer, and I locked eyes with her. I put the car in reverse and backed out, leaving her there, alone, not knowing what she was going to do with her life.

We drove back to New Orleans, passing an Exxon Oil Refinery — the only thing near Pamela’s trailer park. Several weeks later, at the request of Exxon, Homeland Security would file a criminal complaint against me and Palast under the anti-terrorism PATRIOT Act for filming “critical infrastructure.” The only thing critical about that refinery was the pollution it was spewing near what had become a refugee camp.

Five years have gone by and it is rare if a week passes that I don’t think of New Orleans. Nearly two thousand people lost their lives. An entire city was decimated. People were killed by the very police officers who were supposed to be protecting them. Hundreds of thousands lost their homes and livelihoods. To this day there are some still living in FEMA trailers. Patricia died a few years back in a horrible car accident; Lafitte, her home, has since been demolished.

My job was to go, to report, and then go home. My job was to leave Patricia, Pamela, Brod and countless others whom I had encountered, behind — to place them in a compartment in my mind, and to move on to the next story. Yet I never quite managed to do that with New Orleans. Maybe it was easier for me to cope in places like Mexico, but New Orleans was America. It happened in my country. All of the people I met in New Orleans — their images, their words — have, over the years, crystallized into a vivid sense of disenchantment with the romantic narrative of America I was taught as a child.

I sit here now, thumb through my old notebook that is labeled in black marker “NOLA” and find the paper towel Patricia gave me. It still reads, next to that big, faded heart, “Home Sweet Home.”

Other reports cite strange marine life behavior, sighted near the surface when they normally stay well submerged. Alabama fisherman, Stan Fournier, said in 40 years of work, he’s never seen anything like it. “It looks like all the sea life is trying to get out of the water,” unable to breathe in their normal habitat, what US media reports won’t touch, instead hyping success, saying BP’s well is capped and most oil dissolved when, in fact, it won’t degrade for decades, remaining a lethal cocktail combined with dispersants, killing wildlife and poisoning anyone eating it, assuring a coming epidemic of cancers and other diseases.

On August 19, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) senior scientist, Bill Lehr, in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, retracted his earlier claim about most oil dispersed and dissolved. He now says “I would say most of that is still in the environment,” as much as 90%, only 6% burned and 4% skimmed, the rest contaminating a large part of the Gulf, spreading, and devastating wildlife.

In addition, on August 19, the journal Science published a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) study, confirming a giant oil plume floating about 1,200 meters below the surface — 35 km-long (22 miles), two km wide, and 200 meters thick. Persisting “for months without substantial biodegradation,” it poses a serious threat to sea life, one of the article’s writers, Dr. Chris Reddy, saying, “At this point, we know the plume exists, and we know more about its potential biological activity in the future” and harm it can cause. 

It’ll be years before the full extent of damage is known. However, it’s already extensive and extremely dangerous, containing 50 micrograms per liter of “a group of particularly toxic petroleum compounds,” 6-7% of it a deadly benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene cocktail — released from BP’s Macondo well, the evidence clearly showing it according to research team head Richard Camilli.

He expects the plume to spread and biodegrade very slowly in cold waters. In addition, other independent researchers discovered other even larger plumes. University of Georgia Marine Sciences Professor, Samantha (Mandy) B. Joye, said the WHOI plume “doesn’t hold a candle” to one her team found in May. Nonetheless, BP and Obama officials signaled an all-clear, denying their existence and the catastrophic disaster, out of sight and mind instead of dealing with it responsibly. 

It’s why on August 23, the Union of Concerned Scientists alerted members and supporters to “Help end America’s dangerous addiction to oil,” saying for decades it’s warned about the US’s “misguided energy and transportation policies (instead of) promoting innovative solutions to reduce our dependence on oil. (The Gulf disaster) is a painful reminder of the work” left to be done and urgency of doing it.

On August 20, Kieran Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director headlined his press release, “Gulf of Mexico Still in Crisis Four Months After BP Explosion: Center for Biological Diversity Tour Finds Oiled Beaches, Water and Wildlife….nDrilling Policy Reforms Still Too Weak, Too Late,” saying: The Center’s team saw “firsthand how oil is still killing wildlife and fouling beaches and marshes. This crisis is far from over.” Grand Isle, LA beaches were contaminated with oil, liquid surface pools and more mixed with sand in hardened mats along the water’s edge. 

“Some beaches appear fine from a distance but are actually sitting atop massive amounts of oil, which bubbled to the surface when the team walked across the sand. Digging into (it) with rubber gloves,” oil was found six inches below the surface. Crabs and birds are covered with it as they cross beaches or marsh land. “Fish and sea turtles are forced to swim through oil on the surface and below,” looking for food. “In short, (the Gulf) is still an oily mess despite rosy assertions” by BP and Obama officials, claiming most oil is gone. They know damn well it’s there to stay, poisoning everything it touches.

The Center’s survey supports independent scientists saying most remains, fouling beaches, waters, marshes and wildlife. Working for reform and serious remediation, Center officials filed seven lawsuits against BP and government regulators, including “the largest Clean Water Act suit in history,” seeking $19 billion in fines from BP. More on their likely resolution below.

Firsthand Reports from the Gulf

Reporting from the area, investigative journalist, Dahr Jamail, calls Grand Isle, LA’s condition “post-apocalytic,” spotting “tar balls that bob lazily underwater, amidst sand ripples in the shallows…. Oil-soaked marsh abounds… the island smell(ing) like a gas station. Noxious fumes infiltrate my nose, causing me to cough. Piles of oiled oysters rest on the tide line.” 

Tar balls are everywhere. “In some places, there are literally huge mats of fresh tar…. The scene is apocalyptic…. It is one of the more disgusting, vile scenes I’ve even seen…. All we can do is take photos. The stench is overpowering. I gag. My eyes water from the burning chemicals…. I feel dizzy.” The entire Gulf Coast has been raped and destroyed. Official coverup is criminal.

Only time will assess the full damage on humans and wildlife. However, the toll already is devastating, the Obama administration complicit with BP, culpable for a crime they want suppressed, ignored and forgotten, what will affect the lives of millions perhaps forever. 

According to Florida State University ocean scientist, Ian MacDonald: “The (disaster’s) imprint will be there in the Gulf of Mexico for the rest of my life. It is not gone,” and won’t ever “go away quickly,” warning of a potential tipping point beyond which wildlife and the ecosystem won’t recover, the crossed Rubicon after which return no longer is possible, a shocking assessment perhaps already true.

 JAMA Reports Direct Threats to Human Health

In its August 16 edition, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) writers, Drs. Gina M. Solomon and Sarah Janssen, headlined, “Health Effects of the Gulf Oil Spill,” saying “it (and dispersants pose) direct threats to human health from inhalation or dermal contact,” besides harming seafood and mental health.

Solomon and Janssen explained that crude oil’s main components are “aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons.” Containing volatile organic compounds (including benezene, toluene and xylene), they “can cause respiratory irritation and central nervous system (CNS) depression.”

Benzene also causes leukemia, and toluene “is a recognized teratogen (causing embryo malformation) at high doses.” Naphthalene and other higher molecular weight chemicals are “reasonably anticipated to cause cancer in humans….”

Released hydrogen sulfide gas, nonvolatile polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and heavy metals from oil “can contaminate the food chain. Hydrogen sulfide gas is neurotoxic and has been linked to both acute and chronic CNS (central nervous system) effects. PAHs include mutagens and probable carcinogens. Burning oil generates particulate matter, which is associated with cardiac and respiratory symptoms and premature mortality.”

Massive dispersants use greatly exacerbates the problem. They contain toxic detergents, surfactants and petroleum distillates, including known respiratory irritants like 2-butoxyethanol, propylene glycol, and sulfonic acid salts.

As a result, area residents and cleanup workers experienced headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, coughs, respiratory distress, chest pain, and other symptoms — warning signs of potentially greater future health problems. 

Skin contact with oil and dispersants causes defatting, resulting in dermatitis and secondary skin infections. Some individuals may develop a dermal hypersensitivity reaction, erythema (injured or irritated skin), edema, burning sensations, or a follicular rash.

Potential long-term health risks are high, wildlife contamination making anyone eating Gulf seafood vulnerable. “Community residents should not fish” in oil-contaminated areas, nor should federal, state or local officials allow them.

Some Final Comments

On August 20, New York Times writer Ian Urbina headlined, “BP Settlements Likely to Shield Top Defendants,” saying:

People and businesses seeking a lump-sum settlement from BP’s $20 billion oil spill compensation fund will most likely have to waive their right to sue not only BP, but also all the other major defendants involved with the spill, according to internal documents from the lawyers handling the fund.

In other words, the fix is in, Obama and BP officials conspiring to let responsible parties off the hook, settlement terms designed to deny victims just compensation and for many, perhaps most, none at all, given the strict guidelines of eligibility required.

Claims czar, Kenneth Feinberg, is a notorious “fixer,” mandated to save BP, Transocean, Halliburton, and blowout preventer maker Cameron International potentially tens of billions in liabilities, strong-arming victims to waive their right to sue in return for amounts too meager to matter.

According to Urbina, the dilemma for those suing is deciding between “years of litigation (or) accept(ing) the (offered) settlement… before the full (extent of) damage” is known. Most important is that “those who cannot demonstrate damages caused by the direct impact of oil on beaches and fisheries will be ineligible for money.”

For example, small businesses, not located directly on affected beaches, experiencing sharp revenue drops “will not be able to receive compensation….” in violation of the federal Oil Pollution Act that excludes geographical limitations. The same holds for area residents living away from the shoreline.

Property owners who’ve seen sharp valuations drops, will also be cheated. So will cleanup workers and area residents later contracting diseases, mental illness, lost income, or other harmful effects. 

As point man, Feinberg will deny, obstruct, and let criminal defendants off the hook, then (on BP’s payroll) be handsomely paid for his services, the same ones he performed earlier for Wall Street banks, Agent Orange producers, asbestos manufacturers, and Dalkon Shield maker AH Robins as well as against 9/11 victims. 

Only corporate interests matter, not people whose lives they destroy, Obama officials doing nothing to help them — instead being complicit partners in the greatest ever environmental crime, whitewashing it by giving the all-clear, declaring “mission accomplished,” and protecting corporate criminals at all costs.

The vast majority of the oil from the BP oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed, much of which is in the process of being degraded… this is the direct result of the robust federal response efforts.

The same day at an AFL/CIO convention, Obama hailed the news, saying “the long battle to stop the leak and contain the oil is finally close to coming to an end.”

False. From the start, the Obama administration conspired with BP, imposing censorship and cover-up, barring the public and news media from coming within 65 feet of clean-up of “booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law” without Coast Guard-authorized permission.

The agency is a virtual BP arm, now retired Admiral Thad Allen, its de facto representative as National Incident Commander, doing its bidding, suppressing the disaster’s severity, including enforcing the FAA’s mid-June announced no-fly zone, not needed if there were nothing to hide. There’s plenty, why journalists and other violators faced up to five years in prison and a $40,000 fine for telling the truth, now mostly hidden, not gone.

On August 4, responding to NOAA, Kieran Suckling, executive director of Center for Biological Diversity, said the following:

The overly rosy tone of (NOAA’s) report may leave the false impression that this crisis is somehow nearing an end. But much of the oil that the government refers to has simply been broken apart and remains in the ecosystem. It’s like taking separated salad dressing and shaking up the bottle so the oil and vinegar mix. You may not be able to see (it), but it’s there.

That unseen oil, though, is what will foul the Gulf for years, (perhaps generations), eating away at the basic elements of the food chain that are the building blocks for fisheries, birds, sea turtles and mammal populations.

Louisiana State University (LSU) biological oceanographer, Robert Carney, says scientists are finding plenty of oil under Louisiana islands, beneath Florida beaches, and in unseen ocean reaches.

Biological oceanographers, Markus Huettel and Joel Kostka, discovered large oil swaths up to two feet deep on a “cleaned” Pensacola beach. With little oxygen, it’ll remain for decades. It gets trapped underground when tiny droplets penetrate porous sand or when waves wash it ashore, burying it. Huettel explained further that previous oil under beaches migrates into groundwater, causing hazards to wildlife and humans, not knowing what they’re drinking is contaminated.

He noted also that deep sea spills are “unchartered territory,” dispersants for the first time used at depths down to 5,000 feet, settling oil on the sea  floor, the mixture suspended and preserved, causing long-term harm for deep-sea animals, and disrupting a large part of the food chain.

University of South Florida (USF) chemical oceanographer, David Hollander, is also alarmed, calling the 75% claim “ludicrous.” USF scientists and Vernon Asper, University of Southern Mississippi oceanographer, were “lambasted” by NOAA and Coast Guard officials when they reported a giant undersea plume, NOAA Administrator, Jane Lubchenco, telling them to stop “speculating” when, according to Asper, “We had solid evidence, rock solid.”

Hollander said “What we learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is. It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe,” NOAA and other government agencies enforcing cover-up, denial, and distorted media reports.

On August 8, Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Director, Carol Browner, told NBC’s Meet the Press that “the vast majority of oil is gone.” On the same day, Thad Allen, on CBS’ Face the Nation, congratulated BP for a job well done, criticizing only its PR errors, smoothing the way to end the oil drilling moratorium, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation Director Michael Bromwich saying expect it “significantly in advance of November 30.”

Hazardous Toxins Threaten Gulf Coast Residents

Combined with millions of gallons of Corexit, a deadly dispersant, the mix is extremely toxic and dangerous, the Gulf poisoned and potentially lethal for decades, perhaps generations. Nothing in it should be ingested, nor is living close by safe, what BP, Washington and the major media won’t explain. As a result, the health and welfare of millions of residents are at risk as well as anyone eating Gulf seafood. Responsible federal and state officials would ban it. Instead the all-clear’s been given. Don’t be fooled.

Marine toxicologist, Riki Ott, said if she lived in the area with children, she’d leave. On July 31, she flew over affected parts of the Gulf with a documentary filmmaker and local shrimper, a man who grew up the area, fearing his livelihood was destroyed, saying:

I’ve fished in all these waters – everywhere you can see. It’s all oiled. This is the worst I’ve seen. This is a heartbreak….

At low altitudes, oil was visible everywhere, despite most of it submerged. “As far as we could see: Oil…. The official story does not match the reality (below or what local residents report). BP has created a Frankenstein.”

Minimally, over 44,000 square miles of ocean are contaminated, an area comparable to Ohio or Pennsylvania. Some estimates say nearly 80,000, more than Florida and Massachusetts combined, the health hazard immense, the waters causing “internal bleeding and hemorrhaging in workers and dolphins alike,” according to senior EPA analyst, Hugh Kaufman, a rare responsible official.

On Democracy Now, he accused BP and the administration of cover-up and deceit, including using dispersants “to hide the volume of oil that has been released,” far more than official reports, to save BP up to billions in fines. “That’s the purpose of using dispersants, not to protect the public health or environment. Quite the opposite.”

After 9/11, Kaufman was ombudsman investigator for Ground Zero, exposing EPA lies about air safety, causing widespread illnesses and death, seeing a repeat for Gulf residents, “EPA administrators saying the air is safe and the water is safe.”

False, because of “dispersants mixed with oil and air pollution.” The official lie endangers tens of thousands, maybe millions, retired toxicologist and forensic chemist, John Laseter, explaining that the oil-solvent mix sticks on biological tissue, wreaking havoc.

Dispersants make oil penetrate more deeply into skin, a “delivery system” into the anatomies of humans and wildlife, the combination more deadly than either alone, some observers believing far greater quantities of dispersants have been used than reported, J. Speer Williams, for one, in his July 22 Rense.com article titled “Who Killed The Gulf?”

Explaining the ongoing dark side of a disturbing story, Williams cites Christopher Reddy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution associate scientist of marine chemistry and geochemistry saying BP used one million BARRELS of Corexit or 42 million gallons, not the two million gallons reported, some reports claiming less. If he’s right, the toxicity and long-term threat far exceed the worst estimates of reliable scientists, a hellish nightmare for the entire Gulf coast area, Dr. Seth Forman and others comparing Corexit to Agent Orange, the deadly defoliant used in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Millions of gallons were sprayed with devastating effects, its deadly dioxin one of the most toxic known substances, a potent carcinogenic human immune system suppressant. It accumulates in adipose tissue and the liver, alters living cell structures, causes congenital disorders and birth defects, and contributes to diseases like cancer and type two diabetes. In the 1960s and 70s, it affected millions exposed, Southeast Asians and Americans alike. Expect a repeat today, what BP, the administration and media suppress.

Hugh Kaufman sees tens of thousands of Gulf coast residents at risk and anyone eating the seafood. They’ll “end up with cancer, genetic mutations, or some other mysterious unexplained illnesses (years later).”

After the Exxon Valdez disaster, most workers and others exposed to dispersants and oil died young, their average age about 50, another shocking story never reported, a window into the far greater calamity ahead, the Gulf catastrophe infinitely greater, the equivalent of three – four Exxon Valdez incidents a week, using Exxon’s 11 million gallon figure. The state of Alaska’s conservative estimate was over 30 million gallons, also unreported.

Today, independent scientists report hazardous levels of oil and dispersants in the Gulf, ashore, and in the air, including carcinogenic benzene and oil vapors (Volatile Organic Compounds — VOCs), as early as 1948, the American Petroleum Institute saying, “The only absolutely safe concentration for benzene is zero.”

Now it’s off the charts contaminating a wide area, one element in a deadly toxic brew, the administration and BP claiming the threat is over, the environment safe, normality fast returning — the official lie, the Obama administration fronting for BP, complicit in its crimes, contributing to a greater disaster instead of preventing it by enforcing responsible policies in the first place, ones absent, assuring other calamities from future oil drilling operations, especially offshore in deep water, where technology and safety concerns haven’t kept up with the rush to plunge deep holes in the earth, damn the hazards and millions of lives at risk.

Final Thoughts

The lives and livelihoods of Gulf residents are at risk, the entire area economically damaged, BP establishing a paltry $20 billion compensation fund for victims, containing a slim $3 billion deposit, the idea being to help BP, not them, claims czar Kenneth Feinberg appointed to assure it, a man notorious for serving wealth and power interests.

Earlier, he managed a similar account for 9/11 victims, then later was appointed pay czar for bailed out Wall Street banks and other companies. Like BP ombudsman, Stanley Sporkin, he’s a notorious “fixer,” fronting for power, not people, earlier negotiating a lawsuit settlement for Agent Orange producers, benefitting them, not affected veterans, getting $1,200 not to litigate.

He later performed similar services for AH Robins, maker of the Dalkon Shield, injuring 235,000 women with potentially lethal pelvic infections, a settlement giving most of them $725 or less.

He’s now point man in charge of doing to Gulf residents what he did earlier, saving corporate criminals billions, getting victims to waive their right to sue in return for amounts too meager to matter. In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, he said:

When I go to the Gulf, I hear a lot about the underground economy. ‘Mr. Feinberg, I got paid $5,000 a month all cash. Do I have a claim?’ Well, you have to prove your claim. There’s nothing illegal about all cash business, but do you have your tax return…. Do you have documentary evidence….Will your ship captain vouch for the $5,000…. I need something. I can’t be paying claims that can’t be proven. And I can tell you that this is going to be a big issue.

Indeed it will, reports confirming Feinberg on BP’s payroll, his mandate being to deny, deny, deny, or pay minimum amounts, mostly in lump sums, victims waiving their right to litigate, even those losing livelihoods and years of lost income.

Washington is corporate-occupied territory, politicians bribed with millions of dollars, favors, and lucrative revolving door jobs out of office. As long as a government/industry cabal runs America, wealth and power interests alone will matter, letting companies like BP destroy the environment, our welfare and lives, expendable for greater profits, assured under Democrats and Republicans, two wings of the money party.

On May 4, National Geographic asked if the “Gulf Oil Spill (was) a ‘Dead Zone in the Making,’ ” saying if it can’t be contained, it could happen. An early August update explained that beneath the surface lies:

a turbid cloud of stirred-up sediment and dead sea creatures. Flaccid jellyfish floated on the flat currents of tiny corpses. On the sea bottom the waters were gray and terribly empty. No coral, no fish, no algae, nothing but the noxious oily streaks of red tides and lethal plankton blooms. Everything in this 7,000 square-mile zone (the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined) has died from lack of oxygen. It (was) if every person in a city were suddenly sucked dry of air and suffocated….

Other researchers agree, saying the Gulf’s dead zone doubled in the last year, and may be larger than estimated. Caused by hypoxia (low oxygen levels), it stretches across the Mississippi River Delta along Louisiana’s coastline into Texas. According to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, it’s the world’s second largest and growing, covering about 7,700 square miles, an area nearly the size of New Jersey. Marine biologists attribute it to oil and dispersants, as well as nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer runoffs, soil erosion, animal wastes, sewage, and seasonal weather, notably hurricanes and floods.

They occur globally, but the Gulf approaches the largest ever recorded in 1985 at just over 8,000 square miles, some scientists believing that number’s been eclipsed but not verified, most reputable ones agreeing that a vast area has been poisoned, creating alarming hazards for wildlife and millions of people. It’ll be years before the full impact is known, but it’s guaranteed to be catastrophic.

The impression Ms. Browner has managed to convey during her media blitz is that the oil spill is over. The well has been plugged and the oil has vanished, at least three-quarters, and nature can easily take care of the rest. Not so fast. Here is what happens to oil that is released in the ocean. In 2000, an experiment was conducted off the coast of Norway through a controlled release of oil. Even in such a carefully controlled experiment, the estimate of the oil reaching the surface could not be gauged more accurately than between less than 1% and 28%. The remainder of the oil, by far the greater part, dispersed in microfine droplets of neutral buoyancy. That means if does not have to rise to the surface; it settles anywhere, depending on currents. Since oil dispersants have been used in the Gulf, the percentage suspended — that is not reaching the surface … yet — can be expected to be much higher. So how can anyone categorically claim that three-quarters of the Gulf spill has disappeared?

Numerous plumes of oil up to three miles wide have been observed and also a couple of massive ones ranging 20 and 22 miles. The worst impact so far appears to be a quarter of a mile below the surface. It is these oil tainted strata that have disastrous long-term ecological effects on the base of the food chain. That is plankton, larvae, tiny fish and plants that float with the currents are unable to avoid the plumes and perish, with resulting dead zones in fisheries. Of course, the oil entering the Louisiana marshlands has killed hatcheries and already destroyed the livelihood of shrimp farmers and fishermen.

Gabriel Elizondo reports movingly of the consequences of the Guanabara Bay spill — a mere 8000 barrels in comparison with the Gulf’s four to five million — the fish have not recovered after ten years and some varieties are now extinct. Catches are five to ten percent of what they once were and prices half of market value as the fish are considered tainted. Bubbles of oil became trapped in the sediment on the floor of the Bay. Escaping much later, these began reappearing on the surface causing further recurrent problems in the Bay and on the shore. The mangrove swamps still look like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption.

So where is the oil? Yes, some has been captured and some skimmed off, but past experience indicates that still vast quantities remain below the surface. How soon natural bacteria can decompose it remains conjecture.

Much like the chimera of victory in Iraq (being handed to Iran on a plate), or success in Afghanistan (blown to bits by Wikileaks), or the legerdemain of the Wall Street-centered economic resuscitation (an inflating dollar awaiting the pinprick of reality), we have the specter of the vanishing spill — the bills all coming due eventually to be paid by the next generation.

Frank Joseph Smecker: You began reporting from the front lines of Iraq in November of 2003.  What brought you there?  

Dahr Jamail: Basically frustration and outrage with the “mainstream” media and their almost complete failure to report honestly about the illegal and brutal invasion and occupation. I mean, we clearly had all the facts from the UN on the table from the beginning. It was a no-brainer: It was a sell-job by the Bush administration at the time to get into Iraq. And for some reason I took it personally, and I really wanted to be responsible, as a person living in the US, for what all this meant. I’ve described in the past of my going over there that it was almost for my own mental health. I wanted to see it, write about it, share it with folks – it was something I could do to help the situation.

FJS: What was it like being one of the few unembedded reporters investigating the Iraq war?

DJ: Wow! Well, it was my first experience in a war zone. It was really amazing to be on the ground over there watching, writing, and still reading the media via the Internet and being able to see how the war was portrayed back in the US versus how I was seeing it first hand. The mainstream media was really misleading the American public, spewing out propaganda, cutting and pasting info for articles, like, for example, Judith Miller of the New York Times and her ilk who had a penchant for putting out unverified facts if not blatant lies about what was happening.

FJS: For a while, journalists in Iraq were being detained, harassed, threatened by the US-installed interim government… Can you talk about this? And what sort of daily routine did you maintain to stay safe?
 
DJ: You know, I didn’t encounter much of that myself, thank goodness – didn’t really experience any repression while I was over there. Safety was a huge concern, and I was pretty lucky. I was pretty removed from where US troops were stationed and steered clear of other official sites that made for usual targets. I had minimized my time spent on the streets, stayed in cheap motels. I worked with one interpreter, who had a beat-up car. He was my driver, my interpreter and fixer all in one. He was great, excellent. He would pick me up every morning, and we’d head out to interview folks; half the time I’d head out the door with a particular story in mind, but, oftentimes, entirely different stories would come about. That’s just the way it was. Aside from that I had no security.  Just ‘fitting in’ with the locals was my security, and it worked.

FJS: You had written once that the Iraqi resistance refers to themselves as “patriots.” Explain.  Are we seeing this same phenomenon transpire in Afghanistan?

DJ: OK, with Iraq first. In the initial couple years the general local perception was that people involved in the resistance to the occupation were patriots. Simply put, these are people who are simply resisting the occupation of their country by a foreign power. They have had family members brutally killed, detained, tortured, and humiliated by the illegal occupying forces.
    
Early on it was pretty clear who was pro or anti occupation, but as the years went on, the US bought off much of the resistance, brought in death squads – did the whole divide and conquer racket, and attitudes quickly changed toward the resistance. And still today the resistance has been bought off. For example, there’s the Awakening. And, of course, there’s still a resistance in Iraq, but not like it was the first few years, before the guns went from being pointed at the occupiers to each other.
    
As for Afghanistan, I haven’t reported there, but I do have friends there who are reporting, and there are indeed parallels. In some areas of Afghanistan the people actually prefer the Taliban to the occupation forces, they’re just less brutal… But Afghanistan is a lot more complex than Iraq. I mean, Iraq is complex too, but because I haven’t reported there, and the fact that the country is as complex as it is, it’s harder to make generalizations about Afghanistan.

FJS: Iraq has now, for the most part, disappeared from the mainstream news. Why is this?

DJ: Last time I was in Iraq was in Jan/Feb of 2009. I still have friends over there, and I still follow what’s happening in Iraq – it’s what I’ve been doing for the last seven years. The country is still a mess: Forty-percent of all Iraqis have no clean drinking water; unemployment is ridiculously high; people are still being killed – even today something like 40 people were killed. And on top of all this, virtually no reconstruction is underway: What was that latest headline? Something like $8.7 billion of reconstruction funds, missing (!)… this is the second or third time this has happened. The occupation has been nothing short of a train wreck. The US has gone in there, raped, raided, and pillaged for corporate profit, and will continue to do so as long as it takes to continue to get Western companies in there, and, you know, in that regard, it’s been a success, and so there’s no need for the media to report on Iraq like it had been doing. The US has a permanent beachhead there, the oil companies are in, and all of this is being dutifully followed by the complicit Obama administration, and sadly, that’s the norm.
   
The media says “mission accomplished,” but they don’t talk about Obama’s officials – security advisors before he was even elected, who had decided that they’ll be keeping at least between 50-70,000 troops in Iraq until the end of Obama’s first term (Jan 2013) and, you know, they’re right on track for that. They’re reclassifying troops as noncombat troops to keep them there on small-scale air-force bases called lily pads, to keep a strong military presence there for – ahem – Iran, and, to monitor and control access to Iraqi oil.
   
In Afghanistan, it’s just as bad there now as it was in Iraq the first few years: three-Americans-a-day being killed. Now Afghanistan, from a media perspective, is like Iraq in 2003 through 2005, and that’s where we’re at with Afghanistan.

FJS: Journalism is an institution that’s supposed to monitor the Establishment, but the irony is that the journalism the majority of people experience these days is often propaganda spun by the very corporate and financial interests that have an overwhelming influence on the Establishment. As an independent journalist, can you talk about this conundrum, and what sort of problems arise around corporate media regarding honest reporting?

DJ: Well, OK, when someone is being paid well, and that someone has a job with a big network, like, say: e.g., NBC, the reporting will be limited. I bring up NBC for a specific reason – they’re owned by GE, and GE specializes in weapons manufacturing, has ties with the military, Big Oil, etc. It doesn’t behoove GE if you portray the war for what it is: an illegal and brutal occupation.
   
Also, in most journalism schools throughout the country the myth of objectivity is a whole new thing.  You’re supposed to report both sides without personal feelings, to have no personal perspective, and that is bullshit. The second we decide to cover one story and not another there goes objectivity. Let’s be honest here.  As journalists we give a damn about what we’re reporting.  We care about the people and the places we are reporting about, or at least we should, and that makes for honest reporting. And so there goes objectivity.
   
The myth of objectivity that is propagated so heavily in journalism school, coupled with such strong corporate influence and control over the media, has crippled honest reporting. I mean, remember two or three years ago when NBC aired Karl Rove and his cohorts dancing on stage?

FJS: Right. I remember that.  What a fool!

DJ: Right.  Is that an example of journalism?

FJS: What do you make of the recent switcheroo from McChrystal to Petraeus?
 
DJ: Well, I think Petraeus is another media-created phenom. If you look at what he did in Iraq, he was in charge of the area around Mosul.  He wanted to make Mosul a modern city, use it as a model for how we’ll transform Iraq. To date, right now, Mosul is one of the most violent areas of the country, yet he, Petraeus, keeps getting promoted up the chain in the military. He’s credited with bringing about the surge, but all he really did was bought off the resistance and used death squads and, in turn, got the guns turned from the occupiers to each other.
   
And, really, replacing McChrystal with Petraeus is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge. Petraeus will surely continue buying people off. And you know, like I said, Afghanistan isn’t Iraq.  Look at the history: Khan, the Brits, Russia – all have failed in their attempts to occupy that region. The US is trying to occupy a country that has never been occupied, and we think we can do it because of our hubris and technology alone, and at the end of the day, those two things won’t get the job done.

FJS: Many of us are starting to realize that much of the reconstruction funds for Iraq and Afghanistan end up unaccounted for (like the recent $8.7 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds that, well, are, lost…) and/or finding its way into the pockets of private contractors, military operations and local counterparts to the former and latter. Do you want to expand on this?

DJ: Well, first off, does anybody actually believe that this country [the US] would spend hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars to invade and occupy simply to help people? If you think so, then you need to go through puberty again, grow up, and look at the world more clearly.  Governments and corporations don’t operate that way. We’re there because of US economic interests. In the case of Afghanistan, there’s a big fat oil and natural gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea running through Afghanistan and part of Pakistan to the coast. If you look at where four of the main US bases in Afghanistan are, they’re right along the pipeline route. The major corporations in Afghanistan are the same that were in Iraq: DynCorp, Blackwater [now known as Xe], Halliburton, etc. etc. The occupation is about making money, maximizing profits, and it’s also – if you look at the geographic placement of the US military bases – part of the strategy of isolating and surrounding Iran. And, again, the Russians, the Brits… they were bled in Afghanistan, and the same will happen to the US. The US is not going to win this.

FJS: The US invasion and occupation of the Middle East extends far beyond just Iraq and Afghanistan, doesn’t it?

DJ: Yes. If you look at the national security strategy for the US, it’s all about using the military to protect what the US views as “national security interests”, which includes other countries’ oil and natural gas sources and reserves, and the shipping lanes of those resources. You can read the Quadrennial Defense Review report in which it explains having a military capable of annihilating any and all adversaries that refuse to toe-the-line regarding US interests; i.e., anyone “hostile” to US interests-security, like, e.g., Iran, Syria – really anyone not bought off becomes a target.
   
When we talk about the Middle East like Iran and further into Asia, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, all areas possess vital resources and routes for shipping and transport, and in a time of peak resources the war machine is enhanced because the US economy and military machine cannot exist without oil. The US in Iraq is a great example; Russia now, or China, India or the EU will not and cannot access that oil without going through the US. It’s the US Empire project.

FJS: What sort of ecological and cultural damage has the war caused thus far?

DJ: Iraq has been devastated. In a report earlier this week, scientists showed us that so much depleted uranium and other weapons deployed in Fallujah has created a cancer rate higher than what exists in Hiroshima.
   
If you look at what was done during the first Gulf War in Basra, all the way up to Baghdad recently, it’s been total devastation. And now look at Fallujah. It’s a town that’s unlivable. If I was living there and had a family and had means to leave living there, I would’ve left, no hesitation. And that can be said about much of Iraq.
   
Iraqis have been complaining about toxic waste being left by the US military as they pack up and leave smaller bases and move into larger bases. The place is trashed. And historically, from the beginning, when there was looting of cultural centers allowed, on up to things like the ancient city of Babylon being destroyed and becoming Camp Babyl (a US base)… these places have suffered severe damage, looting by US soldiers, and much more. The US has allowed archives to be destroyed; much of the world’s cultural heritage has suffered extreme damage related to the occupation.

FJS: It’s been said that the money used to deploy 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan ($59 billion the House OK’d recently…) is enough to invest in agricultural reconstruction, something that would fare better for their economy moreso than militarization and minerals exploitation… what gives?

DJ: Again, when we look at massive amounts of money being dumped into the occupation, one of the reasons it’s so expensive is due to privatization, which is in accordance with the influx of corporate interests in the region. Private mercenaries are being paid over $1000 per day, of taxpayer’s money mind you, and that’s much more expensive than using the military. Combat pay is maybe 100-bucks-a-day, maybe that. But that’s the whole point: to maximize the profits of companies that make money on war. With regard to the Iraq War, Halliburton, in the first 2-3 years, was posting records of profits regularly. And still right now there are at least 600 Western companies with contracts allowed to operate in Iraq, and that’s what it’s all about – the corporate bottom line. And that’s how it is with the war in Afghanistan. To paraphrase what someone once said: As long as these companies are profiting from war the way that they are, we’ll always have war. The reality of this makes Heller’s Catch 22 look like kids’ stuff.

FJS: OK, let’s switch tracks here.  You’ve been reporting on the BP oil spill as of late. Oil disaster response workers are facing some damningly harsh conditions. Care to explain?

DJ: In the context of everything we’ve discussed so far this is the same war, just a different front. Big corporations are being allowed to do whatever the fuck they want to do; regulations, safety-measures, emergency response plans — all have been given a pass by the government because it’s so clear now who’s running the whole show – not the government but the corporations comprised of the same people running and influencing the government.
   
The first thing that survivors were asked to do when they were helicoptered out from the BP disaster-site was to sign a release form saying they don’t know what happened and that they don’t hold BP reliable. BP could care less about the environment and citizens; all they care about is maximizing profits. And that should not come as a surprise. Corporations have personhood, and their charters hold them down to producing profits for their shareholders, which means minimizing all liability, paying out as little as they can and assuring the operating of business-as-usual. As a result the Gulf of Mexico, assuming these relief wells are successful – and that’s a huge assumption – right now, we’re looking at 2-3 decades to get the Gulf back to where it was before this spill happened, which wasn’t really all that good in the first place. The Gulf was trashed even before the spill. There’s something like 20,000 abandoned wells, deteriorating, leaking oil, and at least three other well accidents in that region have occurred since the BP accident –

FJS: Really?

DJ: Oh, yeah, really! Just recently a tugboat hit a well in Barataria Bay. It sent a 20-100-foot plume of oil into the air, created an oil slick more than a mile long; in a bay that is already one of the most heavily affected bays from the BP oil disaster…

FJS: At mandatory HAZWOPER (hazardous waste operations and emergency response) classes, required by OSHA, disaster response workers are being told the work-to-be-done is “harmless” – wtf?(!), we all know that’s as far from the truth as Neptune is from the Andromeda galaxy… right?

DJ: Right. People in those classes are being told that nothing is harmful. But it makes sense if we understand the logic of corporate charters.  They’re legally obliged to operate that way.  It makes no sense for a corporation with corporate personhood to operate in any other way other than to maximize profit. It’s never about doing what’s good for the people, for the environment – never about the moral thing. Period. 
   
The other problem is that we have a government so bought off, so corrupted, a government that is nothing more than a fucking sock puppet for corporations, and that is why the Gulf is being demolished and why there’s no intellectual honesty about real change in the future.

FJS: We’re led to believe that all these seemingly discrete current events; i.e., the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the BP oil spill, etc & c. are all separate, not interconnected – no matter how tenuous. If it’s possible, would you like to take a crack at connecting these dots, viz. what is the relationship between the culture of Empire, oil, and the ethnic destruction and ecological degradation happening the world over?

DJ: It just so happens that across the world, the areas rich in resources are populated by indigenous cultures. When the US Empire wants those resources the people will either be bought off or eliminated. The same can be said about the natural environment.
   
Just look at the logic behind the BP oil spill. Here was this endeavor entailing the drilling of an oil-well head 5,000 feet beneath the water and, I believe, another 19,000 feet below that… The drilling of this well, and other wells like it, is just another facet of natural resources being in a place where Empire is going to get them no matter what. Here was this giant oil reservoir, it was extremely dangerous to drill there, with a high likelihood for disaster, and, you know, the attitude was: ‘Well, that’s too bad.  We’re gonna drill anyway, ‘cause look at all the money we’ll make…’ And for the record, I think all this talk is horribly depressing, but we have to look at all this clearly if we’re going to behave accordingly, and that means understanding that writing a letter to a senator, if we think that’s gonna change things, well, we don’t have all the facts.

FJS: What will work? What will change things?

DJ: I don’t really have an answer for that. But we all have to realize that we’re all complicit in this. We all have to start looking at what we can do to withdraw our support for this economy. Buying less crap, driving less, growing our own food – and, of course, more radical direct action targeting corporations and the officials who represent them. A message needs to be sent to these people expressing that they will pay a price if they keep behaving the way they are. I’ll leave the rest to peoples’ imagination.

A large segment of the African American community was skeptical of BP, the oil and gas industry, and the government long before the disastrous Gulf oil disaster, since black communities too often have been on the receiving end of polluting industries without the benefit of jobs and have been used as a repository for other people’s rubbish. 

Given the sad history of waste disposal in the southern United States, it should be no surprise to anyone that the BP waste disposal plan looks a lot like “Dumping in Dixie,” and has become a core environmental justice concern, especially among low-income and people of color communities in the Gulf Coast — communities whose residents have historically borne more than their fair share of solid waste landfills and hazardous waste facilities before and after natural and man-made disasters. 

For decades, African American and Latino communities in the South became the dumping grounds for all kind of wastes — making them “sacrifice zones.” Nowhere is this scenario more apparent than in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” the 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi from Baton Rough to New Orleans. Gulf Coast residents, who have for decades lived on the fenceline with landfills and waste sites, are asking why their communities are being asked again to shoulder the waste disposal burden for the giant BP oil spill. They are demanding answers from BP and the EPA in Washington, DC and the EPA Region 4 office in Atlanta and EPA Region 6 office in Dallas — two EPA regions that have a legacy of unequal protection, racial discrimination, and bad decisions that have exacerbated environmental and health disparities. 

Today we are seeing a disturbing pattern re-emerge in the disposal of the BP oil-spill waste.  Because of the haphazard handling and disposal of the wastes from the busted well, the U.S Coast Guard and the U.S. EPA leaned on BP and increased their oversight of the company’s waste management plan.  BP’s waste plan, “Recovered Oil/Waste Management Plan Houma Incident Command,” was approved on June 13, 2010.

BP hired private contractors to cart away and dispose of thousands of tons of polluted sand, crude-coated boom and refuse that washed ashore.  The nine approved Gulf Coast solid waste landfills, amount of waste disposed, and the percent minority residents living within a one-mile radius of the facilities are listed below:

Alabama 

Chastang Landfill, Mount Vernon, AL, 6008 tons (56.2%) Magnolia Landfill, Summerdale, AL, 5,966 tons (11.5%)

Florida

Springhill Regional Landfill, Campbellton, FL, 14,228 ton (76.0%)

Louisiana

Colonial Landfill, Ascension Parish, LA, 7,729 (34.7%) Jefferson Parish Sanitary Landfill, Avondale, LA, 225 tons (51.7%) Jefferson Davis Parish Landfill, Welsh, LA, 182 tons (19.2%) River Birch Landfill, Avondale, LA, 1,406 (53.2%) Tide Water Landfill, Venice, LA, 2,204 tons (93.6%)

Mississippi

Pecan Grove Landfill, Harrison, MS, 1,509 tons (12.5%)

According to BP’s Oil Spill Waste Summary, as of of July 15, more than 39,448 tons of oil garbage had been disposed at nine approved landfills in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. More than half (five out of nine) of the landfills receiving BP oil-spill solid waste are located in communities where people of color comprise a majority of residents living within near the waste facilities. 

In addition, a significantly large share of the BP oil-spill waste, 24,071 tons out of 39,448 tons (61 percent), is dumped in people of color communities.  This is not a small point since African Americans make up just 22 percent of the coastal counties in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana, while people of color comprise about 26 percent of the population in coastal counties. 

Clearly, the flow of BP oil-spill waste to Gulf Coast communities is not random.  The mix of waste and race was the impetus behind the Environmental Justice Movement in Warren County, North Carolina more than twenty-five years ago. In 1982, toxic PCBs were cleaned up from North Carolina roadways and later dumped in a landfill in mostly black and poor Warren County. We also saw the pattern in 2009 when 3.9 million tons of toxic coal ash from the massive Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant spill in East Tennessee was cleaned up and shipped more than 300 miles south by train and disposed in a landfill in rural and mostly black Perry County, Alabama.  

The largest amount of BP oil-spill solid waste (14,228 tons) was sent to a landfill in a Florida community where three-fourths of the nearby residents are people of color.  Although African Americans make up about 32 percent of Louisiana’s population, three of the five approved landfills (60 percent) in the state that  received BP oil-spill waste are located in mostly black communities.  African American communities in Louisiana’s Gulf Coast were hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina and have experienced the toughest challenge to rebuild and recover after five years.  Dumping more disaster waste on them is not a pathway to recovery and long-term sustainability. 

Clearly, Environmental Justice Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” signed by President William J. Clinton in 1994, requires the EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard to do a better job monitoring where BP oil-spill waste ends up to ensure that minority and low-income populations do not bear an adverse and disproportionate share of the burdens and negative impacts associated with the disastrous BP oil spill. Allowing BP, Gulf Coast states, and the private disposal industry to select where the oil-spill waste is dumped only adds to the legacy of environmental racism and unequal protection.

In 1989, Ott, who lives in Cordova, Alaska, experienced firsthand the devastating effects of the Exxon Valdex oil disaster. For the past two months, she’s been traveling back and forth between Louisiana and Florida to gather information about what’s really happening and share the lessons she learned about long-term illnesses and deaths of cleanup workers and residents. In late May, she began meeting people in the Gulf with symptoms like headaches, dizziness, sore throats, burning eyes, rashes and blisters that are so deep, they’re leaving scars. People are asking, “What’s happening to me?”

She says the culprit is almost two million gallons of Corexit, the dispersant BP is using to break up and hide the oil below the ocean’s surface. “It’s an industrial solvent. It’s a degreaser. It’s chewing up boat engines off-shore. It’s chewing up dive gear on-shore. Of course, it’s chewing up people’s skin. The doctors are saying the solvents are making the oil worse.”

In a widely watched YouTube video, from Project Gulf Impact, a project that aims to give Gulf residents a voice, Chris Pincetich, a marine biologist and campaigner with the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, said Coast Guard planes are flying overhead at night spraying Corexit on the water and on land.

Ott says people who are experiencing discomfort of any kind, especially children, pregnant women, cancer survivors, asthma sufferers and African-Americans because they’re prone to sickle cell anemia, should wear a respirator and see a doctor that specializes in chemical poisoning immediately. She also recommends contacting the detox specialists at The Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas. “People don’t have the information to know that the burning sore throat is actually chemical poisoning,” she said. “And this isn’t getting any attention, but it’s very important. There are no vaccinations for chemical poisoning. None.”

Because she’s gotten to know the locals and has done a number of national media interviews, she’s now receiving a barrage of daily phone calls and e-mails from people who are concerned and don’t know where else to turn. She recommends they read this Sciencecorps resource about potential health hazards.

Ott shared these stories on a recent trip to the Bay Area with Diane Wilson, former Texas shrimper turned rabble-rousing activist. Ott was coughing and constantly clearing her throat during our two-hour conversation. “I can still smell the oil,” she said.

Media outlets have been reporting on public health concerns and taking water quality samples, but Ott says they’ve only scratched the surface. “If I were in charge of the media, I would be talking about public safety and public health every day. They should also be exposing the truth about how our federal standards are outdated and no longer protective of public health or worker safety. We knew in 1989 that OSHA had a loophole in it that’s big enough to drive every single sick worker through. It exempts the reporting of colds and flus. That loophole has not been closed since Exxon Valdez.”

Ott expressed her concerns during a May meeting with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Lisa Jackson. “I was sitting across from her. She said, quote, ‘I am walking a fine line between truth and hysteria. We don’t want to create a panic.’ This shows you how much our government is beholden to oil and cannot imagine a future without oil. We the people have got to imagine this. We have to. This is way worse than people think.”

On Tuesday, Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard reported that Hugh Kaufman, a whistleblower who works as a senior policy analyst in the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, is accusing the agency of deliberately downplaying public health threats and its own role in regulating the chemicals being dumped into the Gulf “to protect itself from liability and keep the public from getting too alarmed.”

The cause for alarm can’t be more apparent. In addition to the health problems people are already experiencing, WKRG News 5 reporter, Jessica Taloney, recently collected samples of water and sand from five Alabama beaches and took them to a local lab to be tested.

Bob Naman, a chemist with nearly 30 years of experience, told Taloney that he wouldn’t expect to see more than five parts per million of oil and petroleum in the water. The sample of the water taken in Gulf Shores beach, where adults and kids were swimming and playing, showed 66 parts per million. The sand had 211 parts per million. When Naman began to test the sample collected from Dauphin Island Marina, it exploded. “We think that it mostly likely happened due to the presence of methanol or methane gas or the presence of the dispersant, Corexit.”

“What’s going on in the Gulf is the same cover-up that was going with the 9/11 environmental issue,” the EPA’s Kaufman told Sheppard. “The Bush White House ordered EPA to lie about the environmental and public health situation at the World Trade Center because of economic ramifications. So they did.”

On Democracy Now!, Kaufman accused the EPA of being “sock puppets for BP in this cover-up.”

I called Kaufman to find out if he agrees with Ott’s decision to sound the alarm about evacuations. The short answer? Yes. “If you’re getting sick, it’s because you’re being poisoned,” he said. “Those chemicals can cause cancer 20 years down the line and that’s why Riki Ott is saying some areas have to be evacuated. That’s true. We don’t know how bad it is because the EPA is not doing adequate air testing. They’re taking some measurements so they can tell the public that everything is safe [when, in fact, the public has] an increased risk of getting cancer and dying early. They’re pawns in a money game.”

Kaufman and Ott both say the media needs to follow the money. The reason why the EPA is covering this up, they say, is because the cost to BP would be astronomical. “The dispersants hide the oil,” said Ott. “If you put dispersants in the water, you don’t know how much oil was really spilled. Oil fines are based on how much oil was spilled, so it’s all about money.”

If a group listed as a terrorist organization had caused the oil disaster, Kaufman says their assets would be seized immediately and their members would be arrested. So, why hasn’t the US government seized BP’s assets? Kaufman points to an April Vanity Fair article about Larry Fink, one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. Fink’s BlackRock money-management firm controls or monitors more than $12 trillion worldwide, including a billion shares of BP. According to the article, BlackRock “has effectively become the leading manager of Washington’s bailout of Wall Street,” thanks to Fink’s close relationship with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

“It’s all about money,” says Kaufman. “Follow the money.”

So, where does this leave the people whose lives have been destroyed by this disaster? Where does this leave the people who will face long-term health problems? Where does this leave our oceans, wildlife and environment? What’s next?

“The more the public knows, the more the media cover it, the more the people tell officials to help, the better it is,” says Kaufman. “It’s a game of momentum.”

Ott says she plans to stay in the area to assist where she can (getting respirators for workers is near the top of her list), get the truth out and continue the conversations and community meetings she’s having with self-described Tea Partiers, evangelicals and fifth and sixth generation fisherman. “Here’s something positive for you,” she said. “I’m starting to hear, ‘We all live on one planet and there really is a climate crisis here. This can’t continue.’ I’m having conversations with the Christian Right. I’m staying in an oilman’s camper. Oilmen are starting to see that we need alternatives. I’m having tea party people come up to me and say, ‘How can I help?’ Corporations want to divide the nation into red and blue, Democrat and Republican. I’m seeing that crashing down. The frames are dissolving. The South is rising. I’m talking about the Deep South. This is the most hopeful sign I’m seeing.”

Former shrimper, Diane Wilson, hopes to see more direct action. “This is a crisis. If this oil gusher does not move people to force a change in Washington, then it will never happen. We are seeing the end of the United States as we know it. If people hold their planet dear, they better be out there. Folks are too well behaved. We need to be unreasonable”.

“How’s the weather down there?”  When we ask each other this question, aren’t we really asking,  ”How are the elements (elementals) treating us?”  Well, this question will never be more important to the residents rimming the Gulf of Mexico as we gear up for a long, hot, deep south summer with its likely share of hurricanes, tropical storms and depressions, which, by the way, can be a good or bad thing for “natural” oil spill remediation depending on numerous factors and circumstances.

Back to the methane issue and the volumes of gas that are currently pouring into the Gulf by way of the gushing well, as well as the many leaks and seeps, cracks and fissures, which have provided entry into the water from a growing area around the wellhead.  Some who are privy to authoritative info have pointed directly to a large gash, as well as other smaller gashes, which have opened up in the sea floor throughout the area since the wellhead first blew.  The current flow of oil out of the riser is approximately 35% of the total volume of outflow.   Much of the remaining composition is methane, some of which may be burned off by the flames which appear on a screenshot from the live feed.

Some of the leaks and seeps that have appeared since April 20th are the result of the venting of the enormous pressures of this very deep high compression well.  Various experts in the Oil & Gas Exploration and Drilling Industry have speculated this pressure to be as high as 100,000 psi which would explain much of the erratic behavior of this unprecedented gusher.  It has functioned as a humongous sandblaster of sorts, which will therefore make it difficult to even keep a cap on it for any extended period of time.

When you drill through the earth’s crust and into the mantle at depths of 20,000 to 35,000 feet, the Russians have consistently encountered pressures far exceeding those that exist in more shallow prospects.  They also understand that such pressures demand a proportionate upgrade in technology and equipment (which did not happen with the Deepwater Horizon, if catastrophic blowouts are to be avoided.

The more serious issue here is that the surrounding sea floor is being profoundly undermined, hence the foundation of the wellhead is progressively weakening thereby creating new exit points for methane gas.  Many seasoned observers have noted that there has been a piercing of the wellhead, itself.  This predicament will necessitate a unique and more thorough response if the outflow is to be completely stopped or if all the oil and gas is to be captured by a “containment and capture” solution.

Another major source of methane gas comes from frozen hydrate crystals which exist on the sea floor in vast quantities.  Due to very cold temperatures and high pressure, they stay locked in place until they are awakened from their slumber by the very conditions that now predominate in the region around the wellhead.  The gushing oil may be as hot as 300 to 400 F, which greatly affects the undersea dynamics, and especially the state of these hydrates.  Also, it is quite noteworthy that we have no experience with the introduction of massive volumes of dispersants at the wellhead under those extraordinary conditions. What will be the ultimate effects on methane conversion and release throughout the region in terms of ramping up an already very dynamic and volatile situation on the sea floor?  More significantly, what are the unforeseen consequences to the water (perhaps aquacide) and the fragile ecosystems that abound there?

There are other sources of methane, which occur under the sea floor in various types of “repositories”, that are being affected by movements of the earth, as well as by dramatic temperature fluctuations.  These reservoirs are undoubtedly releasing methane gas, as are the sea floor surface beds of trapped frozen methane crystals.  Almost all of the released methane gas from these sources will eventually rise to the surface of the Gulf, some of it accumulating as hovering gas bubbles which will then dissipate over time. They concentrate and disperse, come and go according to the scientific properties of methane gas behavior.

Methane does have a very deleterious effect on all aerobic marine life in that it depletes oxygen very rapidly in water.  This is the biggest concern, and it can have greater impact on life than the toxicity of both the oil and the dispersants combined, dangerous interactions and all.  We state the obvious when we say that all aerobic organisms needs oxygen, and that such life will die very quickly when oxygen concentrations drop below critical thresholds (How long would you live holding your breath under water?!).As the methane rises through the higher layers of the Gulf of Mexico in aquatic strata where the water is warmer, this problem becomes worse due to the fact that warmer water simply holds less oxygen than cold water. 

This discussion is not to diminish in any way the extremely harmful toxicities associated with the myriad of chemicals and contaminants found in the dispersants (e.g. COREXIT) and petroleum derivatives.  Clearly, the Gulf of Mexico has been relentlessly turned into a petrochemical cesspool of ”ginormous” proportions by this and other simultaneous gushers and leaks, which will take decades to remediate in any meaningful way.

Perhaps the most significant factor on top of the Gulf, however, is the weather.  Low pressure weather systems, hot and humid conditions, and stagnant air conditions characterized by little wind can exacerbate the effects of methane gas accumulations around the coastlines as well as many miles inland.  The coming tropical storms and depressions, as well as the hurricanes, will provide vectors of dissemination for the aforementioned chemicals and contaminants to rain down on the many coastal communities, and beyond.  In this regard, the entire state of Florida is particularly vulnerable due to obvious reasons.

The upshot of this story demonstrates the need to get to know your ambient air and rainwater.  This recommendation is vitally important!  There are specific ways that this can be accomplished which will be covered in a future essay.  In the meantime, it is wise to get to know your environment in the most intimate way, so that you may respond quickly and decisively to any situation that might arise, especially regarding methane bubbles should they migrate over coastal communities.