The BP Gulf Oil Disaster: "The Attitude We Need"

"The Attitude We Need"

by CoyotePrime

"To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee;
for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."
- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick".

Many folks are sadly discouraged, even depressed, by the nightmare unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Understandable. Cry and grieve as you must, as we all must, for what's lost, already, and what's to come still. Then catch your breath, and remember our greatest strength- we are Humans! And for all our faults, we are the most adaptable species to ever walk this earth, the ultimate survivors, and if we go down it will not be without the greatest fight in the history of the world. Remember who WE are, together, as Humanity, not sad and broken individuals. And in our common defiance of this disaster, consider the attitude displayed in Melville's quote, and Chris Floyd's words, and prepare to spit in the eye of this thing that dares to threaten us. We're taking a beating now, and maybe we deserve it for our arrogance and carelessness, and our mistreatment of nature. But we will NOT go quietly into that dark night... and in the end, our Human spirit, united, will beat even this horror. - CoyotePrime

"These are the facts, and they can't be altered. But how to respond to this catastrophe? Shall we weep, moan, rend our garments, cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes? Shall we sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of republics? Shall we cower in the shadows and sing glamorous dirges for the Lost Cause, for vanished glories and broken dreams?

Or shall we come out fighting, unbowed, heads high, laughing fools to scorn, rejecting at every turn the moral authority of murderers and thieves to rule our lives, determine our reality, act in our name? Let's dispense with lamentation - give not a single moment to that emotional indulgence - and get right back to work, more determined than ever to bear down harder, dig deeper and excavate the radioactive nuggets of truth still glowing beneath the slag-heap of ruin that BP and the others have made of the world. Let's fight these pathetic, malfunctioning wretches who lay their hands on our world and rape it like beasts in a mindless rut. Fight them with the truths we find, exposing their crimes and deadly hypocrisies to the people they've suckered, perverted and betrayed.

This seems, to me, a worthwhile thing to be getting on with during our painfully brief time on the earth, during our infinitesimal window of opportunity to make some small contribution toward pushing the project of being human - or rather, becoming human - down the road, at least a few more steps, in the direction of a better understanding, a broader consciousness, a greater enlightenment."

Adapted from articles by the great Chris Floyd.