Landfall

Oil has come ashore in SE Louisiana.

I don't know why I haven't written more about what's probably going to end up being one of the worst- if not the worst ecological disaster in my lifetime, but I haven't. It's hard not to dismiss this as a 'shit happens, pass me some oil booms' type of moment, yet the regulatory failures on the part of the Obama Administration and the lax safety record of BP make that all but impossible.

This is a perfect example of why we need to disentangle, once and for all the government from business. When corporations bankroll politicians and pay for their re-election campaigns, politicians are beholden to the corporations and special interests, not to the voters. And sweetheart deals and lax regulation leads to disasters such as this one. Until we learn, until we demand that the government be on the side of all the people- not groups of people, not rich people, not corporations- but all the people, then disasters like this will occur and inevitably, there will be a twin failure of business and government lurking somewhere beneath the surface waiting to be revealed.

Money and politics is a lot like oil and water- damned difficult to separate, but doable, if you really want too. The pictures I've seen thus far... unbelievable. Just unbelievable.