Mitch Anderson
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Milan KunderaIt was exactly one year ago today: a terrifying explosion, flames engulfing an offshore oil rig, 11 men dead. The beginning of one of the most horrifying environmental tragedies in US history -- BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
I remember the images. The towering and ominous plume of toxic black smoke rising off the coast. Miles of snaking orange boom abandoned on desolate beaches. The endless live camera feed of crude oil gushing out of the broken pipe on the sea floor. Mud-stained and rain-soaked American flags drooping over rickety abandoned houses. Oil clean up crews and bird rehabilitation units working on converted seafood loading docks. Government officials speaking of "an invasion of oil." The prim British businessman (and then CEO of BP) Tony Hayward commenting that he "would like his life back." The confused screaming birds with oil soaked wings. The sheen of oil coating the bays and choking the marshes.
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Today, we should remember. We should wage a war against forgetting. It was only a year ago that the horrifying black plumes of smoke began to rise off the gulf coast and the waves of oil began to choke the marshes, kill the fish, poison the people. And yet, there is a profound sense that even this disaster, in all its enduring horror, is beginning to fade from collective memory. And of course, for BP and the rest of the oil industry, our forgetting is their advantage.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/manderson/detail?entry_id=87417