So, I have been following oil spill news very closely lately, and posting articles to my Facebook page. I have gotten several comments from friends who say that they think what I am doing is good, but that they themselves are not following very closely because it is hard to deal with.

It is hard to follow all of this stuff. I can understand that sentiment at the same time that it frustrates me, because the silence of the people who are hurting about it blends in with the silence of the people who don’t care, and it just adds up to a lot of silence.

I think a lot of people battle feelings of helplessness about it too. Huge corporations have so much power, and the US government is complicit in letting them have so much power. However, I personally believe that we have to fight the corrupt power system if we want to stop it from destroying the planet. I have a fantasy that this oil spill will trigger critical mass of people waking up to the corruption and want to create something different, a future that includes more egalitarian power structures, re-localization and a much decreased dependence on oil. I admit that it’s a fantasy, because I don’t have any real proof it will happen, but I think it’s time and so I am doing everything in my power to help create it. If enough people wake up, we CAN take back our power and create our future.

In world war 2, there was a lot of solidarity about the war movement. People really pulled together. There is an American spirit of togetherness, that if re-invoked, would be powerful enough to end our dependence on oil. in WW2, the press and government were working together to invoke this spirit, so they had stuff going for us we do not now. Both the government and media seem determined to circumvent truth and reason. However, I think if a movement was created that was big enough to get enough attention, people might wake up on a mass scale and pull together in a way we haven’t for a long time.