Our dependency on oil and the greed of the oil companies that feed that dependency is killing people. This is a pattern that is repeated all over the world. It takes many forms. Sometimes it's a war waged in our name in a faraway country like Iraq. Sometimes it's the poisoning of the water we drink, bathe and swim in by drilling operations or oil refineries dumping their waste in our own waterways. And sometimes it takes the form of allowing the suppression of a people whose only crime is to protest the abject misery they're forced to live in.
You may think this has nothing to do with you, but it does. When we don't take a stand, when we allow things to be done in our name without protesting it loudly and often, we are killing people as surely as if we held the guns and pulled the triggers ourselves. We are beating people to death by proxy.
The Burmese people have risen up in peaceful protest. All they want is a modicum of what the citizens of this country take for granted every day. They want to be able to feed their families, they want medical care, they want to be free to worship as they see fit.
Every day there are diaries expressing outrage at what goes on in this country, about access to affordable healthcare, the loss of rights, the ineptitude of our government. But we're lucky. It could be so much worse. Just ask the Burmese people.
Chevron is one of the major players in keeping the junta in power in Burma. As the story of what has been happening to the Burmese people has emerged over the last week or so, I've watched with increasing anger as that Chevron banner magically appears and then disappears at the top of the front page here on Daily Kos. It's time that thing went away. Permanently.