In many real ways the Gulf Oil disaster is a terrorist attack. It has caused the destruction of an entire sea, the Gulf of Mexico. It has destroyed a massive ecosystem, 40% of US wetlands, 1,500 miles of coastline, thousands of businesses, a million or more jobs, destruction that is still building and will continue for the rest of the century.
The terrorism is the terrorism of oil dependence and of the ideology of "anti-government", of no scientific or technological oversight by government for public interest.
The oil industry has done more damage to America than Bin Laden could hope to do.
The oil industry assault began in 1980 with Reagan as the "pilot" of the plane headed for the "towers" of the US. Nixon and many Republicans were on board with the strategic necessity of cutting US oil use. Nixon saw the strategic necessity of US survival and independence after the Saudi oil embargo crashed the US economy in 1972.
Carter continued Nixon policies and correctly stated that it was "war", that the US was in a fight for survival vs. oil. His famous speech on the subject is freightening for its power of truth and prescience when listened to today.
Text here.
Video here.
Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech is the speech many were hoping Obama would give June 15th. Carter's speech applies even more today as it talked about how disconnected people are from their government which is even more true today because Obama's 2008 election held so much promise for reconnection and it failed so badly to fulfill its promise. Carter's other focus was on the need to cut US oil use as the equivalent of a war for survival. The Gulf oil disaster, oil financed terrorists, $1T oil wars, $1T a year military spending to secure oil, oil driven climate change all threaten US survival we see how right Carter was 30 some years ago.
In 1980, Reagan was the oil company man, the guy who would lie to the people that oil was not a problem. The guy who would kill all efforts to cut US oil use, to kill efforts to build alternative energy economy. The guy who would double US military spending with securing Middle East oil fields for US oil companies as the No. 1 strategic contingency of US military.
America believed the oily lies of Reagan and Reaganomics which has proven so disastrous in oil, war, economics, national security, environment. Nothing crystallizes the lie more than the destruction of Gulf of Mexico and Southern US coastline all for oil we don't need, all because we didn't regulate oil industry, all because we believed the easy lies of Reaganomics.
We allowed the oil "terrorists" to hurt the US badly, from the $14T in debt they ran up to the climate and ecological damage they did that is on track to destroy planets ability to support life.
When Obama said "We can't drill our way out of this problem", many hoped he would change the nation's course regarding oil. To his credit, he has pushed the US more towards a green economy than any president since Carter. But Obama failed to give THE SPEECH. Perhaps he fears what happened to Carter when he took on the oil companies and their anti-government ideology of Reaganomics directly.
As Thomas Friedman noted, Obama failed to make the Gulf Oil disaster as terrorist attack connection.
No, the gulf oil spill is not Obama’s Katrina. It’s his 9/11 — and it is disappointing to see him making the same mistake George W. Bush made with his 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of those rare seismic events that create the possibility to energize the country to do something really important and lasting that is too hard to do in normal times.
So on this Fourth of July, it's Carter's speech that should be played before the fireworks go off so people can think about gaining US independence back, think about reconnecting with their government.
Hopefully Obama will give a similar July 4th speech and will tell the American public about what independence means on July 4th, 2010.