"Obama has failed to step up to the plate, this is not because he is dealing with a recalcitrant congress or an obstructive opposition party, but because he has failed to step up to the plate and perform the kairotic act. Here we have an event that is going to have massive economic and ecological impact that will reverberate for years, an event is a direct outcome of deregulation and corporate greed, an event that will, in one way or another effect all Americans, and we have an administration that refuses to quilt this event into a whole series of events that have buffeted both the country and the world. In Difference and Repetition Deleuze speaks of repetition in terms of resonances, echoes, and reflections of the past. In repetition the present actuality somehow is haunted by all sorts of other past events.
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The oil catastrophe echoes and resonates not only with past oil catastrophes, but with the financial collapse, the West Virginia mining disaster, the exploitation of American tax payer dollars by contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, the exploitation of American citizens by insurance companies, and on and on. If there were ever a moment to quilt together our economic woes, the impending environmental apocalypse, and rampant corruption among the corporations and government as a result of neoliberal ideology,this is that moment. Obama needs to step up to the plate and take advantage of this moment, performing a Kennedyesque moment not unlike that of persuading the American people to go to the moon."
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I don't understand why there wasn't a plan for a disaster like this??? It seems there should have been some kind of back up plan...I'm mean for Heaven's sake...how long is this going to go on?
ReplyDeletemaybe there was a plan : do nothing. the megacorpos always find a way to benefit from anything. ANYTHING.
ReplyDeleteso James, how do you expect us to drop oil use? I live in France and the unemployment rate is so high with the crisis and corpolitical profiteering, that the employment agency now pushes people without a real pedigree to find work quite far from their homes. So, they need cars. And cars need oil. And that's just France you know? It must be worse here and there...
I agree that there has to be some intervention from the people, but the people are tired and scared and all they want is to be left alone and quiet in their living room, as long as they have their tv, their toaster, their drug of choice etc.
ps : how ironical, captcha asks me to type "prous" ah ah ah ah ah ah ho wow
There are obvious ways of cutting back petrolium use.
ReplyDeleteHowever, to cut it back to the point where we're no longer dependent on it in any way would require a wholesale conscious restructuring of industrial/consumer culture on an unprecedented level. It would also mean sacrifices that I don't think most of us would be willing to make.