Gulf oil spill... It's personal to me

[Jeffersons Ghost]

I grew up on those Gulf beaches. My first job in TV was at Panama City Beach; and my last job in radio was in Pensacola, FL. I had sex for the first time on a beach in Gulf Shores, AL.

I'll never forgive or forget what BP and other irresponsible organizations have done down there.

I can't believe that we're all standing by while BP institutes a news blackout of the area.

I saw a movie yesterday where the lady said 75% of the clean-up crew quit working as soon as government officials left the area and I believe her.

I used to love watching the dolphins play in the surf, when I lived there. The only one playing down there now is BP. They're playing mind games with the news media.

Of all the stories, this one about the baby dolphin saddens me the most:

"Travis said the dolphin was crying as people rushed to save it. She said people scraped oil off the dolphin with their hands. “It was so sad. It just broke our hearts,” Travis said."

http://beforeitsnews.com/news/86/953/Oil-Covered_Dying_Dolphin_Cries.html

[ZombieHorde]

1. Recommended, still at zero. nt

[G_j]

29. yep

there is some real scum about

[earth mom]

2. I've never been to the Gulf or to Florida. But this is OUR ocean, OUR planet

those bastards are destroying.

It's personal to me and to you and to all of us. :cry:

K & R!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. I apologize if I implied it isn't personal to ALL of us

Your point is well-taken

[earth mom]

11. I'm sorry too. What I should have said is that we're all in this together.

I do realize that it is harder to take when you actually have a connection to the area that is affected and I didn't mean to dismiss your pain. :grouphug:

What I was trying to say is that the planet belongs to everyone and those bastards have destroyed a vital part of the planet and we should not take it laying down.

Maybe this gusher is the wake up call this country and planet needs so that we may finally change our wasteful ways.

But oh, what a heavy price to pay. :cry:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

20. and as for a "wake up call" nothing seems to have changed...

maybe we can still wake the sleeping masses in front of TVs but I doubt it

[obxhead]

3. k/r. I grew up on the Gulf too. I was lucky enough to

be in FL fishing the week of the blowout and got a bunch of fresh pics. Had no idea they might be the last ones I would ever be able to get of the clean beaches when we left for that trip in April.

[nashville_brook]

5. i grew up in Satellite Beach, and my family has DEEP Florida roots

we have lived in Clearwater Beach, Panama City Beach, Miami Beach, Coconut Grove, West Palm Beach, and in the Central Florida interior. Now, I'm back in Orlando and spend the lion's share of my spare time kayaking the springs, rivers and lagoons. this is personal. this is the death of my "family" in so many ways. life will never be the same here. it's always going to seem darker.

[Mojorabbit]

37. I am in Orlando too

and I am in tears off and on every day since this happened. I have to be near the ocean and here I am less than an hour away. The ocean refreshes and heals something in me when I am feeling depleted. I can't believe this is not being treated as a major emergency with all stops pulled out. I can't begin to describe how I feel.

[nashville_brook]

42. i totally get that. the ocean helps us stay connected.

[marions ghost]

6. I'm grieving on a daily basis

how can we deal with this level of deception and destruction by the oil industry?

It's an enormous crime.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

9. I should have said in the OP that I grieve the apparent death of media too

[marions ghost]

12. I grieved the death of media during the Bushites

but it's still just as bad now...

Just get the truth out, anyway possible.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

18. when BP instituted the black-out they all seemed to simply accept the fate...

News media sickens me these days. That's why I quit, after interviewing with clear-channel. twenty something stations in one facility and very little live talent anywhere in the building

[marions ghost]

45. the media think

that a lot of viewers or listeners prefer to be shielded from the difficult news. The TV people reporting serious news are always smirking and smiling (the message being that it's nothing to really WORRY about), and then the non-serious news is presented as earth-shattering. (the exception--Rachel Maddow's smiles are ironic, not meant to be particularly reassuring). This is all about manipulation of the masses and protection of the corporate oligarchy, a textbook case of how it's done. Rachel and Keith are doing the best they can re the Gulf, but it still doesn't go far enough. We get the truth in bits and pieces...the media blackout is apparent.

The people on the Gulf know the truth but the PTB want to keep this contained.

[Mimosa]

15. So true: the media is winding down reporting this

Except for Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, the coverage has definitely been winding down. It's as if they don't want to report or ask questions.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. !

:grr:

[gateley]

8. We are all heartbroken, even me, way up here in Seattle! A true

sadness and mourning weighs down on me. I can't even imagine what it's like for those of you of whom its a part of your lives. I'm so sorry. :hug:

[Poboy]

10. Yes sir. - nt

[Mimosa]

13. Important video of Gulf flyover

What few marine mammals are left are stranded and dying surrounded by miles of the slick:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxDf-KkMCKQ&sns=em

WHERE ARE THE SKIMMERS?

[Cetacea]

16. K&R n/t

[Jeffersons Ghost]

44. that part about the dolphins sticking their heads up to see the fires brought tears to my eyes

[Odin2005]

14. I have a great aunt who lives in Pensecola

My dad was talking to her on the phone yesterday and she was absolutely distraught. :(

[zeemike]

17. I lived there for many years.

But at an earlier time when there were no condos from Fort Walton to Fort Morgan in Alabama...and I got to know the place very well.
But the miles and miles of unspoiled beach and wonderful sand dunes are all gone now, and perhaps all the wild life as well....never thought I would live long enough to see such a disaster.

[TheKentuckian]

19. It's deeply personal to all of us Jefferson's Ghost, whether we realize or not.

Not to make light of your connection to those lands, waters, and life at all.

I would hope people far away are connected to the razing of the hills and poisoning of the streams of Appalachia.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

40. The local media is FINALLY starting to mention some of the negatives of the Marcellus drilling.

However, they still trot out the grossly inflated Penn State study (funded by the drilling companies) to show why it's needed.

People are having their land, health and lives ruined so that a few can profit, just as in the Gulf.

The worst part is that as close as we are to WV and KY, I would wager that most people around here don't even know what mountain top removal mining is or the amount of destruction that it causes.

I'm hoping (but not optimistic) that people wake up in time and realize that their health, way of life, water, land and wildlife are being destroyed right in front of their eyes.

Frack Attack
Fracking Amwell Twp, Pa.

[WillyT]

21. K & R !!!

:kick:

[amborin]

22. K&R

[LeftyFingerPop]

23. K&R. n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

24. This baby dolphin story has legs.

I think it is becoming the image that is sticking in everyone's mind.

I was talking to God last night. I said, "God, why? Why this major devastation that we may never completely recover from?"

The answer: Because nothing else has worked.

[Edweird]

25. It's personal for me too. I reserve my deepest rage

for those trying to use this to score 'points'.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

26. It's personal to many of us

in different ways. God help our beautiful planet and its creatures.

[defendandprotect]

27. Agree . . . dolphins . . . wow! But we have to care about all animal life -- before BP kills it--!

Wealth can move a ton of lies, it seems!

And I don't think there's going to be anything but even more tragic news of dolphins

and everything in the oceans ahead of us --

This complete disregard for nature makes my head spin --

Nature is all!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

28. I just can't stop crying....

I hope it helps to know that you have another grieving soul on your side, out in internets land....for what it's worth...

The story of the baby dolphin has just completely broken my heart, and that's in spite of avoiding the full story or pics, because I know my difficulty with pictures getting stuck in my mind.

many many of us knew things needed to change, and it is NOT FAIR that such suffering has to happen to wake up the masses; greed and ignorance destroying the lives of every creature, innocents who did not deserve horrific suffering.

ah god, now I'm a mess again.... but my sobbing doesn't help anything, it doesn't stop the relentless human scourge.

:cry:

[G_j]

30. I have not been the same

and I don't think I ever will be.
We must all join forces and do something, but I'm not sure what.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

31. I agree. We need a unified voice, and a centralized outlet for it.

someone on some other thread said our outrage is dissipated now on the web...

Move-On is doing a push to coordinate action on big oil. Maybe they are the best bet? :shrug:

[Jamastiene]

53. .

:hug:

[liquid diamond]

32. Thank God this hasn't happened on the west coast. I hope we

learn our lesson, so that our culture, environment and livelihood aren't destroyed.

[Voice for Peace]

38. this is going to affect the whole world.. not just the gulf coast.

all of these poisons are going everywhere.

[catrose]

33. me too

grew up on Texas and Louisiana coasts...never going back

[CLANG]

34. I think it's personal to all of us, And if it's not, you don't have a heart.

It's a crime against nature, and humans as well as the plastics we create are part of and subservient to than nature. If we presume to be more intelligent than the intelligence of the cosmic mind, then we are but wistful transient images of when we used to be.

TRANSLATION: FUCK BP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Swamp Rat]

35. Someday, BP CEOs and their unseen masters will pay for this.

[Voice for Peace]

39. there has to be justice somewhere.

[sce56]

36. It is personal to me too! I spent my last summer vacation in the Army down at Patrick AFB & Key West

Family camps back in 1993!

As for doing something I have stopped buying Castrol oil and Arco Gas both BP Brands.

I also attended the local Hands across the sand protest Saturday on the beach in Ventura Ca.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8643567


I was way at the other end of that photo.

And I would not want to go sailing without the company of my friends out there in the ocean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVnXXu2_n9U

[droidamus2]

41. What I don't get

There was a time, or am I imagining things, that the media in this country wouldn't have let any corporation or even the government stop them from covering a story. BP says you can't talk to this person or take that picture or be in that place? Who gives a damn a journalists job is to cover the story not kiss ass to some foreign corporation.

[Triana]

43. Has anyone sent the 'censored' videos to the white house?

Called their Senator or CongressRat? Anyone?

[Javaman]

46. Death by a thousand cuts. nt

[guitar man]

47. It is to me too

I grew up on a farm in Oklahoma but my grandparents, aunts and uncles all lived around Gulfport,Ms. After my grandparents passed we moved down to Gulfport in'79 when I was a sophomore in high school. I did my last 3 years and graduated from Gulfport High in '82. I moved back to the MS gulf coast later on and spent a lot of time there in the '80s

I spent so much time fishing and running crab traps from Courthouse pier, my parent's always knew where to find me. I owned a couple different boats and spent many happy hours on the Gulf waters....now...I just can't put it into words. I can't even muster up any rage anymore at this point, just the coldest indifference toward those responsible for this. I couldn't care less if they all fell off the face of the earth...or better yet, fell into the mess they have created and drown in oil....

[ColesCountyDem]

48. Envirorape and ecocide are personal to me, too.

Growing up deep in the heart of Southern Illinois, I witnessed the destruction of gentle hills by the coal barons' steam shovels. I saw homes ruined by subsidence of collapsing tunnels in worked-out mines. I saw slag heaps burning for years, even decades. I have seen streams so polluted with run off that they looked pristine only because they were too toxic for anything to live there, even algae. I have seen acres of productive farm land ruined by brine spills from poorly constructed dikes around oil wells.

I have seen cemeteries fill with those killed instantly by rock falls or oil-well rocker arms, and those who slowly smothered from black lung disease.

I share your pain, and weep....

:cry:

[pecwae]

49. I'm reccing this

but have an issue with calling it a spill. I can't think of a proper name for it, but spill just doesn't encapsulate the tragedy.

[marions ghost]

50. This is the rightwing response to anybody who cares to protest:

"Hypocrites, Hypocrites, Hypocrites! When they leave thier SUV's RV's, etc. home and ride bicycles or walk to the demonstartions, I may believe! Until then....Hypocrites, Hypocrites, Hypocrites!"

Direct from Hannity or Rush, I'm sure...
-----------------

The above is a poster on the newspaper website that reported on one of the Hands Across the Sands
gatherings on the Atlantic coast last Saturday...

[truth2power]

51. k/r

[Stuart G]

52. K and R

[Jamastiene]

54. All those stories about dolphins protecting humans from sharks...

it's our turn to figure something out and help them. There MUST be something we can actually do. I just don't know what.

[Uncle Joe]

55. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Jeffersons Ghost.

[bertman]

56. Recommend. Thanks for posting, Jeffersons Ghost. nt

[fatbuckel]

57. Sick of this crap...

"BP and the Obama administration –who are responsible for the terrible suffering and death of innocent wildlife in the Gulf..." Like President Omamas administration were the ones to de-regulate big oil and let them write their own rules.