Pony Up

"Under pressure from President Barack Obama, BP agreed today to set aside $20 billion in a spill recovery escrow account to compensate Gulf Coast fishermen and others who have lost wages and work because of the massive spill from a BP deep-water well.

The company also said it will suspend its quarterly dividend payments to shareholders for the rest of this year and will divert some of that cash to the escrow account, which would be managed by an independent administrator and be funded over three and a half years.

BP also agreed to set aside $100 million to compensate oil industry workers whose jobs disappear because of the government's moratorium on deep-water drilling and a delay of exploration in shallower depths while regulators develop new safety regulations. " ---Houston Chronicle

Congress dithered and couldn't get this done. BP evaded, pouring its money into PR and planning bonuses and stock dividends. President Obama got what no one else got close to accomplishing. And as he promised in his Oval Office speech, the fund will not be administered by BP, or the government, but a special third party administrator. It could even be considered a "mind-boggling accomplishment." The President emphasized that the $20 billion is a floor, not a ceiling on what BP will pay to (as they're now saying in their TV ads) make this right. Oddly if predictably, Rabid Right GOPers are upset.

Only If We Seize the Moment

In his first Oval Office address to the nation, President Obama called the Gulf oil gusher "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced" but pledged "We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever’s necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy."

He briefly described clean-up efforts and pledged full committment to restoration and recovery. He said that a way of life in the Gulf is threatened.
"I refuse to let that happen. Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness. And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent third party."

But he cautioned that nothing will solve all the problems associated with the gusher immediately. As a disaster it is less like an earthquake and more like an epidemic--something that lasts a long time, and has diffuse and unpredictable outcomes.

He talked about broader environmental restoration in the Gulf area, in a way that early reports and commentaries seemed to miss. He mentioned the history of environmental degradation in the area, even before this catastrophe. And he announced a comprehensive effort to change that, with the help and expertise of the people of the region: Earlier, I asked Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, who is also a former governor of Mississippi and a son of the Gulf Coast, to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan as soon as possible. The plan will be designed by states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents. And BP will pay for the impact this spill has had on the region."

He talked about how to prevent such disasters in the future. He zeroed in on the failed policy of deregulation, and vowed to make government oversight work again, specifically in the agency that allowed Big Oil a free pass: "And so Secretary Salazar and I are bringing in new leadership at the agency -- Michael Bromwich, who was a tough federal prosecutor and Inspector General. And his charge over the next few months is to build an organization that acts as the oil industry’s watchdog -- not its partner."

But there will always be risks of such disasters as long as oil consumption in America requires dangerous deep-water drilling, as well as sending billions overseas for oil. So to prevent these catastrophes, the ultimate answer is an end to fossil fuel dependence, and a domestic clean energy economy: "We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny."

"As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment."

The rest of his address outlined the coming fight for this new American clean energy economy, which involves everyone, but which will first of all be played out in the U.S. Congress. "When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of principles that would move our country towards energy independence. Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill –- a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses."


He spoke about other ideas proposed in the Senate (where this legislation doesn't have the votes to overcome the promised GOPer fillibuster.) "All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fair hearing in the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet."

"It’s a faith in the future that sustains us as a people. It is that same faith that sustains our neighbors in the Gulf right now."

In what will turn out to be his most prophetic words, President Obama said that: "The oil spill is not the last crisis America will face. This nation has known hard times before and we will surely know them again. What sees us through -– what has always seen us through –- is our strength, our resilience, and our unyielding faith that something better awaits us if we summon the courage to reach for it."


Here's a fairly objective account in the first hours after the speech. The first media and blogosphere comments on the address were either harshly critical (for several reasons, often contradictory ones) or with measured approval. In Peter Baker's mixed analysis for the NY Times, he wrote: "In his first use of the trappings of the office, Mr. Obama seemed at ease and filled the screen, as political professionals put it... Mr. Obama came across as confident and presidential..."

Baker noted a fact that surprised me a little--that at 18 minutes, President Obama's address was comparatively long for an Oval Office address. Much of the criticism of the speech concerned what he didn't say, that it wasn't specific and detailed enough, which would have made it a 30 minute speech at least. In terms of my expectations, President Obama hit the major points I believed were necessary, and he made strong, succinct statements in doing so. I also would have preferred him to be more descriptive, both of what the conditions now are and what's to be done. But some calculation about its length evidently was made in the White House.

We'll see over the next few days what the national reaction is, and of course, it will take a long time before its historical significance can be judged. Maybe it will take on political significance, but at least for now it does seem that realizing President Obama's fondest hope--for national unity in pursuit of a rational energy and climate policy to save the future--is not immediately apparent.

The Week Ahead

President Obama returns to the Gulf Monday, for meetings and observations in several states, staying overnight in Florida and returning to Washington Tuesday evening, where he will give his first Oval Office address to the nation of his presidency at 8 pm. That gives instant pundits way too much time to advise him on what he must say. But since I'm on record here advising that he make such an address, let me state the obvious. He needs to talk about four things: (1)what the government is doing and will do to stop the oil gusher, (2) what the government is doing and will do to deal with the effects of the oil and chemicals (preventing further damage as much as possible to the Gulf, the wetlands and beaches, as well as compensation and restoration); (3) what the government is doing and will do to prevent such disasters in the future by real federal scrutiny and enforcement, and (4) how this catastrophe relates to the need for getting serious about transitioning to a clean energy economy and efforts to address the Climate Crisis, specifically in the climate and energy legislation now in Congress. That's a tall order for the rumored length of fifteen minutes, so I hope he speaks at greater length.

Meanwhile, next week may see the first storm of the hurricane season, now developing (and designated 92L.). Jeff Masters of Wunder Blog doesn't expect it to become a full hurricane nor get close to the Gulf, but it is unusually early, in waters that are unusually warm: "However, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) underneath 92L are an extremely high 28 - 30°C, which is warmer than the temperatures reached during the peak of hurricane season last year, in August - September. In fact, with summer not even here, and three more months of heating remaining until we reach peak SSTs in the Atlantic, ocean temperatures across the entire Caribbean and waters between Africa and the Lesser Antilles are about the same as they were during the peak week for water temperatures in 2009 (mid-September.)"

Another story that began last week and is likely to continue this week involves Alvin Greene, the complete unknown who won the Democratic primary for U. S. Senator in South Carolina, despite being an accused felon and without having done any noticeable campaigning. Questions of who sponsored his candidacy and whether he is a GOPer plant are likely to get more pointed, but the most interesting question so far is: why didn't anybody notice this guy before he won? One convincing answer is that nobody was being paid by a newspaper or a news network to watch that campaign. The major South Carolina newspaper has specifically cut back its on the ground political campaign reporting, and this (notes Walter Shapiro) is a general trend. The lack of actual reporting is also why there is so much opinion and punditry, because it's apparently only cost effective to guess, and otherwise bloviate. Bloggers don't seem to be picking up the slack either. It seems that there's no substitute for paid reporters and experienced editors who report, not because it makes them feel good, but because it's their job.

Emerson for the Day

"There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion."

Emerson

"The American Scholar"

Climate Crisis News

There was talk of the climate bill including the suspension of enforcement efforts by the EPA to regulate heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act. The Obama administration came out against the change, and the Senate turned away a GOPer attempt to gut the EPA's current enforcement powers.

Contra interpretations of recent polls, a Stanford study funded by the National Science Foundation found that three-quarters of Americans surveyed believe that global warming is real and the result of industrial heat-trapping gases. The slight dip since 2007 (from more than 80%) came from a particular segment of the population that tends to change its mind on the topic based on the weather. A cold winter with snowstorms made them temporary skeptics. Since it's been a hot spring, they're apt to change back.

Meanwhile a Yale study says that support for action to address the Climate Crisis is growing in the U.S. This support has grown since January, reflecting perhaps not only the hot spring but the catastrophe in the Gulf.

On the connection between the Gulf and global heating, Bill McKibben contributed a rare Kos diary saying that the media are missing it: "One has something to do with peak oil. BP has gone to all this trouble for a well that taps into what they now think may be 100 million barrels of oil. And that's... five days supply for the U.S? Does that give you any sense of the precariousness of the arrangements under-girding our economy right at the moment?"

"The questions that the Gulf spill raises, in other words, go well beyond: How big an idiot is Tony Hayward? What will happen to the tourist economy of the Gulf? How cool is James Cameron's minisub? The questions are more like: How out of balance with the natural world are we? And what would it require to get back in balance?"

The Kids From Kalamazoo Meet the President

When I was fourteen I shook hands with President Kennedy, about 48 hours after he was inaugurated. It's a moment that's always been with me. President Obama spoke at the graduation of a high school in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but before the speech he paid a surprise visit to the graduating seniors. This one minute video caught that moment. It was a great moment for them, and maybe vicariously for you.

The Gulf

The gulf between what BP says and what it does has grown more obvious, if not larger. It may always have been as big as the Gulf of Mexico.

The situation has gone way beyond links to news stories.

There is something called "The Beauty Strip," such as the strip of trees on the side of the highway that masks the clearcuts, concrete buildings and toxic waste dumps on the other side. BP tried that philosophy on the ocean, but using toxic chemical disperants to drive the oil below the surface where it couldn't be readily seen.

But there are cameras and they can go underwater, and the underwater death camps perpetrated by BP with the apparent connivance of the Bush era Interior Dept. are on view.

I expect that BP's various forms of lying--either lying directly to the federal government, or lying by means of PR to the public, or lying to its employees and those affected on land--bought top execs and stockholders the time they needed to move their money out of the company. But those not smart enough to intuit what was coming have lost out, because the company's paper is now worth half of what it had been, and some form of bankruptcy is coming.

President Obama continues to be hammered, irrationally as usual but also partly because of the White House. He should have addressed the nation by now, and taken some large action, even if it was symbolic rather than the serious action the federal government is taking, without credit. They really should have figured out by now that the only way open to them to communicate directly via TV is by getting that hour of prime-time, with the President in the Oval Office, talking directly to the nation.

But I must say that my overwhelming emotion right now is grief. There is so much death and dying out there in the Gulf, it's almost inconceivable. Yes, there are lives and livelihoods being tested among the people, but they're alive and they can move and adapt. Not so those thousands of creatures out there. The only appropriate response is keening, long and loud.

Ripples of Hope: RFK in Capetown June 6, 1966

June 6 is an important date in the history of Robert F. Kennedy, for two reasons. I will emphasize the first: June 6, 1966.

Partly for his support of independence movements in Africa as U.S. Attorney-General, and partly because of President John F. Kennedy’s opposition to South Africa’s racist policies, Robert F. Kennedy—then junior Senator from New York—was invited to speak at the annual Day of Affirmation held by the National Union of South African Students, an organization dedicated to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Kennedy’s acceptance set off a domestic firestorm in the U.S. William Loeb, publisher of the right-wing newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, wrote:

“Bobby Kennedy is the most vicious and most dangerous leader in the United States today. It would make no more sense to us for South Africa to admit Bobby Kennedy...than it would to take a viper into one’s bed.”

Loeb’s editorial reminds us that right wing vituperation is not new. It also reminds me of something Robert Kennedy said on another occasion: “What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists, is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.”

Lyndon Johnson’s White House also opposed the trip. LBJ considered RFK a dangerous political rival. Though the white South African government granted RFK a visa, no government ministers would greet him. The government especially disapproved of the organization he would address, and two weeks before he arrived, the head of NUSAS was banned from political and social activity for five years. Visas to 40 U.S. print and TV reporters requesting to cover the event were denied.

RFK and his entourage landed in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 4, 1966. A loud, demonstrative crowd was at the airport, part of it protesting his presence, part of it welcoming him.

During his several days in South Africa, RFK met with or spoke to a number of groups, and he was typically forthright. He met with white businessmen in Pretoria, who justified apartheid and authoritarian rule because they were “beleaguered” by the majority black population. RFK wondered who was more beleaguered—the businessmen smoking cigars and sipping brandy after dinner, or the now-banned Ian Robertson, head of NUSAS, or the famed writer Alan Paton, whose passport was revoked because of his opposition to apartheid, or Albert Lutili, then president of the African National Congress and winner of the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize, who was confined to the immediate vicinity of his rural home.

(During his trip, RFK met with each of them: Robertson, Paton and Lutili.)

He spoke to a group of white university students, and asked them why blacks weren’t allowed to vote or to worship in their churches. “What the hell would you do if you found out that God is black?”

Before an audience of 10,000 at the University of Natal, RFK observed, “Maybe there is a black man outside this room who is brighter than anyone in this room. The chances are that there are many.”

At another university he faced a questioner who claimed that blacks were too barbarous to be given political power. RFK responded:

“It was not the black man in Africa who invented and used poison gas and the atomic bomb, who sent six million men and women and children to the gas ovens, and used their bodies as fertilizer.”

RFK went to Soweto, the black township, and spoke several times, standing atop his car, on the steps of a church, in a school playground. In another city, he stopped to be greeted by a group of Africans, and sang “We Shall Overcome” with them.

His popularity, particularly with young South Africans—of all races—increased daily on his visit. His presence energized and encouraged the anti-apartheid movement. Once he left, the South African government would not permit him to return. He was called a Communist, as he also was by some in the U.S.

But the highlight of the trip was the address he was invited to give, which some believe is his greatest speech. He spoke to a young audience of some 15,000 on the Day of Affirmation: June 6, 1966.

He began by talking about a country:

"settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which once the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage."

And then employing the humorous but meaningful irony so characteristic of JFK and RFK (and their speechwriters), he said:

"I refer, of course, to the United States of America."

But this was not simply a rhetorical ploy, for this was a description of South African as well as American history. Throughout the first part of his speech, he continued to describe the American ideals of racial equality, and the difficulties America historically had in living up to them. In explaining those ideals, his audience naturally applied them to their own country.

For example, he spoke about freedom of speech, but also “the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men’s lives....
Therefore, the essential humanity of man can be protected and preserved only where government must answer -- not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion, not just to those of a particular race, but to all of the people."

He related the struggle of African Americans in America to other prejudices, felt by immigrants including his own ancestors:

"Even as my father grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, signs told him: "No Irish Need Apply." Two generations later President Kennedy became the first Irish Catholic, and the first Catholic, to head the nation; but how many men of ability had, before 1961, been denied the opportunity to contribute to the nation's progress because they were Catholic or because they were of Irish extraction? How many sons of Italian or Jewish or Polish parents slumbered in the slums -- untaught, unlearned, their potential lost forever to our nation and to the human race? Even today, what price will we pay before we have assured full opportunity to millions of Negro Americans? "

He praised Martin Luther King, and the goal of non-violent social change. He talked about historical and contemporary evils, and issued a call to conscience:

"These are different evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfections of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, the defectiveness of our sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows; they mark the limit of our ability to use knowledge for the well-being of our fellow human beings throughout the world. And therefore they call upon common qualities of conscience and indignation, a shared determination to wipe away the unnecessary sufferings of our fellow human beings at home and around the world."


He then made this directly relevant to his audience, the youth of South Africa:

"It is these qualities which make of our youth today the only true international community. More than this, I think that we could agree on what kind of a world we would all want to build. It would be a world of independent nations, moving toward international community, each of which protected and respected the basic human freedoms. It would be a world which demanded of each government that it accept its responsibility to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly accelerating economic progress -- not material welfare as an end in/of itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his hopes. It would, in short, be a world that we would all be proud to have built."

He sharpened the message:

"Our answer is the world's hope: It is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress.

This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease..."

But by having talked so much about America, he also blunted the criticism that he was urging another country to realize ideals that his own people had not fully met. The rest of his speech instead was about making common cause with everyone working for social and political justice. It was about how to create change:

"Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total -- all of these acts -- will be written in the history of this generation."

After noting the examples of the Peace Corps and the Resistance to the Nazis in Europe, he said this, the most-quoted part of the speech:

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

But there was more. In a few words he defined the true Kennedy legacy, the necessary fusion of ideals and realism to create a better future:

"The second danger is that of expediency: of those who say that hopes and beliefs must bend before immediate necessities. Of course, if we must act effectively, we must deal with the world as it is. We must get things done. But if there was one thing that President Kennedy stood for that touched the most profound feeling of young people around the world, it was the belief that idealism, high aspirations, and deep convictions are not incompatible with the most practical and efficient of programs -- that there is no basic inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities, no separation between the deepest desires of heart and of mind and the rational application of human effort to human problems.

It is not realistic or hardheaded to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In my judgment, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the realities of human faith and of passion and of belief -- forces ultimately more powerful than all of the calculations of our economists or of our generals. Of course to adhere to standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of immediate dangers takes great courage and takes self-confidence. But we also know that only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.

It is this new idealism which is also, I believe, the common heritage of a generation which has learned that while efficiency can lead to the camps at Auschwitz, or the streets of Budapest, only the ideals of humanity and love can climb the hills of the Acropolis. "

Rising to the challenge, in July 1966 the National Union of South African Students came out explicitly against apartheid.

This was June 6, 1966. Two years later to the day, Robert F. Kennedy died from wounds inflicted by an assasin’s bullet two days before. He had just won the California primary for the U.S. presidency in 1968. He would be going to the Democratic convention in Chicago with the most votes, but not yet enough to assure the nomination. Looking tired and a little haunted, he ended his victory speech with the exhortation, “Now on to Chicago, and let’s win there,” flashing a peace sign and the Kennedy smile.

But before this exhortation, his last public words that night of June 4, 1966 were these: “We are a great country, an unselfish country and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running."

[A version of this was on the rescued list at Daily Kos.]

There are many photos around now of birds saturated in heavy oil, dead, dying or helpless, as a result of the BP oil gusher in the Gulf. At a certain point reproducing them seems indecent, but they must be seen. This one is tragic enough. The more graphic images perhaps must be seen to understand the consequences to other beings, although the images themselves are apparently not sufficient. Even progressive writers and talkers have no vocabulary to recognize other beings--they are "wildlife" or "the environment," just abstractions in the political noise, as they have been in the so-called scientific noise. Governor Bobby Jindal was so intent on making political points that he watched one oiled bird flop around in front of him without trying to help. These beings deserve some dignity as well as recognition. More on this point in the post below.

Bird Brain

I'm fascinated with this interview with a neurobiologist who studies the neurobiology of music. First of all, this is the first instance I've run across of a key scientific finding that started with a viral YouTube video (which I referenced on this site at the time, of Snowball the dancing cockatoo.)

Then there's this suggestive statement: "What do humans have in common with parrots? Both species are vocal learners, with the ability to imitate sounds. We share that rare skill with parrots. In that one respect, our brains are more like those of parrots than chimpanzees." I suspect there is more than this one respect, but it does emphasize the importance of the auditory in humans, especially when visual primacy is so heavily promoted.

I note once again that like too many other human endeavors, science is a prisoner of fashion. Studying the neurobiology involved in making and responding to music is a relatively new field, even though humans have been making and responding to music since probably before they were human. But fashion dictated that music wasn't scientific enough. "One of the founders of this field, Dr. Robert Zatorre, before 2000, he never used the word music in a grant application. He knew it would get turned down automatically because people thought this was not scientific. Instead, he used terms like “complex nonlinguistic auditory processing.”

Finally, the reason that this finding is so earth-shattering is not that it is a new phenomenon, nor one that would especially surprise people who have been around birds a lot. It's the latest in a growing line of corrections to human (scientific) arrogance. Man, the only tool maker and tool user? Not really. Man, the only maker and user of language? Hardly. Now add to that, man, the only musical creature. Not so much. Seriously. That a bird--moreover, a bird that can imitate virtually any sound, including melodies--can dance to a beat has astounded modern science.

It is only because of scientific arrogance--serving the worst of human arrogance--as our species has separated itself from all others. And is now the agent for ridding the planet of other species--thousands of them every year, from plants to our closest genetic relatives.

Indigenous peoples who lived in the same context as other animals learned music from bird song. Their stories and traditions--surviving into the 20th century, as chronicled by Richard Nelson among others--profess the notion, so apparently odd to our official knowledge, that we are not the only beings on the planet. But we are so far away from those other beings that it takes the pomposity of neuroscience to square the circle. We will lose so many of those beings before we figure out once again how to relate to them, or even how to talk about them except as objects and abstractions.

The Dreaming Up the Future Daily Quote

"It’s our job as a nation to advocate on behalf of the America that we hope for -- to make decisions that will benefit the next generation -- even if it’s not always popular; even if we can’t always see those benefits in the short-term. We make decisions like this on behalf of our own children every single day. And while it’s harder to do with an entire country as large and diverse as ours, it’s no less important.

The role of government has never been to plan every detail or dictate every outcome. At its best, government has simply knocked away barriers to opportunity and laid the foundation for a better future. Our people -- with all their drive and ingenuity -- always end up building the rest. And if we can do that again -- if we can continue building that foundation and making those hard decisions on behalf of the next generation -- I have no doubt that we will leave our children the America that we all hope for."

President Barack Obama
Pittsburgh, PA
June 2, 2010

Technology and the Politics of Hope

Can technology save the future? There are a lot of answers to that question, such as "Maybe, if we use it right," "If it doesn't, what will?" or "Sure, if we can afford to buy it from China."

Technology can't prevent a lot of what may happen, not anymore. But it can help us deal with it. And it can make everyone's future better than it might otherwise be, while it may still be able to save the farther future. The future is an adventure, and technology should be part of it.

In an eloquent address at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, President Obama described his efforts dealing with the economy in the political context, and as an expression of his philosophy of government. He also talked about the future, the contributions of new technologies, and specifically, the crucial role of renewable energy technologies.

"But there’s no natural lobby for the clean energy company that may start a few years from now," he said. "There’s no natural lobby for the research that may lead to a lifesaving medical breakthrough. There’s no natural lobby for the student who may not be able to afford a college education, but if they got one could end up making discoveries that would transform America and the world.

It’s our job as a nation to advocate on behalf of the America that we hope for -- to make decisions that will benefit the next generation -- even if it’s not always popular; even if we can’t always see those benefits in the short-term."

He praised Pittsburgh as an example of a community working for the future, transforming itself from the rust belt to green technologies, health care and education. "All of this came to be because as a community, you prepared and adapted and invested in a better future -- even if you weren’t always sure what that future would look like."

President Obama also said that putting a price on carbon pollution is essential to creating a new energy economy, and he pledged to support climate and energy legislation. "And, Pittsburgh, I want you to know, the votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months. (Applause.) I will continue to make the case for a clean energy future wherever and whenever I can. (Applause.) I will work with anyone to get this done -- and we will get it done."

The Pittsburgh speech was Obama's clearest statement yet as President of what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. defined as the politics of hope--the politics that looks forward to the future.

Elements within the U.S., but also efforts elsewhere in the world with stronger government backing, are advancing clean energy technology and capabilities. But as this report shows (among others) is that clean energy is a key to the future of the U.S. economy, not just domestically but in international trade. These opportunities are forging new economic models.

But we are in danger of being left behind. China is advancing more aggressively. Apart from the Climate Crisis itself, this is the greatest challenge to our ability as a nation to safeguard our country's future, and to participate in the world's future.

In a general sense, there are lots of ideas out there for technologies that cooperate with nature rather than fight it. Some combination of them could be revolutionary beyond our imagination, in providing clean energy, in helping us deal with the effects of the Climate Crisis, and even to address its causes directly.

Though we're tempted to see massive projects as evidence of success, the technologies that will give the future the best possibilities will be small-scale, extremely efficient, easy to replicate and use locally by individual families and communities, very hardy, flexible and adaptable.

There are dangerous technologies, too, battling for attention and development money, that appeal to our arrogance. The roles and powers of technology have been themes of thought and art since the dawn of the industrial revolution, and those issues are even more pressing today. We are in many ways dominated now by powerful technologies gone wrong: our extractive energy technologies, our wasteful, destructive and cruel technologies for feeding ourselves, and the other wasteful, destructive and suicidal technologies of our society, such as our technologies of violence and war.

And there is also the apparently strong current--stronger that we might have imagined in this day and age--of opposition to science and the most settled scientific questions. A resurgence of impulses we associate with the Dark Ages. This, too, as much as powerful technologies gone wrong, threatens the future.

In this regard, I am haunted by a scene in the 1953 movie version of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which relocated the action from England to southern California. At one point, the scientists at Cal Tech trying to study how to defeat the Martian invaders, must evacuate to a lab in the mountains. But before they can get there, a panicked mob waylays their truck, destroys their equipment and injures several of the scientists. I wonder if metaphorically this isn't what's happening now, and I fear it suggests what may happen.

Fortunately at the moment we have a President who has a vision of the future and a commitment to science and knowledge. (Also on Wednesday, while at the White House receiving a Library of Congress award for songwriting, Paul McCartney quipped that "it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.") He is supported by enough Democratic members of Congress to at least get a bill increasing funding for science and science education passed, despite a pathetically cynical GOPer maneuver.

Technology by itself won't save us. But together with the politics of hope, maybe it can help give the future a chance.

The President says he has no doubt that we will create a better future. I have doubts. But doubts don't matter. What you believe will happen doesn't matter. What matters is believing that working towards a better future in whatever ways you can is how you want to live your life.

Gulf Disaster & the Climate Future: The Shadow Government is You

As the Climate Crisis leaches into Climate Cataclysm, we're likely to see more disasters. Some of them, like hurricanes and other storms, will spend their first fury within a relatively short period of time, with a long aftermath of coping and recovery. Others, like droughts and other climate effects, will be slow-motion catastrophes. Still others will be something in between, similar to the current BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: they will happen and keep happening over time, with effects that are both immediate and long-lasting.

The prospect of such disasters fill us with forboding, because they cause a lot of pain, and often change things for a long time for many people and for a particular place, with some effects continuing forever. But we fear these disasters not only for what hurricanes or whatever forces do, but for what we may do to each other, or not do for each other. And in this regard, Rebecca Solnit has some reassurance, although she also finds some truth in another fear.

San Francisco-based author Rebecca Solnit explores how people responded to historical and contemporary disasters, from the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake to hurricane Katrina, in her book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster (Viking.) Her two principal findings contradict conventional expectations, and in Katrina particularly, suggest that what we think we know through media coverage is pretty close to dead wrong.

From movies and TV as well as common philosophies of human nature we expect responses to disasters that range from fearful selfishness to predatory violence. But time after time, as evidenced by reporting and scientific studies, the opposite happens: people share, help each other, and work together, Solnit finds. And despite the dire circumstances, they do so joyfully.

This happened in New Orleans, although this catastrophe wasn’t reported that way. Which follows from Solnit’s second conclusion: authorities like police and military often make matters worse by treating civilians as dangerous criminals, and the media reports from their point of view.

Think of the New Orleans Superdome, which we heard was a nest of violence, gangs, murder and rape. The truth was slower to emerge: no murders, and the "gangs" were often young men who organized to prevent rapes and to “loot” stores—for food, water and supplies, with particular attention to the needs of babies and the elderly. Meanwhile, the people there and elsewhere in New Orleans were all but abandoned by authorities, not only unable to help, but obsessed with keeping order and afraid of the people who looked to them for help. They even discouraged volunteer rescuers. That the New Orleans police and white vigilantes murdered black citizens, often rescuers, is documented and now slowly coming to trials.

Solnit’s book ends before the Haiti earthquake, but reporting from there supports these observations: authorities were often more afraid of ordinary people than they were intent on helping them stay alive.

Solnit’s general conclusion is that the existing system, built on fear, “is mitigated every day by altruism, mutual aid, and solidarity, by the acts of individuals and organizations who are motivated by hope and by love rather than fear. They are akin to a shadow government—another system ready to do more were they voted into power. Disaster votes them in, in a sense, because in an emergency these skills and ties work while fear and divisiveness do not.”

This, frankly, doesn't surprise me. It's not just that people are naturally compassionate. It's that people have capabilities they never get to use, for a purpose they know is good. They are often eager to do so.

The heartening message is the ability and willingness of ordinary people to focus on helping each other, because typically that’s all the help there is for at least the first 48 hours after a big disaster. That's a comfort for those of us in a perennial danger zone, as many of us are (here on the North Coast, a catastrophic earthquake is inevitable, probably within a generation.) But the dismaying message is the tension between authorities and people. The paranoid Rabid Right analysis of police and government has some basis in fact, though as New Orleans shows, the white middle class people promoting it have less to fear than minorities, including the objects of the Rabid Right's Arizxenophobia.

We also see perhaps a new wrinkle on this tendency in the Gulf, where it is a mega-corporation that is pushing people around--including (reportedly) preventing people from wearing protective masks when cleaning up toxic oil and chemicals from the beaches. When police are basically in the employ of corporations--or, as in the case of mercenaries like Blackwater in New Orleans--are corporations themselves, then people and their communities are in danger from the very people that finance Tea Partiers, and that they and their libertarian ideologues support.

At the very least, I hope Solnit's book is read by disaster response planners, government officials, police and the military, and it helps them focus on ways to help people instead of treating them as the enemy.

Don't Forget, Don't Neglect

The media simply isn't covering the biggest economic, cultural, social and political story going, beyond the BP oil Armaggedon: unemployment benefits have run out for an estimated one million Americans, with many more behind them as their benefits run out.

The House has passed an extension, as well as a bill stripping tax breaks for companies that export jobs out of the U.S. But the Senate left Washington on recess without passing it, because of opposition. The arguments against it are counterfactual, as usual--for one thing, the extension is likely to create thousands of new jobs and is a proven economic stimulus. But GOPers and the resurgent Rabid Right is particularly good at the reverse equivalent of the schoolyard taunt, "That's what you are, what am I?" When they sling charges and call names, they're very often saying, That's what I am, what are you? Every time their opponents raise a social justice issue, the GOPers cry "Class War!" When class war is exactly what they are waging. It's the Rich against everybody else.

As Paul Krugman wrote, the latest self-reinforcing congressional delusion is that cutting the deficit is more important than stimulating the economy, and more to the point, helping the victims of The Rich First, Last and Always economy keep their heads above water. "More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be all too real."

Functionally, the deficit is this case is just a reason that the rich might someday get taxed more. This is even clearer here in California, where the poor, the helpless and the old will be abandoned in Ahnold's budget, so that the wealthy--like the Republicans spending hundreds of millions of dollars on their campaigns--won't have to pay for the consequences of their rapaciousness.

Oily News That's Fit to Print: Welcome to the Future

Welcome to the future. More than any event so far, the BP oil disaster is a preview of the near future: A future of consequences, of dreadful crises--often more than one happening at once-- with no easy solutions and maybe no solutions at all, of media panic and Internet hysteria feeding on itself, people feeling pain needing someone to blame, with unrealistic expectations and the propensity to destroy the best they can ever expect to get. A future that will call for courage, imagination and self-awareness, the ability to step back, and to step up, to do what can be done. A future of unlikely and unknown heroes, and of perseverance in the whirlwind of self-destruction.

BP's Top Kill unsurprisingly failed, and as the company gets ready to trot out an even riskier fix, BP is further alienating scientists and the White House. According to this report in the Guardian, BP is challenging scientific findings of underwater oil plumes: "BP's claim is likely only to further anger environmentalists and the White House, which has grown increasingly suspicious of the company's claims to be frank and transparent on developments. The president's environmental adviser and director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, has accused BP of misstating the scale of the leak."

The Guardian also reports that "the US military has ruled out taking charge of the operation to stem the flow of oil from the blown-out BP rig. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, today said that military chiefs had looked at the available equipment and concluded that "the best technology in the world, with respect to that, exists in the oil industry".

However, the Guardian erroneously reports that "former US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said the military should step in because the crisis was now "beyond the capacity" of BP to stop." What Powell actually said was that the military might be able to help, but that current military leaders would know better if they in fact can.

Another report on the underwater oil:"researchers say the disaster in waters where light doesn't shine through could ripple across the food chain."Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that," said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University fish biologist.

"Recent discoveries of endangered sea turtles soaked in oil and 22 dolphins found dead in the spill zone only hint at the scope of a potential calamity that could last years and unravel the Gulf's food web."

Dispersing the oil lower into the water column protects beaches, but also keeps it in cooler waters where oil does not break down as fast. That could prolong the oil's potential to poison fish, said Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. "There's a school of thought that says we've made it worse because of the dispersants," he said."

President Obama meets Tuesday "with the leaders of a panel he created to probe the worst oil spill in U.S. history... as a giant slick from BP's blown-out Gulf of Mexico well poses a new threat to the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama."

Also today, "U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will meet with federal prosecutors and state attorneys general in New Orleans. It will be Holder's first trip to survey the damage before what legal experts believe will be a criminal investigation into the disaster."

Meanwhile, the first named storm of the season, Tropical Storm Agatha, killed more than one hundred people in Central America, with torrential rains, and a sinkhole that swallowed a city building.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.'"

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Oily News That's Fit to Print: Hysteria Isn't Helping

President Obama visited Louisiana and conferred with public officials there. He said: "Understandably, the feelings of frustration and anger, the sense that any response is inadequate -- we expect that frustration and anger to continue until we actually solve this problem. But in the meantime, we’ve got to make sure that everybody is working in concert, that everybody is moving in the same direction. And I want everybody to know that everybody here -- at every level -- is working night and day to end this crisis. We’re considering every single idea out there, especially from folks who know these communities best."

The President is more understanding than I am. Certainly there is justifiable anger, and in particular continuing suspicion about BP's attempt to manage news about the entire situation, including alleged strongarm tactics versus reporters. But the cable hysteria, once started, is apparently unstoppable, and it's getting wilder in its misinformation, misinterpretations and irresponsibility. Hysteria isn't helping.

There's a certain disingenuousness about it, as if reporters who are supposed to be informed are suddenly aware of bullying and deception by oil companies, or that years of stripping the federal government of resources and regulatory ability empowered by their mindlessly repeating the political oversimplifications of the shrink the government until you can drown it in the Gulf of Mexico Rabid Right.

What misinformation and misinterpretation? Chris Matthews and his crew going off half-cocked about the Coast Guard chief who seemed not to know that the Top Kill procedure was "suspended." Well, it wasn't suspended. Sending the mud down the pipes was suspended, according to plan, so the pressure could be more effectively studied. Now CNN is criticizing Allen for saying the mud was being sent down when it wasn't. Is that really what he said? This is media hysteria. Yes, the whole thing is extremely bad and it's going to get worse, and the effects will be felt for a very long time. If the genocide of wildlife species isn't enough, there's the human beings who are going to be sickened as well as driven into poverty. We can expect more hysteria when the Top Kill procedure doesn't work. But as President Obama said, when the cameras move on, the government will still be there, doing what can be done.

In a comment on a Daily Kos thread I wrote this: I agree that limiting media access unless areas are too unsafe is outrageous. But there are two other things going on here, regarding government response.

First is that the Obama administration is hampered by government capabilities that have been shrunk. People don't want to pay for government, and then when they need government, they want them to have every advanced resource on hand immediately.

Second is that some things just can't be done or done instantly--it's not humanly or institutionally possible. Yet we've got 24 hour coverage and panic-inducing screamers like Chris Matthews screeching misinformation and ignorance along with legitimate concerns.

Today I thought about a little history: about the months and months at the start of World War II, before the U.S. fully geared up its resources, that the Allies lost battle after battle. The U.S. forces were getting slaughtered in the Pacific for months. What if the media was panicking people 24 hours a day then?

This is a crisis with no good solution. It's going to have long and deep consequences. We're paying the piper. This is the future. Grow up and put your shoulder to the wheel."

Another commenter replied: "What are you doing on this blog? You make sense for chrissakes."

President Obama ended his remarks in Louisiana with this statement:

"But as I said yesterday, and as I repeated in the meeting that we just left, I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis. I’m the President and the buck stops with me. So I give the people of this community and the entire Gulf my word that we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to stop this catastrophe, to defend our natural resources, to repair the damage, and to keep this region on its feet. Justice will be done for those whose lives have been upended by this disaster, for the families of those whose lives have been lost -- that is a solemn pledge that I am making."

Oily News That's Fit to Print: "The Federal Government is Fully Engaged"

Early in his term, President John F. Kennedy listened to CIA and military experts who assured him that their plan to invade Cuba, formulated in the Eisenhower administration, would liberate the island. The result was the Bay of Pigs disaster. Early in his term, President Obama is learning who he can trust--and who he cannot. He's learned one such lesson the hard way, in the Gulf oil gusher crisis. “Where I was wrong,” he said in his one hour-plus press conference Thursday, “was in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.”

The New York Times account noted the novelty and directness of his admission: "But the president’s concessions of missteps were striking. Admitting fault, after all, is not a common presidential habit, and happens only under great duress. The passive voice has been a favorite technique. President George Bush said “mistakes were made” during Iran-contra. President Bill Clinton said “mistakes were made” during campaign finance scandals. And President George W. Bush said “mistakes were made” during the firing of federal prosecutors."

But as well as admitting where he was wrong, President Obama pushed back on critiques he said were contrary to the facts. Though he was "angry and frustrated" about how the gusher situation has transpired, he said that the government has made “the largest effort of its kind in U.S. history” and was in charge of BP’s response. “Those who think we were either slow in our response or lacked urgency don’t know the facts,” he said. “This has been our highest priority since this crisis occurred.”

While noting the disastrous contributions of BP and the regulatory agencies staffed by Bush-Cheney, he made something very clear going forward: “In case you’re wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility,” Mr. Obama said as he concluded the news conference. “It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right away or the way I’d like it to happen. It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to make mistakes. But there shouldn’t be any confusion here. The federal government is fully engaged, and I’m fully engaged.”

Full transcript of the press conference here. It's worth reading--it answers a lot of questions the media and its screechers have raised. The President visits Louisiana on Friday.

Meanwhile, BP's Top Kill effort has been re-started after a long suspension. The more I hear about it, and about prior attempts, the less likely it seems that it will be successful. But if it is successful, it will be due mostly to the outside scientists assembled by the federal government who are advising on the procedure. Because oil companies have seldom succeeded with this technique, and never in water this deep.

In other Oily news that's fit to print, a federal team issued a new preliminary estimate of the quantity of oil gushing into the Gulf, at between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day, which would certainly make this the largest oil leak disaster in U.S. history.

A preview of the consequences of its extent as well as its nature as a deep ocean gusher, scientists believe they've discovered a huge toxic underwater plume of oil and chemical dispersants, six miles wide and more than 3,200 feet deep-- which is 3/5 of a mile.

Meanwhile, NOAA issued its official hurricane forecast for the coming season, which is in line with other scientific predictions: "The Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be a busy one that may spawn as many as 23 named tropical storms, including up to seven major hurricanes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday. It predicted that 8 to 14 storms would strengthen into hurricanes, with winds of 74 m.p.h. or higher. Three to seven of those could reach Category 3 status or higher — meaning they bring sustained winds of at least 111 m.p.h. “The greater likelihood of storms brings an increased risk of a landfall,” said Jane Lubchenco, the agency’s administrator. “In short, we urge everyone to be prepared.”

This adds yet one more potentially powerful factor to a situation that is unprecedented in several ways. No one knows how the poisoning of deep water will affect the ocean ecology, nor how much the oil will damage endangered species as well as the Gulf fish. Now no one knows how hurricanes will affect the oily waters. Perhaps drive oil to land. Perhaps disperse it faster. It's all beyond what we know, and all very much out of our control.

That's why you take care of the land and the waters in the first place. As President Obama noted today, growing up in Hawaii he learned that "the ocean is sacred." That's a lesson and an attitude that should be foremost, as well as deep in our values.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

The “disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition...is...the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”
Adam Smith

Illustration: Keeper of the Beach by Tim Paul at Spirit Wrestler Gallery.

Oily News That's Fit to Print: Wednesday Update, Thursday Preview

President Obama will hold a press conference Thursday. He'll announce new oil drilling policies, reportedly including suspension of all drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. But what he has to say about the Gulf will be the most important. If he masters this press conference, he goes to Louisiana on Friday clearly in charge.

In the Gulf, BP is conducting its Big Kill experiment to plug the damn hole, though they say they won't know if it's at all successful for 24 hours or more. Rachel Maddow did report that BP was encouraged because what was coming up from the well was the "mud" they were piping into it, not oil. I'm not sure why this was encouraging, since the mud was on top of the oil and so would naturally be what came up at first, but what do I know?

Rachel also had a real stunner--NBC news footage that showed step by step the uncanny resemblance of this catastrophe to a similiar one in the Gulf in 1979, right down to the same company involved, and especially the same techniques used to to stop it--all of which failed, and the leak went on for months. It wasn't so close to shore, however, and it was in June--not mating season in the marshes, but closer to hurricane season. Plus it was a well 200 feet down, not more than 5,000.

Back to President Obama. The criticism continued today, getting screechier, to the point that a couple of commentators were criticizing Obama for talking about how this disaster suggests the U.S. needs to turn more decisively to clean energy--this was too bloodless for them, not germane to the Gulf. Maybe, except that what they were criticizing was a soundbite, taken out of a speech in which he did talk about the Gulf situation as a tragedy. (Interesting however that making this connection to the energy bill was lauded in the blogosphere.)

Though I think the President needs to take command on this issue, and I hope and expect him to explain just what's been going on, we also have to concede that he has other problems to deal with. It did look for a day that a new Korean war might erupt, and that danger hasn't entirely passed. Immigration, gays in the military, etc. are all heating up in Congress, but the most important and under-covered issue is the Jobs Bill, which includes crucial extensions of unemployment benefits. It's the closest we'll get to a "second stimulus" at a critical moment in economic recovery.

Another under-covered story--and I'm surprised that the Rabid Right media hasn't jumped on this one--is the beheading of the White House Court Jester for inappropriate jokes about the national debt.

Oily News That's Fit to Print

Updates late Tuesday:

Reuters: "Dogged by delays and intense pressure from the Obama administration, BP faces a pivotal day on Wednesday as it attempts a tricky plan to clog the gushing Gulf of Mexico oil well five weeks into the disaster. If the "top kill" procedure joins the list of BP failures to plug the leak, U.S. President Barack Obama's government may have no choice but to take central charge of the response to what is considered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Obama has told aides in recent days to "plug the damn hole" and he will head to the Louisiana Gulf coast on Friday for the second time since the April 20 rig blast that killed 11 and unleashed the oil. "

There was some indication that by Tuesday night Pacific, the Top Kill effort had begun.

President Obama is expected to outline new policies regarding deep oil leases on Thursday.

Commentators Lawrence O'Donnell and David Gergen joined the chorus calling for "a bullhorn moment" from President Obama, and a more forceful and coordinated federal effort. Gergen even declared that if World War II had been run like this operation, we would "all be speaking German," which--and somebody might look this up--sounds like something he's said before, perhaps about Katrina.


BP may or may not be about to try something else--the so-called "Top Kill"-- to stop the Gulf gusher. The effort was scheduled for Wednesday but at this moment is in some doubt.

President Obama is scheduled to visit the Gulf region on Friday.

There's a lot of noise, a lot of justified emotion amidst the political opportunism. President Obama needs to speak to this, but actions aren't always dramatic--here's a piece on what the government is doing. It's big but dull and hence invisible.

And speaking of what we can't see, there's as much or more damage happening underwater.

The Washington Post reports growing conflict between some in the Obama administration and BP on efforts related to the Gulf gusher. AP is the latest to show that BP was deeply involved in the notorious Exxon Valdez spill.

The New York Times looks at a forthcoming report that documents the extent to which Bush-Cheney "regulators" were wholly owned by the oil companies.
TIME has a similar story. Bob Herbert writes about the results of this "cosy relationship."

The Gulf gusher has raised concerns over expanded offshore drilling in Canadian waters. Canada's oversight and regulations are much more stringent than U.S., but none of the articles I reviewed confirmed something intriguing I heard on TV: that Canada requires a relief well be dug at the same time as the main well. A relief well is only tested method for stopping the flow. One is being dug at the Gulf site but won't be ready until August at the soonest.

Don't Panic, It's Towel Day!

Among the wisdom embedded in the immortal Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the home truth that "A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." So on May 25, Douglas Adams fans carry a towel everywhere they go, in his honor. Earthlings may be turning out to not be mostly harmless, but it's a great fiction anyway. For more on this 9-year tradition, here's Wired.

Danger Zone

The anger and dismay over the visible damage caused by the Gulf oil gusher is increasing, and at this moment the Obama administration is in danger of being swamped politically unless the President gets personally and visibly involved, and there is some direct response and visible action.

Here's why I say this now. First, sharp criticism is coming from Democrats as well as Republicans, particularly those with ties to Louisiana and the Gulf region. Also among them now is Keith Olbermann, who has gone to the extent of dumping his count of the days since Bush declared Mission Accomplished in Iraq, and is now counting the days since that oil rig exploded.

Second, administration responses to criticism and news over the past 24 hours has been awful. The Coast Guard Commandant in charge on the scene may be technically correct, but his message about federal helplessness, and contradiction of the Secretary of Interior, isn't helpful.

There has been no effective answer to the New York Times story about new permits and waivers being granted for even deeper ocean drilling. Energy Secretary Chu made a disastrous joke to Rachel about only knowing what he reads in the papers, about actions presumably within his own department. [Correction: this may have been the Interior Dept.'s area, not Energy.]

Plus, BP has out and out said it is defying an EPA order to use less toxic contaminants, and the EPA seems to be backing down. This may be realistic--it may be that BP hasn't been able to find a substitute in time--but it looks pretty bad.

The bottom line is that the mantra of this becoming Obama's Katrina is gaining traction. When a reporter like Howard Fineman says that his Gulf sources claim the Obama administration "doesn't get it," this is a huge red flag.

President Obama has maybe 48 hours, maybe just 24, to prevent this story from taking control, with disastrous long-term effects on his presidency. And this does mean something beyond politics. A lot of people are seeing very scary imagery--oil on shore next to inserts of oil continuing to gush from the well--and they need visible leadership. All that we load onto our presidents in terms of expectations may not be realistic or fair, but we do it. And people are crying out for visible leadership.

There are two main elements to this crisis: the ongoing gusher that needs to be plugged, and the oil coming onto beaches and marshes and up waterways that needs to be held off, and cleaned up when it does arrive. I don't credit a lot of the barroom proposals for stopping the gusher, but I do listen to experienced people in the Gulf who say they know how to stop the oil from coming in, if they just had the permits. I say give them the damn permits, help them out, it can't be worse than doing nothing, or leaving that aspect of the crisis to BP.

It's the Innocent Who Are Paying

Photo: A young heron lies dying in the oil-soaked marsh.

AP: "Several pelicans were coated in oil on Barataria Bay off Louisiana, their usually brown and white feathers now jet black. Pelican eggs were glazed with rust-colored gunk, and new hatchlings and nests were also coated with crude.

It is unclear if the area can even be cleaned, or if the birds can be saved. It is also unknown how much of the Gulf Coast will end up looking the same way because of a well that has spewed untold millions of gallons of oil since an offshore rig exploded more than a month ago. "As we talk, a total of more than 65 miles of our shoreline now has been oiled," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who announced new efforts to keep the spill from spreading."

Latest from the War on Terra

Now that oil is reaching land plus the video feed of the continuing gusher, this story is dominating news and the blogosphere. Most of the rec diaries at Kos concern it, including a couple that pick up on this article that suggests the EPA is considering an action that would instantly void all U.S. contracts with BP.

Meanwhile, EPA head Lisa Jackson is on the scene for several days, and Interior Sec Salazar is going to be. The NY Times quotes Salazar as saying about BP: "if we find they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way, appropriately.”

Though U.S. attention is focused on the Gulf, that Icelandic volcano is still causing problems for air traffic in Europe and the UK. And the coincidence of poor initial media coverage and this monster Gulf story has perhaps permanently obscured the significance of what's being called "Nashville's Katrina"--the superflood in early May that this piece suggests is a harbinger of the Climate Crisis future.

The President v. the Fulminators

All that keen live video of the oil gushing out has given cable bloviators more time to fill than they have knowledge on the Gulf oil gusher. I caught one segment on CNN in which they interviewed just about anybody who said they had an idea on how to stop the spill. Maybe some idea will turn out good, but this is a lot like journalism as barroom bullshit.

President Obama appointed a bipartisan commission to investigate how such spills can be prevented and if not stopped, then dealt with better. As Climate Progress pointed out, this is already more than Bush was willing to do for the monumental failures of Katrina response. But while people are understandably upset at what's going on, and want somebody to solve it--somebody like our official daddy, the President--it's a bit irresponsible (though hardly unusual) for some cablemouths to be fulminating about presidential lassitude without finding out the facts of the matter.

Chris Matthews has been very vocal about it--I want Harry Truman! he shouts. Send in the Seabees, send aircraft carriers and submarines, plug up the damn oil! What he learned from an expert, though, was chastening--and appropriately scary. He found that the President and the federal government are doing all it is possible for them to do--partly because after decades of privatization, tax cuts to the rich and starving the government of resources--the only institutions with the technology to deal with this are corporations, and other countries. For example, the U.S. literally does not have a submarine capable of functioning at those depths. Oil companies do. And so does Russia, China, Japan and France.

This of course is a classic and not unforeseeable problem of depending on corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater to run your wars, disaster relief and increasingly your country. When they're the problem, you have no solution, and no resources to apply.

Here are some excerpts from this interview in a diary by NedSparks at Kos, with links to the full interview transcript and the White House page on what the government is doing in the Gulf to deal with this unfolding tragedy.