Monday, May 31, 2010

Modernity's Black Death

As yet another effort to stop the worst oil disaster in history failed, one couldn't help but notice how tragically fitting it continued over the weekend of Memorial Day.

For what are the symbols of our Memorial Day Weekend but two large auto races where hundreds of thousands travel great distances in gas-guzzlers to watch other vast quantities of oil propel a series of never ending left-turns (the only left-turns tolerated in America, apparently)?

Before each race, we are told to pause to remember those American kids who are sent abroad to "protect our way of life" (via James Dobson at one, who personally thanked Jesus for NASCAR) meaning we stay out of car pools, buses, and other forms of mass transit.

Memorial Day is purportedly about remembering the sacrifice of others -- what have we often sacrificed those others for? The history of the last 100 years could accurately be described as too often meaning red blood being spent for black oil. Two world wars; the exploitation of and resulting resentment by a culture leading to global terrorism; innumerable environmental catastrophes all have oil being a major cause.

Oil may have helped make modern America, but it didn't exactly make America "free".

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anabel put it well, though this reader has no idea what she said.
Oil leads to Chaos, which rules. vox

Kate said...

Yeah, exactly what you said. (Anabel not as much.)

pansypoo said...

indeed. their is no freedom if you need foreign fuel.

how come hey are not trying to cover the pipe with another pipe with , oh, maybe 3 blowout thingies?

Oblio said...

As an avid motorsports fan, I am often torn over the essence of racing, part of which is the fuels they run on. The big NASCAR race on Sunday was indeed a fuel-sucker in every way, but I must point out that the cars running at Indianapolis are powered by sugar cane-derived ethanol... prior to that, they ran on corn-derived methanol.

Make no mistake: racing series principals the world over are working at a feverish pace to make their racing engines as green as possible, but I await the day when electric motors spin and hum the cars around the track. Mag-lev would also be most awesome, eh?

Auto racing presents conundrum for us lefty fans, to be sure. Your points are exceedingly valid, and as always, your blog is one of my daily stops. Many thanks!

guessed said...

i want to see an image of nascar jesus.

Bob Collins said...

The worst oil spill in history you say. Perhaps your world view is no more distant than your bellybutton. Do a search or two for oil spills in Africa. They are far worse than the BP spill, AND the remnants of the BP spill cannot be found according to the major news outlets. That was the real news once the well was capped, the major news outlets could not find any real signs of the spill, and curiously the ENTIRE gulf is open for fishing business again.

More like this was a great opportunity for this administration to strong arm a private company. That was and is the real story.