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Boycott this!

By Ken Wright

"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into."

- Oliver Hardy

As I write this, the spill from the Deepwater Oil Rig disaster is already being labeled the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history. The oil slick unleashed from the puncture in the earth a mile below sea level is tainting beaches, fouling wetlands, slaughtering wildlife, and disemboweling an entire ecosystem - and the food systems and economies based up on it.

As the oil continues to spew and spread, which it does from this mid-summer vantage point, its greasy reach stretches from Texas to Florida. And with the Gulf Stream capturing the flow, hurricane season brewing, and the repeated failed attempts to put some kind of improvised lid back on Pandora's box, the future of situation looks to have a range of possible trajectories, none of them warm and fuzzy - or clear and clean.

And somebody, by gawd, should pay for this.

BP, of course, has paid out millions of dollars so far, and the mess will likely end up costing the company billions in the long run. And maybe some in the company will go to jail. And maybe some government officials may lose their posts.

But we all know that in this country, you're better off knowingly fleecing investors and then shamefully sucking from the government bailout nipple than you are, say, looking Hispanic driving around Phoenix, carrying a pocketful of home-grown medicine, or missing your appointed alcohol counseling appointments like Lindsay Lohan, who got whacked with 90 days in jail - more punishment than any of the thieves running Goldman-Sachs have suffered.

That's the way it works these days. And, of course, it's not just BP.

Seems our leaders in government can't control Big Business and Big Oil and Big Coal and all the other big bad Biggies. (Maybe because government regulators are themselves controlled by Big Industry?) None of our intrepid leaders appears willing or able to deliver us from the evils of fossil fuels and set us on a sunny path toward alternative and renewable energies. Why can't the government at least compel, force or incentivize the population it governs into less energy-intensive lifestyles?

Or maybe it's Big Media, which, through its ownership by Big Business, censor and hide stories on alternative fuels and how this country's energy policy is shaped and put into practice . . .

It's something. And something needs to be done. And somebody needs to do it. But it's all so big and entrenched and conspiratorialzed and FUBAR-ed that it's enough to make a good liberal enviro-meddler get downright apoplectic. Or apocalyptic.

Why there oughta be a revolution! Maybe we can start the Tar Ball Party and hold rallies! Maybe Hilary can be our figurehead and lead us toward a brighter, highly regulated future . . . !

Well, parties take a lot to organize. And revolutions, well, they're kind of scary, and not very civil, and people can get hurt. But we can at least boycott the bastards, right? We'll show those BP evildoers: We're taking our Benjamins to Exxon! How's that taste, mofos?!

But, of course, none of this will happen. Because I know the truth. And I'm here to confess: It was me.

Yes, I caused the Gulf spill. And I am here to admit that I see only Hope in Obama's Change - expanding off-shore drilling for the first time since 1981 (even though this Deepwater thing put a temporary damper on the President's exploratory ambitions). And I'm also here to say that I'm so thirsty I can't wait to suck oil from Canada's fragile Tar Sands.

And I support our troops - even though I'm glad there's no draft! - who are fighting and dying to keep our oil supply lines to open. I also wince, yet still tacitly approve by non-disapproval, the decapitating of Appalachian mountains to get at coal. And closer to home, while I don't like the idea, I facilitate, through non-involvement, opening Colorado's Western Slope to water-consuming and land-brutalizing oil shale development.

I did all this. And I do all this every day. Just by living the way I do. And it will all go on as long as I keep on keeping on that way I am.

But change is hard. Sorry about that. But, hey, I'm busy. I just wish Big Business and Big Government and Big Oil would get it together and change for me . . .

What are their friggin' problems, anyway?

Somebody, dammit, should pay!

Ken Wright leaves his carbon footprints around Durango. He is the author of The Monkey Wrench Dad and Why I'm Against It All. You can read his blog at sanjuanalmanac.com.