William Rivers Pitt
"I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I'd never have," wrote Chuck Palahniuk in his novel,"'Fight Club." "Burn the Amazon rain forest. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom ... I wanted to breathe smoke. I wanted to burn the Louvre. I'd do the Elgin Marbles with a sledgehammer and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa. This is my world, now."
This is our world now, indeed. All those terrible things Palahniuk's protagonist wanted to do, well, most of them are happening or have already happened. The Louvre is still there, for now, and neither the Marbles nor the "Mona Lisa" have been violated, but as for the rest of that rant ... yeah, they're pretty much fact.
Our world.
The Boston Globe web site put together a series of pictures detailing the inexorable advance of spilled petroleum in the Gulf, the slow dread of aftermath from the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon nearly a month ago. I've been staring at them for the last hour, and I'm beginning to believe I have lost the capacity to weep.
We've been through so much in the last ten years. So much damage has been done in so many places and in so many ways. Millions of people have died in wars and acts of terrorism, of disease and starvation and neglect and atrocity. Our Constitution has been ravaged, our economy pillaged, New Orleans was shattered and Detroit has been left to rot. The Supreme Court sealed the deal and made us all slaves to the corporate ethic, which scantly exists beyond a profit motive devoid of morals or genuine patriotism.
But something in those pictures makes me feel worse than I have in a long time, even after encompassing every other horror we have endured. I can't explain why; worse things have happened than this Gulf spill (maybe), but my heart hurts and my gut feels hollow when I look at the pictures, and I cannot weep.
"According to a news release from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, reported the Times-Picayune over the weekend, "Capt. Lyle Dehart of the shrimping vessel Rocking Angel caught oily shrimp around midnight on Friday in Bayou Severin, near Sister Lake. Shrimpers on the boat reported that their fingers stuck together when they touched the shrimp." The report went on to state that large swaths of fishing grounds, both offshore and inshore, are being closed. The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals has allowed several previously-closed oyster beds reopened, so fishermen can race in and harvest what they can before the oil arrives and annihilates the ecosystem.
Their fingers stuck together.
Our world.
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