Sunday, May 9. When you cross the state line driving into Louisiana from Texas, the first thing you see is a sign "Welcome to Louisiana, America’s Wetland." Then looking out the window you begin to see what they mean —rolling out before you all the ecological richness (you pass a sign that advertises "Hold a Baby Alligator") and natural beauty that’s under assault from the system’s massive oil spill/blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
This blowout began on April 20 when an explosion destroyed the "Deepwater Horizon" drilling platform operated by British Petroleum some 50 miles off the state’s southeast coast. Since then, an estimated 200,000 gallons of oil and natural gas (and perhaps much more) have been spewing out with no certain end in sight. On May 13, BP was forced to release a 30-second video of oil and natural gas gushing out of its wellhead on the Gulf’s floor, 5,000 feet beneath the surface-- something it had refused to reveal for almost a month.
Driving on Highway 10, which is miles from Louisiana’s Gulf coastline, you pass fields, meadows, inlets, swampland, lakes, rivers, and wetlands – all lush with vegetation, in many shapes, sizes and varieties and all manner of green. My Revolution colleague on this trip – Orpheus Reed – tells me the view from the air is also breathtaking. In our next dispatches we’ll report on Louisiana’s coastal wetlands up close.
This was my first glimpse of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – and it made me sick at heart thinking about the far-reaching ecological impacts already to air, wetlands, coastlines, the deep Gulf and perhaps the Atlantic Ocean… and the potentially unimaginable catastrophe that threatens if the oil flow isn’t stopped very soon. More layers of sickness and outrage when you ponder that what’s happening in the Gulf is not simply a Louisiana, or a Gulf Coast issue – although it’s certainly that. It potentially threatens a huge swath of the planet’s ecosystem—one more gruesome chapter in the capitalist-imperialist system’s criminal assault on the globe. Truly a global environmental emergency we all face.
Tuesday, May 11. When we heard that the Interior Department’s Mineral Management Services (MMS) and the U.S. Coastguard were convening "public" hearings to open the first official investigation of the Deepwater Horizon Project explosion, we knew we had to be there from the jump to condemn this illegitimate charade, to churn up much needed resistance and action outside the rulers’ framework, expose the systemic roots of this crime, and bring the revolution out onto the wires.
In every way and on every level, this hearing and investigation were part of and mirrored the system responsible for this crime in the first place. The hearing was held at the Radisson Hotel near New Orleans’ airport -- well away from where the masses of people and those most directly affected live (so far). And the location had been changed the night before. At this “public” hearing, the public was not allowed to speak, ask questions, or hand out statements.
It was presided over by the very agency -- MMS -- that approved the Deep Water Horizon and had repeatedly allowed BP and other oil companies to bypass even the very limited safety standards and environmental reviews that currently exist.
MSS operates as one cog in the overall machinery of the capitalist state which has fully backed the aggressive expansion of oil and natural gas exploration and drilling. Besides expanding the very risky off-shore drilling operations, invading Afghanistan and Iraq and threatening Iran… all part of seizing deeper control of global energy resources to ensure the functioning and strategic position of U.S. capital. (see “The Oil Spill Disaster… And a System NOT Fit to Be the Planet's Caretakers,” Revolution #201)
8:00am--The hearings were about to begin, a dozen uniformed Coast Guard personnel keeping watch around the room. I stood up, unfurled a bright yellow banner reading “Gulf Oil Spill: System Not Fit To Be Caretaker of the Planet.” I condemned the hearings as illegitimate -- the very system and agencies which created this disaster were now in charge of “investigating” it. As I was hustled out of the room shouting “we need a whole new system,” another Revolution colleague jumped up with a banner, “Stop All Offshore Drilling!” while denouncing the illegitimacy of the hearings.
We were escorted out and told by the hotel security (a guy wearing a “Blackhawk” security shirt and packing what looked like a .45 automatic) that we’d be arrested for criminal trespassing if we ever came back to the hotel – public hearing or no. This too was an integral part of the system’s “investigative” process. From what we have learned so far, anger, uncertainty, and fear run deep among people down here, especially in the wake of Katrina whose impact continues to haunt people. And the rulers are working hard to both reassure people that they’re doing all they can to deal with the situation - while keeping a tight lid on.
The action did crack into the media – pictures and coverage made the New Orleans Times-Picayune and other local papers and TV, as well as the national press including AP and UPI. Mike Malloy mentioned it favorably on his radio show, including reporting our main slogan. An early version of the New York Times coverage of the hearing identified the “protesters” as being from “Revolution Newspaper.” This episode was excised in later versions of the story, but it did get out. A friend told me that while she was at work, a co-worker said her husband – apparently glad someone was doing some kind of protest – emailed her the Times online coverage. Friends we heard from in New Orleans and around the country were moved by the action.
The next day when we traveled to Venice – a city some 80 miles from New Orleans on the southernmost tip of Louisiana and close to the oil spill. We met three students from the University of North Carolina who were there doing a project on the employment impact of the oil spill. One mentioned that she’d seen Revolution before; she and her friends were at the hearing the day before and had heard me say I was from Revolution, so she’d immediately googled the newspaper. They were interested reading the special Revolution issue on the environment (“State of Emergency: The Plunder of our Planet, The Environmental Catastrophe and the Real Revolutionary Solution,” ) and paid careful attention to our description of Bob Avakian’s re-envisioned revolution and communism, and to the suggestion she check out www.revolutiontalk.net. As for the action…she really liked it. “You made people think outside the box.”
In coming days we’ll be reporting on what we’re learning on-site about the causes of this catastrophe, its devastating environmental impacts including on the people here, how various sections of the people are thinking about it, and the shoots of resistance and independent activity, including volunteer efforts. And we’ll be distributing and discussing the Revolution special issue, and the movement for revolution we are part of building.
Links to some of the coverage of the protest:
UPI
Times Picayune:
WLTXdotcom
earthtimesdotorg
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