California River Watch 2009 Annual Statement
The Gulf situation is an utter disaster. Big Petroleum does whatever it wants and our Government, when not complicit, is impotent. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan despite overwhelming public sentiment that we should not be spending trillions to protect foreign oil interests. Instead, we should use that money for creating jobs at home, educating our children, protecting our environment and the like. Our Health Bill has no public option, not because the People did not want one, but because our Representatives do not represent the People but those who pay the highest amount of dollars. The “free press” has not been free since it was bought off. In a land of immigrants, the political right has been able to create fear and hatred of immigrants. We live in a system that even if it worked as it was designed, it cannot work in this day and age. It is not sustainable. As long as we continue to view the world as a resource to exploit and dominate or delude ourselves into believing that we are stewards of the Earth, we can never hope to live in harmony with nature.
Our world ecological and sociological situation is in a perilous condition. Do not waste time merely hoping or being angry. This is a time of action like no other time in history. Write to your representatives, write President Obama, write BP. Let them know your thoughts and feelings. And do more than that. Support local businesses, reduce your dependence on non-renewal energy, start a garden, be kind to your neighbor, and start doing more to solve the problem than contributing to it. We are the People, we are the Government, we are of the Earth.
If there is anything I have learned about men & women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released. (Hu)mankind is waiting and longing for those who can accomplish the task of untying what is knotted, and bringing these underground waters to the surface. – Albert Schweitzer