The title says it all. This is our silver bullet, if we can figure out how to use it.
As an alternative to the current food-fight, I'd like to try to offer something constructive. Here's an idea that I haven't yet seen or heard discussed. Being overseas, I rely on podcasts for my media fix, so I'm usually half a day behind the flux. I was listening to last night's Rachel Maddow show on the way home today, and I had an epiphany while listening to her brilliant, but ultimately fruitless, revision of Obama's oval office address.
The thing we need to unite the folks who feel as Rachel and I do, is unified, good, consistent messaging. I'm not a genius at messaging, but I'm certain we could get a lot of mileage out of one simple, familiar message, repeated ad infinitum: "Deepwater Horizon changed everything." Follow me after the break if you're willing to be convinced.
What I'm thinking may be obvious to everyone here; but if it is, why hasn't someone with a proper megaphone taken this and run with it? "XXX changed everything!" It was this formulation which changed the course of our nation's history, plunged us into three simultaneous, catastrophic wars, set the cause of civil liberties and privacy back many generations, and cranked the tap wide open for public funds to flow into the military and national security apparatus. To this day, we have to have a (usually hopeless) argument about any kind of domestic spending that our nation desperately needs to get back on its feet, but there can never be any serious argument from either side about continued unlimited spending on the aftermath of 9/11. For the fat cats of the military industrial complex, 9/11 is the gift that keeps on giving; it will keep on gushing taxpayer money forever, perhaps like the oil gushing from the hole left by the Deepwater Horizon. How did this happen? It happened because "9/11 changed everything!" For eight years and counting we have heard that excuse at least a zillion times. Whether it ever made any sense, or was completely devoid of meaning, never really mattered. It was easy to latch onto, easy to repeat, and once embedded in the national psyche, could be used as a blank check for just about anything.
It was a stroke of genius by the neocons who quickly came up with this messaging and promulgated it through their allied news outlets, pundits, and politicians. The fact that progressives have no formal organization or message discipline is a ghastly handicap in the war of ideas. Propaganda is rightly condemned by progressives, but sloganeering is an ancient and essential part of all politics. No major breakthroughs of progressivism have occurred without latching onto powerful slogans at the start. Maybe 9/11 didn't really change everything, but I'm quite certain that Deepwater Horizon has changed everything. With the proper slogan, we can start to make sure that the Deepwater Horizon disaster leads to some positive change. This is an opportunity to pivot the national psyche and turn a truly evil manipulation of public opinion to the good. The right wing has cemented an unhelpful meme in the national psyche, with eight years of reinforcement. If we can muster the right resources, we can hijack this insidious meme and turn it to the good.
Okay, I mentioned I'm not great at messaging. The first problem is that "Deepwater Horizon" is not nearly as catchy as "9/11". The first thing we must do, somehow, is come up with a consistent moniker for the disaster unfolding in the Gulf. How do we do this, without the organized messaging infrastructure the other guys have? The best I can come up with is "Gusher in the Gulf" as a consistent handle for the catastrophe. Rachel has tried before to play the role of moniker clearinghouse, but I don't believe it has ever succeeded. What stands between us and stupendous messaging success is cementing one, invariable name for this disaster into the national discourse, a la "9/11".
Okay, that's all I had by way of a big idea. I do have something else to say, though. What Rachel said that really got me thinking was this:
As I have said before and will probably say again, if we were losing this much American territory to a foreign country, we would be at war with that foreign country.
I come from the Gulf Coast. Grew up in New Orleans, actually, but spent my most memorable summer vacations on the Gulf Coast, from Waveland, MS to Destin, FL. Used to be a sailor - spent all my adolescent years plying some of the most beautiful, crystal-clear waters of the coastal US. Used to fish some too, and of course have always felt that gulf shimp and Louisiana oysters were some of God's greatest gifts to Americans. When I was as young as my two daughters are now, it was heaven just to dig in the whitest sand in the US and bodysurf over the dazzling sandbars off Santa Rosa Island. I remember, back when I first took up sailing, how we would sail our dinghies across the sandbar, one of us with a mask and snorkel on, and watch for blue crabs scurrying across the sand, 8-12 feet below the surface. When we'd spot one, the guy with the mask on would dive down and grab it while the guy at the helm would luff up. We wouldn't stop until we had at least a dozen crabs scurrying around in the cockpit of the Laser. Years later, some of the most memorable times of my life took place in a 29-footer cruising the pristine waters of Perdido Bay and Pensacola Bay (those same waters which Rachel has several times alerted us are already fouled). Yes, I know I had a privileged childhood; I'm sorry if that seems offensive. I recognize that while I'm saying goodbye to the special places that made my childhood memorable, thousands of others with much smaller safety nets are saying goodbye to their present livelihood and dreams they might have fulfilled in the present time. No comparison, but I get it.
So, I wonder if maybe it would be callous of me to suggest that, just maybe, this present catastrophe, the "Gusher in the Gulf" or whatever we should call it, might be considered as big a deal as 9/11. I don't mean to suggest that the death of 11 rig workers is comparable to the 3000 in New York City. But thousands more are now suffering debilitating illness from the environmental effects of ground zero, and will likely die from those effects. How many thousands will ultimately die as a result of the uncontrolled pollution in the Gulf? More to the point, apart from the admittedly tragic deaths, New York and the Pentagon could clean up and come back strong in short order - there was no sustained attack on Americans here at home. The Gulf Coast will be under sustained (and increasing) attack for months, and then years. As Rachel said, if it was some foreign country doing this to us, there is no question we would be at war. No expense would be spared in punishing the aggressor.
So, perhaps a war is really the proper framing after all, if that's what it takes to make Americans feel patriotic and spend the money needed to defend our land. But it's not a war against the spill, as someone recently pointed out, as if the wounded earth were the enemy. You can't have a war against such things, just as you can't fight a war against drugs or a war against terrorism, as those things are not in themselves belligerent actors. They are merely consequences, merely artifacts. The enemy in this war is the "Hell No, you can't" crowd. They are the most unpatriotic Americans in living memory. BP is not entitled to deference, to say nothing of apologies. They are a criminal entity and an enemy of the state. But they are not the main enemy. They also are a consequence, not a root cause. We must identify the root cause of this corruption, this entrenched diversion from our nation's destiny as a technology leader, this actual physical erosion and literal poisoning of hundreds of square miles of our nation's most valuable territory. When we identify that, it will be clear who we are at war with, and who are the real enemies of America.
May we fight this war with the same energy and commitment with which we fought fascism in the 1940's, and America will win a new and brighter future; it will once again shine as it did after WWII. If we can move quickly enough and make this catastrophe our "new Pearl Harbor," just as the war criminals were able to turn 9/11 to their advantage, then the national will will be there to set things aright.
This land is my land. This land is your land. We can't let it go. We must fight for it.
Deepwater Horizon changed everything.