I just saw a clip of James Carville bemoaning the loss of an entire

[hedgehog]

culture, an entire way of life, due to the Gulf Oil Disaster.

Now, I am upset about the oil leak, maybe more than most because I think trying to mop up the oil is akin to gathering all the pieces of the World Trade Center and putting them back into place. It can't be done. We can't make this all better. But, I have to ask, why hasn't Mr. Carville been as upset over the the cities and towns in the Rust Belt and Midwest devastated by the loss of jobs? Maybe we weren't as glamorous or exotic as the cultures found in Louisiana, but we had a way of life, too. We had close knit families and communities. We liked to get together for good times and good food. Our children grew up here, went to school here, then had to go elsewhere to find work and make a living. Drive up and down our streets and you'll see empty store fronts and abandoned houses.

I don't want to turn this into a competition over who is suffering more. I'd just like to see a little less self pity from self appointed spokesmen such as Carville.

[Oregone]

1. Well, he sort of knows people there

It makes him more empathetic. Just as Michael Moore was probably more empathetic about the rust belt than shrimpers' jobs (presumption). Typical human behavior.

Also, its a bit more dramatic because its associated with a catastrophe being covered 24/7

[tabasco]

14. James Carville doesn't know people who live by the bayous.

He's a candyass, effete upscale New Orleans dickshit lawyer who never met a shrimper.

[BeatleBoot]

2. Why do you think he hasn't been upset about the economy?

I don't get it.

He coined the phrase, "It's the economy, stupid."

Besides he's from Louisiana - they've seen enough already.

Let him vent.

[Hawkowl]

3. NIMBY hurts don't it?

That's what I'd tell him. Those of us exiles from the rust belt have been warning people for years that the demise of the rust belt was just the beginning.

I'd like the entire country to take notice that THEY'RE NEXT! Beat down the corporations or your way of life is over next.

[hedgehog]

11. I think you've articulated the real problem -

we have to get the corporations under control.

[Mimosa]

4. Yes, he always was concerned.

I don't want to google and read everything available Carville has written or said about the plight of working people. I'm sure he sincerely identifies and cares about regular people as he came from a middle class family in Carville, Louisiana. It's 50 or 60 miles upriver from NOLA and is a very humble place. The jobs in the area were oil and chemical companies and agriculture. No glamour. I don't know a lot about James, just having met him once, but I know he served into the Marine Corps. He didn't go to an Ivy League university but attended LSU. His heart is with working people. So is Mary's, believe it or not. She was not born a country club Republican.

Here's some basic info re: James Carville:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carville

[GoCubsGo]

5. If only he was that outraged when....

...his wife stood by Mr. Cheney as he weakened the regulations that would have prevented this mess in the first place.

[11 Bravo]

6. And you know he wasn't because?

[Me.]

8. He Was Too Busy Feeding Her Tidbits About What The Dems Were Going To Do

As we know from the 2004 election

[Mimosa]

7. Well, what could Mary do?

And there weren't many Dems fighting deregulation back when Clinton was Prez either, sad to say.

We've all got to recognise politicians in both major parties have been hand in glove with big oil. And politicians in both parties have collaborated in outsourcing of jobs. NATO, WTO, there are very few if any Congress critters or Senators who fought for US.

[hedgehog]

19. Now you're getting a little close to the bone. Who was associated with

Bill Clinton, who supported Hillary Clinton in the Primaries, and who is now heaping blame on Obama?

[Honeycombe8]

9. #1. He has been. #2. Midwest will recover; La. may never recover.....

the two disasters are not anything at all alike.

Our country has been through many severe economic downturns. Areas hardest hit DO recover. There are concrete things that can be done, esp. with enough money and willpower thrown into it.

What is happening to the southeast part of the Gulf Coast is not at all like an economic downturn.

So I'm wondering....how much do YOU really care that you don't understand the difference between the two situations?

The Gulf crisis may mean the PERMANENT end of a culture, a way of life, a portion of the country. You can throw money at it, you can have all the willpower in the world. But those things won't matter one bit, if enough oil gets into the wetlands. If oil gets into the wetlands, the vegetation dies, then the wet soil underneath washes away, becoming part of the Gulf. No more wetlands. No more places for certain wildlife to nest and subsist.

Also, the oil in sand is easier to deal with. Even so, we're talking DECADES until the area is close to normal. Truth is...once that much oil gets into an area, it is impossible to get it all out. Impossible. It would take massive cleanup and decades of waiting for nature to try to resolve it somehow.

Compare: Exxon Valdez 20 years ago. The area is close to being as it once was. But still not the same. What is in the Gulf is massively larger, and affects a more tender type of land, affects more people and area directly, is CONTINUING on a daily basis (and will for months, probably), and finally....affects the country as a whole more.

We all have rallied by those areas hit hardest by the economic downturn. Even Carville. Now it's YOUR turn to rally behind this much larger (and permanent) devastation to one of our own areas of our country.

[hedgehog]

13. In terms of a human lifespan,

this



is as bad as this:



They both mean that people will have to leave, that families and friends are split up. As for ecological damage, would you like a tour of all the toxic waste sites within 10 miles of where I live? How about a boat ride on Onondaga Lake? I live in a fisherman's paradise: a house on a river, 2 miles from a small lake, 10 miles from Lake Ontario, but I wouldn't dare catch and eat any fish. There is not a single fish in New York State that is safe to eat because of the long term, slow motion poisoning of our land and water. (yeah, it's safe to have a couple meals a month provided you aren't a child or pregnant. That's reassuring.)

I agree that this oil is causing a permanent loss to an entire ecological system. The problem is not being ignored, it's just that there's only so much that can be done. What I don't understand is the whining that if only the oil spill had happened in California or off Long Island, then the Federal government would step in and magically make all the oil go away.

We need to stop complaining about the clean-up and start the reform to eliminate the chance of another spill, ever.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. During one recent hurricane, all the water in Mobile Bay

was sucked out. Then it blew back again when the hurricane got closer ( remember they are like
swirling vacuum cleaners of water).
Now imagine what happens when all the oil and toxic chemicals that BP has dumped into the Gulf
( MILLIONS of gallons of dispersants) gets sucked up in a hurricane and driven back again up the bay,
up the rivers, up the bayous. And since the wetlands will have been damaged, there will be less resistance to the tidal surges carrying all that Gulf water onto land.
BP's greed has caused a catastrophe which will come back to haunt people of all the southern coastal states, over and over again.

[hedgehog]

18. Oh, without a doubt. I think people are too focused on the odd

pelican getting washed in dish soap and not realizing the extent of the damage. We just aren't built to comprehend the kind of damage taking place right now off shore beneath the water's surface. What I object to is the dual claim that somehow it's only Louisiana that's being hurt, and that the rest of the country doesn't care. We are one nation.

[undeterred]

10. What culture is Carville part of? Washington sleaze?

[ecstatic]

12. That way of life included lots of small oil businesses--an unsustainable

business model, IMO. Oil and fishing don't mix.

[Mimosa]

15. More on Carville

Carville LA was a small town upriver from NOLA where lepers were once sent, iirc.

I found Carville's own website. I don't know if Tulane University will allow him to continue his political consulting jobs.

http://www.carville.info/

I think everybody in Louisiana and all us ex-pats (because it was like another country in many ways) were just getting to feel better about everything as we approach the 5th anniversary of Katrina. But then this awful disaster -for the environment worse than Katrina - comes along and we know things will never be the same.

Much of Louisiana's fragile marshlands will be poisoned and destroyed. The fishing industry was of MAJOR importance to the LA economy and supported hundreds of thousands of jobs, along with tourism.

[hedgehog]

17. Real recovery won't begin until the day comes when the people of Loiusiana

realize they sold their birthright for a mess of potage. Or to be more explicit, ignored the hazards of oil drilling in the eagerness for the jobs and money the oil industry brings. I know that some people have been fighting the good fight all along, but Bobby Jindal did get elected after he spearheaded a bill to open the Gulf to deepwater drilling

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16140704

and he is now calling for drilling to resume.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/03/jindal-bp-oil-spill/

[Mimosa]

21. The whole country wanted more oil. Don't blame Louisiana.

If people can't get back to drilling -which the President had opened up in march- many thousands of people people will be jobless. That would be a human disaster on top of the environmental disaster.

WHO will pay for the support of these families?

[tnlefty]

20. I've never been a fan of Carville, and when he made his

Judas comment about Richardson, the dislike turned to despise. I'm trying to overlook most of what he says and does right now because I feel that he's in genuine distress about the destruction of his state.

Mary will get no such pass from me as she worked for and covered everything that Darth Cheney did, including the outing of Valerie Plame and I know that doofus James signed onto that letter, and if her distress is even remotely real, then I hope that it burns her soul, if she has one.

[Mimosa]

22. My Native American grandma said 'curses come home to roost'

I *try* not to wish suffering on other persons. Let karma or God handle it.