You think you know but you have no idea...

... That as much as I love music, I also love politics even more. It is my passion in life to make changes in the world that we live in. I love the outreach that the United States and many Americans take to help the international community, especially because I have an immigrant background myself. My family is from Haiti, I am 100% Haitian. The American side of me is that I was born here in the states and that well, I have never been to Haiti and barely can speak creole. And so to the Haitian people who would read this I am what they would call blanc and I guess given the circumstances I am blanc but my love of the country and my love of the culture is something that is undeniable. Anyways I will get more into that later.
There is something I live by that says that in order to change the outside world you sort of have to start with your own perspective. I.E. you have to change yourself before you can start fixing other areas around you. Well, that is the same feeling I have about how we look at the world outside of the United States. I completely understand this urge to fight poverty and diseases in countries that can't do it for themselves, but I think there needs to be a great investment in the issues that we face here on our shores. I think that the whole " war on drugs, and guns, poverty, etc." has been so lost and manipulated that we have destroyed any real chance that we have had to correct these mishaps. But I know that there are many people in this great country that serve to make the systems better and to really give a level playing field to all. Needless to say I am one of those people, who want to correct ourselves before we are able to correct other things. My passion runs so deep that I pretty much focus on whatever task really draws me to it, I love the idea of social justice and advocacy. I don't have a particular topic that I would ride high for: for instance I participated in an Alternative Break to New Orleans in 2009. I had always wanted to volunteer after the horrific outcomes from Hurricane Katrina and lack of government support on the ground etc. It was a very telling experience to see how little had changed 4 years after the storm. It was also very unnerving for me to learn so many details of the breakdown of a community and how fractured it was. From and education system that was failing, to a juvenile justice disparity to an economic one etc. New Orleans sort of seeped into my blood and into my spirit, and the problems that New Orleans faces are the ones that can be found anywhere, but I have a soft spot for the area. Well this spring break I led my own Alt Break back to New Orleans to explore the meaning behind what it means to serve. I think that too often we serve blindly. I myself would love to get my hands dirty and really put all of my effort and strength into helping other people, but first really listening to their needs and figuring all of that stuff out. It's funny people in my life say I have the backbone to be a great politic an, but I have never wanted to have that be my life. I don't want to be in front of a desk making changes I want to give my time and effort to be a champion for change. I may not have much, but I have my life and my time. So with that I volunteer when I can and I learn when I can and I devote myself to many efforts to gain more knowledge and understanding into the world around me.
Well, what brought on this particular blog: A MASSIVE OIL CATASTROPHE IN THE GULF! On May 5th, a pipe burst or a hole was created in a drilling space owned by BP. And now almost 45 days later this hole has not been plugged and it is predicted that the oil could be flowing out into August. Well of course two things really bother me, one the fact that this is in the New Orleans area (a place that I have grown to love, and an area that I would eventually like to live in so that I can really devote more time to helping) and two that it is taking this long for this to be fixed. If you do not know let me give you a recap, here's a link of a Timeline created by CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/03/timeline.gulf.spill/index.html

This one is a brief about the response created by CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/29/interactive.oil.spills/index.html

And here is where I have an issue. BP, as the producer of this oil drilling catastrophe should have had some sort of game plan in place in the chance that something like this happened. Any company that plans to drill has to have a game plan put together for these kind of occurrences. BP's plan was apparently 582-pages that outlined what their proposal was and how they were going to cleanup if something like this were to happen. We all know, or at least should know that most companies really don't cleanup after their toxic waste and instead buy "green plans" to sort of offset the damage they are doing in other areas of the world. Like a company that emits carbon dioxide and other toxins into the ozone can buy land to plant trees to sort of cancel out all the bad that they are doing. Regardless, BP was supposed to have a backup plan and it has failed multiple times, now BP's President has been caught in a sling with comments like ," I want my life back." Well let me tell you something Mr. BP Pres, we all want our lives back, but right now that isn't possible so you better get your head right, people's livelihoods are at stake, and in an environment still reeling from the effects of a Hurricane 5 years ago, this is not making that transition any smoother. The other issue I have is something I heard on CNN this morning, the projections of the cost of what this could do to BP- for crying out lout, who cares how much money it costs to clean it up, just freaking do it. I think BP can manage to give up billions of dollars when the effects of their blunder are going to cost the country and possibly the world much more money and time in the future.
My other issue is that the Obama Administration is going back and forth with BP. I am an avid supporter of Obama- it bothers me that this whole thing is being compared to Hurricane Katrina etc, but I think that he really needs to stand up and take charge. I get that it is BP's responsibility to fix this issue, but they have f'd up long enough and it's time that Obama takes charge instead of trying to put their balls in a sling. If we can send people to the moon, produce open heart surgeries, figure out ways in which to beef up our military etc, I think we can freaking figure out a way to plug up a gosh darn hole in the middle of the ocean. And to say that it will take until August, I mean this is starting to be ridiculous!
I'm worried about how much more oil will spill into the Ocean and how much larger this cleanup is going to be in the end. The other part of this is I understand the need to wait to evaluate how big the damage is going to be, but I definitely think there needs to be more done.
Now in terms of politics what does this do for the issues on the Environment and Energy efficiency. Well I think it does a lot. I mean this does a lot for the Green Supporters and alliances who can now point a finger at the big oil companies and say see, you need to get your act together. This makes it a stronger case for the EPA to actually enforce regulations that have severe consequences. It also puts pressure on the companies and the American public to realize that the way in which we are living needs to severely change. It will be interesting to see after the fall out what bills are proposed and what stances the American public does to create direct change for these issues.
Right now, I am tired of listening to the back and forth and I want to see something done. I want to see the Obama Administration really take charge and do something about this. I want to be able to go down to the Gulf Coast and volunteer- which I am working on right now, but this is where I am at with the whole situation.
What do you think?

In the meantime here is a link to CNN's main page about the oil spill:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2010/gulf.coast.oil.spill/?hpt=T1

And here is a little video footage as well:

This one is about the Oil Spill reaching Alabama



This one is about BP and their next steps



And this one is actual footage of the oil in the LA marsh



And the song of the moment:
MJ's Man in the Mirror