Blame Game - Gulf Oil Spill

I hear so many people ranting about the oil spill in the Gulf. If you havent heard about it, you've been living under a rock, but I'll recap, anyway. If you aren't some hermit or didn't just wake up from a several month coma and do know what I'm talking about, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

In April, a BP deepwater drilling rig exploded, killing 11 and, despite several attempts to stop it, has been churning out more oil than has ever been seen before from an offshore oil spill in the US. As a result, there is obviously major damage to the gulf's ecosystem and the gulf coasts are all threatened. Further, no one knows when or how the flow will be finally stopped.

With the basics out of the way...everyone is naturally looking for someone to blame. Accusations against everyone from BP to the President are the norm. But, in all fairness, I don't think some giant political or corporate figure is who we ought to blame. Now, I'm not saying they didn't make mistakes, that they shouldn't have had more safety and precautionary measures in place, that there wasn't something obviously very faulty on the rig...I'm saying that, to borrow a wonderous line from a favorite movie, "How did this happen Who's to blame Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others...but again, truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror."

Why Look at how much of our country is dependent on oil. From everything from gasoline and everthing transported by things that burn it to the oil that coats our factory machinery to the rubber used on billions of products to all of the things created with or out of oil byproducts, we are a country that consumes over a quarter of the world's oil produced each year. BP doesn't consume all of that oil, the Obama administration doesn't consume all of that oil--WE DO, the masses of everyday citizens, as a collective whole. And it is that consumption which drives the oil giants to drill.

People rant about the Republican slogan of "Drill, baby, drill" and the party's push for offshore drilling, looking to place blame there, as well. Were offshore rigs rushed into production, compromising precautional proceedures Possibly. Is that the fault of the campaigns and the oil companies Partially...but the question remains as to why they did what they did. Look at the social, economical, and political reasonings behind that slogan. The US unemployment rates were at an alltime high, costs of everything were skyrocketing, and the American people were desperately looking for anything that might bring more jobs, more domestic profit, and lower the increase rate of inflation. The prospect of more domestic drilling fit the bill, and we jumped on it. Yes, we now look at it and say "that was a terrible thing", and yes, there were many opposed to it at the time, but there were and are a lack of other viable and easily implimented alternatives, and alternatives as a rule involve change, and people dislike change...so most did not oppose it. Hindsight is 20/20 and complacency and apathy rule.

Do I have a point, major opinion about what should be done, or solution to all of this Only that the next time you watch the news and see all of the oil floating on the water, the contaminated beaches, and the dying wildlife, and get angry, by all means, be angry--but think for a moment about who you should really be angry at, and recognize we all have a share in the blame.