Pipeline Dreams

You know, I don’t like polluting oil anymore than you do, but we are all sucking up energy like voracious ants. Personally, I do not want to see one more man or woman die or be blown to bits on some distant meaningless battleground. Let us be mindful, and build things for peace that are safe and that work for the wellbeing of all.

If the Canadian oil pipeline is built without loss of life (even non-human) and it saves just one of those courageous men and women their life, or prevents them from suffering a lifetime without limbs, than I am for it. Why send trillions of dollars over to an area filled with people who hate us and not to the Canadians who have been the best of friends from the very beginning?

I watched them build the “Great American Pipeline” from Texas to Chicago through our farm in the 1950s. Pipelines are better than trucks on our shared highways. Pipelines are better than behemoth beastly bilge-rot ships, thousands of them, cruising our oceans, ready to regurgitate their filthy cargo on your beach; how many animals will die then?

Protest not progress, but be ever mindful and vigilant that what man sets in motion is of a safe and proper design, that no corners are cut during construction, that the very best materials are used, that all consideration of environmental and geological issues are considered and appropriate allowances made. We suck oil, so we have to suck it from somewhere; and we are going to move it from one place to another, then we’re going to pump it into our cars hoping it will not damage our atmosphere as much as we know it will. And hoping, of course, that the gas will always be there when we need it.

Let us not forget than many many thousands of our brothers and sisters have already sacrificed their lives and the lives of their children so we can protest and peacefully make our thoughts known; but we must become less myopic and pursue peace for all. War must end, peace must prevail, property must be more evenly distributed; sentient life is a continual challenge, let’s not put razor blades on our doormats. Just one person’s opinion.

I know about protesting. During the 1980’s we protested the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which is still in operation at the very edge of the Pacific (Peace) Ocean nestled in Diablo (Devil’s) Canyon and we have seen what a well-placed tsunami can do to nuclear plants at the edge of the sea. I still believe there will be serious problems with that plant sometime in the future; it does span several earthquake zones. I believe in nuclear energy as a source of energy, but never these monsters that the power companies have built not because they are safer or better, but because they are cheaper. Think of it: cost-cutting at your local nuclear power plant.

No, I will take a pipeline over a bullet through the head of my daughter. No, I will take a pipeline over a colliding of two supertankers in the Santa Barbara Channel. No, I will take a pipeline over a nuclear holocaust never imagined by the “Devil in the Canyon.” My good friend Jonathan Paulk wrote a song with that as its title. I think it is time to repost his prophetic song, bless his soul. And bless our souls, we must progress, it is our destiny, we must reach out, for it is our purpose, we must love all, for it is our reason. So, let’s ensure that the pipeline’s planning, building, use, and maintenance is a public process. We can do things and we will, all we need is to do them safely and respectfully and in response to a true need for all, not to satiate the salivating hyenas of greed. Those are whom we are fighting; not the pipeline, but the greed that ensures failure and harm. As I said, just one person’s opinion.

“And that’s the truth. Pluuupt” – Lily Tomlin on Laugh-In, as Edith Ann