America's Chernobyl

I'm old enough to remember the Chernobyl disaster, the worst-ever nuclear accident in human history. It was the moment when the Soviet monopoly-state forever delegitimated itself as an agency of modernization (or even moderate competency).

Now the US Empire is experiencing its very own Chernobyl -- not from a nuclear plant, but from a deep-sea well pouring millions of gallons of raw petrocarbons into the Caribbean.

What was most shocking about the spill aren't BP's lies, prevarications, and incompetence, but the manner in which the entire edifice of petro-fundamentalism has crumbled down. This disaster wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime, "black swan" event, it was the predictable result of incompetent, bought-off Federal regulators (basic safety features were never mandated), Federal policies which systematically privileged petrocarbons over renewable energy (drilling instead of conservation), and above all, the toxic ideology of market fundamentalism (what's good for BP's shareholders is good, and the eco-system be damned).

I suppose this is how postmodern Empires die -- not with a bang, but with a landscape/seascape of ecological ruination.

PBS has a live feed of the spill here).