"The environmental movement was a whisper after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, but when the oil blowout happened in Santa Barbara in 1969, politicians in California and Washington reacted by passing the National Environmental Protection Act and the California Environmental Quality Act.

I was around in those times, had occasion to use these laws and other environmental regulations to protect American Indian sacred lands. We might have prayed, but it was not the only thing we did to hold corporations to account for rampant development.

President Obama is not helpless to stand by and look at Mother Nature on the run in the 21st century and neither are we.

It is understandable that we feel helpless to clean up the oil spill while nearly a hundred thousand barrels a day still flow into the waters of the Gulf. It is understandable that the president and his advisors are pretty much dependent on the oil companies to stop the flow of oil using experimental technology.

In spite of the president’s rhetorical promise to “kick some asses,” it is not advisable to blacken the eyes of the people who have the technology to stop blackening the beaches in six states or more.

So, what can we do?"

Get the Story:
Johnny P. Flynn: Obama’s Oil-Soaked Prayers (Religion Dispatches 6/16)

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