Big Oil Causes Big Mess in Ecuador

Written by Katie Bezrouch

The Ecuadorian rain forests are suffering, and so are its inhabitants. Texaco (currently owned by Chevron Corporation) began prospecting for oil in Ecuador in 1964. They found what they were looking for, and built the invasive petroleum extraction infrastructure that still oppresses the local indigenous people and the Amazon.

Chevron insists that their involvement ends there. They refuse to take any responsibility for ominous environmental disaster that plagues the region that Texaco once profited from, and instead point their finger at PetroEcuador, a state-owned Ecuadorian oil company.

Ecuadorian citizens seem to disagree with the American company. A class action law suit was filed against Chevron in 1993 on behalf of 30,000 Amazon residents for polluting… Read more

Politics

The Coming Year of Complex Intersections

Written by Rev. David L. Ostendorf

As anticipation surges for January 20th and the possibilities for an Obama Administration, short-term solutions to long-standing problems dance illusively and elusively before our eyes: we did not get to this precipice overnight and we will not get off of it soon.

Tens of thousands of families are newly unemployed; home foreclosures are non-stop; businesses crumble; poverty and racism endures; new war rages in the Middle East—the economic-political chaos at home and worldwide is nothing short of sordid. Yet we hope, even audaciously.