NBC’s Tom Costello interviews BP Coo Doug Sutles:

TOM: “I think a lot of Americans are surprised that here we are dealing with the biggest oil disaster in US history, yet we’re relying on technology to clean it up that is 30, 40, 50 years old. Has the technology to clean up a spill just simply not advanced, and if not, why not?”

DOUG: “Tom, I’m not the expert on technology, but I think events like this typically advance the technology by leaps and bounds.”

TOM: “We’re still relying on booms, still rely on skippers and on shovels. 40 years after the [IXTOC] spill in the Gulf of Mexico, why don’t you have giant vacuum sucking tubes? Why don’t you have the most high tech, 21st century response to this?”

DOUG: “Tom, I think that part of the reason is there have been so few and big spills. The events haven’t driven the technology change that’s out there. I think this event probably will.”

For all of the outrage that this spill has generated, outrage towards big oil, towards incompetent regulators, towards government in general, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Americans blindly believed that a disaster of this magnitude couldn’t happen.

What’s more is the strength of inertia is on full display during this disaster.

Obama responds in the same way all other elected officials have – declaring a moratorium on new offshore drilling. Congress kicks into shit-storm response mode, with politicians taking every opportunity to show exactly how mad they are (only words, mind you). Oil interests (BP primarily, but not solely) have immediately kicked into damage control mode – not the kind of real importance but rather a PR based sort of damage control, and meanwhile continue to flaunt the reckless expansion of drilling into deeper waters. Americans and their media bastions have gotten red-faced and have literally had a field day picking and choosing who to be fuming mad at over this spill. Some have chosen the private industry and profiteers who have gained the most from the flagrant drilling of oil to be the target of their ire, while others declared Obama’s cool composure to be the culprit and still others pointed towards the scandal-ridden, publicly-shamed and broken regulatory agency charged with overseeing the entirety of off-shore drilling.

But no one seems willing to picket outside of their local gas station and display the same anger toward our fellow citizens who are so choosing to live a petrol-based lifestyle, despite the demand it creates for perpetual oil production. No one is picketing Monsanto or Archer Daniels Midland for their short-sighted commandeering of an agricultural system that uses 10 calories of petrol-based energy to create 1 calorie of food energy. No one is organizing marches on the suburbs to protest the role they play in supporting an un-sustainable, petrol dependent America.

But then again, it is clear (to me at least) that Americans don’t actually want to change.

We just want an easy scapegoat. We just want someone to blame, so we can feel better and move on. Our media drives this narrative, but they didn’t create it. Our fellow citizens soak up this sort of cut and dry version of reality, lest they have to admit their role in the problems of our time. It really is an easy choice to be able to tune out the world around you, to succumb to the delusions of privilege and adhere to the standard mode of American politicking, indignation, and repose.

This is one of the biggest national issues in the last decade, having dominated the news for almost 2 months, but we as a nation continue to deal with it using the same foibles that have defined American life and American politics for 30, 40, 50 years.

So when this well (hopefully) stops bleeding out, when all the emails and press releases from political organizations have found some new hot topic, when BP fades from daily life and adopts a new moniker, when Obama’s personality or politics is front and center in another media narrative explaining away the problems of our country – the question remains:

Has our collective capacity to solve problems just simply not advanced? And if not, why not?