Jun 23 2008
KPFK Fund Drive Day 19 – Blood and Oil Revisited
The world’s growing economy continues to be dependent on oil. Meanwhile, the supply is running out and the U.S. the US is fighting a war in Iraq to secure the free flow of oil. In fact, this dependence on Middle East oil is a historical legacy going back all the way to FDR. That’s the premise of a book by Michael T Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies. In his book, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum, Klare argues that the nation’s energy behavior dominated by four key trends: “an increasing need for imported oil; a pronounced shift toward unstable and unfriendly suppliers in dangerous parts of the world; a greater risk of anti-American or civil violence; and increased competition for what will likely be a diminishing supply pool.” In clear, lucid prose, Klare lays out a disheartening and damning indictment of U.S. foreign policy. Michael T Klare’s earlier book was Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict. He serves on the boards of directors of Human Rights Watch, and the Arms Control Association. He is a regular contributor to many publications including The Nation, Tom’s Dispatch, Mother Jones, and is a frequent columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus.
Now, the Media Education Foundation has just released a brand new documentary based on Michael T. Klare’s book, Blood and Oil. This hour long, compelling film by the same name as the book, is narrated by Michael T Klare and features rare, vintage footage as well as contemporary news clips to weave a clear picture of why the US fights wars for oil.
2 Responses to “KPFK Fund Drive Day 19 – Blood and Oil Revisited”
June 27, 2008
McCain has dipped into the thirties in the popularity polls; I am not among the parties who believe there will be any great change from a new Executive. I hear the kind of rhetoric I always have heard in Big Election years.
“This great nation…”
Every time I hear those words from a candidate’s mouth, I try to keep in mind what the phrase “this great nation” has so often been used for.
To me such words are the prelude to encouragement to “stay the course.”
That is, to keep supporting this war, at least until the next one comes along. I don’t see how these admonitions will help. The Iraq War has run out of gas.
When I came to Los Angeles, there were lots of vacant lots around the MacArthur Park area where I live. Necessary schools were finally constructed in some of them. But a generation of students was lost in the fifteen years that it took the schools to appear.
Why did the construction of schools take so long?
Let me answer this way–if nine-one-one had happened in 1996, the new schools would not have appeared at all!
I have arrived at the BIG QUESTION.
Are wars just the means of the dominating classes to suppress their less powerful fellow human beings?
That question is too big for me.
There are smaller questions.
What was the lesson of Vietnam?
No, not “We will brook no resistance among any populace, foreign or domestic.”
We aren’t quite down to that lesson yet.
The Lesson of Vietnam was, “We will not send troops unless we are really attacked.”
Rumors wouldn’t be enough, anymore. The war powers of the Executive were to be more securely controlled, as far as open-ended engagements went. But the limits inspired by the Vietnam era are now being disregarded, if not discarded.
A footnote in the history of war called the Powell Doctrine appeared with Iraq War One. Unfortunately, the ideas of the Powell Doctrine were not followed. The U.S. could have terminated the current war when Saddam was captured; another opportunity occurred when Saddam was executed.
It’s hard to punctuate a war; from the little I know of history, modern wars end only when governments cease to be able to generate compliance for carrying them out among the populace. This can occur in many ways. Sometimes, as with Germany in WWII, the end comes when one side is utterly destroyed. But there is no chance of that at this time. Few can even contend that the operations in Iraq are decreasing the number of terrorists who will operate on the basis of vengeance against the United States. The nation state of Iraq has probably been more destroyed by war than any country up to this time. Sometimes it seems to me as if we are going out of our way to prepare a seed bed that will give us terrorists.
I hope I am wrong.
So, when does it end?
Let’s check Obama. He isn’t promising withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He is saying that there will be an end to combat for the Americans in Iraq.
What’s going on here? We need to get away from warfare in the United States. It isn’t a viable way of doing business. Sure, the U.S. military can reduce a city or a country to rubble! But how do you stop terrorism? There are an infinite number of ways to attack a big target, no matter how small your resources are–I don’t need to mention any examples.
There are those who say that the true purpose of wars is to maintain a dominating class that is transnational in nature. I don’t know about that.
Whenever I watch a newscast these days, not much is said about the Iraq War. Sometimes, in local broadcasts, there is merely the mention that a few more Americans were killed.
What are 5 or 10 deaths every few days, to a great nation of 300,000,000?
To me, that’s like saying that small things can’t be dangerous. Hey, carry that little piece of plutonium on your key chain! Something that little can’t hurt you! Why worry about viruses? After all, they’re so small! Hey, what if there are a few more parts per million of carbon dioxide (not to mention numerous other heavy molecules) in Earth’s atmosphere? This swing upward in the temperatures is a blessing in disguise! Every wind that blows brings a windfall to someone! It’s the wave of the future! I can hardly stand it–just think of the opportunity of it all!
On this last matter, I am now prepared to bet (figuratively) that I will live long enough to see a North Pole that is ice free. What’s that you say?
“The pole has been ice free in the past–humanity just never noticed it.”
There’s something lacking in that argument. I don’t think the pole has been ice free for a few million years, but I expect we’ll all learn soon that Columbus explored the Once Upon a Time Open Polar Sea on one of his hitherto unknown voyages.
McCain and Obama are both for nuclear power plants as a measure against global warming.
I have a problem with nuclear reactors that generate electricity. How do you secure their waste products?
“We just have to hope for the best.”
McCain has dipped into the thirties in popularity poles.
If these numbers hold for a month, Senator Obama’s election will become a foregone conclusion. Popularity is important; that’s a smart money bet. But a difference in policy resulting from the preference of one major party over another is not a safe bet in the U.S.
If I were addressing my fellow Americans, I would tell them to be prepared for a bigger disappointment than the one after the Congressional elections of 2006. We have accepted the tenets of the efficacy of warfare and of the invulnerability of the environment in the United States. Faith is a persistent state of mind; sometimes it obscures reality.
I often have to turn to my MS (Microsoft, that is) software in times like these. Did you know that the edition of MS Windows that was loaded on my new machine can show how my computer MIGHT look in the future as well as how it actually did look in the past? I’m kind of reticent to check that feature out too much. Even the disclaimer that MS cannot guarantee any particular page to be an absolutely accurate representation of the future is not enough to reassure me. I fear what I might see in the on-line headlines in two or three years–“President Obama reassures Americans that U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iran by 2028.”
What of that Other Permanent War–the War on Drugs?
Well, we have a police state. It is a nation of offenders and those who chase after them, for an ever growing portion of the populace. That the laws concerning drugs are unjust, and that they are unfairly enforced, seems to make little difference to anyone.
“Money talks.”
The preeminent voice of profit will always create a black market in anything forbidden that is in some way desirable. There is another premise that is operative, too–forbidding something automatically increases its desirability.
I cannot stand to go into too much detail that is merely laboring what is eminently obvious. Let me put it this way.
The War on Drugs is a form of slavery.
Heroin is the shackles.
(Crack) cocaine is the lash.
In this environment, a question frequently occurs to me–“Are the time-released narcotics that are legally available a form of euthanasia?”
Don’t explain to me that these narcotics are prepared in such a way that they will damage anyone who desperately tries to inject them! It reminds of the days when seatbelts “cost too much” to be standard equipment.
There I go again. Connecting one thing up with another! Comparing apples and oranges!
How can anyone make any sense of it?
I’ve been riding the Red Line for almost fifteen years. You know, it’s getting hard to get a seat on the subway!
Can anything change?
My great-grandfather’s generation knew there would always be canals and barges and steamboats; (everything is moved that way)!
My grandfather’s generation knew there would always be railroads and steam locomotives; (everything is moved that way)!
My father’s generation knew that there would always be heavier than air flying machines, passenger cars and superhighways full of trucks; (everything is moved that way!)
What do I know?
It’s a Big Election year. Obama might find himself to be an impeachable president with an unpopular war that is rapidly becoming unbearable.
People with the least will soon be urged to give up the little they have–“for the sake of The Economy,” or some other suitably vague entity.
What if Terrorist Osama turns himself in–to President Obama?
When people ask if we can really trust Obama, I tell them that we can’t really trust anyone in the sphere of the politics of nation states.
When I’m asked who has suffered enough, my first answer is Jesus; my second is the soldiers and others (and their families) who are carrying out a foreign policy that seems to have no attainable goal. The people of Iraq show up on my list third–if I was an Iraqi, they would be second.
The true answer is that there has been enough suffering for this generation.
What if everyone in the “free world” (Europe & America, & their allies and dependents) stopped using gasoline except for absolutely essential purposes?
“People will always use gasoline! There’s no other way to get around! My car, my boat, my plane, my life, my god! Give us oil!”
Your invidious consumption is frightening me into gratitude for having enough energy left to draw my next breath.
I’m thinkin’ on inventing two things, but I’m not sure which to work on first. One is my motion-stopping ray that I can claim stills only Iranians who say that they’ll destroy America or Israel. I don’t really have to invent that–I can just say that the enemy is overcoming my weapon of choice with their technology–then I’ll sell add-ons to overcome the deficit; I’ll be rich.
My other idea is my differential-pressure pavement, roadway, and sidewalk generator panels. This latter device will produce electricity from people’s footfalls on sidewalks, and harness the wasted energy of the friction of the tires of autos on the roadway. Power plants and pollution will be things of the past, once my panels are perfected and installed throughout the free world; we’ll all be rich.
I’m going to take the profits from my inventions and buy the biggest lighter-than-air ship I can find; I’ll fit it out with bowling alleys and swimming pools and hydroponic gardens, so the crew can have some place to relax; I’m even going to have a helicopter pad put in, so that the less fortunate can come up and visit with me whenever I like. There will be a rule on my ship–NO OIL ALLOWED AT ANY TIME!
jkifer 062708
dee mahn amm crazzy