MAKING A POINT – OR JUST BEING OFFENSIVE?

TYLER CHINNICK reviews the film “Religulous”, made by American comedian Bill Maher in 2008. It’s now available on DVD.

Bill Maher is an American comedian and journalist, and one of that new breed of militant atheists who display all the arrogance and imperiousness that they attack in the religious. “Religulous” starts with him telling us that he is “seeking answers”, trying to find out why people believe, but it quickly becomes clear that he lacks the humility of a seeker, and this is nothing short of a polemic against religion. He approaches his subjects with a smugness that quickly becomes grating. He is frequently very rude to people who have granted him interviews and agreed to share with him some of their most sacred and deeply held beliefs.

Most of those he interviewed are predictably quite crazy and hold opinions which deserve to be rigorously questioned (indeed in some cases ridiculed), but he approaches them all with an hauteur, a bluster, a conceit that is so positively napoleonic that we find ourselves as viewers sympathising with people whom we’d normally find total unsympathetic.

It’s easy to make fun of religion and indeed a good, witty and entertaining movie could and should be made. This, sadly, is not it. For something far funnier and more insightful, you’d do better to re-watch Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

STEREOTYPES:

It’s when he tackles Islam, however, that his approach becomes more troubling. His analysis of Islam, and in particular the Arab-Israeli conflict, is riddled with prejudices, stereotypes and double standards.

For example, when the manager of the “Holy Land Amusement Park” explains that they’ve had visitors from the Gaza strip, it is illustrated with shots of hooded Hamas members shooting guns in the air. The sound of gunshots and screams continues throughout the interview.

And footage of a radical imam exhorting Muslims to kill Jews is followed by a shot of a bomb going off in Jerusalem, reducing the whole conflict to nothing more than Palestinian anti-semitism.

There are lots of examples of Muslim prejudice but none of Zionist lunacy, as if hatred and fundamentalism are only to be found on one side. This reflects the commonly held American view of the conflict, and it is just another confirmation that Maher has no interest in asking pertinent questions or in finding answers – only in scoring easy points.

He also interviews Geert Wilders, the fascistic Dutch politician who believes that the Quran should be banned. He is allowed to pontificate without question or contradiction. Maher doesn’t speak to any Muslims who have suffered verbal or physical abuse incited by men like Wilders. Indeed he doesn’t acknowledge that the problem of anti-Muslim prejudice even exists.

ALL CONDEMNED EQUALLY:

Islam particularly but religion in general is treated as one big, indivisible monolith. The idiocy and violence of one sect is used to condemn the whole religion, and in so doing he joins the ranks of the EDL and Pastor Terry Jones. This kind of atheism displays a level of intolerance that is deeply unhelpful and which I find personally distasteful. Are tolerance and mutual respect really so bad?

Religion is presented as something that is uniformly evil. Without light and shade, without a right and a left, without liberal and conservative. If he was really conducting an honest inquiry and using the scientific methods he claims to believe in, then he would have gravitated towards those areas most problematic for his thesis. If religion is as he believes so intrinsically bad and stupid, then how could it have inspired people like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi to battle prejudice an injustice with such courage? Or artists like Michelangelo to create such majestic paintings? There are answers to all these questions for the atheist, but he doesn’t even ask them.

FAILURE:

“Religulous” is a failure. It’s a failure as a quest because he isn’t interested in the answers. It’s a failure as an argument because he doesn’t consider the things which might disprove it, and it fails as a witty polemic because he’s too concentrated on making an argument.

As for me, I believe in Karl Marx’s rather generous treatment of religion: “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.“

(as quoted by Christopher Hitchens).

“We’re the 99 per cent”

Why the “occupy” movement is taking action

Capitalism has failed us. Particularly the finance capitalism of the big banking corporations that has ruled the global economy in recent decades. There must be another, better, way – a way that we can equate with Socialism.

That, basically, is the message of those who have involved themselves in the “Occupy” movement, which kicked off in September with the camp city erected near Wall Street – America’s financial centre.

It soon spread to other cities in the USA, and then crossed the Atlantic to protest camps set up outside St. Paul’s in the City of London and sites in other cities in Britain, including College Green in Bristol.

The slogan of the protesters is based on the fact that the top financial elite make up (roughly) one per cent of the population. By their manipulation of the money markets, their actions affect the lives of the rest of us – the remaining 99 per cent of the world population.

The message of the movement was reinforced in October, with the news that top directors in the UK had given themselves a pay rise of 49 per cent – at a time when others in the population were suffering cuts in their standards of living and their pensions – or being thrown out of work. The gap between rich and poor in this country has been growing for some time – and it’s been growing particularly since the present government came to power.

MAKING MONEY:

But what do the financiers in the City actually produce? Is it anything useful, like food, houses, railways, or the stuff of engineering or technology? No, it’s money – money made on the backs of those who do produce the goods and services that the rest of us need to carry on our lives.

No doubt a bank or investment trust would claim that they provide the capital that allows those who work on the farms, build the homes, etc., etc., to do their bit in the social structure. Up to a point – but it’s largely other people’s money they’re investing, and at the end of the day its not altruism that guides their actions – it’s profit. And all too often their actions wreak havoc with other people’s lives.

THE TERRIBLE COST:

This drive for profit at all costs can have terrible consequences – as happened with the financial collapse of 2007-08 when toxic investments (largely in the housing markets) spread like a man-made plague throughout the world’s financial system. The banks who’d gambled with our money were bailed out – but the rest of us had to pick up the tab.

We can trace the roots of this financial disaster back at least to Thatcher’s de-regulation of the banking system in the 1980s and ’90s. Or we could go back to the grim thirties for another object lesson. Indeed, there have been many times when the system that gambled with money entrusted to them by other people had played havoc with the economy – and people’s lives. Of course we don’t have to go back to the financial collapse of 1929. There are those who’ll recall the dark days of the early 1990s when shares tumbled and panic in the City nearly brought about another disintegration in the markets.

SYMPATHY:

It’s significant that the “Occupy” movement has gained a level of sympathy amongst many, and the authorities in the USA and Britain seemed at first reluctant to move against them. since 2008, it’s been difficult, even for supporters of capitalism, to defend the bankers and the system that they uphold.

Of course the right-wing press has done its best to belittle the camp communities. But it wasn’t until November that the authorities in America moved in with riot police to evict forcibly the camps that had sprung up in New York and elsewhere in the USA. Over here, the Corporation of the City of London finally decided to take action.

“ROBIN HOOD” TAX:

And whilst the authorities may be successful in dispersing the protesters, they haven’t quelled the ideas of those who set up the camps in the first place. More and more people are backing the idea of a “Robin Hood” Tax (roughly based on the proposal for a “Tobin Tax” put forward by the economist of that name) – for a modest tax on financial transactions which could be used to ward off the impact of any further collapse.

The City as a whole, of course, is against it. After all, why should they be expected pay for their greed? But many, more thoughtful, economists and businessmen have given their backing, and so has the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The camps HAVE made an impact. They have created debate, and wrong-footed even the most ardent supporters of finance capitalism. Whatever happens next (and with winter approaching and a tougher libe being proposed by the authorities it may be that they won’t be able to sustain themselves), the debate that they have provoked will no doubt carry on for some time.

ALISTAIR GRAHAM

The widening Gap: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer

The Clarion has on a number of occasions reported on the work of Michael Moore, the American film maker and author – and a continual thorn in the flesh of the US establishment.
 
In March, Moore delivered a hard-hitting speech to a massive protest in Madison, Wisconsin, days before measures were taken by the Republican administration to severely curtail bargaining rights for public sector workers.
 
NOT BROKE:
Moore declared that America is not broke. The country is awash with wealth and cash. Only that wealth is in the hands of the uber-rich. The staggering statistic that Moore quotes is that 400 Americans have as much in assets as 155 million Americans combined – half the population.
 
How, asks Moore, have we managed to let a small group “abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy”? The wealthy, contends Moore, have done two smart things. First they control the media, which promotes the idea of the “American Dream”. “You, too, might be rich one day, so be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man you might one day be.”
 
Second, the wealthy have created a “poison pill you will never want to take.” In 2008 as the economy threatened to collapse, Wall Street demanded trillions of dollars to avert the crash. The consequences of refusing to bail out the banks would have been too awful to contemplate: “Goodbye savings accounts, goodbye pensions, goodbye jobs and homes and future.”But within a few months bankers and board room executives were paying themselves huge bonuses.
 
Moore ends his speech on an upbeat note. We have one person, one vote, and there are more of us than there are of them, he declared.
 
The protest in Wisconsin where Moore’s speech was delivered was supported by hundreds of thousands, but sadly was not successful. Legislation banning public sector workers from trade unions was passed. A message on Moore’s website suggests that Wisconsin was selected as an object lesson.
 
PARALLELS IN BRITAIN:
Certainly there are parallels in the UK to the situation in the USA. Last month, the Sunday Times Rich List (into the thousand wealthiest UK multi-millionaires) was published. Philip Beresford wrote: “Britain’s super-rich… achieved an 18 per cent rise in their collective wealth over the past year.”
 
The Independent on Sunday quoted from a High Pay Commission report. In the ten years up to 2008 income at the top grew by 64 per cent, whilst that of the average earner increased by only seven per cent. Differentials are expected to increase further. CEOs earn about 145 times the average wage. By 2020 they will be paid 214 times the average.
 
SEPARATING MYTHS FROM FACTS:
The Independent debunked several myths that are commonly advanced in defence of these huge salaries and bonuses. Here are just three:
 
Myth: “Big money is needed to get the best CEOs.”
Fact: That assumes that most are brought in. But 59 per cent of CEOs in the FTSE 100 were already in the company for five or more years.
　
Myth: “Our high pay is in line with other leading countries.”
Fact: It is significantly higher than the rest of Europe. It is less than in the US, but 170 per cent higher than the rest of the world. 
 
Myth: “Top earnings have always risen faster than average wages.”
Fact: Until thirty years ago the gap had been decreasing. From 1949 to 1979 the proportion earned by the top 0.1 per cent decreased from 3.5 to 1.3 per cent.
 
When ordinary people here and in the USA are being called upon to make sacrifices as jobs disappear and prices rise, disquiet turns to anger as they read of bankers’ and CEOs’ obscene salaries and bonuses. David Cameron’s cry of “We’re all in this together” has a distinctly hollow ring.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/america-is-not-broke

The Limits of Violence

Through the example of Baader Meinhof, Richard Huffman from Seattle, USA questions violence as a serious means of social protest.

When I marched in the November 30, 1999 anti-WTO rally here in my hometown of Seattle, the brutal tactics and sporadic yet stunning violence by the Seattle Police felt eerily similar to a catastrophic Berlin protest a generation ago. On June 2, 1967 tens of thousands of young Germans, many of them students at Berlin’s Free University, lined up on Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse early in the evening to protest a visit by the Shah of Iran. By the end of that night, however, a young pacifist lay dead, shot by the police.

After the rally, thousands of angry, frustrated students converged at the Berlin offices of the leading student organisation – the Socialist German Student Union. Among those present was a young woman called Gudrun Ensslin who declared “This fascist state means to kill us all! We must organize resistance. Violence is the only way to answer violence. This is the Auschwitz Generation, and there’s no arguing with them!”

This article looks at Gudrun’s exclamation asking whether her experience offers us a warning as to the limits to violence just as there are limits to our consent.

While leader of the Socialist Student Union – “Red” Rudi Dutschke – was sympathetic to Ensslin’s goals he proposed “a long march through the institutions”. For her part, Ensslin went on to form the Red Army Faction – the “Baader-Meinhof Gang”.

During the next decade Ensslin, intent on bringing a form of Socialist Revolution to Germany, and the 50 or so young Germans who joined her and her boyfriend Andreas Baader, embarked on a campaign of bloody terror throughout West Germany. The R.A.F. blew up symbols of capitalism like department stores; killed American soldiers and high-ranking figures on the West German Supreme Court. They kidnapped wealthy and influential German industrialists, blew up the German embassy in Stockholm and high-jacked a Lufthansa jet.

Others meanwhile chose the path of Rudi Dutschke instead.

In time it was these activists who built a new progressive German environmental movement that went on to found the Green Party in 1979 and, twenty years later, sharing Government in coalition with the SPD.

The Baader-Meinhof gang’s adherence to violence made a considerable impact on German society. At first their actions held the support of a new post-war generation. Polls showed an extraordinary number of Germans supported their cause in one way or another: 20 percent of Germans under the age of 30 expressed “a certain sympathy” for the Baader-Meinhof Gang; one in ten young northern Germans indicated they would willingly shelter a member for the night.

But as the violence increased empathy decreased. Before their pursuits West Germany had no national police force as such and it was in response to their terror campaign, the BKA (which later became the German equivalent of the FBI) was created. Instead of progressing social justice their actions lead the German government to pass sweeping laws that restricted the rights of average citizens; instituted loyalty oaths for all civil servants, and random general searches of peoples’ homes was not uncommon. And yet this was exactly what the R.A.F. hoped would happen.

They anticipated German state repression and expected it to be applied with disproportionate violence. Their hope was the proletariat would be shocked from their complacency and would spontaneously rise up in revolution.

Instead the German population, angered and frightened by the violence, applauded their government’s repressive response. Seven million ‘Wanted’ posters were printed.

Within five days of their May 1972 week of terror, all the ring-leaders were in jail. Within five years they were all dead. After an airplane hijacking by Palestinian comrades failed to secure the release of the three imprisoned leaders of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe all committed suicide deep in the night of October 17, 1977.

Activists marched on Berlin in 1967 in anger. Out of that anger came Baader-Meinhof. Their rage sought to change German society but failed. Now their generations’ “long march through the institutions” has borne fruit: in 2003 when much of the West marched to Stop the War on Iraq, Germans marched in support of their Government and their decision not to participate in it.

©2010 Copyright the author. Sourced & edited by C. Spiby; this article first appeared as two articles and in a different form in Satya magazine, March 2004.

“GOODNIGHT IRENE”…

Still sung on the football pitches today, this 1950s hit song was caught up in the McCarthyite phobia of the time. But was it the singers or the song?

The song, Goodnight Irene, performed by the Weavers, topped the British hit parade back in 1950. Yet, today, unless you’re a Bristol Rovers’ fan, it’s now just a distant memory.

Rovers fans at their Eastville ground adopted it as their anthem when it was high in the hit parade – and when the team was going through a successful run in the FA Cup (until they were knocked out by Newcastle United. In those days Newcastle was riding high in the first division, whilst Rovers languished in the old third division south). But over half a century later, loyal supporters are still singing it.

Few of those supporters, though, will be aware of the politics of the time when Goodnight Irene was first sung and recorded in the USA. As the 1950s dawned, anti-Communism was rife in America, and Anti-Red “witch hunts” were the order of day. The “Un-American Activities Committee” chaired by the notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy was conducting a root and branch purge of suspected Communists – and the Weavers were on his list.

The Weavers were a popular left wing music group, formed in 1949. Amongst their members was the legendary Pete Seeger and Lee “Tubby” Hays.

Goodnight Irene had originally been performed by Leadbelly (a black former convict turned folk singer).

His version of the song was much more edgy than the one performed by the Weavers, who removed all references to drugs from the lyrics that they sang.

About that time, the Weavers were signed up by Decca records. It was their big breakthrough – and amongst the songs they recorded was Good Night Irene. It was soon climbing high in the US hit parade, before crossing the Atlantic to Britain.

KOREA – AND ANTI-RED PARANOIA: In June 1950, the Korean war erupted. Suddenly the USA saw itself as being at war with the Communists. The paranoia reached fever pitch, even affecting the entertainment industry. The Weavers had their TV series abruptly cancelled – but, for a while, their songs still topped the hit parade – including Goodnight Irene.

In August 1951, FBI files on the Weavers were leaked – and the group was investigated for sedition. One of their songs, Rock Island Line (recorded in Britain by Lonnie Donegan), was regarded by the FBI as reflecting the Communist Party line!

The music played by the Weavers wasn’t particularly threatening – and certainly those who bought their records weren’t that bothered about any “subversive” content. But the FBI was determined to find “reds” under every stone they turned over.

As the Government-inspired blacklist on the Weavers become public, members of the group found that they were forced to justify their music. In such a hostile climate, it wasn’t easy. Then, in February 1952, a witness appearing before the Un-American Activities Committee testified that three of the Weavers were members of the Communist Party. It was, of course, a lie. But the Weavers were forced to disband.

Two victims of the anti-Communist paranoia at the time were Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

They were sentenced to death on a charge of treason – and after a long, worldwide, campaign to save their lives, they were finally sent to the electric chair in 1952. Reportedly they asked to hear Good Night Irene one last time, before they faced their execution.

As a footnote, the song was sung by Billy Bragg at Tolpuddle last year – much to the displeasure of a small group of Bristol City supporters! But no doubt it resonated with Billy Bragg in a way that it doesn’t necessarily with loyal Rovers’ supporters. For them, it’s simply their song!

AG

Modern Times- the Dinosaur column

Back from the land of the maple leaf

I’ve just returned from taking time out in the land of the beaver and maple leaf. Yes, Canada’s been calling me across the pond yet again.

For those who’re interested in the political set-up of this vast and sprawling country, Canada also has a Tory Prime Minister – and, like in the UK, he heads a minority government. But unlike here, he hasn’t formed a coalition. Instead he relies on the divisions between the opposition parties to remain in power.

The opposition consists of the Canadian Liberal Party, the left-wing New Democrats (the NDP) – and the Bloc Quebecois, who naturally enough represent the separatist elements in the province of Quebec, and thus have their own particular agenda.

Canada’s Prime Minister is one Stephen Harper – and as far as I know he’s no relation to Mark, our own MP here in the Forest. Indeed, the Canadian PM rose through the ranks of the redneck right in the province of Alberta – though I’m sure that he likes to think that he’s matured somewhat since those days.

Whilst I was there, the main political debate seemed to be centred on whether to scrap the “long gun register”. Harper and his party were keen to get rid of the legal requirement for folk to register any rifle or shotgun in their possession. When it came to the vote, he was narrowly defeated.

Somehow I couldn’t quite grasp what all the fuss was about. I don’t own a gun of any sort – and neither does any one else I know. I thought that was just for the gun-happy lobby in the USA. And anyway in Canada, anyone who really really wants a gun has to get a certificate, covering such points as why they want a firearm and whether they’re capable of using it without endangering anyone (apart, perhaps, from some hapless moose). No, I think it’s just the inner redneck emerging in Harper and his supporters.

Stimulating?

I was however interested to note that rather than tackling the recession through cutting everything that’s not nailed to the ground, the Canadian Conservatives launched what they call a stimulus package of public spending to try to re-energize the economy. Canada hasn’t suffered quite as much as some countries from the recession – though it’s all relative, I suppose.

But Harper has now announced that his stimulus package will end next year. It’s done its job, he says, and from 2011 the Canadian economy will have to stand on its own feet. The opposition, of course, aren’t happy. They think it will expose the country to the danger of a “double dip” recession – particularly as it’s so reliant on trade with its neighbour the USA these days. Me, I’m no economist, but I think they may be right.

Oil for the taking?

The debate over the havoc caused by the exploitation of Alberta’s oil tar sands has been covered several times in the Clarion. And whilst I was in Canada CBC television also gave it major coverage. The Canadian born film director, James Cameron, had, it seemed, decided to travel to the site to see for himself.

Cameron likes to see himself as an environmentalist, and he concluded that the oil companies really needed to clean up their act before any further exploitation could be regarded as acceptable. He also denounced the way in which the rights of First Nation people living in the area had been brushed aside in the scramble to exploit the oil tar reserves.

I was also interested to see some prominence given to the decision by the Co-operative Bank here in Britain to give backing to those First Nation tribal chiefs who are trying to sue the oil industry and the province over the conditions under which their people are now forced to live.

Incidentally, the USA oil industry is strongly represented amongst those exploiting the tar sands – and America now gets over half its oil from Canada. Its representatives strongly resent anyone who tries to interfere with their “right” to get its oil from Canada. After all, declared one Republican senator, its only wilderness territory up there, so who cares?

REVIEW: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

IS THIS REALLY THE “BEST DEMOCRACY” WE’RE ENTITLED TO?

CLAUDE MICKLESON reviews ‘The Best Democracy Money Can Buy’, by investigative journalist, Greg Palast.

“The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” is not a new book. It was first published in 2002. Greg Palast says that you could actually call it “What you didn’t read in the New York Times”. The author was originally from Los Angeles, and was brought up in a working class area, one rung above poverty.

He spent some time in Britain, working for the Guardian and Observer newspapers. One day he was walking down a London street and saw in a newsagents a copy of the Daily Mirror. The front page was taken up with the words “THE LIAR”, and a picture of himself. He thought, “well I’ll be damned, it doesn’t get much better than this!”

This book begins with highlights of the corrupt practices carried out in Florida, prior to the election of George W. Bush as president of the USA. He asserts that for five months before the 2000 presidential election, Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida and George’s brother, moved to purge well over 57,000 people from the voters’ register in Florida – supposedly criminals who were not allowed to vote. Most were innocent of any crimes, but most of them were guilty of being black, the majority of whom tend to vote Democrat.

He also covers the Exxon Valdez “accident” – which he asserts was no accident. Exxon just shut off the ship’s broken radar to save money, instead of repairing it. They were supported by BP and others in the group of six oil companies calling themselves “Alyeska”.

There were at least 1,200 miles of the Alaska coastline covered in black oily sludge. The local population was employed to clear up the mess and unceremoniously sacked as soon as it was done.

The evils of Globalisation are well aired. According to Palast, the world’s 300 richest people are worth more than the world’s poorest three billion in wealth terms. During the period 1983 to 1997, as much as 85 per cent of the increase in wealth in the USA went to the richest one per cent. In the words of Thomas Friedman, the beauty of globalisation is that it’s “the Golden Strait Jacket – the tighter you wear it the more gold it produces.”He also exposed a cache of secret documents from the heart of the IMF, World Bank and the WTO (they are interchangeable masks of a single governance) explaining the inner workings of the iron tangle of globalisation. Many of the dodgy dealings occurred under Bill Clinton’s watch, as well as under George Bush.

THE IRON FIST OF FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE: Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank, turned informer and was able to give Palast details of behind the scenes activities.

The so-called “country assistance strategy” includes the same four steps for any country getting into financial difficulties and asking for aid. They are:

• One, privatisation.
• Two, capital market liberalisation.
• Three, “IMF Riot” – squeeze the economy until it causes riots (any demonstrations dispersed with bullets, tear gas and tanks) so that they can clamp down even harder.
• And, four, free trade.

Palast describes these details as four steps to domination. It’s a bit like blood letting in the Middle Ages: when the patient died, they would say “well, he stopped the blood letting too soon. He still had a drop left in him.” Did any nation avoid this fate? Strangely enough, one did. Botswana told the IMF to pack its bags.

A whole range of examples uncover corporate greed in action. Monsanto, for example, doesn’t come out of it very well. Palast tells of cows fed genetically-altered hormones dripping pus into buckets of milk which eventually entered the food chain. And he quotes a former Texas Agricultural Commissioner as saying: “they used to complain about Monsanto’s lobbying of government. Now they are the government.”

Palast also looks at the California power shortage, and the suggestion that nuclear power stations should be built to augment supplies – in an area notorious for earthquakes. Energy operators, Enron, TXU, Dynergy and El Paso corporations contributed 4.1 million dollars to the Republican presidential campaign. “They didn’t have long to wait before their investment – excuse me, donation – paid off big time. Just three days after the Republican’s inauguration.”

Also, Government chiefs stopped key investigations into allegations of funding for Al Qaeda and the Bin Laden family by the Saudis. They were ordered to back away from any investigations into the Saudi royals.

In another example, the government of Ecuador was ordered to raise the price of cooking gas by 80 per cent, eliminate 26,000 jobs and cut real wages of those remaining in work by 50 per cent. They were forced to transfer ownership of its biggest water supply system to foreign operators. And then they had to grant BP’s Arco unit rights to build and own an oil pipeline over the Andes. All this happened under Bill Clinton’s administration. Meanwhile, Argentina was presented with a “technical memorandum of understanding” which nearly bled it dry. Amongst other restrictions it was forced to adopt an “open trade policy” causing the country to lose as much as 750 million dollars a day.

The many revelations in this book have helped me to understand much better many of the things that have been going on in the world during the years I have been politically aware. The book has been well worth reading.

THE SCRAMBLE FOR OIL:

What happens when the supplies run out?

BP’s debacle in the Gulf of Mexico has highlighted more than anything else what happens when once rich deposits of oil begin to run dry – and the oil companies are forced to try to tap in to more and more unsuitable and inaccessible reserves to satisfy our fuel hungry society.

It’s called “Peak Oil” – the time when demand for oil begins to outstrip the supplies of crude that can be exploited. And it’s happening now.

The big oil corporations are now being forced to drill further and further out to sea, to seek oil as much as a mile below the surface. In the Gulf of Mexico, BP has been portrayed as the big villain of the piece – and quite rightly so. But this company is not alone. All the big oil conglomerates are now scrambling to exploit what they can – and taking bigger risks all the time. Esso in Alaska, Shell in Nigeria – and BP wherever they can. They are taking risks with the environment – not to mention the lives of the people who live in the areas where oil exploration is taking place.

THE TAR SANDS:

The “tar sand” oil field in Northern Alberta, is a case in point. This is Canada’s “dirty oil”. The tar sands cover an area larger than England and Wales, and the environmental havoc being caused by the extraction and refining of the crude oil is enormous.

We highlighted the havoc being caused by the exploitation of the Albertan tar sands in the Clarion dated February/March 2008. Today the situation is even more dire.

America now imports the bulk of its oil from Canada. Apart from its own oil reserves, it had long relied on the Middle East to fuel its hunger for oil. But today it has turned to its northern neighbour – and American oilmen have a high profile in the Canadian tar sands. 65 per cent of the oil is exported to the USA. Incidentally, both BP and Shell also have interests in this massive project.

The tar sands have been described as the largest, most polluting industrial project in the world today. Extracting the oil from the tar sands gives off three times more greenhouse gas emissions than in conventional oil fields. It uses four times as much water and heat to fill one barrel of oil.

This is taking a terrible toll. The land, air, and water around the Athabasca River, and communities downstream from Fort McMurray (the centre of the oilfield) are now toxic, a process that is probably irreversible. Forests have been levelled, and millions of gallons of water a day taken from the Athabasca River that flows down into the Rocky Mountains.

What’s happening in northern Alberta naturally concerns Canadian environmentalists (but not, it seems, the Alberta provincial government that for years has ridden high on a wave of prosperity from the oil industry).

MORE TAR SAND EXPLOITATION:

The “success” of the exploitation of the Albertan tar sands has provoked a desire to exploit other potential oil mines. According to the Guardian in May this year , it “has triggered a rush by Shell and other oil companies to set up similar operations in Russia, Congo and even Madagasca”.

A number of other oil companies, including BP, seem eager to search for other tar sand sites to exploit. BP is interested in exploiting reserves in Venezuela, whilst other companies have their eyes on Morocco, Egypt, and even Jordan.

BP: THE AMERICAN WHIPPING BOY.

Currently, though, it’s been BP that has been gaining media attention, particularly in the USA, after millions of gallons of crude oil poured into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

With the help of US subcontractors, BP had been trying to extract crude from the below the sea bed. Thanks possibly to faulty equipment, the pipe line sprung a leak.

BP is, of course, identified by Americans as a “British” company, even though over a third of its shares are in American hands. Once upon a time, as British Petroleum, it had been owned by the UK Government – an arrangement favoured by Winston Churchill.

But Margaret Thatcher thought differently. She sold off all Government shares, and the company was floated on the international stock exchanges.

Now BP is little more than another multinational oil corporation with over a third of its shares in American hands. Indeed, for a while it promoted its initials as standing for “Better Petrol”.

As we entered the new millennium, BP tried to project a new, greener, image. It’s logo was changed to make it appear more environmentally friendly. It promised to move “Beyond Petroleum”, by seeking cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, or indeed to invest in alternative energy sources.

GETTING ITS HANDS DIRTY:

But at the beginning of December 2007 it seemed to have abandoned its green image when it invested nearly £1.5 billion in the Alberta tar sands.

The Independent declared that such an investment committed it to “using methods which environmentalists say are part of the ‘biggest global warming crime’ in history. The multinational oil and gas producer, which last year made a profit of £11 billion, is facing a head-on confrontation with the green lobby in the pristine forests of North America….”

In a comment in the Independent, Mike Hudema, a campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, declared that “by 2020 the tar sands are expected to release more than 141 million tons of greenhouse gases annually…

“BP’s decision to enter this environmental nightmare strips away any credibility it may have had in being a good corporate citizen. Instead of trying to move “beyond petroleum” it has invested in the dirtiest oil project on the planet.”

But earlier this year, BP’s reputation took an even greater tumble with the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Whether the company will ever be able to recover from it remains to be seen. The cost of capping the leak, and the clean up, alone runs into hundreds of billions. Meanwhile, BP’s shares have tumbled, and its reputation is in tatters.

But there must be a number of other oil companies who breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t them.

Environmental Disaster Unfolding

Tar Sands: Dirty Oil & the future of a continent by Andrew Nikiforuk

Non-fiction/politics. Review by Ruth Richardson

A year ago the Clarion drew attention to the environmental disaster that is unfolding through the exploitation of the tar sands of northern Alberta. These sands are the Earth’s last great remaining oil field. Because the oil is in the form of bitumen its extraction is far more environmentally damaging than conventional drilling. But Alberta has become the richest of the Canadian provinces, and, it seems, profit outweighs all other considerations.

Now a passionate and forcefully argued book, Tar Sands by Andrew Nikiforuk has been published which reveals the scale of the enterprise.

Nikiforuk’s book begins with a “Declaration of a political emergency” – twenty two points that lead to the conclusion that our dependence on fossil fuel must be transformed. The chapters that follow cover the environmental, social and political effects of the tar sands development.

The scale of the operation is huge. Virtually every major oil company has a stake in it and investment now totals about $200 billion. The zone now being exploited is 54,000 square miles, a quarter of the land mass of Alberta. Many countries have an interest in the operation, but 60 per cent of the cash comes from south of the Canadian border. The US, of course, is keen to exploit a source of oil close to home and to minimise their dependence on the Middle East.

“HELLISH”:
Nikiforuk paints a chilling picture of the landscape of the tar sands operation – “more hellish than an Appalachian coal field.” Thousands of trees are felled, acres of soil removed and wetlands drained. The impact on wild life can be imagined.

This is just the start of the environmental cost. Huge amounts of water are needed to wash the dirty sands, and this is taken from the Athabasca River, resulting in widespread pollution. In fact the whole Mackenzie River basin, which protects and produces one fifth of Canada’s fresh water, is affected. Nikiforuk reckons that the Alberta Government has failed completely to deal with the water issue. A monitoring programme, RAMP, was set up by the industry and government in 1997. It receives funding from no less than ten oil companies, so not surprisingly the reports it produces suggest no cause for concern. Independent experts who reviewed RAMP’s work had serious concerns about the quality of its monitoring.

TOXIC DUMPS:
Another result of the oil extraction is the construction of huge toxic ponds along the Athabasca River. They are made from earth stripped from the top of open-pit mines and rise 270 feet above the forest floor. Of a size which can be seen by astronauts in space, they now hold four decades worth of contaminated water, sand and bitumen. These tar ponds cover 23 square miles of forest, and are responsible for the deaths of thousands of ducks, geese and other water birds as well as moose, deer and beaver. And they leak!

Fort McMurray was a mining community of 25,000 in the 1970s. It sits at the confluence of the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers, just south of the main tar sands. The town used to be surrounded by forest but tar sand leases will soon surround its neighbourhoods. Its population is now swelled by temporary workers from China, Mexico and Croatia. Half the general workforce hails from Newfoundland and the maritime provinces, the poorest parts of Canada.

SOCIAL WRECKAGE:
Fort McMurray’s infrastructure – medical care, education, social services – struggles to cope with this huge influx. On a more mundane level, it takes 40 minutes to get a cut of coffee in Tim Horton’s and queues at banks on pay day can be sixty people long. The term “Gillette Syndrome” has been coined to describe the social wreckage caused by this sort of boom development.

It leaves a legacy of disaffection, drunkenness, divorce and social breakdown. Nikiforuk quotes at length one resident of Calgary who has watched the “human eco-system wastage” escalate year by year. “Each day,” he says, “on my way to work I pass another homeless man ruined by crack cocaine or bad bitumen luck… Avarice fills the Calgary air and most people run like hamsters on a treadmill.”

In case this books generates a despondent air, Nikiforuk’s final chapter lists “twelve steps to Energy Sanity”, to get us headed in the right direction. The first is to recognise that cheap oil is a relic of the past. Nikiforuk leads us through economic and political reforms that would regulate and slow down oil extraction. An important step is to re-localise food production. Taxpayers’ money should be directed towards funding new railways, and instead of building more highways, money should be spent on planning walkable communities.

In short we should use what oil remains sparingly, all the while working towards the development of renewable energy sourcs.

Nikiforuk’s final point is that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) should be re-negotiated. Canada should not be beholden to the demands of its greedy neighbour to the south.

Tar Sands is a hard-hitting and readable book, with plenty of mind-blowing statistics. All who are concerned about our oil-dependent society should read it. This megaproject which is growing year by year has not received the publicity it should in the wider world.

IBSN 978-1-55365-407-0 – published in Canada by Greystone Books in association with the David Suzuki Foundation

‘Not Buying It’? DON’T BUY IT!

‘Not Buying It: My Year Without shopping’ by Judith Levine

Non-fiction/journals/consumerism/politics. Review by Carl Spiby

There is some rich, if rather bitter irony in buying a copy of Not Buying It. Especially since, having read it, I wished I hadn’t bought it at all.

As a concept Judith Levine’s year-long sabbatical from consumerism is admirable. In reality her book, essentially a journal with meandering thoughts and reference to philosophers, economists, social commentators and politicians, is frustrating and perplexing.

For one, as a British reader, I find it has too many Americanisms. Whereas with fellow Stateside author Michael Moore a little research will uncover just who or what he is talking about, Ms. Levine’s assumes we are all at one with the everyday of American consumer life, inadvertently demonstrating a certain lack of global vision which I for one find presumptuous and, frankly, rather rude. In fact I might even suggest it is nothing less than typically American.

For example, if you do not know what SmartWool is or what Q-Tips are then you will be as flummoxed as I was at the author’s almost insatiable desire for them. Were we to assume that the publication was not intended for overseas ‘consumption’ (ahem), we might forgive her these annoying Americanisms. We might even speed-read over the sections where they occur, but, at the expense of the narrative and salient points, they return throughout the book.

Imagining this had not been the case I would still have to walk away frustrated: this could have been so much more.

Not Buying It might have done for consumerism what Naomi Klein’s No Logo did for labels or what the movie Supersize Me did for burgers. What a shame. If only Ms. Levine could’ve kept up thought-provoking phrases like ‘What’s left of the counterculture is the counter’ and concentrated on bringing together the greatest minds into a lucid and inspiring text.

What we get instead is a middle-class, arty-type with two homes who worries about movies more than world poverty and sweatshops. Not that the latter is not covered in Not Buying It‘s 257 pages, but one feels that this is done so almost in passing and without much depth of feeling. Indeed, you can help but wonder how sincere the entire premise is here: to live for a year, simply, buying nothing but the barest necessities. What the author presents as necessities turns out to be pretty lightweight stuff and actually highlights the problems of the modern predicament more than one suspects was intended. It is not entirely flattering. If society itself were to react like this to Schumacher’s vision of living simply and small is beautiful, then we, the left and Clarion readers are all dreamers. Perhaps we are.

The latest way to describe rampant consumerism, ‘affluenza’, isn’t even mentioned in direct terms but kind of is if only in passing, and that’s despite a major US documentary series and a significant new book on the subject (reviewed in the last issue of THE CLARION, no less). Even a preface or postscript would’ve done on the topic would make the work seem a little more up to date, perhaps a little more relevant rather than pedestrian.

Not Buying It really only has about an essay’s-worth of quotations and research that would have made a handy pocket book, but no more. As far as rejection of consumerism goes; I suggest we revisit No Logo or Monbiot’s Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain. They are now aging, but still have so much more to say than Levine’s work.

Lightweight guilt-cash-ins like Not Buying It make activists like comedian Mark Thomas look like Che Guevara and Judith Levine like some middle class Liberal Democrat who has switched to fair trade coffee thinking that they’ve saved the world. Ethically and morally, the best this book can do is make money for Oxfam because that’s exactly where my copy’s heading!

PS. since finishing the book I have discovered that Q-Tips turn out to be cotton buds. How very trivial! Forget jobs & welfare for all – Q-Tips is what we demand!

Published by Pocket Books, 2007.