The DISH

Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use

Vol. 14 No. 10…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…March 7, 2011

Intuit's Vibe

The Oil of Progress

By Chris Rhodes

Barreling-on, fomenting the black rivers

that metered-in an age of gold,

the planet spins against a thousand suns,

drawn upon a fragile canopy of time and space.

Horses chew-on calmly in the pasture,

made redundant generations back.

These unemployed, reluctantly drawn out

for a wedding or village affair on the green.

We struck it rich! Upwellings in unheralded Texan fields

murmured in a European war... the first to come.

The new century rolled its eyes aloud

at Quantum Physics and tanks,

which generally broke down,

or sank in soiled mud around feet forever bound.

Depression came, blowing grains to swirl

dry and unsown in the dust bowls of wrath;

the razor-shards of oil plundered the land,

ploughing into the furrows of a second, greater war.

Reparations and expansion; populations grew.

Thirteen billion hands (working in pairs you understand)

of oil-fed fingers now abstract their attentions,

in blind faith, this cornucopia could never end,

each squeezing the Earth like a hollow stone.

Loosing the old ways and stuffy values...

now oil-fed bombs fall on the swollen lands

of its source; doodling about the jigsaw-map

and shading-in the missing pieces, state by state;

tweaking the beard of an older faith.

Buckling-up the belt of quirky geology around the Earth,

to secure the ring of fire into more democratic hands;

lacing Nature's midriff tighter and tighter,

until the final phantom sputters

a farewell flame and is blown-out,

like the last smoking candle on a birthday cake.

Give them a lump of sugar from your hand,

and a hearty slap on the flank -

entice them, with whispers.

Call the horses back again, sooner, not later.

The oil-party clock struck twelve,

while our backs were turned.

Bit of History

The Olduvai Theory: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Civilization

Richard Duncan, the founder of the Institute on Energy and Man (1992) has a PhD in Systems Engineering (1973) and is the chief author of the Olduvai theory, which predicts a rapid decline in world energy production that leads to societal collapse. Some consider the Olduvai theory a history of the "rise and fall" of industrial civilization. For others, it is the epitaph of the internal combustible engine; still others see it as a retrospective prophesy of the greedy end of capitalism. And then, there are those who view it simply as random facts in search of a conclusion. Whether one accepts or rejects this theory, the chronology presents an intriguing prospective on oil production and its possible demise.

Duncan believes that a steep rise in global population and an increase in petroleum use will occur simultaneously but population will increase faster than energy supply. This will be the tipping point for the Olduvai events. Basically, the theory claims that the ratio of world energy production per capita began declining around 2007 as the extraction rates of fossil fuels lagged behind demand, which will eventually cause catastrophic social and economic collapse, starting with massive electrical blackouts worldwide. The major effect, Duncan suggests, is that humanity will eventually revert back to a stone-age lifestyle after the majority of the world's population dies off over the coming century.

Duncan takes the name of his theory from the Olduvai Gorge, an archaeological site in the eastern Serengeti Plains in northern Tanzania. Discovered by Mary and Louis Leakey in 1959, this steep ravine contains exposed deposits of hominid fossils belonging to the Olduwan, one of the oldest stone tool civilizations. Olduvai Gorge artifacts date from 2,100,000 to 15,000 years ago and have changed paleontologists' focus to Africa as the source of human evolution.

According to Duncan, "The Olduvai theory, however, does not deal with the layered geology or the famous paleontology of the Olduvai Gorge. Rather, the theory attempts to explain the historic world energy production (and use) and population data in terms of overshoot and collapse. I chose the name "Olduvai" because (1) it is famous for the myriad hominid fossils and stone tools discovered there, (2) I've been there, (3) its long hollow sound is eerie and ominous, and (4) it is a good metaphor for the 'Stone Age way of life.' In fact, the Olduvai way of life was (and still is) a sustainable way of life - local, tribal, and solar - and, for better or worse, our ancestors practiced it for millions of years.

There is no comprehensive substitute for oil in its high-energy density, ease of handling, myriad end-uses, and in the volumes in which we now use it. The peak of world oil production and then its irreversible decline will be a turning point in Earth history with worldwide impact beyond anything previously seen. And that event will surely occur within the lifetimes of most people living today."

An Olduvai type scenario of industrial society was envisioned by historian Henry Adams (1838-1918), great grandson of the second President and grandson of the sixth, who concluded that electrification (identified as the quintessential end-use energy consumer of oil) was part of a larger process of historical acceleration, which would lead to an inevitable social decline. Frederick Lee Ackerman (1878-1950) in his seminal paper "The Technologist Looks at the Depression" observed that new energies were accelerating social change. Also, he noted that from about 4000 B.C.E. to 1750 C.E the common welfare was limited to the work that man could do with his hands and a few crude tools. M. King Hubbert (1903-1989), though optimistic about world energy consumption per capita, believed it possible for global society to maintain a high level of energy indefinitely, but also realized that society could "permanently collapse back into an agrarian level of existence."

According to Hubbert, "During the last two centuries the world has known nothing but exponential growth and in parallel has evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance of exponential growth for its stability that it is incapable of reckoning with problems of no growth." Duncan believes the historical data through 2003 until now leaves global society with only two feasible futures: "an orderly decline of energy to a medium steady state or collapse back to the agrarian level of existence."

Duncan's data show that world oil production grew at an exponential average of 8.8% per year over the 137-year interval from 1833 to 1970. Then production slowed to various linear rates of growth (plateau) and declined from 1970 to 2003. He concluded (2004), "That the end of exponential growth was the most reliable clue that 'Peak Oil' was nearing. The peak of world oil discoveries occurred in 1965. Moreover, world oil production exceeded world oil discoveries in 1981 and the gap is still growing."

Overshoot refers to the peak of world oil production (Peak Oil) and might already be a historical milestone (2006) for industrial civilization. World energy production per capita increased strongly from 1945 to its all-time peak in 1979. Then from 1979 to 1999 - for the first time in history - it decreased at a rate of 0.33 % per year, the "Olduvai slope." Next from 2000 to 2012, according to the Olduvai schema, world energy production per capita will decrease by about 0.70 % per year, the "Olduvai slide." Then around year 2012 there will be a rash of permanent electrical blackouts- worldwide. Consequently the vital C3 functions - communication, computation, and control - will be lost. This, in turn, will cause energy production per capita to fall by 2030 to 3.32 barrels oil equivalent (boe) per year, the same value it had in 1930. The rate of decline from 2012 to 2030 is 5.44% per year the "Olduvai cliff."

Comparing the numbers, world total energy production easily outpaced world population growth from 1700 to 1979, but then from 1979 through 2003 total energy production and population growth were dead even at 1.5% per year each. This reflects zero net growth 0.0% per year, called the "Olduvai Plateau" confirming Postulate 2. The 5th event in 2004 marks the beginning of the "Olduvai Brink." The 6th event circa 2008 (2006-2012) marks the edge of the "Olduvai Cliff" where e (energy) begins a precipitous decline. The 7th event circa 2030 is the "lagging 30% point" when e falls back to 30% of its maximum value. Hence, by definition, the duration of Industrial Civilization is less than or equal to 100 years.

As Duncan's Olduvai Theory emphasized, electricity is crucial to Industrial Civilization, i.e. the "modern way of life." Consider the following: In 1999, about 42% of the world's primary sources of energy were used to "generate" electricity. No doubt "peak oil" and the decline of Industrial Civilization will be due to a complex matrix of causes, such as overpopulation, the depletion of nonrenewable resources, environmental damage, pollution, soil erosion, global warming and resource wars. The Olduvai theory uses a single metric to foresee a calamitous "trigger event" - the declining reliability of electric power grids. The Olduvai theory, of course, may be proved wrong. But at the present time, it cannot be rejected by the historic world energy production and population data. Hence, if it is proven right, the overshoot and collapse of exponential growth is unavoidable. (Sources: www.dieoff.org, www.mnforsustain.org, www.TheSocialContract.com and www.eia.doe.gov)

Oil: The Spice of Life

By John Burl Smith

"Group solidarity" is regarded as the primary requisite for civilization. Civilization needs the tribal values to survive, but these very same values are destroyed by civilization. Specifically, urban civilization destroys tribal values with the luxuries that weaken kinship and community ties and with the artificial wants for new types of cuisine, new fashions in clothing, larger homes, and other novelties of urban life." Arabic scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)

Venue for an Artist, The DISH (Vol. 14 No. 9) featured Hossam el-Hamalawy's "The workers, middle class, military junta and the permanent revolution." His idea of permanent revolution in the Middle East is not a farfetched reality when one considers Richard Duncan's Olduvai Theory, as well as, his definition of social change as the "trigger event" that brings about industrial collapse. Social change, he concluded, involves a change in the techniques whereby people live; when the average quantity of energy expended per capita undergoes appreciable change as a function of time.

Unlike Duncan, el-Hamalawy sees Middle East revolution as the "trigger event" for the coming social change that precipitates the collapse of Western industrial society, which coincides with the Olduvai Theory. Duncan chose the name Olduvai as a "good metaphor" to describe the outcome of the loss of the world's essential source of energy. However, viewing the situation from el-Hamalawy's perspective "Melange" is a better metaphor to describe the role of oil in today's industrial world.

"Melange" is the spice of life in the science fiction world of the movie "Dune." The spice Melange exists only on the dry desolate planet of Arrakis. It extends life, expands consciousness, and enables the Guild Navigators to fold space in traveling from star system to star system. The nomadic people of this planet, the Fremen, believe in a prophesy that says a man will come who will transmute the "Water of Life," which is the bile from the giant worms on Arrakis, to become the Kwisatz Haderach, the true messiah that will lead them in a holy war against their oppressors, the Harkonnens. Barbaric enslavers of the Fremen, the Harkonnens mine the spice "Melange" from the decomposed carcass of the giant worms. The spice must flow; he who controls the spice controls the universe.

Arrakis is a "good metaphor" for the Middle East and the spice "Melange" for oil. The dates in Duncan's theory correlate with major events in the Middle East beginning with WWII. World energy production per capita increased strongly from 1945 to its all-time peak in 1979. Western colonial powers took over the Middle East (1945) and created the state of Israel (1948). Arabs were subjugated like the Fremen and Western colonial powers installed governments to control the people and oil. Duncan defines this as a "social steady state" -- any society in which the quantity [of energy expended] per capita shows no appreciable change as a function of time. The "social steady state" guaranteed that the oil will flow. Until recently, -- revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt - all Arab governments came to power circa 1979, which coincided with the all-time peak in oil production.

Arab governments supported the United States' "Guns or Butter" (The DISH Vol. 14 No. 6) strategy which created large armies to keep them in power, keep the oil flowing and unopposed to Israel's existence. Duncan's Olduvai Theory predicts that "following the 1979 all-time peak of world energy production per capita, the end of cheap energy would mark the 3rd event (1999). Intifada the eruption of violence in the Middle East "Jerusalem Jihad" would mark the 4th event (2000) Escalating violence in the Middle East (2001) was the beginning of the Olduvai "slide." All-time world oil production peak will mark the 5th event (2006). By 2008, the 11 OPEC nations will be producing 51% of the world's oil and control nearly 100% of the world's oil exports, the OPEC crossover is the 6th event.

The idea is not to proclaim el-Hamalawy the Kwisatz Haderach; but his concept of permanent revolution is a "social change" that is like "a drop of rain on Arrakis," which will change the universe. If these new revolutionaries see their situation as the Fremen, they will begin to see their oil as their legacy to their children. Once the oil is gone, what will they have to live off of in the desert? Large cities will be ground zero as the electric grids fail for lack of oil. Millions of people packed in high-rise buildings and surrounded by acres-and-acres of blacktop and concrete will have no electricity, no work, and no food; this will begin the Olduvai "die-off." Living Earth (1996) maps out the danger zones -- Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore-to-Boston, London, Paris, Brussels-to-Berlin, Bombay, Hong Kong and Osaka-to-Tokyo -- big cities that stand out at night likes bright yellow-orange hot spots on NASA's satellite imaging.

Many industrialized nations are growing rapidly and placing ever-greater demands on world resources. Many of those resources come from underdeveloped countries. What will happen when the resource-supplying countries begin to withhold resources when the day comes that their people need them? Will the developed nations stand by and allow their economies to decline while resources still exist in other parts of the world? Will a new era of international conflict grow out of pressures from resource shortage? The Freman say, "God created Arrakis to train the faithful."

Dune is the story of just such a world, where the spice must flow. But, here on earth oil is the spice of life. Already, the US is experiencing a decline in living standards that began with the 2008 recession, producing skyrocketing deficits, the declining value of the dollar, rising prices, cuts in social services, a continual spike in bankruptcies and sustained high unemployment. Saudi Arabian production is falling despite efforts to halt the decline, while world demand keeps growing. In a few years, we will look back at the summer of 2011 as the last days when gasoline -even at $3.50 a gallon - was still plentiful and cheap. He who controls the spice controls the universe!

Hood Notes

The Counter-Black Revolution

By John Burl Smith

Over the past forty-two years, the truth about the last days surrounding the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968) and the confusion that followed have been covered over in order to make heroes out of minor actors, cover up the role of some at the center of the assassination plot and to write some people who played important roles out of the story altogether. The latest example is the CNN production by Soledad O'Brien "Pictures Don't Lie," which exploits the controversy surrounding black photographer Ernest Withers. The O'Brien's production is a follow up on a story by Marc Perrusquia (who was not given any credit) in the Memphis Commercial Appeal from a year ago.

Both stories run afoul of the truth by using only FBI documentation provided by the alleged informant Withers to describe the Invaders and the group's leaders. Moreover, both stories try to exonerate the FBI and other government agencies of any responsibility in creating an atmosphere around Dr. King that made his assassination possible. The record is very clear on the fact that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was engaged in a vendetta and used Co-Intel-Pro to destroy Dr. King's reputation and make the Invaders the fall guys in the process. I can make such statements because I am one of those people who have been written out of this story by people like Soledad O'Brien of CNN and Marc Perrusquia of the Commercial Appeal even thought I organized the Invaders.

This statement is not about not getting my name in the paper or my face on TV; this is about the counter revolution that has taken place to minimize the valiant fight of slave descendants for their human rights and be recognized by the world for their survival against incredible odds. Moreover, J. Edgar Hoover's counter revolution run by Co-Intel-Pro was designed to kill off, imprison or otherwise eliminate legitimate black leaders and replace them with people selected by the US government - people who functioned like the leaders the US chose for Arabs in the Middle East during this same period.

When the Black Revolution came to Memphis, Tennessee in 1967, I was like most people in Egypt, Tunisia and the rest of the Middle East, simply trying to live out my life under the boot of oppression known as segregation. I had made an accommodation with this dehumanizing system that denied black people dignity, opportunity, self-determination and justice in order to keep a "good government job" and the promise that things would get better in the future. It was not until I personally experienced the indignity of police brutality that I realized there would never be freedom, justice and equality for people willing to stay on their knees for fear of what would happen if they stood up.

Just as many young people today in the Middle East, I joined the black revolution, took to the streets and organized young people into a group called the Invaders. I was joined by Charles Cabbage, who passed last year, and Coby Smith; they had been a part of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). When Memphis Sanitation workers walked out on strike during the fall of 1967, their stand became a community effort, so the Invaders joined what quickly became a fight to break the grip of segregation on our lives. The cry of black power was like "Jihad" for slave descendants who had been stripped of all other cultural identity.

The Invaders became known as militant revolutionaries, advocating violence in defiance of strike leaders. The sanitation workers rallied around our aggressive tactics and refused to end the strike as leaders urged. The black revolution had begun to show real power when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to town and led a march that ended in a police riot. The Invaders were blamed for the disorder by the FBI, Memphis police and strike leaders.

Following the riot, I met with Dr. King just two hours before he was assassinated. The topics he and I discussed are the main reason the Invaders' image has been distorted and I have been written out of the story entirely. The truth is that leading up to his assassination, Dr. King's whole philosophy and psychology about the black revolution was evolving. He had taken a stand against the Vietnam War and decided to take a million poor people to Washington, DC to demand economic justice. This decision had put him at odds with some people within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) who wanted to move away from street activism into corporate boardrooms of America.

Dr. King told me during that meeting that this splinter group, led by Andrew Young and Jessie Jackson, was threatening to bolt from the SCLC and start their own organizations, if he continued with the Poor People's Campaign; Reverends Ralph D. Abernathy and Hosea Williams stood with him. This in-fighting was threatening to split SCLC at a critical juncture and derail the Poor People's Campaign for economic justice. Dr. King had turned to the Invaders to form an alliance. He wanted to unite the civil rights and black power movements under the banner of the Poor People's Campaign. He expressed his desire for the Invaders to help recruit other black power groups across America as organizers.

This was a bold plan that would have made Dr. King a real force when he arrived in Washington, DC at the head of a million people demanding economic justice. This would have looked like Egyptians in Tahrir Square demanding Mubarak step down. Back in 1968 such an event had never occurred, so no one in the streets believed people could have such power, but today everyone knows they can make demands and be heard. However, those in power in the US knew and understood the power of such a revolution and that is why Dr. King was assassinated and the counter revolution against black people continues today.

The US government continues to use media people like Soledad O'Brien to cover up the truth about Dr. King's assassination and keep the only people who know the real story from telling that truth. There are only a few people still alive that were there and did not take the money and are still willing to tell the story of the black revolution. Back in 1968, we did not have the Internet or blogs to get the truth out, so the government was able to kill the black revolution. I believe that the revolution in the Middle East is a second chance for the world's poor, if the media are not allowed to kill it.

News You Use

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash is an award-winning documentary film about peak oil, the end of easy-to-get-at "cheap oil" and the inability of oil production to keep pace with demand going forward. Produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, the film, which was released in 2006, employs a combination of interviews and news footage to explore key historical events, data and predictions about peak petroleum production.

Every facet of our modern lifestyle depends on oil from our cars to the food we eat. A Crude Awakening asks, "What happens when we run out of cheap oil?" The film spells out the challenges we face in dealing with that possibility. Currently, world oil consumption is estimated to run between 20 to 30 billion barrels per year and growing. There is no alternative energy source currently available to replace the energy derived from oil.

Most of the world's oil supply is consumed by the industrialized West, while the world’s largest known reserves are in the Middle East. The US, which consumes more than 25% of global oil, only produces 2% of the world's supply. This divergence between supply and demand drives US foreign policy and provides an undeniable link between oil and war. The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the rhetoric to the contrary, are the most recent examples of oil wars.

A Crude Awakening shows where oil comes from, how its production degrades the environment and the consequences for those communities and countries when the oil dries up. According to the film, the future of oil is grim. Since more than 58 countries around the world produce less oil today than they have in the past, even as demand for oil rises, the quest to find more oil will continue to wreak more havoc on the environment.

A Crude Awakening is a must-see for anyone concerned about the dwindling supply of oil and government inaction in facing this challenge. You can view a brief trailer of the film at www.oilcrashmovie.com. Better yet, order it online at www.amazon.com.

Politics Y2K11

War Über Alles

By Paul Craig Roberts

The United States government cannot get enough of war. With Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's regime falling to a rebelling population, CNN reports that a Pentagon spokesman said that the U.S. is looking at all options from the military side.

Allegedly, the Pentagon, which is responsible for one million dead Iraqis and an unknown number of dead Afghans and Pakistanis, is concerned about the deaths of 1,000 Libyan protesters.

While the Pentagon tries to figure out how to get involved in the Libyan revolt, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific is developing new battle plans to take on China in her home territory. Four-star Admiral Robert Willard thinks the U.S. should be able to whip China in its own coastal waters.

The admiral thinks one way to do this is to add U.S. Marines to his force structure so that the U.S. can eject Chinese forces from disputed islands in the East and South China seas.

It is not the U.S. who is disputing the islands, but if there is a chance for war anywhere, the admiral wants to make sure we are not left out.

The admiral also hopes to develop military ties with India and add that country to his clout. India, the admiral says, "is a natural partner of the United States" and "is crucial to America's 21st-century strategy of balancing China." The U.S. is going to seduce the Indians by selling them advanced aircraft.

If the plan works out, we will have India in NATO helping us to occupy Pakistan and presenting China with the possibility of a two-front war.

The Pentagon needs some more wars so there can be some more "reconstruction." Reconstruction is very lucrative, especially as Washington has privatized so many of the projects, thus turning over to well-placed friends many opportunities to loot. Considering all the money that has been spent, one searches hard to find completed projects. The just released report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting can't say exactly how much of the $200 billion in Afghan "reconstruction" disappeared in criminal behavior and blatant corruption, but $12 billion alone was lost to "overt fraud."

War makes money for the politically connected. While the flag-waving population remains proud of the service of their sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, cousins, wives, mothers and daughters, the smart boys who got the fireworks started are rolling in the mega-millions.

As General Smedley Butler told the jingoistic American population, to no avail, "war is a racket." As long as the American population remains proud that their relatives serve as cannon fodder for the military/security complex, war will remain a racket.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.dailykos.com...House GOP votes unanimously to protect big oil subsidies...By Joan McCarter...With Big Oil raking in record profits, House Democrats offered a Motion to Recommit to the House Republican short-term spending bill to make a responsible cut to the budget: putting an end to taxpayer-funded subsidies to large oil companies. Repealing these subsidies would save taxpayers tens of billions over the next decade... Rep. William Keating (D-MA) offered the motion on the House floor saying "let's stop sending taxpayers' money to the most profitable companies in the world." Republicans voted unanimously against the motion, defeating it by a vote of 176-249. They're willing to cut that deficit on the backs of the poor, the elderly, women, the middle class, public employees. For all of us, it's "so be it" as jobs disappear. But they sure as hell won't endanger the massive profits of their Big Oil friends.