"Its the Crude, Dude" Linda McQuaig

EnviroEngr

Denny wrote:

I was recently reading a book titled "Its the Crude, Dude" by Linda McQuaig. She has done some real homework here. Her work points out a couple of realizations about the conduct of Britain, the U.S. and, to a lesser degree, France over the years with their means of exploiting oil reserves around the world.

#1 - The old "trickle down" theory does not make any sense. If trickle down made sense, you'd see the bottom rung of society in those nations blessed by nature with oil doing very well from the capitalist workings of Adam Smith's "invisible hand". But, you do not. In every case, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and so on, left to their own, the oil firms and the upper crust of the society conspire together to keep the wealth in the family. Not much different than in feudal times in Europe. Middle class Americans and Canadians should realize that they are next on the hit list for the top economic echelon now that they've cleaned out the bottom rung of society.

#2 - The Western world has done zip to promote democracy in oil rich countries. In seemingly every case, United States, Britain and France have propped up monarchies and dictators as these have been most malleable to oil deals. Take Iran for instance, It went through a brief period in 1951-2 in which a democratic based government took over. It was put down by the British, and the rule returned to the Shah. Why? Because the Shah was happy to sell out his nation's oil inheritance at the price of 60 cents a barrel. This happened under Prime Minister Winston Churchill's second period. Churchill though highly of democracy, but apparently only for people like him. Now we have George Bush claiming to be interested in democracy for the people of Iraq. Its not believable in the least. His party and his hometown "industry" have just loved dealing with dicatators.

In reading this, it leaves me with the realization that oil has made all our Western World nationis a lot of two faced plunderers. We're not really any better than the Spanish conquistadors and British pirates of the 16th century, we just lie about our intentions a lot more, whether active as oil explorers or passive as consumers looking for the cheapest deal. When they call oil "black gold" the simile is true in more ways than just the wealth part. Its almost like oil has become a catalyst for evil. I wonder how many people died over oil acquisition in the 20th century.

{original & further discussion here: http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic3550.html }

Taskforce_Unity · Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:28 pm Post subject:

Thx for explaining i was wondering to order that book or not. I think i'm not going to order it now. Not really that relevant in the sense that you can't do much about it

Guest · Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:55 pm Post subject: Tolkien's metaphor

In Tolkien's trilogy, a seductive golden ring was able to twist the minds of even moral men who came into its possession. Tolkien claimed the ring, which devastated all the lands it touched, represented industrialism.

Today I think the ring of evil represents our complete addiction to oil. We're in denial of this, but more than willing to kill in order to keep it in our possession.