Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The internal combustion engine was an idea that originated in the 18th Century. While various working prototypes were built the concept couldn’t really take off until in the late 1850’s the drilling and refining of petroleum began to blossom. This was a time of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution. In 1885 Karl Benz patented his version of the engine and began producing automobiles. World War I, fought with various forms of mechanized weapons exploded the need for petroleum to fuel them. Major nations began to understand the strategic value of petroleum and the wealth of the Oil Industry began to grow exponentially. By the mid 1920’s the three major oil producers were Saudi Arabia, the United States and the Soviet Union. The oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and in the rest of the Middle East were considered to be the deepest and most valuable. At this point the Middle East, long a backwater in the “Great Game” of nations became the focus of both the industrial nations and of the now dominant Oil Industry.
Much of the history of the Twentieth Century and still today is about the domination of the oil supply. However, as this has played out surrogate issues have been used to provide a mythology to justify intrusions into Middle East that make this economic imperialism palatable to the majority of people. We have watched as Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator no doubt, was toppled for an act, 9/11, which he had nothing to do with. With our Iraq invasion, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s were killed and injured as collateral damage. The cost in the deaths and maiming of our troops was in the tens of thousands. The freedom of the Iraqi people has been improbably lessened, from that of the brutal Hussein regime, which at least was secular and somewhat respectful of women’s rights? The end result though of this unwarranted war was the signing over of Iraqi Oil Rights and the explosion of military spending geared towards various supporters of the Bush regime.
As this is written the drumbeat in the Middle East goes on for intervention to change the regimes in both Iran and in Syria. With Iran it is the supposed threat from their nuclear development (weapons of mass destruction sound familiar) and with Syria it is the removal of a vile, oppressive regime. My own view, which I will elaborate on below, is that in both these instances the reality is quite different from the myth being put forth. I believe that we are being gulled by those who desire American world hegemony via use of our overwhelming military might. There are forces that see the United States morphing into Empire, just as Rome turned from a Republic to an imperial state. While Caesar crossing the Rubicon was represented as the seminal moment in roman transformation, the reality was just as now that the change was a long time coming. Here is my condensed version of how this all came to be and at the end I will provide links that underlie some of my reasoning. Continue reading “The Drum Beat Goes On” →
Principal Verenice Gutierrez in Portland, Oregon is the center of a controversy over her efforts to deal with racism and cultural intolerance. There is certainly plenty of such examples in most states, but Gutierrez is being criticized for finding such prejudice in the peanut butter. The principal at Harvey Scott elementary school cited peanut butter sandwiches as an example of how innocently insensitive we can be our prejudices since we do not think “Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches.” Frankly, I am pretty sure that Somali kids will knew what to do with a P & J without crawling in to a fetal position of fear over the latent racism contained in the lunchtime baggy. In defense of Gutierrez, she was trying to suggest an effort to reach out to learn different cultural preferences: “Another way would be to say: ‘Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that?’ Let them tell you. Maybe they eat torta. Or pita.” While I question the choice of the example, the point is to get teachers to think of the cultural realities and experiences of their students. However, in my view, other aspects of the training sessions are more problematic.
