The geopolitics of oil gains a new constituency
Posted by Yankee on July 19, 2006 - 9:09pm
Whether or not this blood-for-oil scenario is the whole story, the new Iraqi constitution and laws already passed there contain far stronger guarantees for major U.S. oil interests than they do for the women of Iraq. Women's rights deteriorated rapidly after the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein sold them out to religious fundamentalists in order to consolidate power. The U.S. had the opportunity to restore much of what was lost after the 2003 invasion. But in the period leading up to the election of the National Assembly, our government ignored demands by Iraqi women's organizations to create a women's ministry, appoint women to the drafting committee of Iraq's interim constitution, pass laws codifying women's rights and criminalizing domestic violence, and uphold U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325-- which mandates that women be included at all levels of decision-making in situations of peacemaking and postwar reconstruction.
In contrast, Big Oil is well protected in the constitution and through laws. The constitution guarantees the reform of the Iraqi economy in accordance with "modern economic principles" to "ensure...the development of the private sector"--essentially abolishing Iraqi state dominion over its petroleum reserves. Corollary laws guarantee that foreign companies will have control over at least 64 percent of Iraq's oil, and possibly as much as 84 percent.I'm very glad to see the issue of the geopolitical implications of oil spread to as many new constituencies as possible, but I just find the link between American oil lust and the trampling of women's rights a little tenuous. The author doesn't convince me that there's a direct connection between oil policy and the US turning a blind eye to women's issues, though it certainly is the case that (a) women's rights are being violated left and right in many Middle Eastern countries and (b) many US decisions regarding the Middle East revolve around oil.
The question we must ask is the following: if it weren't for the abundance of oil in the Middle East, would the US do anything about their women's rights violations? It seems a foolish question, since if it weren't for the oil, we wouldn't be involved in a war in Iraq to begin with, hence obviating the need for discussion about the role of women in the Iraqi constitution. But to answer the question, we need only look at any other country with an abysmal record on women's rights: Nigeria (which has oil, but we're not currently trying to nation-build there), or Uganda, for example. Does the US government work toward women's rights reforms in these countries? Not exactly. So it is possible, and even likely, that the US government doesn't care about women's rights violations in the Middle East because they don't care about them anywhere, not because they're consciously choosing oil interests above women's rights.
While any magazine has the right to take any angle they want on their articles, I can't help but feel that this is a missed opportunity. Peak oil is an issue with a feminist angle, and it would have been more valuable for there to be an argument pointing these links out and giving readers material to work with. A couple of months ago, Energy Bulletin reran an article original published in Adaptation Blog called "Post Petroleum Woman". The article, written by Carolyn Baker, is a different flavor of feminism to be sure. It's also considerably more alarmist than the Ms. article, but Baker, as well as a blog post by jewishfarmer at Relocalize.net, bring up some points that I would like to see raised by a more mainstream feminist magazine. For example, from jewishfarmer:
The way women live now in the Western world is almost entirely a result of cheap energy and its byproducts. I think it would be easy to lose track of how much contemporary feminism, with its focus on women in the workplace, and on the politics of equality is shaped by cheap energy in the forms of birth control, easy access to medical care, formula, breast pumps, drive-to daycare, Social Security, etc... I am a feminist, and enormously grateful for what feminism has given me, but I also feel that women have not carefully enough interrogated the degree to which their options are dependent on carbon exploitation.It has been noticed here on TOD before that there are (apparently) not many female contributors. It will be nice to see that change someday soon, though I'm unfortunately not optimistic that the Ms. article will be a catalyst for that change.
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I too have noticed there are not many Female contibutors here, perhaps they are browsing TOD. Nonetheless, would like to hear their inputs.
Back to the issues of fossil fuel depletion please.
IGNORE THIS COMMENT.
I have respected your contributions, MicroHydro. I support your right to free speech. I also support adolescent sexual obsession. I'm only going to try to balance the two for myself and by myself.
We are a different community here. And for the record - we are the most advanced fossil fuel depletion site on the planet - bar none.
We got that way by being inclusive, not exclusive. Hell, we even let smekhovo say what he wants.
Come again. Or rather, visit us again soon.
Let us please bury the hatchet.
I think you are a good person.
I also wish for an ignore or hide function.
There is no clock.
When a baby is born, he or she is not aware of a "clock".
He/she comes out, gets smacked on the behind (not always) and begins to be programmed by his/her parents and society.
FF's or Fundie Folk as you call them, did not have free will in choosing to become who they are. They were born. They were programmed. Same for their parents.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0719-22.htm
Klare makes the point that we do indeed support tyrants, overlook human rights issues (including women's rights issues) specifically because of petroleum.
Face it folks, things are worse in Iraq for women now than they were before the USA "liberated" them in a fit of militaristic generosity.
The point is that we might want to work for human rights in when we are so deeply entangled with other regimes in terms of economics, energy, and geopolitics. That we don't is truly a setup for massive blowback against us as supporters of oppression.
Klare makes a superb and simple point. We must divorce foreign policy from our energy needs. To do this, we must develop an energy strategy that brings rapid energy independence. Then we can bring the troops home and deal with various regimes on the merits of principle rather than petroleum addiction.
So no, I don't think women's rights are targeted specifically, just that they get ignored as other things have higher priorities.
I agree that developing an energy policy that doesn't leave us at the mercy of tyrants is a necessary first step in separating human rights issues from oil. Unfortunately, I expect us to do the opposite and make friends with more tyrants because China is doing that already and trying to lock up energy sources. Since we are on tenuous ground in the supply arena, this strategy will appeal to the Bush administration for the short term and since GW Bush only has 2 years left, it's something he's more likely to do than start a policy that may take 20 years to finally come together.
Feminist Kate Millet went to Iran in 1979, was expelled, and wrote about the experience in "Going to Iran" 1982 (out of print). At that time Ms magazine noted the US accomodation of sexual apartheid oil regimes, of which Saudi Arabia is the worst.
Jay Leno's wife Mavis has been a longtime advocate for the rights of women in Moslem oil nations. Jay Leno (much to the dismay of then Pres. G.H.W. Bush) complained about Saudi law when entertaining the troops in Saudi Arabia in 1991. (This was before Jay became the permanent Tonight Show host in 1992)
People of both genders are exporting untold billions of their hard-earned dollars which support regimes with appalling policies. It's not unreasonable for the human rights issue to surface, or for feminists to view it through their own lens. And bringing it up 3 times in 24 years doesn't seem very pushy.
And then there is the cultural lens. If you live in a country where women are taken seriously, it's easy to forget that it's not true everywhere. In gender gap ratings (PDF), just as an example, New Zealand ranks #6 overall, and #1 in political empowerment for women--versus #17 and #19 respectively for the USA. The American sisters have a long way to go, and bringing up the issues can't hurt.
We decided as a species to continue investing in living arrangements that were increasingly oil dependent. We doubled the global population and the cult of consumerism and endless growth spread worldwide. Hundreds of millions embraced the various fundamentalist religions, including insane death cults who believe global thermonuclear war would trigger the rapture. Feminist splinter movements within traditionally masculinist cultures (never more than a small minority of women) were a passing artifact of the cheap oil era. As the world becomes poorer, and once again more local, gender relations will return to the local past.
In a few places like Scandanavia, NZ, and Oregon's Willamette Valley, the deep rooted local cultures of gender balance will persist. In Mississippi and Afghanistan the patriarchal plantation master and warlord will rise again. There is no more hope of changing this than Jimmy Carter had of selling peak oil mitigation 30 years in advance. Going forward, post peak women will need the same things that men will need - allies who can help acquire and defend survival resources. There will be no post peak sisterhood other than ones biological sisters and in-laws.
I don't know what will happen to gender relations in a future era, but if the point now is to get the message out to as many people as we can, then we're going to have to learn how to tailor our delivery to different constituencies.
Well, al-Gaddafi is already back on the friends list. There's some work to do with Iran, of course. Don't know whether Chavez makes the "tyrant" list or not. But beyond that, are there any significant oil-bearing tyrants we're not friendly with?
Since we are talking about female rights in this thread it is worth mentioning, that the image of Iran in this respect is strongly influenced by the propaganda here.
I have met several Iranian women here in the US - all doctors, architects, economists. None of them said anything about sexual oppression or unequality. They all were pretty independant and proud with their country IMO. My impression (also coming from the conversations with Iranian men on the matter) is that in this respect Iran is pretty much like Turkey. There may be some provincial places or religious communities where women are oppressed, but in general the country is pretty close to a secular state.
Battered women don't talk about such things.
You do understand about "honor killings", no?
Actually I met those ladies in a pretty intimate environment. No husbands, no religious clothing, nothing even remotely close to the preconceptions of the West. Now of course I wake up each night shivering that I'm going to be hunted down by angry Iranian husbands all my life. Still alive.
2. Here are those that don't like the sound of music
3. Here are the battered wives
4. Here is a bit more about the "modern" culture"
Yup, everything I post is a pure fabrication, a delusion invented in the isolation of my disconnected mind. :-)
These are remainants of an backwardish culture, which can be seen in even more modernized countries. Iran is a huge country (some ~60 mln.) and parts of it are still on the medievil level. But bashing the whole on these grounds is as counterproductive as bashing US for encouraging racism because of the existence of KKK. This country was going in the right direction and the antiiranian propaganda has exactly the opposite effect - fueling exactly those forces that are interested in Iran staying at these levels.
The case of SA is totally different one - Sheriat is a national law and the state is the one that interested in the country staying at a semi-feodal level.
Jerry Ford negotiated and signed the Helsinki Accord on Human Rights. Jimmy Carter linked human rights to his foreign policy. Reagan and the Bushies have turned a blind eye on human rights if the violators were on thier side of the Cold War or so called War on Terror. If we linked trade privileges to human rights and simply refused to due business with the protectors of murderers perhaps things for women worldwide would improve.
The PTB in global economy put property rights ahead of human rights. That simple.
It gets worse, because those of us in rich countries - male and female - depend on that global system to stay on top. What would really be entailed in supporting human rights - let alone women's rights?
cfm
The USA promotes oppression as the preferred form of stability in petroleum-rich (or other "strategic") nations, and actively discourages democracy.
How did the Shah of Iran come to power many years ago? A progressive, budding democracy was killed off with the USA as a prime player, then installing a torture-mongering despot in its place.
Look at Venezuela today. Chavez comes from the poor, works for the poor, and draws much of his power from the poor of his country as his political base. The USA, which has a sham democracy, cannot stand such an arrangement that turns the world upside down. Therefore the USA has been actively trying to depose Chavez, and I suspect tries to depose any other Latin American leader who tends to be socialist and populist. On the other hand, the USa loved the brutal Noriega of Panama until he got a bit too uppity.
Then there is the long and sordid love affair between the USA establishment and Saddam Hussein, which sadly came to a bad end because Saddam also got a bit uppity.
We also love the Saudis and the UAE elite and the esteemed nuclear-armed, nuclear-proliferating dictator of Pakistan and just about any brutal, sexist, slave-trading bastard who will swear to kick ass on behalf of the "interests" of the USA elite anywhere in the world.
Lovely. Just lovely. My, we (USA) are as sweet and unsullied as a new rose blossom in the morning, all covered with....dew....dooo...uhh, wait, that's "dew" -- no, wait! Now I'm all confused.
The bottom line for the US elite was written by George F. Kennan, American Ambassador to Moscow, in a State Department Policy Planning Study in 1948:
"we have 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. In this situation, our real job in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which permit us to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we have to dispense with all sentimentality ... we should cease thinking about human rights, the raising of living standards and democratisation."
This attitude has morphed further as the Neocons of today use the US government as a political/military vehicle to develop a "pattern of relationships" which I believe will ultimately exclude most American citizens from wealth and power, as well as most of the world's citizens.
The USA is a vehicle which is being run into financial and political wreck and ruin by those who control our government bcause, at the end of the crash, they will have no use for the vehicle any longer.
We may see some trappings of the US "republic" continue, but in realityour planet is being pretty well transformed into a large Empire filled with moslty poor and powerless people who will be abandoned to the ravages of disease, global climate change, resource depletion, and war -- while the "disparity" is maintained by and for a shrinking class of people who believe themselves to deserve wealth and power at the expense of the great masses of the world's people and other species.
So, to put a finer point on it, I think we have seen the USA support oppression and sabatoge democracy and "liberty and justice for all."
Where is General Smedley Butler when you need him?
Let's see. The British and French announced for evacuation of their citizens right in the beginning of the hostilities, when the potential evacuees didn't yet think they were in danger. The locals thought that the shelling would be limited to parts of the Southern Lebanon as usual and people elsewhere would be safe. But no. The was no "we follow the situation and decide later if the evacuation is necessary", as you could expect. The decision was pre-made and the plans were ready and practical arrangements made in advance.
All the decisions on Lebanons future are made in advance. We already know that there will be "international" troops. This decison needed some negotiations, before the present crisis began, so it was made before the hostilities started. There will be a "Balkan" solution, like in Kosovo. Permanent US bases, British and French, too, some Russian and European token troops. Occupation "UN" government and all that. "Reconstruction" a la Iraq.
But first Lebabon should "fail". The Israelis are doing the job by destroying methodically the Lebanese infrastructure and economy. All the country, not just the Hezbollah areas, is isolated, ports, main roads and airports shut. Electricity is down, oil supply destroyed.
Syria or Iran, or Hezbollah did not make these decisons, but they were obviously made before the bombing began.
Syria will be gone after the occupation of Lebanon. The Syrian economy and logistics are dependent of Lebanon, and Syria is already effectively blockaded. The US wants supply routes to Iraq through Lebanon and Syria and will get them. The Syrian-Iranian alliance will break down, the Iraq resistance will be isolated. The US troops are now "hostages" in Iraq because the heavy logistics go through the Persian Gulf and the narrow Southern parts of Iraq. This route is long and vulnerable and it could be blocked in a conflict with Iran. A route through Syria would change the situation.
When the Iranian-Syrian alliance breaks, Iran will be isolated and lose its main military advantage. No wonder Iran has been quiet lately. Now here is the real US plan for Iraq. The situation there will change decisively after Syria and Iran have their regime changes and get US military presence. This is why the dismal military situation in Iraq has not bothered much the US government. The solution lies not in Iraq - but in Lebanon.
Well, will this nice plan really succeed? At least the Russians think so - they have already agreed to be part of the occupying force in Lebanon. The Chinese may be pissed, but what can they do?
Here we see how the US becomes "oil independent": the ME oil will be firmly in the US hands, may be in the hands of the US oil companies. The oil revenues will flow to the US shareholders. The ME oil will be domestic US oil. Fine.
And human rights? Who cares.
The Syrian and Lebanese economies have been traditionally connected for a very long time. Lots of Syrians work in Lebanon (before the crisis) and send money back. Sanctions against Syria don't work if Lebanon is out of tight control.
The US logistics volume in Iraq is enormous, but the routes through Southern Iraq have been relatively safe to the huge logistical bases near Baghdad. The pro-Iranian shiites have not attacked the transports up to now. This could change if hostilities break with Iran. Closing Persian Gulf and this logisitics route is the main advantage of Iran in a conflict with the US.
China will not hurt itself economically by any forex operations or the like.
And remember, there are now UN troops in Southern Lebanon. They just watch the fighting. Sending new UN troops will mean considerable changes in the UN presence, quite likely something like in Kosovo or Bosnia.
The news tell now that the Hezbollah forces have not suffered much from the bombing, as was to be expected (remember the Kosovan war). They seem to have anti-tank missiles and can kill Isreali tansk and make resistance on the ground. So probably the Israelis have to go in with massive ground forces and there will be real fighting. When the Isrealis go in they have to go all they way to Beirut and beyound, up to the Bekaa valley. So this will be big operation. But the internationals cannot go in before the Israelis have done their "cleaning job". This will take time and kill a lot more civilians. Besides, it can cause poltical and other complications. We will see how well the plan really works.
And this is on topic: they kill women there.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
- Pastor Martin Niemoller 1892-1984
U boat commander WWI, Winner of the Iron Cross, Fiekorp Member then Lutheran Minister. Imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau for objecting to the Nazis
What are you expecting? Gail the accountant has made a number of good posts lately. Her stuff is really good. Beyond that, I don't know what to say. We get the usual geeks (scientists, engineers) here and lots of other types.
What could we possibly do about this?
"I am a man.
But I can change.
If I have to.
I guess."
(Thanks to Red Green. A little, ummm, humour?)
Having said that I think there is actually some truth (but not the whole truth :-) in Matt's postings about how males enjoy showing off in (for instance) a debating context more than females. I read interesting stuff on theoildrum but there are also exchanges in some threads that are nothing more than pissing contests. Even some of the technical debates strike me as a bit like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin - the data we have is of too poor quality to get too excited about whether the exact peak is here right now or in 5 years. It is the big picture of peak oil that interests me and adapting to it in a way that preserves community, compassion and the important things in life.
Re adaptation: an interesting possible consequence of localisation that has a bearing on "gender" related issues is a change in the way we think of "work" vs "home".
In our culture status is very much associated with the public world of work, and is not at all associated with the private world of home and hearth. Men are traditionally associated with the former and women with the latter - hence the interest of feminists in getting women recognition in the workplace.
One consequence of this very sharp distinction is that women who do stay at home to bring up the family can become isolated (depending onwhere they live) and almost invisible to the wider world. For a man to do this is highly unusual largely because of the loss of status involved, but this can come at a price. I know a number older men who in retrospect regret their pursuit of status through work because of the lost chance to spend more time with their kids growing up (eg due to working late & weekends) - they often seek to make it up with their grandkids!
In former times there wasn't such a clear distinction between public and private or work vs home life. Much economic activity (of both men and women) took place around the home or nearby. A greater focus on localisation, with people spending more time working in and around the home would blur and change the patterns of status associated with "work" vs "home" activities. This could benefit communities and individuals and make for a more comfortable balance between work, family life & civic involvement. I may sound a bit utopian here, but if we are going to be poorer in material terms we should aim to be richer in community/social/family terms.
In my view, the whole world is fucked up with respect to family and community. It takes a village. The culture (here in America) as I experience it is isolating, with people in their magic vehicles driving around cutting other people off while talking on their cell phones. This is opposed to the walking errands I do where I talk to (and give to) the homeless people I meet on the way.
I like to think the "community" part of the Peak Oil situation is a good thing. But really, when I think about the hard transitions that have to happen, I believe we are all really are screwed.
best, Dave
That's the one direction things may evolve. I find it too dangerous when people are assuming, this will be it. The other direction is total dissipation of connections and "everybody for themselves" becoming the norm.
If I had to make guesses I would think that places with preexistent strong social cohesion will pick the community way. Alienated societies in the west (US being the champion IMO) will probably first swing to the last man standing direction, before reaching a catarsis leading to the right path. The question is how bad will it get before this happens?
I think imagining something better is the first step in getting there. It doesn't guarantee you'll get there but if we don't try then we definitely won't. I'm not naive in thinking that things will naturally evolve to a happy outcome but we need a positive (and evolving) vision and we need to be active in at least attempting getting there.
Although I am involved in some direct peak oil awareness raising, it is the local community activities I'm involved in - not directly linked to peak oil - that I think are probably most valuable for the future.
The exception will be all those "wannabe pioneers" who live on "vast" 5-80 acres spreads, mostly non-productive. They will still pretend social live at church on sunday, but otherwise they are there because they never learned to live around others.
This mentality reflected in all class levels, whether barracks living or high class frat Animal Houses IMO.
My fiance and I are moving to the 3rd (just being planned/constructed) ecovillage in Ithaca, NY. Things will be hard for us, yes, but screwed? I wouldn't be so pessamistic. The village will have 30 homes, 36 acres of farmland, and 60 acres of open woods. The idea is that everyone living there will practice a permaculture way of life (and relating to this post, with men and women being equal). Cayuga lake, the largest of the finger lakes, lies 6 miles away, with a piping system already in place under the city. For anyone who thinks that a bunch of hippies living together is just going to be a target for roaming bands of murdering, hungry city-folk, we will have arms.
Our first defense, as should be all of our first defenses, is education! The area is very bike friendly, and full of alternative thinking (alternative to mass consumerism) people.
We will have it extremely hard, but we are working hard NOW to make sure we won't be "screwed". I would suggest everyone here do the same :)
Out of curiousity, how much money did/do you need to come up with to do this?
The street I live on now, is an almost total unknown to me. Not only is it homogenous in character of occupants, but the few young people are total unknowns as to where they live, or whether their parents would even care if I made a comment about their kids behaviour. 103 degrees keeps everyone in of course also.
Reminds me of the obsevation of Latin vs US mothers on a playground. Latins tends to keep an eye on the kids nearest them, US mothers worry exclusively about their kids, and scream across the field accordingly :-(.
You raise a good point.
When I walk the dog, I run into people. We stop. We talk. Maybe it's about something silly like the weather or doghood, but that starts a friendly relation going.
When I drive my car -aka my power tool--, we don't stop & talk. We glare, we rage, we race to see who can get to "occupy" the next piece of road length ahead of the other.
:-)
What does it say about our society when the only two people walking the street of a residential area in a medium sized city are a professional prophet of doom and a dope dealer?
Is that what it says on your business card, PPOD, ESQ.?
The last letters were one notch back.
His said ...
PPOC, ESP.
Professional Purveyor of Cornucopia
(Have Tongue, Will Travel)
I don't know what the ESP stands for.
Maybe it's a different kind of advocate.
As a computer programmer it can be a bit hard to see what I can do beyond basic personal conservation. I've got a few ideas brewing now, and hopefully the resources to pull them off, but improvements to home-working technologies are something I still need to think about.
As to the dearth of women in the PO community; I suspect you are on the right track. Seems to me that the primary industries related to PO are all dominated by males: oil/gas, economics, statistics, tangenitally computing.
The Oil Drum spends a lot of time on analysis and less time on imagining potential futures. Once you branch out into environmentalism there seem to be more women involved (eg, Megan Quinn).
I'll use this as an opportunity to provide another link to the Peak Oil article that I have referenced previously. It is a four-page PDF article, with simple graphs, that I wrote as an introduction to peak oil for insurance executives. Non-insurance people seem to find it helpful also.
Oil Shortages: The Next Katrina?
http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/getwebcachedoc?webc=TILL/USA/2006/200605/OilShortagesQ2523.pdf
I agree with you on this. Yes, the Middle Eastern countries, in general, repress women in a way Westerners can hardly comprehend. But women's rights aren't on the tip of the tongue in the US, either. (Where is that pesky Equal Rights Amendment, anyway...?) At least on human rights, the standard is clear: no organ failure, no foul.
We can generalize the case including the women's rights issue, but taking it a step further. The basic situation is clear: our oil dependency means we must do business with some pretty bad actors with hideous policies. Many of these countries have real distain for the US and the West. Instability, lack of transparency, and corruption are frequent issues. And it will only get worse.
Here's the graph.
http://thumbsnap.com/v/2b2qNJLJ.jpg
I think this interesting because when peak oil happens the US will also be experiencing a decline in market share. So I wanted to get a historical perspective on it.
Something I've been thinking about lately is investing money, and of course following the money means investing in the energy sector. But I'm also keen on "ethical investing". The oil & gas industry has had a terrible effect on US public policy and has systematically worked to stifle conservation. Regardless of the tenuousness of claiming a direct causation between oil and women's rights in Iraq's constitution, for example, no one can deny that the oil lobby has contributed to the development of the US into a state highly dependent on oppression and exploitation of people, marginalized cultures, and the ecosystem in order to feed it's voracious appetite for resouces and growth.
Some years ago I bought into the Calvert socially responsible investment fund with a small savings from my high school part time job. I didn't want to support evil companies. Calvert has a policy against owning oil & gas stocks. Now my attention has again come to investing and I'm reconsidering about how to do this ethically (or at least not unethically). The companies this "socially responsible" fund likes are the good "corporate citizens" with high-minded liberal policies and good governance. That is good. But it seems many of said companies (such as Target, American Express, Microsoft etc) are just the goodie-goodies who can wash their hands of the dirty work but are nonetheless dependent on the broader gloves-off paradigm of American capitalist growth that they operate in. By focusing on enlightened management, then, isn't it just distracting from a broad view of the overall trajectory of late capitalism?
So I'm reconsidering, thinking that now in moving forward, all of the right-minded policy we could come up with will not stop oil & gas from being extracted and profits being made. Why not get a piece of that action? (chauvenistic sexual pun intended)
In this blog, people talk of investing for profits in oil & gas, and there are a good number of industry insiders who traffic here. And we also entertain discussions on feminism, conservation and environmentalism.
So, I want to pose this: how do you 'guys' see it? How can we have our cake and eat it too? Do you insiders feel ethical remorse for working for an industry that has so much blood on its lobbyists' hands? Are there great churnings of dissent and unrest among the engineers and investors within the fossil industries who want to bargain with the natives, stop gas flaring in Nigeria, and leak the proceedings of Cheney's round-table?
Where is the line between amoral realism and immoral complicity? The Ms. article could be a little off the mark (I haven't read it in full yet), but I think this is the question it begs.
Incidentally, I notice that BP is part of the FTSE4good "ethical" indices.
I'm not one to call a company or an industy Evil per se, but there are clearly ethical questions involved in this. That is, if you see the continued use of Fossil Fuels either as Dangerous Pollutants, contributors to Climate Change, or complicit in costly and deadly Political Relationships, then your choice to focus your investing in a direction that doesn't endorse them is clearly an ethical one.
It stands to reason, however, that even if we were to start a tremendous push to sidestep into clean energy sources, it would of course require the use of FF to get there. Is that UNethical? In fact, that in itself is 'Investing' that fuel for the ethical purpose of getting past it, and is likely the only means we have to do so. What energy we have left in oil, should be getting used to establish its successor, to whatever degree that will be possible.
Sinergy?
"How Green is BP"
http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/BP-How-Green8dec02.htm
"BP goes Green" July 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/849475.stm
BP has unveiled a new "green" brand image, in an attempt to win over environmentally aware consumers.
The new green, white and yellow logo replaces the BP shield and is designed to show the company's commitment to the environment and solar power.
The company is to revert to its old name of BP, following two years as BP Amoco and adopt a new slogan " Beyond Petroleum".
BP goes greener
The new logo is part of a rebranding exercise - which includes offering internet access at petrol stations - which the company hopes will boost profits.
I guess the logical connection is that oil & gas companies are evil.
My immediate question is whether you have eliminated the "evil" products of the evil companies. Have you stopped using fossil fuels for: transportation; heating and cooling; cooking; plastics and the thousands of other products that use fossil fuels? If not, how do you reconcile your decision to use fossil fuels with your belief that the oil & gas companies are evil?
For what it's worth, I am a petroleum geologist and Tuesday night I vigorously debated Peak Oil on a program to be televised on PBS. The two chief anti-Peak Oil critics were an ExxonMobil representative and Michael Lynch.
The primary problem I foresee with the oil industry cornucopian argument is that when the promised oil doesn't show up, American consumers are going to (reasonably) conclude that someone is holding oil off the market. I suspect that politicians will attempt to punish the oil companies. Prior to this debate, I made this argument to the ExxonMobil guys, apparently without much success.
And of course we know ExxonMobil isn't the only guilty party. Most all big oil companies have terribly sorry legacies with respect to human rights, indigenous rights, the environment, honest government, transparency, and encouraging prudent policy. It would be one thing if these companies simply did their work to support civilization's needs, and then did all they could to respect the environment in countries with no standards, refused to bribe public officials, bargained in good faith with local communities, invested as much as they could in renewables, embraced the Kyoto protocol and on and on. But they don't. When it comes to "corporate citizenship", they're downright rat bastards who only care about maximizing profits (one argument for nationalization).
So that's what prompts my question, and what the Ms. article gets at. Where is the line between amoral realism (supplying civiliaztion with it's fix) and immoral complicity? I'm not claiming I can answer it for myself yet.
Three points: (1) the majority of world oil reserves have been nationalized; (2) I suspect that all of the sins that you attribute to the privately held companies are, by and large, more prevalent within the national oil companies and (3) I have yet to see a national oil company that is not interested in maximizing profits.
FYI--at the current rate of world consumption of energy from nuclear + fossil fuel sources, the world consumes the energy equivalent of all of ExxonMobil's proven oil and gas reserves in less than four months.
IMO we need to kill consumption before consumption kills us, and I am advocating that we fund Social Security and Medicate with a tax on energy consumption, offset by eliminating the highly regressie Payroll Tax.
I think remorse is too strong a word. I don't agree with everything we do. On the other hand, if we didn't do what we are doing billions of people might die. So, I see us as providing an incredibly valuable service, but one which has some steep costs associated with it.
We are thoroughly hated by many people, but that just comes with the territory. I try to explain to the public why their gas prices are going up. It is important that people understand these issues; else they sit around and wait for government to reign in the oil companies to get their gas prices back down.
In my job, I work to promote awareness of alternatives, sustainability, and conservation. In order for an oil company to embrace my position, we will have to change. I have even spoken personally with my CEO about the need to explore alternatives due to the inevitability of Peak Oil. My intent is to consistently nudge is in the "right" direction every chance I get.
Cheers,
RR
She also recommends Coming Clean from the economic tapeworm that currently has a hold over us.
so maybe oil and gas is more ethical than you think.
Point is the term "ethical" is a code word for "tribal norms." It is entirely subjective. If you were really concerned about "ethics" you'd get off your coal powered computer which is contributing to global warming and all the disasters we see around us.
I think when you or anybody says "ethical investing" you REALLY mean "investments that are within the general norms of liberal-progressive tribe."
so maybe oil and gas is more ethical than you think.
Huh?
ethical?
The more we are the more it is "ethical"?
Siding with George Bush?
My reaction when I read this was, "meanwhile this punk ass drives a car and enjoys the fruits of petroluem culture like cheap internet access."
Dude, clean up your own behavior before you start asking others about having blood on their hands for providing you with the lifestyle YOU live.
We were exploring "Atlas Shrugged" on the other thread, and when I read Bicycle's posts, I was reminded of Hank Rearden and his brother. Rearden's brother harshly criticized Rearden for being an "evil industrialist," while living off Rearden.
IMO, the "Evil" Energy Atlas holding the world on his shoulders can't do it much longer. Two excerpts from "Atlas Shrugged."
"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders--what would you tell him to do?"
"Winter had come early, in the last days of November. People said it was the hardest winter on record and that no one could be blamed for the unusual severity of the snowstorms. They did not care to remember that there had been a time when snowstorms did not sweep, unresisted, down unlighted roads and upon the roofs of unheated houses, did not stop the movement of trains, did not leave a wake of corpses counted in the hundreds."
I have been a daily visitor since the end of 2004. I have never posted here before but since the female perspective was specifically requested ;)...
It seems to me that our government cares about human rights abuses only when there is some political leverage to be gained. In a case where our government would put at risk our access to oil, it's laughable to think that they might actually act in a moral manner.
The dearth of women contributors is really to me a more interesting topic.
I first heard about peak oil from a co-worker in November 2004. I was bemoaning the election and he said, "you think that's bad, go Google peak oil." I read Matt Savinar's site and was terrified. I showed it to my husband really kind of expecting him to tell me something like "yeah that's true but everything will be okay for the following 25 reasons..." Instead he just said, "hmmmm, that's very disturbing." From my laid back husband, that's a panic attack. My husband and I both enjoy this site and have really learned a lot browsing here for the last 19 months. I thank the many posters who keep us informed. I especially appreciate the plateau graphs for the EIA and IEA reports of the productions numbers-- The pictures are very telling-- but slogging thru the math is just not my cup of tea. I'm the choir. I'm convinced.
I won't presume to speak for 'women' as group, but I can tell you why I don't post much even though I believe that peak oil is an imminent threat to my family:
I don't post much because I don't have any special technical expertise in oil, geology, statistics, or economics and while I hope to be able to start making serious preparations for reducing our energy consumption soon, our family is just getting started. We decided that preparing our house for sale, and paying down debt are our top preparation priorities-- and that takes sooo much time. Once we get moved, I will post on our personal preparations and experiences as we reduce our energy consumption.
Topics like how much oil is left, when production will peak, new technology for extracting or possibly replacing oil are all interesting but not immediately actionable. Once I was convinced that oil is peaking and that supplies will be declining, the societal and personal implications of the declining supplies are what I worry about. I think the first effects of declining oil supplies will be economic. Will we see hyper-inflation like Argentina 2000 or Russia in the 80's or will the impact be more deflationary like the great depression in the 1930s US? Will it be better to live in a walkable small town or small city or will it be better to be remote and as self sustaining as possible? what will the political implications be in the US and elsewhere? Will we be able to maintain a democratic republic in the US? Will there be world war? Will they try to draft my kid (do I need to prepare to flee the country)? Which preparations should I make first (after I figure out where to live)--putting in a cistern or of solar power for refrigeration?
I would probably be more inclined to jump in on these types of topics-- even if just to ask questions.
Don't get me wrong, even though I don't post on the internet often, I do talk about peak oil. I talk to my family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances on an individual basis (some of them already wish I would talk about something else). I am doing my best to prepare for my family and I wouldn't want bad karma for not warning other people. ;)
I think you're right in that TOD could use a few more articles on preparation; but the difficulty is nobody really has any clue what will happen.
It's common for people to assume there will be some economic disaster and there might well be .... but also there might not. So answering questions like "city or hills" is really hard and gets into the real of pure speculation quickly.
For instance, if you like gardening you will have more fun out of a garden then a small warehouse full of spam cans, toilet paper and copper tubing if PO turns out to be a mild event where you live.
There is a classic funny story about the drunk who looked for his lost keys under the streelight since he anyway could not see anything where it were dark.
Its likely that few of us know the correct place for the PO "key". If I myself had perfect understanding of what will happen I would still doubt it, only hindsight is fairly certain and then can your memory play tricks on you.
We have different ammounts of physical resorces, different skills, different networks of friends. Different reasonable PO scenarios fit our respective abilities to handle them.
The obvious logical thing to do is to figure out what will happen and then adapt to that. But since we dont know for certain what that would be I think it could be a good strategy to follow your own streetlight.
Become better on what you already can, build on the resources you already have, enlarge the networks of friends you already have and aim to do that in a direction that can help you in some of the PO scenarios. And be realy smart and make investments that are usefull and enjoyable if that scenario do not happen. Dont buy a small farm out in the most rural area you can find if it isent a dream for your retirement, dont buy a perfectly located shop for intermodal travellers in a big city if you dont enjoy having a lot of people around you, and so on.
If you succeed in this and you in a few years notice that you have to change direction it is not all lost time since you have practiced at managing your life to reach a goal and you probably have a larger set of mental tools for the new problem. This is one main reason to not immediately commit all of your monetary/physical resources to one single solution.
Preparation for peak oil is simple.
Use as little fossil energy as possible and arrange yor life for low fossil energy need for work, transport, living, food etc.
What you don't use cant hurt your economy or your life.
And if possible, be plugged into a lasting electricity grid like hydropower.
Maybe we should start mentioning Conservation again?
For example the EU comission has found that conservation of energy is cheaper than new power.
See middle of page 1: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/demand/legislation/doc/2003_12_10_memo_energy_services_en.pdf
**The average cost of saving a unit of
electricity in the domestic sector is
around. 2.6 € cents. The average off
peak price for delivered electricity is
around 3.9 € cent/kWh**
Debts, assets, children, elderly family members, jobs are all things that require time and money to re-arrange.
Now, with two kids are in college, we would love to downsize to a smaller home. However, in our case, our home is in an area that has been experiencing many lay-offs and things aren't selling well. We think we can increase our odds of selling by doing some work to get our house in tip-top shape-- but that takes time and money. Spending money to get a house ready to sell reduces money available for things that would help reduce our energy consumption right now-- but in the long run we'll be able to save more in a smaller place. We don't have unlimited resources. We owe on a mortgage. We have tuition commitments for our children. We have a car payments.
Among people my age caring for elderly parents is becoming more and more of a concern-- a situation that an imminent oil crisis is unlikely to make easier.
Re-arranging one's life is NOT a simple thing to do and yet that is what will be required for most of us in a declining energy environment.
I'm hoping and praying for a long slow descent rather than a overnight kind of a crisis.
--driving down that same road (elderely sick parents, kids in college, mortgage, etc.)
Those who lack expertise should definitely be posting and asking questions, IMO. It is my sincere hope that lack of expertise is not keeping large numbers of people from posting. I see this site as having primarily an educational function. I work in the oil industry, and I still learn quite a bit from this site.
Cheers,
RR
Thanks for checking in on this today..
It's funny how I read something differently when I know it's written by a woman than a man. Some of it is probably sexism, but not all. I just know that there are some different energies and priorities behind the thinking, and so in this largely male site, I take particular note.
My wife and I just sat down with a financial planner so we could 'think out loud' a little about our plans. We have thought about getting another income property (we live in and rent our primary), but of course the market might hang us out to dry. He (the planner) was of the mind that so much of it hangs on the Rental Market, that this is where you will see the problems growing out of.. so we're holding out on the Real Estate option. I asked him about the economics of putting an investment onto the roof, in the form of Solar Hot Water, which should pay for itself in 10 years, so the common lore gives it, and then the system is generally rated for 20 or more, before the first major components might need replacing (Tank mainly). He was cool on the idea, thinking that this is a long time for that capital to be working, just to reach zero again. I don't think I agree, but my wife will want to know that the plan is monetarily sound before she'll jump in.
The main disconnect is that I see fuel prices escalating if anything, and then the payback (or Butt-saving, if this winter is a cold one) will accelerate, while the failure to do this will be worse. His view was that we will likely be heading into a recession, at which point, buy the system then at a lower cost, having held safely onto the cash in the meantime. Tough call for me here. It's crystal ball work, convincing anyone that I can't see either Heating oil or Copper to do much crashing in the next 18mos... especially since I'm no expert in economics or Oil/Metals futures..
Until this gets resolved, my intermediate activities have been to buy what few Solar Panels I can (about 200watts now), to handle at least a few essential loads in the house, minus refrigeration. At least I could build Solar Hot Water and Air Heating with materials from the Hardware store or the dump, but I'm trying to get a bit of the material that I have little or no way of producing myself, such as Solar Electric. If we start seeing an economic and energy landslide together, the supply and demand curve will quickly make PV skyrocket, I have to believe.. so I want to have gotten a start there, just enough to charge some lights, phones, radios, run a laptop. Things you can't practically do without electricity (Yes, we have candles, as well). Even refrigeration can be done from direct solar, using Ammonia in one approach..
Good luck on your preparations. Don't wait. Do a little bit today.. backup cooking arrangements/fuel is a good thing to have in place. (Coleman Stove or Woodpile)
Bob Fiske
My wife and I have never had much excess money since I left the chemical industry years and years ago. However, we have always taken the position that it is better to have something than nothing.
Assuming you are handy and you won't get into trouble with TPTB for not going "code", it is really easy to install a simple solar water system using coils of NSF poly pipe laid on the roof. I also designed and built simple, low cost low profile, concentrating collectors for our current system (and my new design, although untested, is even better and easier to build).
I'd be glad to send you pictures and consturction details. If so, email me at detzel@mcn.org with a mailing address and I'll get something off for you.
Todd
I'd love to see what you've built.
I have assembled a collection of Double-glazed Patio Door Glass, and I've built the first of a series of Hot Air Heaters, which have very simple control circuitry and electrics, but I do intend to make some water heating as well.
I'll toss you an email when I get a second..
Bob Fiske
While it's good to keep this site relatively technical, as I believe that was/is much the intent here, I do think it's valuable for someone who's not...science-geeky, to be there to ::cough cough:: "Ummm, that's not gonna work." and recount personal experiences because those can be most valuable.
Things that work beautifully on paper often have difficulty in implementation. People don't read the directions, machines get dirty, worn, il-maintained...blamo, failure. You might have experience in something which can give other's insight. (For example: if you have a Honda...you'd better follow the specified intervals for changing the timing belt AND water pump, or you'll have a destroyed engine. Most broken timing belts are caused by water pump seizures.) I'm not sure if you've seen the commercial where the guy jumps off the bridge with a pair of stick and fabric wings and everyone's like "He can fly! He can fly!" and the older gent on the bike is like "Yeah, but he can't swim" as he splashes into the water. You may be the one to not be caught up in the techo-wizzardry to be able to calmly interject: Yes, but he can't swim.
I wrote an article about this EXACT topic a while back. Just substitute the word "authors" with "posters" and the point is the same.
Your post completely dovetails with the points/conclusions I make in the article, particularly the ones accompanied by pictures of livestock near the bottom
[http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/OriginalArticles/whymen.html]
Yankee,
I can't beleive it.
You were right on top of it but just missing the bullseye.
Yes the "electric breastpump" will catch Sailotman's roving eyes. But think more mundane:
- washing machines and dryers
- dishwashers
- garbage compactors
- refrigerator
- self-cleaning electric oven
- vacuum cleaners
- keep going around the modern kitchen --can opener, electric turkey carving knife, blender, ... what else?
If these artifices of cheap energy disappear, who is going to do the cooking, cleaning and canning for us men?Not us men.
We are going to be to busy studying the Koran and going out to kill some unbelievers for breakfast.
Women will have to be resubjegated as beasts of burden to take care of all the "mundane" aspects of life. (Yes, and of course, bearing children, raising them until old enough to be warriors or harem playmates)
Hi Matt!
The nostalgia for a past that never was has hidden these hard realities of life without fossil fuels for all but the aristocrats and slave owners.
Women had it much better in hunting and gathering societies than they did in horticultural or agricultural societies; there are huge masses of research on this issue.
Todd
PS - of course, the cookstove beat the open fire and the spit.
More likely we'll be studying our Bibles (mostly the Old Testament with all that good punishment stuff), attending gigantic fundamentalist churches, and looking for signs of the End of Times. Our sons will be marching off to kill Muslims in the endless crusades (only in places where there is oil, of course), and our daughters will be barefoot and pregnant, as working will not be allowed for them and birth control will be illegal.
Same difference.
I agree.
If you are of the Muslim faith and I have offended you, I apologize. I tend to criticize all religions including the one I was raised under (programmed under). Within each religion there are many factions or splinter groups. Not all the same. Jesus after all, was just another splinter group off the Jewish religion. Islam is another offshoot of the monotheistic Judeo-Christian-Islamic evolutionary pathway.
The way we are programmed as we grow up greatly affects our outlook on life (our internal models).
It is fairly easy to program both men & women into believing that females are an inferior species --to be used as slaves or biological factories.
You may want to note that simply because you recognize these trends does not mean you are happy about them.
Otherwise it's just a matter of time before somebody says, "oh so you're not for women having rights are you!!?"
http://www.energybulletin.net/16671.html
http://www.energybulletin.net/16825.html
http://www.energybulletin.net/17171.html
For what it's worth I am an avid follower of TOD. I will happily post if I think I can add value and no one else seems to be picking up the ball, but there is so much intellectual talent here this is rarely required.
As for this particular post, it seems to be implying that feminists should be grateful for our hydrocarbon-based lifestyle as women's rights would somehow be lessened without it. In my experience it's not oil that grants or takes away women's rights, but men. Birth control and daycare do not deliver female liberation; men's attitudes do.
Exactly.
And what attitudes do you think will be chosen by the lizard brains (of us "men") once the cost of energy goes up for washing clothing, washing dishes, canning and preserving food stuff, sewing and repairing clothing?
Yup.
It will be time for a return to traditional values.
This why the demise of cheap energy should be a big big deal for femminists.
Some people are under the delusion that this is "the 21st Century" and humanity will never go back to primitive ways. Take a look at your hands. Still 5 fingers on each, just the way it was thousands of years back. Nothing has changed.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with this. Even though we wash far more clothes than our ancestors did, it still takes a fraction of the time and effort that hand washing consumed.
Another good machine is http://www.electrolux.se/node35.asp?ProdID=26149 its been in production for about 50 years and still has the same kind of motor etc and you can use it daily for decades to make heavy doughs, minced meat, saussages and so on.
I can't help but agree that a return to 'traditional values' (ie patriarchy) is probably on the cards once the 'energy slaves' of industrial civilization are no longer available, although I very much hope the future will prove me wrong. I wouldn't expect the transition to happen immediately though, as much of today's generation of young men has been raised in a relatively egalitarian milieu compared to their own ancestors and those attitudes are unlikely to change overnight. I'm more concerned for subsequent generations which may absorb a different set of prevailing attitudes from their society.
I too am a parent of daughters, post-pubescent ones.
If yours are of teenager or above years, I suggest you get into their heads and find out how they view the whole dating thing and opposite sex. What music do they listen to? (Promiscuous Girl?) You may be surprised. They don't play by the same "rules" that the Boomer generation grew up with.
The flip from an enlightened society to a highly repressive one can happen over night. Don't be so cocky as to assume the "transition" cannot happen immediately. Yes it can. Faster than you might believe.
The little TV they watch is typically MASH, The Waltons, Monty Python or BBC World News. They watch no contemporary network programming (other than the news) at all. They also watch quality films on DVD - films which would make them think (eg Rabbit-Proof Fence). We also watch TV and films as a family.
As for dating, I'm pleased to say that my eldest has high standards and has yet to find anyone to meet them. Neither of my other children is interested in dating yet.
I take the task of shaping their attitudes through what they are exposed to extremely seriously. The final phase of a long-term bull market seems to be reflected in a preponderance of post-modern irony. Most young children can only take this at face value, in which case the message is terrible. I would only introduce older children to this medium, as they become capable of truly understanding it. Bear market popular culture is far worse - pessimistic and destructive with a fascination for the dark side of everything.
IMO it is important to prevent children from absorbing these attitudes from popular culture while they are too young to see them for what they are. Once children have internalized a set of values, they become better able to resist external influences of the path-of-least-resistance kind which would undermine those values. Living out in the country where there are no practical alternatives to the family life we live is definitely beneficial.
I am aware that attitudes can change, but formative values do continue to wield an influence - for good or ill - if they are well established. Hence I remain more concerned about my prospective grandchildren's generation than my children's, relatively speaking. This is not to say that I have no concerns about my children's generation - far from it. The expectations most of them have are sky high and will be dashed, which will be an uncomfortable process. Living on a farm is a good way to instill realistic expectations in my experience.
Here is a free HS curriculum including online books, all-be-it Christian oriented:
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/index.htm
Click the link at the top of the page.
Todd
"The Grapes of Wrath"
"Paper Moon"
and especially the original "Lassie" movie with Elizabeth Taylor.
Then, after the movies we talk about such things as: Why did Lassie have to be sold? Could it happen that someday we would not have enough to eat and have to sell the dog? Do you think the boy was right to get so angry at his parents when the father sold Lassie? How much do you think five guineas is in today's money? How hungry would you have to get before you would sell [here I enter the name of the relevant dog] for that amount of money?
Of course one has to tread very very very softly here, but I've found that younger children can be much more realistic than teenagers.
After World War II when things fell apart in Italy, it was found that bands of small children often survived fairly well, stealing from corpses, eating from garbage cans, begging, eating putrid food, etc. Older children, from about 12 on up were much less likely to survive, because they had learned that all these things were strictly taboo, and that to steal or to beg was a fate worse than death.
If one can mentally prepare for a rerun of the Great Depression, then we are at least part of the way to thinking seriously of some of the things we will be forced to give up in the not too distant future. By the way, all my children and grandchildren are cheerful, confident and quite mentally healthy. Were it a question of dealing with an emotionally vulnerable child, or one with severe health problems, then I do not have any suggestions.
I fully believe in equality between men and women and I am honestly not anti-feminist or anything but I can't help but think that all those negative things came as a result of equality between men and women. So I can't help but question if we are truly better off. Does anybody else have any views on it?
Where would Amelia Earhart have been without fossil fuels?
Having read two biographies of the woman, I can tell you I'm pretty sure she would have been stuck on her family's farms dealing with her alcoholic father.
Where would MLK have been had the hydrocarbon fueled industrial revolution not replaced muscle power with machine power? Do we really think slavery would have been abolished had there not been a superior energy source coming on line at the time? is it any coincidence that the abolition of slavery tended to happen after hydrocarbon fueld industrialization got under way in earnest?
Where would I, a white male in American, be had it not been for fossil fuels? Well, on my dad's side my family were basically serfs in czarist russia. On my mom's side they escaped the potato famine in Ireland. So I guess the answer is either "suffering in serfdom" or "dead."
Point is the role of the 150 year energy surplus we've enjoyed cannot be underestimated when examining social issues like women's rights, civil rights, and economic justice.
Do you really think men's fundamental attitudes would have shifted had we never discovered how to tap hydrocarbons as energy sources?
If you say "yes", I would like some evidence/links that the male brain is signifcantly genetically different today than it was 150 years ago.
Some of these are clearly no-brainers - like banning domestic violence - but others are also totally insane.
Creating a "womens ministry"? Do we actually have such a thing in Western nations? What would such a ministry do?
Requiring women to be involved "at all levels" of decision making? What does that even mean? That every decision must be taken by a committee of at least two, whoever would have normally been in charge + a token woman? How can you possibly mandate that a certain section of society - any section! - be involved with every single decision made and not have total deadlock or chaos?
Maybe some of these womens rights (I use the term loosely) haven't been implemented because they're impractical?
The last thing Iraq needs right now is doubt about the credibility of its leadership ... and that is exactly what legally mandated discrimination gives you.
Now in Iraq that would be a different case. But Iraq is still an educated society and was very modern untill the US f***ed it up. There, it would amount to "positive discrimination", for better or for worse. But I'm not interested in a debate about the merits of that; not here.
Jefferson allegedly modeled some of our own democratic institutions on the 'First Nations', but this one didn't get in..
Ardoch Algonquin First Nation
http://www.aafna.ca/newsletters.html
AAFNA Women's Council
During the AAFNA Potluck/Social held on November 30, 2003, some women in attendance asked about the possibility of forming a women's group or council that would meet regularly to discuss important issues affecting women and children in the community.
Women's council are not a new concept, but one that dates back in Algonquin communities to before the arrival of Europeans. Men and women's councils served important functions in Algonquin communities.
If you are interested in being a part of such a council, please respond by e-mail to aafna_newsletter@sympatico.ca with the subject heading Women's Council. An initial meeting will then be scheduled and everyone notified .
Speaking on the 'Long House' or 'Five Nations' (Later Six) of the Iroqois people in the Eastern US..
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08168b.htm
(From Parag. 4)
"Each tribe had its women's council, chosen from the mothers of the tribe, and taking the initiative in all matters of public importance, including the nomination of members of the chief's council, made up in each tribe, of a certain number of hereditary chiefs (i.e. hereditary to the clan), the same number of alternates, and an additional number chosen for special fitness but without heredity in office. The hereditary chiefs of the first class, fifty in all for the five tribes, acting together, constituted the league council."
Bob Fiske
41, Filmmaker
I learned sixty years ago from my father always to get people from despised groups to do work for you, because typically they work harder and better. In the forties he hired disabled vets to work as elevator operators; he sometimes hired the only black contractor in the whole county and got superb work at bargain rates.
Currently:
- My doctor is a woman
- My lawyer is a woman
- I used to have a woman mechanic, but she moved away.
- My insurance guy is Black
- The service guy at my Audi place is Black
Well, you get the picture. BTW, I get better service from people I deal with than anybody I know.--Smart as hell. Well, actually, even smarter than the occupiers of that place.
I wonder what the age demographics of the PO community are? Are people mostly older, younger or middle aged? What jobs do we do?
I know this is lame, cheesy, etc but could people post their age, job and whereabouts they're from? I just think it'd be really interesting. I'll start.
22, England, computer programmer
Was told about PO from another 22 year old, who is looking at joining the software world as well.
You?
I would say mostly two types:
I call for a survey (or set of surveys) to find out:
Age, Gender, Income, and 4 letter Jungian type of TOD registered users.
44, female, ohio usa.
And since the original topic of this thread was peak oil/women's rights/the dearth of female posters at TOD, I'll add that I think it is interesting that men seem to, much more than women, define themselves by what they do for a living.
so I'll also add that I am:
http://www.theoildrum.com/special/autoformat_syntax
Just do an asterick and a space.
I ran across the issue while procrastinating on the net from writing my dissertation.
(1) Uphold that part of "diversity" which is the "right" of "other" cultures and religions to do as they damned well please to their people, on the theory, perhaps, that any "norm" is merely an arrogant imposition of the congenitally wicked West.
(2) Uphold human rights, including women's rights, as a global undertaking.
One can't have this both ways, at least not for very long. So, everyone, take your pick. Picking (2) will have become more difficult in a context of peaking oil flows, but the cultural and religious practices one ratifies and sanctifies by picking (1) were invented millennia before anyone really even understood oil.
Oil, obviously, is critical, to the so called American way of life. All the more reason, why we need to wean ourselves off of it to the greatest extent possible.
I worked at a couple non-profits while in college and law school. I noticed that most of the full time employees were women who had husbands making lots of money. A coincidence? I think not.
If someone says "hydrogen is great," is it? Is it so great that it should take not just my tax dollars, but the limited mindshare of my legislators?
Maybe it would be nice if they just knew, and we could shut up about it.