Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama's grade on energy policy: F minus minus
More background reading on the push to take wells deeper into the seas and at the same time deeper into the earth--with profitability assured by US government subsidy and 'sequestration' of much cheaper oil in Iraq (if Iraq produced on the level of Saudi Arabia and Russia, and most think its fields could exceed this, there would be a glut of oil on the market). http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/7488119241/articles/offshore/drilling-completion/us-gulf-of-mexico/2009/08/bp-drills__giant_.html BP drills oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico Published: Sep 2, 2009 Offshore staff HOUSTON -- BP says it has drilled a “giant” oil discovery on the Tiber prospect in Keathley Canyon block 102 in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico Transocean’s using semisub Deepwater Horizon. The well, in 4,132 ft (1,259 m) of water, struck oil in multiple lower tertiary reservoirs, BP reports. It was drilled to a total depth of approximately 35,055 ft (10,685 m), making it the deepest well ever drilled by the oil and gas industry, the company says. BP says it is too early to estimate the discovery’s resource potential, but the company believes it is in the same class as its other major discoveries in the GoM, including Kaskida, which is estimated to have 3 Bboe in place. “Tiber represents BP's second material discovery in the emerging Lower Tertiary play in the Gulf of Mexico, following our earlier Kaskida discovery in Keathley Canyon block 102,” says Andy Inglis, BP’s chief executive of exploration and production. “These material discoveries together with our industry leading acreage position support the continuing growth of our deepwater Gulf of Mexico business into the second half of the next decade.” BP plans drill an appraisal well on Tiber to determine the size and commerciality of the discovery. BP operates Tiber with a 62% working interest. Co-owners are Petrobras (20%) and ConocoPhillips (18%). 09/02/2009 http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/4721530076/articles/offshore/vessels/us-gulf-of-mexico/2009/09/bp-extends_semisub.html BP extends semisub Deepwater Horizon contract Published: Sep 29, 2009 Offshore staff ZUG, Switzerland -- A subsidiary of BP has awarded Transocean a three-year contract extension for the semisubmersible Deepwater Horizon. The extension, which covers operations in the Gulf of Mexico, begins in September 2010. Capable of operating in water depths up to 10,000 ft (3,048 m), the Deepwater Horizon entered service in 2001 and recently set the world record for the deepest oil and gas well at 35,050 ft (10,683 m) total vertical depth, drilled for BP. 09/29/2009 http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/9853137298/articles/offshore/volume-69/issue-10/departments/gulf-of_mexico/gulf-of_mexico.html BP makes ‘giant’ oil discovery BPrsquo;s Tiber is its second discovery in the Lower Tertiary. Its first, Kaskida on Keathley Canyon block 292, is approximately 50 mi (80 km) east-southeast of Tiber. BP says it has drilled a “giant” oil discovery on the Tiber prospect in Keathley Canyon block 102 in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The well, in 4,132 ft (1,259 m) of water, struck oil in multiple lower tertiary reservoirs. It was drilled to 35,055 ft (10,685 m) TMD, making it the deepest well drilled ever by the oil and gas industry, according to BP. Transocean’s semisubmersible Deepwater Horizon drilled the well. BP says it is too early to estimate the discovery’s ultimate resource potential, but the company believes it is in the same class as its other major discoveries in the GoM, including Kaskida, which is estimated to hold 3 Bboe in place, with a projected recovery factor of 10% to 20%. Kaskida, discovered in 2006, was BP’s first major discovery in the Lower Tertiary. The field is currently under appraisal, with first production expected in 2014 at the earliest. BP plans drill an appraisal well on Tiber to determine the size and commerciality of the field. BP operates Tiber with a 62% working interest. Co-owners are Petrobras (20%) and ConocoPhillips (18%). ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Former Argentine president says Bush told him ‘the best way to revitalize the economy is war.’
I saw this on Marxmai list, but I'm going to go in a different direction with it. If this is true, we see Kirchner believes more of what typical ruling class believes, hence wars are just an undesirable but often unavoidable part of the mix of governments, international agencies and capitalism. On the other hand, we see that the Bushwa actually expresses the same thing that much of the American working class believes. The thinking goes something like this: the US had an economy and political system that rewarded the American working class (white working class) for winning WW II, and WW II, more importantly, is the only thing that brought the great depression to an end. In the 1970s, as 'one-factory' towns collapsed all over the NE and ME (and parts of the South too!), you could hear the same working class refrain: we need a good war to bring back good times. It's also important to remember that the working class/lower class is the vast majority of even the most 'egalitarian' or 'redistributive' of capitalist economies, and that the US is about as regressive, in such terms, as it gets. Yes, America post 9-11, happy days are here again! CJ Former Argentine president says Bush told him ‘the best way to revitalize the economy is war.’ http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/28/argentine-prime-bush-war/ Former Argentine president says Bush told him ‘the best way to revitalize the economy is war.’ Oliver Stone’s new documentary South of the Border, which interviews several left-wing leaders of Latin American countries, has unearthed a startling new allegation from Argentina’s former president Néstor Kirchner. During his interview with Stone, Kirchner said he once discussed global economic problems with former President George W. Bush. The former Argentine president says that when he suggested a new Marshall Plan, referring to the WW II-era European reconstruction plan, Bush “got angry” and suggested that “the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats.” Instead, Kirchner says, Bush suggested that “the best way to revitalize the economy is war”: KIRCHNER: I said that a solution for the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan. And he got angry. He said the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats. He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war. And that the United States has grown stronger with war. STONE: War, he said that? KIRCHNER: He said that. Those were his exact words. STONE: Is he suggesting that South America go to war? KIRCHNER: Well, he was talking about the United States: ‘The Democrats had been wrong. All of the economic growth of the United States has been encouraged by wars.’ He said it very clearly. Watch it: It is worth noting that despite the prosecution of two major wars, there was very minimal net job growth during Bush’s tenure as president. And of course, he bequeathed an economy that suffered massive job losses in his wake. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Chris Hedges: the USA needs a few good communists
Chris Hedges spent too much time at the Harvard Divinity School. And I don't care for his characterization of Marx. On 05/31/2010 09:47 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote: This Country Needs a Few Good Communists http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_country_needs_a_few_good_communi sts_20100531/ Posted on May 31, 2010 By Chris Hedges The witch hunts against communists in the United States were used to silence socialists, anarchists, pacifists and all those who defied the abuses of capitalism. Those “anti-Red” actions were devastating blows to the political health of the country. The communists spoke the language of class war. They understood that Wall Street, along with corporations such as British Petroleum, is the enemy. They offered a broad social vision which allowed even the non-communist left to employ a vocabulary that made sense of the destructive impulses of capitalism. But once the Communist Party, along with other radical movements, was eradicated as a social and political force, once the liberal class took government-imposed loyalty oaths and collaborated in the witch hunts for phantom communist agents, we were robbed of the ability to make sense of our struggle. We became fearful, timid and ineffectual. We lost our voice and became part of the corporate structure we should have been dismantling. Hope in this age of bankrupt capitalism will come with the return of the language of class conflict. It does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of enslavement of the working class, but we have to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed. We have to grasp, as Marx did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor families out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars to make profits, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, loot the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship only money and power. And, as Marx knew, unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself. The nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico is the perfect metaphor for the corporate state. It is the same nightmare seen in postindustrial pockets from the old mill towns in New England to the abandoned steel mills in Ohio. It is a nightmare that Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghans, mourning their dead, live each day. Capitalism was once viewed in America as a system that had to be fought. But capitalism is no longer challenged. And so, even as Wall Street steals billions of taxpayer dollars and the Gulf of Mexico is turned into a toxic swamp, we do not know what to do or say. We decry the excesses of capitalism without demanding a dismantling of the corporate state. The liberal class has a misguided loyalty, illustrated by environmental groups that have refused to excoriate the Obama White House over the ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Liberals bow before a Democratic Party that ignores them and does the bidding of corporations. The reflexive deference to the Democrats by the liberal class is the result of cowardice and fear. It is also the result of an infantile understanding of the mechanisms of power. The divide is not between Republican and Democrat. It is a divide between the corporate state and the citizen. It is a divide between capitalists and workers. And, for all the failings of the communists, they got it. Unions, organizations formerly steeped in the doctrine of class warfare and filled with those who sought broad social and political rights for the working class, have been transformed into domesticated partners of the capitalist class. They have been reduced to simple bartering tools. The social demands of unions early in the 20th century that gave the working class weekends off, the right to strike, the eight-hour day and Social Security have been abandoned. Universities, especially in political science and economics departments, parrot the discredited ideology of unregulated capitalism and have no new ideas. Artistic expression, along with most religious worship, is largely self-absorbed narcissism. The Democratic Party and the press have become corporate servants. The loss of radicals within the labor movement, the Democratic Party, the arts, the church and the universities has obliterated one of the most important counterweights to the corporate state. And the purging of those radicals has left us unable to make sense of what is happening to us. The fear of communism, like the fear of Islamic terrorism, has resulted in the steady suspension of civil liberties, including freedom of speech, habeas corpus and the right to
