If It's The Crude, What Do We Do, Dude?

McQuaig, rightly so, makes the connection between the ravenous and insatiable hunger for oil in most 1st world nations and the hard fact of global warming. The world we live in, for the most part, runs and is well lubricated on oil. We are, though, facing the reality of this one dimensional approach to energy. It is impossible to ignore the fact that the planet is warming up, and this is and will have dire consequences for one and all. McQuaig makes sure in, It's The Crude, Dude, we make such a necessary and needful connection.

The fact that we are facing dire environmental issues should raise some concerns, but, as McQuaig makes clear, most of the powerful nations continue to indulge their rather dated energy interests and refuse to sign the Kyoto document on the environment.

The bulk of It?s The Crude, Dude deals with the history and politics of black gold and the actors in the drama. McQuaig sees this as the real issue that one and all should and must see. There is, though, something McQuaig might have noted. There might be more reasons for the USA and England being in the Middle East than merely the crude. Some of the leading Neo-liberals in the USA published a document in 1997 called Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Many of those who contributed to PNAC have been active in the Bush administration. PNAC makes it clear, though, that the real world power to anticipate is China. China has been the sleeping bear for most of the 20th century, and the bear is waking from sleep. The fact that China will be, in time, the real threat to the 1st world, means that China needs to be slowly circled. The friendship between the USA and Russia is part of this. The dominance by the USA of the Middle East is part of this. Yes, oil is an easy, but there is more. It would have been helpful if McQuaig had pondered this. But, back to the crude.

If the use of crude is a dominating problem, and global warming is like the canary in the mine shafts, how do we deal with the toxins coming our inevitable way? Most of It's The Crude, Dude is strong on analysis and diagnosis but rather weak on healing the problem and prognosis. In this sense, it reminds me of henny penny and "the sky is falling in, the sky is falling in" approach.

Noam Chomsky firmly argued, in his laurel wreath laying at the beginning of the book that It's The Crude, Dude is an "urgent wake-up call that should-that must-be read and acted upon, without delay". The question, then, is how are we to act without delay? What forms of action are before us? Is education, protest, advocacy and citizens'groups and agendas enough?

It's The Crude, Dude reminds me in many ways of Global Showdown: How The New Activists Are Fighting Global Corporate Rule (2001). Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (authors of Global Showdown) are very much in the same tribe as McQuaig. Chomsky is much at home in this clan, also. The intellectual analysis of this family is quite predictable, and the means of solving the problem of corporate rule is predictable, also. The argument, at a deeper structural level, goes like this. The world is dominated by a power elite. Those who took C.W. Mills in with their mother's milk know this line and lineage well. The second step of the argument takes a step further. The state is very much an integral part of the military industrial complex. The conclusion follows from premises one and two. There is a power elite, the state is an essential part of the power elite, we do not like what the power elite is doing, therefore we do not trust the state. The State is seen as the problem in this approach, and society is seen as the answer. Global Showdown follows this approach as surely as night follows day and day follows night. The new activists in Global Showdown are those honest and true citizens who are part of the new activists and citizens' agenda. It all reminds me of the purist nature of the puritans in the 16th century reformation. There is the pure remnant elite, and there are those who have compromised and are traitors to the cause. The dualist paradigm is an old one. Those who lived long in history get a sense of déjà vu.

We do need, as Canadians, to ask ourselves after reading books like It's the Crude, Dude and Global Showdown whether this simplistic dualism is the most intelligent way of being political. Is it wise and prudential to oppose society to the state? What are the limitations of society in dealing with globalization and American imperialism? In short, what are the strengths and weaknesses of protest and advocacy politics? It does little good to idealize society while demonizing the state? This just further plays into the hands of power and negates the very thing (a strong state) that might be able to oppose and resist globalization and American imperialism. We also need to ask the reverse question. What is the limitation of the state and the appeal and strength of society and the role of citizens? Those who merely demonize the one while romanticizing the other easily slip into a comic book way of dealing with politics. This dualistic mindset does need to be questioned, and those who cannot question their dearest and nearest assumptions are ideologues of a worrisome and fundamentalist type.

Noam Chomsky urges those who have read It's The Crude, Dude to act without delay. If the action taken is framed in a way that idealizes society and the citizens while demonizing and denigrating the state and formal party politics, the action will be counterproductive and miss the mark it so desires to hit. It is in the living of the tensions between society and the state (seeing the good and bad in both) that we can deal with the real problems of black gold, global warming, globalization and the New Romans to the south of us. Those like Chomsky, McQuaig, Barlow, Clarke, Dobbins and many others offer a necessary but not a sufficient way of thinking and being political, and this is both their legitimate appeal and worrisome limitation.

Ron Dart