[Springboard] SPRINGBOARD; Hot, Flat, Crowded. Study #2 TONIGHT Wednesday January 21

[James Wiegel]

Jim Wiegel

The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer - often, indeed, to the decider himself (...) There will always be the dark and tangled stretches in the decision-making process - mysterious even to those who may be intimately involved.   John F. Kennedy

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--- On Tue, 1/20/09, James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Springboard] SPRINGBOARD; Hot, Flat, Crowded.  Study #1  Wednesday January 14
> To: "Springboard Dialogue" <springboard at wedgeblade.net>, "Len Hockely" <lenh at efn.org>, "Robert Schafer" <resassociates at hotmail.com>, "Karen Snyder" <snyder at consultmillennia.com>
> Cc: "Ellen and David Rebstock" <grapevin at comcast.net>, "David Dunn" <icadunn at igc.org>, "jJudith Wiegel" <judithwiegel at yahoo.com>, "DavidLin Zahrt" <ch.bnb at pionet.net>, "Bob & Cynthia Vance" <FacilitationFla at aol.com>, "DavidLin Zahrt" <chbnb at netins.net>, "Wilson Priscilla" <wilson.priscilla at gmail.com>, "Richard West" <rwestica at gmail.com>, "Joe Marilyn Crocker" <jcrocker at aol.com>, "darrell walker" <darrell66 at earthlink.net>, "M George Walters" <M.George.Walters at Verizon.net>, "Gordon Harper" <gharper1 at gmail.com>
> Date: Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 7:20 PM
> > Our SECOND call on Hot, Flat, Crowded will be
> Wednesday,
> > January 21 at 6 pm mountain standard time.
> > 
> > Dial    269-320-8400
> >  
> >  
> > access code 881373#
> > 
> >  
> > that's '269 320 8400'

Jim here.  Dick West sent his brief on Chapter 4 . . .

Hot, Flat and Crowded, Brief of Ch 4  - R west
PETROPOLITICS

* Wall Poster in Pakistan: Call this phone number if you want to join the Jihad against America; welcome to Peshawar, Pakistan
* From 3,000 madrasahs in Pakistan in 1978, today over 30,000 (curriculum largely designed by Mogul emperor who died in 1707, one shelf os science books, mostly from the 1920’s
* Madrasah student’s view of Americans - They are unbelievers, do not like to befriend Muslims and want to dominate the world with their power
* Sign in the Koran classroom in English, said this classroom was “a gift of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
* Oil addition is not just changing the climate system, also changing the international system in 4 fundamental ways
1 Our energy purchases help to strengthen the most intolerant, anti=modern, anti-Western, anti-women’s rights and anti-pluralistic strain if Islam- the strain propagated by Saudi Arabia
 2 Our oil addiction is helping finance a reversal of democratic trends in Russia, Latin America, and elsewhere...  1st law of Petropolitics - oil price goes up, the pace of freedom goes down; as the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up.
3 Our growing dependence on oil is fueling a global energy scramble that brings out the worse in nations.
4 Through our energy purchases we are funding both sides of the war on terror.  (Middle of page 80), Peter Swartz quote about American energy policy - “Maximize demand, minimize supply and make up the difference by buying as much as we can from the people who hate us most.”
* Our addiction to oil makes global warming warmer, predictators stronger, clean air dirtier, pool people poorer, democratic countries weaker and radical terrorists richer

OIL and ISLAM

* Salafis (fundamentalist Islamists) is now heavily funded by Saudi Arabia petrodollars
* Attacks on the Grand Mosque raised question of revolution...  Saudi family decided it could protect itself from extremists only by empowering them... cleansing its own country of any sort of religious freedom... Saudi with 1% of the world Muslim population, supports 90% of the expenses of the entire faith.
* 1/5 B Muslims in the world, major geo-political trend is shift away from Mediterranean center of gravity (softer-edged, more open to the world and other faiths) toward a Salafi (desert centered Islam) which is more puritanical, restrictive toward women and hostile to other faiths.
*Note: 2/3 of Middle East’s population is under age 25 and more than 75% are unemployed.
* ...self expression through dress or lack of it are all gone, replaced by black.
* The Saudi way (desert) has taken over Egypt and Egypt did not have the resources to fight back.
* Saudis are buying up the contracts of singers and actors... setting a media agenda rooted more in strict Saudi values.  Saudis now finance 95% of the films made in Egypt, 35 rules (p 85)
* Former CIA Director- The ideology that our energy purchases are indirectly fueling today is much more malevolent and openly embracing of suicide.
* Greg Mortenson, “Three Cups of Tea” book, Central Asia Institute (now 78 schools)… 3800 mosques, 45 M on “Islamic Education and employed 6000 teachers in the same period in Pakistan and Afgan border area
* Madrassah system targeted the impoverished students the public system failed... only opportunity for many for their children to be educated... churning out generation after generation of brainwashed students and thinking 20-30-60 years ahead.
* Saudis are trying to rein the most virulent after jihadists have launched attacks against Saudi institutions at home.  Saudi government even retraining some 40,000 imams to try to counter militant Islam.
* Many Saudis would prefer to see a more open Islamic nation, but they are not the ones setting religious policy
* Saudi Arabia and Libya were the source of about 60% of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks.  Saudis are exporting their terrorists (gets rid of them) and they are killing people the Saudis hate like Shiites.
* The Saudi regime has been complicit in its people’s actions and has turned a blind dye to its wealthy citizens sending money to “charities” that in turn route it to terror organizations.
* Thirty years of an arms race between Saudi Arabia and Iran over who would most influence the direction of the Muslim world.

OIL AND FREEDOM (p 93)

* First Law of Petropolitics - Wherever governments can raise most of their revenues by drilling a hole in the ground rather than by tapping their people’s energy creativity and entrepreneurship, freedom tends to be curtailed, education underfunded and human development retarded.  
* Bahrain set out to break the culture of dependency on the oil welfare state that had dominated their economy since independence in 1971... put a stop to importing low-wage workers from Bangladesh. Bahrain was fir fist Persian Gulf country to discover oi in 1932, but it was the first Gulf oil state to start running out of oil.  Bahrain’s first public debate about corruption was in 1998 when crude oil prices fell to below $15 a barrel.  
* Literal correlation between the price of oil and the pace, scope and sustainability of political freedoms and economic reforms in certain countries.
* Quote from a foreign leader, “When oil was $20 a barrel, Putin had 20% of the Russian vote, when it was $100 a barrel, he had 100% of the Russian vote.  
Friedman plotted the average global price of crude oil over/against the pace of expanding or contracting freedoms (economic and political).
* The higher the price goes the less petrolist (authoritarian states or ones with weak state institutions which are highly dependent on oil sales for exports and government income) leaders care about what the world thinks or says about them... more disposable income to build up domestic security forces, bribe opponents, buy votes or public support and resist international norms.
* How excessive oil wealth impedes the growth of democracy
1 Taxation effect (use oil revenues to relieve social pressures which might lead to greater accountability/representation - can just drill the oil and sell it abroad and don’t have listen to its people
2 Spending effect- oil wealth leads to greater patronage spending 
3 Group formation effect - If country already has a nondemocratic or weak state, government will use its largesse to prevent the formation of social groups which are independent from the state
* The failure of women to join the non-agriculture labor force leads to higher fertility rates, less education for girls and less female influence within the family... leads to strong patriarchal cultures and political institutions
* From a Kuwaiti... We produce nothing, we import everything and we consume a lot (p 104)

OIL AND GEOPOLITICS

* Of the 23 nations in the world which derive a clear majority of their export income oil and gas, not a single one is a democracy
* What America and Britain did when they had financial clout: used their money to advance their national interests abroad.

POST-IRAQ

* Don’t bankrupt oil producers, invent plentiful renewable energy sources... lead to oil-rich states (even) have to diversify their economies and put people to work in more innovative ways.
* Up until 9/11, America said to the Arab world, keep your pumps open, your prices low, don’t bother the Jews too much and you can do whatever you want to out back.  On 9/11, The US got hit with the distilled essence of all the pathologies going on out back.
* Develop clean power alternatives and depend on the forces of globalization from outside and economic pressures inside to push the leaders of these countries to change. (p 108)
* People don’t change when we tell them they should.  They change when they tell themselves they must.
* $70 a barrel followed by $10 a barrel that killed the Soviet Union.
* Friedman - Any American strategy for promoting democracy in an oil-rich region that does not include a plan for developing renewable energy alternatives that can eventually bring down the price of oil is doomed to fail.  
* Second Law of Petropolitics- You cannot be either an effective foreign policy realist or an effective democracy-promoting idealist without also being an effective energy-saving environmentalist.