[Springboard] SPRINGBOARD; Hot, Flat, Crowded. Study #2 was GREAT

[James Wiegel]

We went through chapters 3,4,5,6,7, and 8.  Argued a bit.  Talked some about how this is showing up in our part of the world.  Wanna listen in??

Listen to Your Recorded Conference from the Phone...

Dial - (269) 320-8499 
Enter Access Code - 881373#

Next week, chapters 9, 10, 11

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

401 North Beverly Way   
Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
+1  623-936-8671
+1  623-363-3277
   jfwiegel at yahoo.com
   www.partnersinparticipation.com


--- On Wed, 1/21/09, James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Springboard] SPRINGBOARD; Hot, Flat, Crowded.  Study #2 TONIGHT Wednesday January 21
> 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: Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 9:03 AM
> 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
> 
> 401 North Beverly Way   
> Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
> +1  623-936-8671
> +1  623-363-3277
>    jfwiegel at yahoo.com
>    www.partnersinparticipation.com
> 
> 
> --- 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.