[InformedEJ]

This is a translation of an African Muslim Radio station Radio 786. Did he say we are all out of oil...

"Hassan, commenting on the issue of Iran, says that Iran is currently under threat of being bombed and isolated, "simply for wanting to have nuclear energy." Samsodien says that the US and UK supports South Africa in its development of the pebble bed modular reactor, and yet opposes the same efforts in Iran. Hassan says that the double standards are clear. Hassan criticizes the slashing of security grants by Bush, which has created a huge disparity with 40 million people living in poverty in the US. Bush left out the fact that the US has essentially run out of oil, and most of the world has hit peak oil consumption. This is one of the reasons why the Iraqi war took place. Now, one of the plans is to exploit Alaskan oil, which would lead to catastrophic environmental damage. Bush has also refused to sign the Kyoto protocol, which was a critical agreement in order to address the energy resources problem in the world. The reason he refused to sign it was because it would impact on the corporations such as BP and Texaco. Therefore, what is more interesting about the address is what was left out of it, rather than what was actually said."

[Novus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('InformedEJ', '[')b]Bush left out the fact that the US has essentially run out of oil, and most of the world has hit peak oil consumption.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('InformedEJ', '[')b]Bush left out the fact that the US has essentially run out of oil, and most of the world has hit peak oil consumption.

[mekrob]

Releasing the SPR could add to consumption, which is most likely what will happen once they realize the jig is up. If we get into some hot water with Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia's Gharwar, within the next three years, you can bet your child's life that Bush would release as much as possible just to let us go about "business as usual" for another week. A whole week?!?! YAY. He wouldn't want to go down as the president who did nuffin.

[TommyJefferson]

> 1. They are obviously behind, and only the extremely delusional can't see that.

There is no "behind". Consider what they were before contact with Europeans. There is no race to be "ahead" or "behind".


"2. The people who see their children suffering of malnutrition certainly think it's desirable."

All famines are man-made and politically induced. African people watch their children starve because European culture and technology has been unnaturally injected into theirs. If they returned to being Africans instead of trying to immitate Europeans, the number of children suffering malnutrition would be quite limited. That is why "catching up" is not desirable.


"3. There's no shortage of land in Africa. Just a big surplus of warlords and thieves."

Again, Western-style democratic socialism like we have in the US and Europe is not possible in Africa. Political cultures are not interchangable among social cultures. That is why "catching up" is not possible.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', '&')gt; 1. They are obviously behind, and only the extremely delusional can't see that.

There is no "behind". Consider what they were before contact with Europeans. There is no race to be "ahead" or "behind".


"2. The people who see their children suffering of malnutrition certainly think it's desirable."

All famines are man-made and politically induced. African people watch their children starve because European culture and technology has been unnaturally injected into theirs. If they returned to being Africans instead of trying to immitate Europeans, the number of children suffering malnutrition would be quite limited. That is why "catching up" is not desirable.


"3. There's no shortage of land in Africa. Just a big surplus of warlords and thieves."

Again, Western-style democratic socialism like we have in the US and Europe is not possible in Africa. Political cultures are not interchangable among social cultures. That is why "catching up" is not possible.

[TommyJefferson]

> "What they were before contact with Europeans was "behind."

I guess it's just a different way of looking at it. Instead of up, down, ahead, or behind, why not just accept it as "different"?


> "At some point a substantial middle class of professional Africans existed."

I don't think it ever did. The professional middle-class Africans I know who came to the US. In no way were they in the "middle" back in Africa.


> "What kind of horrible contortion of values does it take to advocate returning to primitivism as a solution to malnutrition?"

Dude! Have you read the Peak Oil forum lately?!


> "You want to starve out the majority of Africans so that the survivors can live like the noble savages of old. This position can only be described in one word: evil.

Of course I don't want people to starve. The fact is, we have no say in the matter. We do not yet have the technology to reprogram millions of years of natural genetic engineering.

Hopefully someday we will. Until then, you have to face reality. Reality is neither good nor evil, it's just reality.

[Tyler_JC]

Ahead or behind is fairly easy to define.

I own a toaster oven (not just a toaster, I have one of those too, but a real toaster oven that cooks bagels with butter already on them, it's pretty awesome).

Most Africans do not have the means to acquire a toaster oven.

My toaster oven prepares food at a faster speed than the traditional open fire pit cooking. The amount of physical work I have to do in order to operate my toaster oven is FAR less than the work required to chop wood and burn it.

I know, oil-based industry allows the construction of my toaster oven. And in 30 years, we might stop producing toaster ovens. But for right now, my little techno-gadget provides me with an advantage over non-techno-gadget people.

I'm picking a silly example, but the basic premise remains the same.

Toaster ovens and millions of other technological advances give me a much higher life expectancy than the average African. I will have an average of 2.1 children that will themselves survive past 80.

Peak Oil may put a damper on things. But for a fairly significant chunk of my civilization's existence, we had toaster ovens. We could actually cook food without ever having to build a fire.

My quality of life is X% higher because of being "ahead" in the technology game.

The problem with Africa is that they are trying to compete with the West. Instead of building advanced hospitals and manufactoring plants, Africa should be investing in basic technology like providing electric lighting and running water to its citizens. That would dramatically improve the quality of life for the millions of suffering African people, not to mention decreasing the death rate and birth rate for that matter. Parents with healthy children don't see the need to have 9 of them.

But I'm just a Pleb with a computer.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', '&')gt; "What they were before contact with Europeans was "behind."

I guess it's just a different way of looking at it. Instead of up, down, ahead, or behind, why not just accept it as "different"?

[TommyJefferson]

> "Because the only people who accept it as being different are comfortable western multiculturalist. "

I am a multiculturalist because I believe all cultures are not the same, not interchangable, and often do not mix well.

Cultures develop over thousands of years. Attempting to change them in a few decades results in the deformed, unnatural, dysfunctional societies just as artificially mixing animal species often results in deformed, unnatural, dysfunctional globs of suffering tissue.

> " woman supporting her kids in the slums of Lagos is certainly not going to be enthusiastic about her "different" lifestyle."

So ask yourself:

Why is there a slum in Lagos?

Why does the woman have too many kids?

Why is the man who fathered these children not supporting them?

Why is her community not supporting her?

Wouldn't she actually be better off if Nigeria had no petroleum, railroads, televisions, or BMW's?

[Tyler_JC]

jaws, the money was stolen by dictators.

I'm saying that we need to actually build basic infrastructure and not just enrich the military despots.

But we might be better off not bothering because we can't afford to maintain our own infrastructures, let alone new systems in other countries.

I don't know the answer. I can only make suggestions. But stopping the near-constant civil war would certainly be a step in the right direction.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'A')head or behind is fairly easy to define.

I own a toaster oven (not just a toaster, I have one of those too, but a real toaster oven that cooks bagels with butter already on them, it's pretty awesome).

Most Africans do not have the means to acquire a toaster oven.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'A')head or behind is fairly easy to define.

I own a toaster oven (not just a toaster, I have one of those too, but a real toaster oven that cooks bagels with butter already on them, it's pretty awesome).

Most Africans do not have the means to acquire a toaster oven.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'j')aws, the money was stolen by dictators.

I'm saying that we need to actually build basic infrastructure and not just enrich the military despots.

[lotrfan55345]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', 'I') agree. "Catching up" implies that:

1. they are somehow "behind"
2. such a thing is desirable
3. such a thing is possible

The answer to all three is "No".

[Tyler_JC]

Jaws, I wasn't suggesting that we invest billions of USDs in African railways and power stations.

I'd much rather invest that capital in railways and power stations that might benefit me. But that's just the selfish monkey inside my head speaking.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', 'E')conomics is a set of universal laws. It works everywhere, for everyone, at all times.

[lorenzo]

Nigeria's president Obasanjo this week said that the extractive industries steal not less than a *quarter* of Africa's entire wealth (a whopping $150 billion each year). He added that the West is complicit (obviously so).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4723572.stm

Corruption and theft is probably the main reason for Africa's difficulties. Given that the extractive industries are the main culprit, shouldn't we be calculating these social and economic costs into the price of the resources we consume?

I mean each time we use a mobile phone, we use Coltan for which countless Congolese died - the poor coltan miners die, the African elite middleman profits from selling the coltan to the Western broker, who sells it to the cell phone manufacturer. (The Congo War -- which is the deadliest conflict since WWII -- is basically a resource war, with Coltan just being one of many of the products fuelling it.)

The same goes for African oil: each time we consume it, poverty is created or maintained, or a civil war is fuelled.

We should urgently be taking these social costs of energy and oil into account. Market economics suck when it comes to accounting for real costs.

[TommyJefferson]

> "We should urgently be taking these social costs of energy and oil into account.

Um. Maybe Africans should be a bit more concerned with it?

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', '&')gt; "We should urgently be taking these social costs of energy and oil into account.

Um. Maybe Africans should be a bit more concerned with it?