More Than One Kind of Wolf at the Door: BNP Zeros in on Peak Oil

Tue, 2005-08-23 14:57 — guamanian

The British National Party, a British racist organization, is adopting peak oil as a key part of their policy. The BNP is unusually clear in spelling out how peak oil fits into their long-term plan to achieve power:

"When the BNP does win political power Peak Oil will not be something that we can postpone. It will be happening at the very time that we come to power. In fact it may well be an important catalyst that helps us to win political power because we are the ones talking about it now, the voters might not like us pointing out that the wolf is approaching the chicken coop but they will identify us as the ones who kept speaking about it back in 2005, bringing it to their awareness and understanding.

Voters take to new ideas, even radically new ideas when the system that they have trusted, worked with, admired and felt comfortable with falls apart. We are going to make a lot of noise about Peak Oil because it is yet another example of how the current political process has failed the people of this country, how the short-sightedness of most of our corrupt, incompetent and downright traitorous politicians is very shortly going to create one awful mess and we rightly identify those individuals, those systems, those institutions that have been responsible for that collapse."

- http://www.bnp.org.uk/peakoil/politics.htm

[ Thanks to http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/ for pointing out the link. ]

In my view the onus is on us as peak oil activists to clearly reject the fascist factions that are beginning to warm themselves around the peak oil fire.

This should be an easy task -- except that to do so will also mean confronting and reconsidering the fear-driven anti-immigration and militia-survivalist tendencies that are a large part of some peak oil discourse and planning. As is often the case, confronting external brutality also means confronting and acknowledging our own internal demons.

The Post Carbon Institute makes a point of rejecting nuclear solutions to Peak Oil. Perhaps it is time that we make an equally straight-forward statement rejecting the racist and authoritarian 'solutions' that are beginning to be put forward.

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guamanian
January 4th, 2006

Um... About that wolf over there...

It's been three months since this post went up raising the issue of fascist, racist, and anti-immigrant politics in the 'peak oil movement'. Now that the Post-Carbon Institute is actively featuring its mission statement, which includes the phrase "more cooperative and inclusive communities", I think it's a very good time to raise the issue again: I believe the Post Carbon Institute should take a stand and clearly reject all fascist and authoritarian 'solutions' to the peak oil problem. This fundamental political issue is NOT going to go away, and is being used effectively to tar many progressive peak oil activists and groups as right-wing extremists. Let's start the conversation... because as the historian Howard Zinn says: "You can't be neutral on a moving train". Where do we stand on fascist, racist, and anti-immigrant extremism in the peak oil movement? Are we really 'cooperative and inclusive'? Or are we in fact just engaged in the fearful building of community bunkers and lifeboats?

Marilynn
January 11th, 2006

good vs. evil

Every worthwhile movement that has ever emerged has been used to some extent by extremists to further their agenda. These predators will always be with us, and for the Post Carbon Institute to expend its resources on swatting extremist flies would be counter-productive. I believe the focus should be to continue with a reaffirmation of positive values and a vigorous outreach program. To continue the metaphor, the flies won't be able to hatch their maggots in a healthy body. Each of us ought to look around our own communities and see who is missing from the discussion and address whatever it is that is keeping those persons---Hispanics? youth? political conservatives?---from joining us. Embrace all peoples and cultures, and as Walt Whitman said, "... dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem..." Marilynn Willits, California

guamanian
January 24th, 2006

A few words will do...

Hi Marilynn -- thanks for the perspective. I'm not suggesting that the Post Carbon Institute switch significant resources to doing anti-fascist political work, merely that the Institute go on the record with a clear policy statement, as exists on nuclear energy. In doing so we would be 'dismissing a great insult to our soul' to paraphrase your Walt Whitman quote. The effort expended in drafting a sentence or two is minimal -- we could hammer out a draft right here in this discussion thread.

guamanian
January 26th, 2006

A few added words

Hi Marilynn, Mike, and Carol. Here is a simple policy statement that would clearly address the '800-Pound Red Herring' and get it off the table for good. Currently the Outpost Membership Policy reads: To join the relocalization network, you will need to ... make sure that your organization is aligned with relocalization; e.g., we do not work with groups that advocate nuclear or other big energy as a solution. This could be easily expanded to: To join the relocalization network, you will need to ... make sure that your organization is aligned with relocalization; e.g., we do not work with groups that advocate nuclear or other big energy as a solution, or that promote violent, racist, or draconian and authoritarian political responses to the crisis of peak oil. The wording is chosen to clarify the Post Carbon Institute's orientation, while still leaving room in the tent for positions like Mike's 'Proper use of Coercion', or CommunitySolution's 'Learn-from-Cuba' approach (See: http://www.communitysolution.org) -- since neither of these positions could reasonably be seen as 'draconian'. On the other hand, a group working to implement Stanton's proposed cull of 5-10 million 'defective and weak' people from the population of Britain: ... by following these Draconian but simple rules UK population could be reduced by 5 to 10 million during the first ten years, without excessive pain (compared to the alternatives) ... The punishment regime would improve social cohesiveness by weeding out criminal elements. ... would clearly not be welcomed as a Post Carbon Institute member. It is a small textual change, but a strong moral clarification about just what kind of 'civilization' we are intent on preserving.

guamanian
August 26th, 2005

Scapegoating and anti-immigrant backlash

Here is a very good backgrounder on the current anti-immigrant backlash in the US, which -- while it does not refer at all to peak oil and relocalization -- concisely describes the social context in which this important discussion is unfolding: http://americas.irc-online.org/articles/2005/0506immig.html. It is important to realize that peak oil -- particularly if the 'hard landing' pessimists are at all correct -- will be a powerful accellerant to anti-immigrant and racist agendas. As fear ratchets up, rejection of people who are 'not-from-around-here', and the active scapegoating of specific groups as the cause of the crisis may become widespread. For those inclined to see an anti-immigrant stance as necessary or desireable in the context of population 'overshoot', David Holmgren's discussion of the importance of immigration during the energy descent is well worth contemplating: it is encapsulated in the last 10 minutes of his talk at http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/460. Please contribute to this very important discussion: If a hard landing is coming, the decisions we make on this issue may be very important in determining the kind of near-future we create... and if the path forward proves to be one of gradual adaptation rather than crisis, we still have this opportunity to directly confront and reject a fear-driven approach to the future.

Tom Ellis
August 24th, 2005

Thank you!

Thank you for bringing this unsettling piece to our attention. It is quite true that times of crisis tend to bring out both the best and the worst in us, and obviously peak oil will be no exception. So I agree enthusiastically that we at Post Carbon and other responsible citizens need to be ready and waiting when hateful fascist and racist contingents try to hijack the discourse on Peak Oil and turn it to their own malignant purposes. One way to do this is to establish, and repeat ad infinitum, the universal truth enunciated so elegantly by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the guiding principle of everything we undertake: "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." From which it follows necessarily that, as Lao Tzu said, we must strive to "Take care of everyone, and abandon no one." Indeed, when any neofascist contingents start spreading panic, fear, and bigotry, or start advocating the stockpiling of guns to keep the "other" at bay, we need to emphasize, consistently and repeatedly, that violence is self-validating and self-accelerating--that those who will be safest when things start falling apart will not be those bristling with guns and barbed wire and hatred--but rather, those who have effectly organized not only their own neighborhoods, but also all the surrounding neighborhoods as well. The simple fact is, the more contiguous, well-organized, mutually cooperative neighborhoods we have--of all ethnicities--the faster we will be able to create a diversified, resilient, relocalized socioeconomic order. Even the best armed survivalists will soon start running out of food and water, only to find out that they can't eat bullets-and nobody will be there to pity them. So let our mantra be, "take care of everyone and abandon no one." Indeed, it is not only morally enlightened; it is also our only practical way to achieve a relocalized future. Thomas I. Ellis

guamanian
August 26th, 2005

The Next Steps...

Thanks Thomas. Your post is filled with insight into the problem, which you've obviously been thinking about for some time. I'm a newbie on the PCI board: I've not yet 'paid my dues' through months of constructive engagement. So, aside from raising the issue, I don't feel that I am in a position to 'push' the organization for the inclusion of a clear anti-racist and anti-authoritarian addition to the PCI values statement. However I sincerely hope that established members of the PCI will pick up the idea and implement it. It is a small thing in itself, but one with very large implications about who we are.

Carol Oldershaw
January 24th, 2006

keep it simple

I hope that Post Carbon Institute does not lose sight of its direction and mission to follow this red herring. I can think of at least 20 other issues equally as important as racism and fascism but this is not the forum for discussing them, nor is it the intent of Post Carbon. The focus needs to be re-localizing our communities so that we survive the fall. Let's not be enticed into spending our limited resources on pointless exercises and discussion - essentially being neutralized and rendered ineffective. Let's focus locally raising community awareness to Peak Oil and its implications. Let's help our communities learn how to defend themselves. For me, anything else is nongermane, and the discussions are nothing more than soapbox gripe sessions.

guamanian
January 25th, 2006

The 800-pound Red Herring

Hi Carol; three considerations in response to your 'red herring' comment... - Politics is not some ethereal, optional, thing located way up at the pointy end of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. To quote Leonard Cohen, politics is "the homicidal bitchin' / that goes down in every kitchen / to determine who will serve and who will eat." When things get tough, the politics we have chosen will be as important for personal and community survival as kCals and BTUs: it doesn't get any more fundamental than Auschwitz. - The growing synergy between fascism and peak oil is not an abstract possibility, but a current reality. William Stanton's essay in the ASPO newsletter (http://www.peakoil.ie/newsletters/588) is a Mein Kampf from within the peak oil community, and the BNPs decision to rise to power on the back of peak oil is established policy (http://www.bnp.org.uk/peakoil/politics.htm). Respected peak oil analysts have also raised alarms about this tendency. Here is a quote from Jeremy Leggett: "There are so many things to worry about in the fall-out from a premature peak in oil production. Here is one that gives me particular nightmares. When I and some of the oil-supply whistleblowers addressed a conference on oil depletion in the formerly oil-rich nation known as Scotland last year, five leaders of the British National Party sat in the audience. They said nothing. They just listened, and learnt, and no doubt reflected that the far right does well in tough times. The stakes are high with energy policy. Higher than most people dream of when they flip a light switch." (http://www.postcarbon.org/node/2128) - A third factor to consider is more immediate from the point of view of peak oil organizations like the Post Carbon Institute: The energetic -- and possibly well-funded? -- peak oil critic 'JD' is doing a very good job of adhering the fascist tag to the peak oil movement as a whole, based largely on the movement's reluctance to clarify the issue. (See the sidebar at http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/) If fascism in the peak oil movement is a red herring, then it is an 800 pound herring that has come to sit squarely at the peak oil table. One way or another, it needs to be addressed.

Mike Carrick
January 25th, 2006

words and BUZZwords

Carol, I've been pondering this for days ... And I agree that this is a RED HERRING.

The very word is divisive, and that it has been interjected into our community by the likes of Alex Jones, seems almost designed to cause us grief ...

Regardless - the terms fascism AND communism are rhetorically HOT, and when you get down to brass tacks, "community" implies "commune"-ist philosophy, which pushes some people's buttons.

Remember the threat of "godless communism"? I've been called a 'pinko' many times. The current insult FASCIST! is merely the new grammar of the millenium.

To assume that our current political structure can withstand the peak however, is assuming a lot, so to rebuild the community upon the current politically sandy soil we find ourselves upon is probably poor planning.

Solar panels and fywheels are one thing, but communities are made of people - many of whom are addicted to a lifestyle we cannot permit them to retain.
THERE - I said it. The community I join will have constraints. Personal property, and individual preferences may go the way of the dinosaur. Sorry ...

At some point our communities will need governance, and that may bring constraints of liberty, or ... coercion.

Please consider the six principles in my 'coercion post'.

In a world in decline, these principles offer an alternative to fascism, and they appeal to the good of the larger community.

Rallying around these may be one way to define ourselves ...

Mike

Robert Magill
January 30th, 2006

The prospect of facism rearing its head; Chattel slavery

It is shortsighted to assume that somehow one ancient horror we avoided during the 20th century will not reappear in the postcarbon era. The carbon age began in 1859 with the first oilwell in Pennsylvania. Within two years the Civil War began. In another two years the slaves were emancipated and slavery outlawed. By the turn of the 20th century the hemisphere was finally rid of this historic legacy. Throughout our pre-carbon history humans used other humans in bondage as a source of cheap energy as a matter of course. Is it much of a stretch to assume that in the desparate search for replacement energy chattel slavery will not be considered or attempted?

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