|
CounterPunch
September
17, 2002
All that Matters is Oil
by Adam Federman
No king, no president, no group of capitalists,
will hatch a war without justifying it on the grounds that it
serves the common good and cannot be avoided for this or that
reason, and that the nation's standing in the eyes of other peoples,
hence honor, requires the war. Without a moral justification
no war is begun. And finding a good excuse is the first task
of those who think a war is needed. The more believable the excuse,
the surer the result in all actions requiring the co-operation
or toleration of other men.
B. Traven
The White Rose
It's been a disappointing week. I'm glad to see
it go.
Fall temperatures in Vermont rarely climb
above seventy. On Monday and Tuesday they hovered around 100
adding to the already oppressive pre anniversary build up. I
was fortunate, however, as I had the days off and wasn't at work,
in front of the oven loading bread or pulling dough out of the
mixer.
So on Tuesday the 10th I had my choice
between Thomas Friedman at St. Michael's College and Elie Wiesel
at Middlebury. The cost to see Friedman was fifteen bucks and
Wiesel was free so I headed down to Middlebury leaving plenty
of time because the woman on the phone told me they were expecting
a lot of outsider's and that the Chapel would fill at least an
hour before the lecture began. And she did not mislead. I took
my seat around 3:30 and the pews filled up soon after.
The audience, mostly students, appeared
to be transplanted directly from an Abercombie and Fitch photo
shoot. The girl next to me, in a light blue golf shirt and gray
shorts, was attentively reading a rather cumbersome copy of Emerson's
Prose and Poetry. An older woman, toward the front, in a sharp
turquoise and purple dress gently waved her American flag patterned
hand held fan in front of her face.
Wiesel was greeted with a standing ovation
and soon thereafter entered into a depressing and disappointing
reflection on the past year. There's no need to repeat what he
had to say because it contributes little to our understanding
of what happened and even less so to how we might respond. After
a number of platitudes regarding how much the United States has
changed, how NY has changed, and how we as a nation awakened
to a sense of vulnerability on Sept. 11, Wiesel pronounced that,
"for the first time in the history of terrorism these terrorists
kill and die without leaving a messageTheir language is death
itself." They have no agony, no grievances. Their desire
is utter destruction and death. And thus it is impossible to
make sense of what happened, to place the event of that day in
a broader political or historical context.
Wiesel posed more questions than he answered
and reflected on his own life experience and what it had taught
him. No substantive issues were taken up and the questions that
followed reflected the general absence of critical discourse.
One young man asked what role Wiesel thought television had played.
He said he thought it had brought people together. Another asked
him if the human suffering exacted on 9/11 was now being used
to cause more suffering. Wiesel said he hoped that it wasn't.
One thing Wiesel did stress was the importance
of Academic institutions as places where difficult questions
can be confronted and explored. I returned home certain that
Middlebury and Wiesel had failed to live up to that expectation.
But not all was last during the course
of the week. I found a copy of B. Traven's The White Rose
that I've been meaning to read for some time and finally
opened it. It tells the story of C.C. Collins, President of Condor
Oil Company, and his ruthless acquisition of Don Jacinto's hacienda,
La Rosa Blanca in the Mexican countryside. It is a story of American
might and the power of a crafty capitalist who will exercise
any means necessary to attain what he wants. It is a story that
has been played out in many Latin American countries and one
that America seems quite skilled at rewriting, no matter the
place or the people.
But it is also the story of Don Jacinto,
his family, and his love for his land and all that it means.
To Don Jacinto it means more than the millions Mr. Collins offers.
He can keep the land and pass it on to his children or give it
up in exchange for a life of servitude and debt peonage. Don
Jacinto in The White Rose chooses the former, the only
choice he feels he can make. The land is not his to dispose of.
As it has been passed down to him from generation to generation
Don Jacinto must also care for it so that it can be passed on
to the next generation.
But Don Jacinto's decision is a fatal
one and his life ends beneath the wheel of an American automobile
accelerating in the night as Mr. Collins makes the necessary
arrangements to acquire La Rosa Blanca.
Returning to work on Wednesday the eleventh
wasn't so bad. The heat had broken and tropical storm Gustav
delivered a much needed respite from weeks of drought and warm
weather. Bob wore an orange shirt to make sure we were all on
high alert. It wasn't a somber day. In fact there were more jokes
and conversation than usual. And when we lost power that afternoon
still with two batches of french bread to bake, a few hundred
rolls, and 24 dozen cookies, John, the delivery guy as he calls
himself, broke out into a spirited gospel that filled the room.
He used all the air he could possibly muster out of his old lungs
and left to as rousing a round of applause as three people can
give.
But I couldn't help thinking that day
that Mr. Bush is not so different from Mr. Collins and that Elie
Wiesel is wrong to say that America has changed, that NY has
changed. Such sweeping statements illuminate nothing. Because
what has really changed?
As Traven writes, "What do we care
about people? All that matters is oil."
Adam Federman
can be reached at: afed99@hotmail.com
Today's Features
Wayne Madsen
The Shoney's
Snoop
America's Horst Wessel
Tariq Ali
Debating
Daniel Pipes
on Bush's Wars
Ahmad Faruqui
American
Primacy at Bay
Kurt Leege
Voices
for Peace
M. Shahid Alam
A New Theology
of Power
Robert Fisk
Bush's War
Dossier:
Blindness, Hypocrisy & Lies
Dave Randall
Mad, Mad World:
J. Edgar Hoover's Obsession with Mad Magazine
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- Hunting Commie Perverts:
The Scarlet Professor
- DC's Best Political
Mind; DC's Most Dangerous Man;
- Dershowitz the Torturer:
Guess Why He Wants Clean Needles;
- Lese Majeste: That's
Against the Law Too;
- The Greatest Endorsement
AAA Will Ever Get;
- Merle Haggard on Civil
Liberties;
- Dullness Hailed: The Press on the Defeat of McKinney,
Traficant and Barr;
- National Review Puffs
into Town.
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
September
14 / 15, 2002
Ben Tripp
Notes for
Future Historians:
The Bush Administration Explained
Tom Crumpacker
Democracy & US Policy on Cuba
David Vest
Neither-Handed
Behzad Yaghmaian
A Letter
from Istanbul
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fire Next Time:
Nuclear Plants & Terrorism
Anis Shivani
The Warped
World of
Bernard Lewis
Uri Avnery
A Witness from the Past
Robert Fisk
Bush Across
the Rubicon
Josh Frank
Lacking Tenacity
Christini, Alam, & Krieger
Poems
September
12, 2002
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary
of Occupation
James C.
Faris
Riefenstahl
at 100:
The Fascist Aesthetic
Gary Leupp
Presidential
Honesty on Iraq
Tarif Abboushi
A Conversation
with My Arab-American Self
Ron Jacobs
Shelter
from the Storm
Rick Giombetti
Paxil
and Addiction
Krystal Kyer
From NAFTA
to CAFTA
Another Rotten Trade Deal
John Jonik
Overcome
in Philly
September
11, 2002
Anis Shivani
How to
Survive in Ashcroft's America
Pierre Tristam
Abusing
the Sorrows of 9/11
David Krieger
Resisting
Bush's
"Relentless War"
Jerre Skog
9/11 One
Year Later:
Remember the Others, Too
Dave Marsh
Illegal
Music?
A Sampler's Delight
Norm Dixon
How the
Warmongers Have Exploited 9/11
September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later:
It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Mike Leon
Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers
and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim
and Jason Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
to 9/11
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
Defeat:
Undue Meddling
Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|