The Quiet Road

There was a discussion between a news anchor and some “expert” pundit on Fox News in the immediate aftermath of the horrific tragedy in Norway, in which 76 people are known to have been murdered. The “expert” was pontificating on the reasons why Norway might be the target of an Al Qaeda terror attack. They’re members of NATO, he pointed out. They recently arrested an Islamist cleric, he pointed out. In the eyes of Muslim fanatics, Norway might share the stigma of the Danish cartoon incident, he suggested. The news anchor interjected… “it has been suggested that the perpetrator of these acts is actually a native Norwegian with a right-wing islamophobic agenda…” To which point the “expert” responded curtly, “I don’t think we should speculate about these things until we have all the facts!”

However much you or I may hate to perpetuate stereotypes, Fox News seems to have no problem promoting the idea that “Americans don’t do irony”.

But sadly, it wasn’t just the rabid right who immediately started to shriek “Muslims!” as soon as the news of a bomb in Oslo hit the airwaves. Peter Beaumont, a columnist with The Guardian, was quick off the mark with his entirely inaccurate and unjustifiable speculation. In an article – Oslo bomb: suspicion falls on Islamist militants – that has since been removed from the website (though is still currently available thanks to Google cache) Beaumont kicks off with the gloriously inept intro…

Oslo police have confirmed the source of the blast that damaged the prime minister’s offices in Oslo was a bomb. The question now is who is likely to be behind it.

The most obvious conclusion would be a jihadist group.

Really Peter? And why’s that exactly?

Is it because most acts of terrorism in Europe are carried out by jihadist groups? Because actually, between 2006 and 2009 (the most recent years for which we have accessible data) roughly 0.4% of incidents categorised as “terrorism” in Europe were carried out by groups with a known Islamist agenda. Yup, that’s a staggering 99.6% of recent terrorist acts carried out by non-jihadist groups. So why the freaking hell is it “the most obvious conclusion” that a jihadist group bombed Oslo?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that Peter Beaumont was alone in coming to that “obvious” (and utterly wrong) conclusion. Merely that he – like a huge number of people out there – have bought into a media narrative that is dangerously flawed and borderline racist. Though of course, given that Beaumont’s article was actually a part of that ongoing narrative, further reinforcing and extending it, he does warrant a tad more criticism than most of the people who have succumbed to the notion that Islam is somehow uniquely linked with terrorism.

In the hastily rewritten article that replaced the “suspicion falls on Islamist militants” one, Beaumont shamelessly spends much of his time highlighting the (ultra-tenuous) reasons why it was understandable for people to leap to the jihadist conclusion without ever referring to his own culpability in this bandwagon jumping.

The most tempting and immediate conclusion was that it would be a jihadist group, as the style of the Oslo attack bore strong similarities to other earlier attacks in Europe and elsewhere.

Really? Which ones? How many jihadist carbombs have there been in Europe? How many jihadist groups have sent a lone assassin to gun down members of a leftwing political youth movement in Europe? I’m not saying these things have not happened (though I personally don’t recall that being the modus operandus of Europe-based Islamist terrorism) but the fact of the matter is that “the style of the Oslo attacks” bears at least as much a similarity to the 99.6% of terrorist acts in Europe that were not carried out by Islamists. So again, why make that connection?

I am not downplaying acts of violence perpetrated by those with an Islamist agenda. I’m not downplaying any acts of violence at all. Being murdered by an Islamist suicide-bomber on the London tube is no more or less tragic than being murdered by an Islamophobic gun-man on a Norwegian island. Neither victim is less dead. And neither perpetrator is less unhinged or less monstrous.

What I am doing, however, is condemning a partly unconscious, partly conscious media narrative that appears to suggest that terrorism is somehow, despite all the evidence to the contrary, synonymous with Islamist extremism. A media narrative that insists the statistically less likely conclusion is the “obvious” one. A media narrative that, by virtue of its focus on jihadist groups despite their relative lack of activity in Europe, is guilty of forwarding a deceptive – and racist – agenda.

Terrorism Vs. Extremism

The other thing I want to address here is the weird way in which the language of (much of) the media switched from “possible Islamist terrorism” to “right-wing extremism“. A jihadist terrorist is an extremist . A Norwegian terrorist is an extremist. When an Islamist group or individual is involved, it’s “terrorism”, and there’s a subtle unspoken sense in which all of Islam – every Muslim – must shoulder some of the responsibility. But when the perpetrator is a Norwegian right-winger, then he’s a “lone extremist”. Possibly mentally ill.

The language we use is part of that. The word “terrorism” doesn’t distance the perpetrators from the mainstream population to quite the same extent as the word “extremism” does. It’s subtle. And I’m fully prepared to believe that the journalists and editors who create this obscene media narrative are largely unconscious of it. But that doesn’t excuse it. And it certainly doesn’t mean we should allow it to go unchallenged. And if we define Anders Behring Breivik as somehow “unhinged” or “mentally ill”, then the same applies to the suicide bombers who blew themselves up in London, or the hijackers who crashed airliners into American buildings.

Which is definitely not to say that I am defining anyone here as “mentally ill”. In fact, briefly donning my psychoanalyst hat, I have to say that I’m increasingly dissatisfied with the medical metaphor of psychology. However, I am calling for consistency in the media when it covers mass murder. Consistency, perspective and a thorough appreciation of the facts. As opposed to the current gung-ho willingness to perpetuate a narrative that is clearly at odds with reality.

A crowd gathered at the site of the World Trade Center in New York. Many carried American flags or wore t-shirts with patriotic slogans. They pumped their fists in the air. They shouted “U.S.A” and “We’re Number One!” while others sang The Star Spangled Banner. They were in celebratory mood. And they were celebrating death.

Specifically they were celebrating the shooting of an unarmed man in his fifties half a planet away. A group of well-trained killers entered a sovereign nation without permission, swooped down on a house and shot Osama bin Laden in front of his family. They then took photos, scraped some DNA samples and threw the body in the sea. Far away, insulated from all harm, the US president watched the killing unfold on a monitor. And crowds cheered. And of course, this being America, a few of them wondered how they could profit from the death celebration.

As Glenn Greenwald wrote, “It’s been a long time since Americans felt this good and strong about themselves — nothing like putting bullets in someone’s skull and dumping their corpse into an ocean to rejuvenate that can-do American sense of optimism.”

And then the lies began. The dead man had resisted capture. He’d opened fire on his assailants. In the last resort he’d grabbed his own wife and caused her death when he used her as a human shield. A day later, mystifyingly, we were told that none of that had happened. The dead man had been unarmed. He hadn’t used his wife as a human shield. She wasn’t even present when he was shot dead.

I found myself wondering how a man in his fifties, whose health – we’d been told for some time – wasn’t all that great, could have resisted capture so forcefully while unarmed, that a team of elite soldiers was unable to subdue him without shooting him numerous times in the face and chest. Don’t get me wrong, I shed no tears for Osama bin Laden. But nor do I find much to celebrate in the gunning-down of an unarmed man, followed by a series of official lies.

I also found myself wondering why we were being told this at all. Where had the first set of lies come from? And why bother correcting them given that there was no evidence one way or the other beyond the official version? It reminded me of the brutal slaying of Jean Charles de Menezes by police in London. Immediately after the killing a series of lies emerged from the authorities that were so far from the truth that they had to have been deliberately manufactured. They simply couldn’t have been mistakes or someone misinterpreting something. Jean Charles de Menezes had vaulted the ticket barrier in the tube station, we were told. He’d been wearing a bulky coat, we were told. He’d sprinted away from police who had clearly called upon him to stop, we were told.

Except he hadn’t. He’d used his season ticket to walk through the ticket barriers just like a hundred thousand other commuters that day. His clothes had been perfectly appropriate for the weather, and yes while he had sped up — like a hundred thousand other commuters that day — to catch the train that had just pulled into the station, he’d not been sprinting. We were just told lies. And the apparently casual manner in which the authorities appear willing to feed bullshit to the public suggests this is a routine occurrence.

The bizarre testimony of the police officer at the centre of the Ian Tomlinson “unlawful killing” case serves to reinforce this. Everyone had already seen the clear footage of the incident that killed Tomlinson. It was as unambiguous as something like this can possibly be. Yet at the inquest, the police officer whose action had resulted in the death of Tomlinson insisted upon a version of events that completely contradicted the video evidence. It was just weird. And what’s weirder is the fact that he clearly expected the jury, and the wider world, to accept his version above the evidence of their own eyes.

Over the years I’ve found it instructive, whenever I encounter a statement issued by an authority, to imagine that the exact opposite is true. It’s unsettling how often the news makes more sense when you do that. Admittedly it’s a little strange to have the strategy validated so quickly as we did when bin Laden was killed. Within 48 hours an armed man became an unarmed man, and the wife we were told was used as a human shield wasn’t even there.

What does all of this mean?

Well, it means those in power have no respect for those they claim to protect, serve and represent. This isn’t an earth-shattering piece of news. I’m not claiming to be telling you something you’ve not heard before. I’m merely pointing out that despite incontrovertible evidence that this is going on all the time, we appear happy to allow it. Our police and our politicians are constantly lying to us, and we choose to accept it. The psychoanalyst in me can’t help but find the words of Wilhelm Reich springing to mind and wonder whether this is inevitably going to end with the sound of a hundred thousand jackboots marching in unison beneath a fascist flag. The willingness of a population to accept obvious lies eventually gets exploited by someone even less sane than Blair or Cameron or Bush or Obama. And the phrase “it couldn’t happen here” is rarely any protection.

Posting here has been light recently for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the main one is the oppressive wave of misanthropy which has crashed down upon me in recent months. From a purely personal perspective, my life is pretty damn good. But as soon as I cast my eye over world events in search of something to write about, I feel my blood pressure rise and a powerful combination of despair and rage grips me. What starts out as an attempt to analyse the recent European economic negotiations collapses – with alarming speed – into an expletive-ridden rant about “the idiots” making “disastrous ideologically driven decisions about matters they don’t understand… decisions that will cause terrible suffering on an unprecedented scale”. And not only that, pretty soon I’m ranting about “the even bigger idiots who elected this bunch of terminal cretins!”

See what I mean about the misanthropy?

And yes, there’ll be some wags out there who wonder “so how’s that any different from your usual stuff?” Well, the fact is, I like to think that even at my most hyperbolic, there’s a method to my madness… a point to be made, even if it only barely emerges from the raving lunacy. Recently though, the red mist has been descending and obscuring any sensible position I might wish to convey. And while I’m a great believer in free speech, I’m also a believer in the maxim that if you have nothing worth saying, then at least have the good sense to keep your mouth shut.

See, contrary to appearances, I don’t like being the angry dude muttering “fricking idiots!” whenever a news or current affairs programme comes on TV. I don’t like that my first reaction to reading most news stories on the web is to shake my head, sigh and wonder audibly why mainstream journalism has become little more than a bunch of fools recycling press releases and parroting the craven ideology of the global establishment. I don’t like being constantly reminded of the fact that politics has become the nigh-exclusive preserve of gombeens and charlatans. And I definitely don’t like the uncomfortable sensation of rage rising within me when I reflect on the fact that this overall state of affairs is calmly accepted by the population at large (hell, more than just “accepted”… read the comments thread beneath almost any web article and it quickly becomes apparent that this overall state of affairs is positively embraced by the population at large).

However, it struck me today that none of this was likely to change any time soon. So my choices were threefold… I could give up this blog completely; I could content myself with posting the occasional music video, movie review or funny photo of a kitten; or I could embrace the misanthropic rant as an essential facet of any remotely aware person’s blog.

Eventually I sighed, muttered “bloody people!” and chose the third of those options.

That said, I’m going to try to overcome this ire. For some, anger is an energy. For me, it tends to get in the way. Even when it’s entirely justified. Which – as even the briefest of glances around the world will demonstrate – is most certainly the case.

Now, I’m away in Serbia for a few days. I’m going to try and use the time to decompress a little. To mellow. And hopefully I’ll be a little more productive upon my return. For now though, I have a couple of short pieces to get off my chest…

The dream of a united Europe is one I share. Hell, I’d extend it further… a world without borders would be a glorious thing. Imagine there’s no countries.

But sadly that original European dream, first envisioned after two world wars had ravaged the continent, has been hijacked by financial institutions and the forces of the free market. It has become simply a mechanism by which the rich and powerful use the sweat and blood of the masses to lubricate the machinery of capitalism and further entrench their wealth and power. Some have said that it was ever thus. That the European dream was always just a way for the few to prosper at the expense of the many. But I don’t believe that. The remnants of my erstwhile idealism still provide enough of a reminder that sometimes we people do things for the right reasons. That it’s not always craven and manipulative self-interest that drives us.

But who today can still place their faith in the European dream? As our governments collude with private capital to heap unearned debt onto the shoulders of the masses, who can now believe that this once great project still has The People at heart?

Which is why I do not lament the first fractures appearing in our continental unity. The past few days have heard furious denials from Athens that the Greek government is considering withdrawing from the single currency. Our political classes don’t seem to realise that we have become familiar with the pattern… first the denials (that there’s a problem, that the banks are in trouble, that we need an IMF bailout) and then the reluctant embrace of that which was denied.

The Greeks deny any such idea is being considered or has been discussed. Others suggest that it has been discussed but that it’s merely a negotiating ploy to put pressure on the IMF and ECB to soften the terms of the bail-out. Either way, it’s causing problems for the single currency and we’re hearing rumours of frantic secret talks aimed at holding the Euro Zone together.

I know people who will gleefully cry “I told you so!” And hey, let them have their whoop. Those who predicted the single currency would fail look like being right. Though the sad thing is… it wasn’t inevitable. Just as with the European dream as a whole, I kind of like the single currency idea. I think it would work better in tandem with ultra-local currencies built on a date-limited model, just as I think government works best as a combination of the ultra-local and supranational with little need for the middle tier. But sadly, although it was not inevitable, it looks as though we are fast approaching the fragmentation of the euro. I imagine it will be retained by a smaller “inner circle” of nations, but those of us on the periphery (Greece, Portugal and Ireland to start with) will find ourselves forced to withdraw unless an agreement to write-off the vast majority of our debt is reached. And while that’s still a possibility, I’m not holding my breath.

Put simply, the repayment of our debt (especially when you chuck in the massive bank debts run up here in Ireland that have been immorally thrust onto the public) will be impossible without massive economic growth, akin to that experienced in the late nineties / early noughties. And that’s not coming back. In fact, we are entering a period of long-term economic contraction which will be caused by resource depletion. By 2015 (and probably a lot sooner) economic growth in Portugal, Greece and Ireland will be at an end for the foreseeable future. The only possible way to repay our debt at that point will be to withdraw from the single currency and rapidly devalue our local currency.

This need not lead to massive social problems in itself (if done right) though the root cause of the trouble – resource depletion (particularly but not limited to peak oil) – inevitably will. I still see Ireland as a better place to weather the coming storm than most other places… but only if we grasp the bull by the horns and begin a massive peak oil mitigation strategy in the near future. Our current government don’t possess the vision or the competence to journey that particular road, but I don’t expect them to last the full term. We may have another roll of the dice sooner than we think.

I’d intended writing something about the Osama bin Laden assassination, but figured I’d wait until the US government get their story straight. The lovely Citizen S seems to think that these daily revisions of what happened are all about sowing confusion and deliberately creating a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theories. I don’t see what Obama’s administration gains from that strategy, but I must admit that I can’t come up with a better explanation for their inability to stick to a single version for more than a few hours.

So I’ve decided to hold off on that issue until things get a bit clearer (which may never happen of course). Instead let me take a few moments to urge my UK readers to consider voting “Yes” in the referendum on the Alternative Voting (AV) system. Those of you who were paying attention in the run up to the last UK general election will recall that I advised voting for the Liberal Democrats on the single issue of electoral reform. Given how disastrous they’ve been in government, I can only apologise for that. In fact, they’ve been so disastrous that I’ve heard people seriously argue for a “No” vote on the grounds that it would punish Nick Clegg. While I completely understand the level of betrayal that many feel (remember, I voted Green in the 2007 Irish election!) “punishing Nick Clegg” is an absurd rationale for rejecting electoral reform.

Don’t get me wrong, if after careful consideration you decide that First Past The Post (FPTP) is a fairer and more democratic system than AV, then by all means vote “No” in the referendum. Frankly I consider that a mystifying position to take (you can pretty much prove on an etch-a-sketch that while AV is far from a perfect voting system, it’s definitely better than FPTP if fairness and democracy are your chief concerns) but we’re all entitled to our opinion, however ridiculous.

Thus far I’ve heard the following arguments in favour of a “No” vote…

Punish the Lib Dems

Yes, the Liberal Democrats have betrayed those who elected them. The notion that they were anything other than a bunch of free market capitalists was always deluded. That they embraced conservative economic policies and propped up a right wing government shouldn’t surprise anyone who cast an informed vote in their direction last year. So if you voted for them because you thought they were “of the left” (as many people apparently did) then you’ve not been betrayed. You were simply ill-informed. However, that the Lib Dems have so cravenly backtracked on unambiguous promises, without putting up a fight or making any sustained public objection, is a clear betrayal. And they deserve to be hung out to dry as a result.

Nonetheless, it would be utterly insane to “punish” the Liberal Democrats for breaking promises by turning your back on the one promise they kept. They secured a (desperately watered-down) referendum on electoral reform. It’s the single good thing to have emerged from this coalition of the craven. Be a shame to waste it really. After all, if you want to punish Clegg because he’s accepted a role as Cameron’s lackey, then it implies it’s Cameron you have the bigger problem with. Right? So why not punish him instead? He wants you to vote “No”.

Besides, this referendum – the first direct say you’ve had in national policy since 1974 – isn’t about Nick Clegg, or about any single political party. It’s about the political system itself. It’s about making it fairer and more representative. Allowing personality or party politics to influence your decision on this is surely defeating the whole point of a referendum. This is a free vote. No party whips. It transcends the petty grievances of today and its effects will be felt long after Nick Clegg has been consigned to an historical footnote in a dull book.

FPTP is better at producing strong, stable government

Well, let’s break that down shall we? It was the current, FPTP system that gave Britain this rather unsavoury coalition of arseholes. If you look at Cameron, Osbourne and Clegg and the words “strong and stable” are the first to come to mind then may I suggest you get yourself a more expansive vocabulary. But that’s not really the point. See, while I dispute the fact that FPTP tends to produce strength and stability, let’s assume for a moment it’s true. It begs the two word question… so what?

See, there’s no doubt that having a strong and stable government is a bonus. But it’s very much a secondary concern for those who want their democratic elections to be… well… democratic. Isn’t it obvious that the first concern should be electing a government that’s actually vaguely representative of what the people voted for? If “strength and stability” are your primary concerns, then fascist dictatorship wins that particular race every time. Seriously, if you see the production of strength and stability as being the function of an election, then why not check out Saddam Hussein’s version of democracy. It’s the same one they use in North Korea. Every few years the population shows up at the polling booth and votes for the one name on the ballot paper. Pretty much guarantees you won’t end up with a coalition.

So if you like the idea of narrowing choice and reducing representation, then it makes sense to follow the advice of the BNP and vote “No” tomorrow. Strength and stability before proportionality. It’s a fine, if slightly unwieldy slogan I guess.

AV is too complex

Perhaps the most bizarre claim of all. The “No” campaign is apparently insisting that British people are too thick to list things in order of preference. Now, I lived in the UK for a fairly long time and while I met my share of thick people there, I wouldn’t say it was more than I met anywhere else. No doubt there are people in Britain who, when asked to list their top five albums of all time, don’t agonise over whether The White Album is better than Astral Weeks but instead agonise over what the word “list” means. But there can’t be that many of them surely. Certainly not enough to warrant making them the central demographic for a national political campaign.

Here in Ireland we’ve got a semi-proportional Single Transferable Vote system with multi-member constituencies. That’s waaay more complicated than AV. But except for the people who stare at their ballot paper wondering what number comes after “1”, we all pretty much grasp it. So when someone tells you that AV is too complicated for you, they are lying to you and they are insulting you. Which means it’s unlikely they have your best interests at heart.

AV is more expensive

Nope. It’s really not. Leastways, it doesn’t need to be. Yes, the referendum itself is going to cost money, but that money’s being spent whatever way it turns out. It’s not like the treasury gets a refund if the nation votes “No”. And the notion that voting by AV will require expensive voting machines, or expensive counting machines, is complete nonsense. Sure, you can invest in those things if you want, but they’re not a prerequisite for an election under the AV system. Here in Ireland, with our even more complicated system, we manage perfectly well voting with a pencil and counting by hand. Sure, we still elect terrible governments, but sadly no voting system can stop that happening. That’s down to the quality of the candidates and the willingness of the electorate to believe any old bullshit.

Bullshit like how expensive, complex and unstable AV is.

It’s not Full Proportional Representation

No, it’s not. AV should produce a more proportional result than FPTP because it will reduce tactical voting and increase the number of “swing seats”. But it’s far from fully proportional. It won’t eliminate tactical voting completely, and there’ll still be safe seats and swing seats. But rejecting a better system because it’s not the best system doesn’t make much sense. Especially since there’s no evidence that sticking with FPTP will increase the likelihood of full PR. In reality the opposite is probably true. Rejecting AV will allow those in favour of FPTP to insist that the British people don’t want change. And some of those in favour of electoral reform will decide it’s a vote loser.

A vote for AV will strengthen the position of those who claim that Britain wants a fairer system. A vote against AV will weaken that position.

Ultimately though, it’s in your hands Britain. You have it in your power to make your democracy marginally more representative. Alternatively, you can voice your support for ‘politics as usual’. How’s that working out for you?

If you know me at all, you can probably imagine that I keep a watchful eye on energy related news stories. And what with google alerts and RSS feeds, that’s not all that difficult to do. Over the past few weeks, however, a difficulty has arisen. Put simply, there’s just not enough hours in the day to keep up with the recent flurry of activity in the sector. In fact, there are considerably more “peak oil”, “renewable energy”, “tar sands” and “gas pipeline” stories right now than at any time I can remember. More even than when oil prices were rising towards $150 per barrel a couple of years back. So what’s the reason for all this activity?

Well, it seems as though the reality of peak oil is finally beginning to sink in. Not that it’s made it onto the front page of The Sun yet… but while the popular media is obsessing about the Royal Wedding, furrowed brows are appearing elsewhere as what was once a fringe theory preached by a handful of lunatics has finally been accepted by those who once derided it.

Ugly as the words may sound and however petty they may make me seem, I’m going to say this once and then move on… I told you so!

Ahhh… it feels good to get that off my chest, even if it implies some terrible things.

Welcome aboard: IEA

The International Energy Agency has been hmm’ing and hah’ing about their forecasts over the past couple of years. Roughly three years ago, even as oil prices rose to unprecedented levels, the IEA was predicting a steady rise in oil production until at least 2030. Careful analysis of their production forecasts seemed to suggest, according to ASPO (the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and gas) that the IEA was essentially relabelling oil demand projections between now and 2030. Think about that… the international agency that advises the majority of major governments on energy policy was simply asking “how much oil do we want?” and then telling everyone that’s how much oil would be produced. There was apparently no attempt to match their production forecasts to the real-world capabilities of the oil industry. Their projections were based purely on economic data rather than geological or engineering data. And unsurprisingly these projections turned out to be even more optimistic than those coming out of BP, which if you’ll recall are little more than political artefacts designed by OPEC nations to maximise oil revenue.

Recently this has begun to change. And now the IEA is back-pedalling furiously and seems to be sounding alarm bells – albeit rather quiet and diplomatic alarm bells. Dr. Fatih Birol is the Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency. In a recent interview, Birol stated that he believes global crude oil production peaked in 2006. Yes, you heard that right. We passed peak about 5 years ago according to the the IEA.

An Australian TV company made a short film (it’s a shade over 12 minutes) about peak oil which includes that interview. I recommend you take the few minutes to watch it; it’s sobering stuff. I’m particularly gob-smacked by his final remark, right at the end of the film, when asked how urgent the problem is. He responds by suggesting that “time is running out […] I think it would have been better if governments had started to work on this at least ten years ago”. This from a man who was insisting, up until three years ago, that there was no problem!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that the man and his agency have seen the light, but frankly I think a Mea Culpa might be in order given that plenty of people were arguing this very point ten years ago and the IEA was lambasting them as fools while cautioning governments to ignore them.

And welcome aboard: IMF

Yes indeed. It’s not just the IEA who has suddenly realised “whoops!” During the past seven years or so we’ve had an acknowledgement of a serious problem from the US Department of Energy (see the graph on this page for their latest projections), the US Defence Department and at least two specific branches of the US military. The Irish and Swedish governments both received comprehensive reports detailing the problem (the Swedes acted on it, the Irish built a motorway system and had a property bubble) and about a dozen other non-fringe organisations have sounded caution. A few days ago these organisations were joined by one of the heavy hitters… the International Monetary Fund.

In the April 2011 World Economic Outlook report, the IMF have starkly stated that they expect global oil shortages “within a year”. This tallies with the predictions of the US Defence Department who claimed that we would see “significant supply constraints” by the middle of 2012. The IMF report tries not to sound too downbeat and claims that so long as the oil supply falls gradually it won’t be too big a problem. I have two points to make regarding this claim… first, it won’t drop gradually. Once the reality of the situation kicks in there will be a variety of dramatic responses (producer nations hoarding, rich importing nations trying to buy up available supply on long-term contracts, invasions and wars) which will prevent a gradual reduction in supply. I would suggest that this has already begun in some quarters and we’ve not seen the half of it. Second… even if it did drop gradually, it would still be a big problem.

So although – like over at the IEA – some of this is starting to sink in at the IMF, they still can’t see beyond their free market ideology. And I’m afraid it simply does not work in the arena of essential non-renewable resources. Future generations will view the free market in natural resources as possibly the single most stupid thing ever to have emerged from the human mind. I know some intelligent, decent people who read this blog and subscribe to the notion that a free market in non-renewable natural resources is a good idea. It’s perfectly possible for smart people to have some stupid ideas. And selling natural resources into the open market for profit is a stupid idea.

Anyway you can read more about the IMF’s eleventh hour conversion over at crudeoilpeak.com (IMF warns of oil scarcity and a 60% oil price increase within a year). And here’s a link to the original (and lengthy) World Economic Outlook report (PDF, see Chapter 3).

And joining us tonight: GMO Capital

If you thought the IEA and IMF were surprise guests at the peak oil awareness gig, an even bigger surprise – in its own way – is GMO Capital. These guys are a global investment management firm controlling over a hundred billion dollars in assets. While the IEA and IMF are international agencies that advise governments and proselytize about the wonders of the free market, GMO Capital pretty much are the market. Or a bit of it anyway. In a sense. Oh, you know what I mean.

Anyway, one of the most remarkable essays I’ve read over the past while comes from Jeremy Grantham, the Chief Investment Officer of GMO Capital. Not because of what is says per se, but because of who is saying it. You can read the article at the GMO website (PDF). In essence the article claims that the past 100 years of market-led growth and prosperity is about to come to a crashing end. It’s remarkable stuff considering who wrote it and the audience it’s aimed at (GMO Capital’s investors). Well worth your time to read, or even just skim.

And so it goes

Elsewhere in the news we read about wind farms being paid to shut down because the national grid cannot absorb the power they are producing. The first thing to be said about this is that these payments represent a clear failure in grid management and this needs to be addressed. The second thing that needs to be said is that the BBC should be ashamed of itself for allowing almost half the article to be dominated by the REF. The REF (Renewable Energy Foundation) is a lobbying organisation founded by… wait for it… Noel Edmonds, and has been described as “an anti-wind lobbying organisation”. It’s been suggested that “they actually exist to undermine Renewable Energy – in that respect their name is a deceit”.

In reality we have two choices… we can either embrace a mix of renewable energy solutions (wind, wave, tidal, solar, etc.) or we can resign ourselves to a life without electricity. Whatever George Monbiot and others might claim, nuclear power is simply not the solution to our energy problems. The reasons for this are outside the scope of this blog post, but essentially it is not a sustainable solution, and replacing one unsustainable energy system with another unsustainable energy system is sheer madness. Especially given the massive energy expenditure it would take to do so. We have one more roll of the dice with regards to building a new electricity supply system (the problems of transport and the other uses of petrochemicals still seem insoluble to me, but we can at least keep the lights on and the refrigerators running) and wasting our remaining fossil fuels building a network of nuclear power stations destined to fail is a recipe for disaster.

Instead we need to rethink our consumption patterns. We need to build far more storage into the grid to cope with excess production. We need to massively increase the geographical spread of our renewable energy infrastructure to reduce the “calm day” effect. And we need to ignore the petty grievances of TV presenters with a personal axe to grind. I accept that, aesthetically speaking, wind farms aren’t to everyone’s taste (I think they look great, but that’s just me). But if we want to keep the lights on in a world faced with Climate Change and fossil fuel depletion we need to get past that.

The last thing I want to say here is that I expect to be hearing a lot more about “shale gas” over the coming months. Already China is looking towards it (PDF) as a solution to a decline in global oil supplies (once again, the notion that replacing one unsustainable resource with another, albeit a slightly more abundant one, is being described as “a solution” dismays me). Few things, however, give me the screaming heebie-jeebies as much as the thought of a massive expansion in shale gas production. It may well be the only fossil fuel that’s ecologically worse than tar sands from an extraction and production standpoint. Both tar sands and shale gas production have the potential to massively accelerate fresh water depletion, as well as lay waste to vast areas of the planet.

Fact is, in the face of peak oil we need to start looking at reducing our energy consumption. Every other option leads to disaster.

Over in the UK the climate and energy secretary, Chris Huhne, has given a speech in which he warns of a “possible 1970s-style oil shock“. Meanwhile here in Ireland, as Labour and Fine Gael continue their coalition negotiations, rising oil prices look certain to provide the new government with its first serious challenge, even as the IMF/EU “bail-out” drags us into bankruptcy.

On the subject of the “bail-out”, German chancellor Angela Merkel insisted a couple of days ago that there was little room for renegotiation. There’s a hint that interest rates might be reduced very slightly, but it would be a token gesture and one that will have no real impact on Ireland’s future (though you can bet that Enda Kenny will be hailing it as a massive success… it’ll be his “Peace In Our Time” moment and it’ll happen right at the start of his leadership). Instead, the financial institutions of Europe, backed by the most powerful governments, are demanding that the Irish people pay for the reckless behaviour of private institutions over which they had no control. It’s beyond the merely unjust and enters the territory of tyranny. An aggressive response isn’t merely appropriate, it is damn near obligatory.

But what should that response be?

The first thing that should be done is the Irish Central Bank should begin printing large numbers of new banknotes. Or rather, old ones… the Irish punt. These should be held in reserve in the event we need them. The government should then send a negotiating team to Strasbourg, Paris and Frankfurt and explain that the Irish people will not accept the tyranny being imposed upon them. We have run up a large sovereign debt and will repay that, as we should. However, we simply refuse to force private debt onto public shoulders. The choice then lies with Europe…

They can accept our position, in which case Ireland will endeavour to reduce the public deficit — which will still involve hardship for the Irish people, no question about it — and repay the sovereign debt in euros. Meanwhile the institutions of capitalism which made disastrous bets on the Irish property boom will have to accept their losses. As is morally and legally right.

Or they can reject our position; in which case we will unilaterally default on the bank debt anyway, and repay our sovereign debt in punts.

I’m not suggesting that the transition out of the euro would be painless. Far from it. It would be bumpy and involve a hell of a lot of obstacles. But I genuinely believe that the alternative — accepting the legitimacy of transferring private debt into the public domain — will be far worse. I also believe, were we to adopt the aggressive position I suggest (a position that merely mirrors the tyrannical position being adopted by Europe towards us, let us not forget) there’s a better than average chance that Europe will acquiesce to our demands. A unilateral decision to default on the debt and pull out of Europe will ultimately, especially in these rather skittish times, do plenty of damage to the European project, as well as to Ireland.

Again, let me stress that I take no pleasure in suggesting this course of action. If you’ve read my piece on The Maastricht Treaty, you’ll know that I am very much in favour of the spirit of the European Project. But it also seems to me that so long as Europe is being run in the interests of financial institutions rather than the citizenry that an oppositional stance is required.

And the oil price?

Ah yes, the added wrinkle. The price of oil is on an upward trajectory again. Instability in the Middle East and North Africa is certainly contributing to this, but that’s far from being the whole story. The truth about exaggerated reserves in OPEC nations is finally beginning to filter out, while other countries are also seeing a faster than expected fall in both reserves and production capacity. On top of that (and not entirely unrelated to it), global food prices have now reached record highs.

Both of these developments suggest a clear strategy for the incoming Irish government who will simply not be able to rely upon the economic growth forecasts it is basing its already absurdly optimistic figures on. Firstly, the Irish agriculture sector needs to be expanded. This should not be rocket science for a country that was primarily agricultural up until very recently. Given that rising oil prices will make the mechanisation of farming more expensive, farmers should be given incentives (perhaps in the form of employer tax breaks) to hire additional labour.

At the same time, significant incentives should be provided to companies to set up wind and wave energy projects. These incentives could include things like employer tax breaks (again) and even tax-free profits for the first year after the farm repays its set up cost. On the one hand, yes, this would be loss to the treasury (though I prefer to see it as a non-upfront investment in the project) but the gains — in terms of employment / getting people off the dole and training them, plus the long-term advantages to the national infrastructure — will more than pay for this.

Our government should be doing all of this, as well as announcing a national emergency strategy that is ambitious and infused with real vision. It should commit itself to an Ireland that can feed and power itself, without recourse to imports, by the time it leaves office. Which is definitely not to say that Ireland should be looking to remove itself from global trade. Merely that Ireland should accept that in a world where the global markets in food and energy resources have become impossibly volatile and are likely to put even the wealthiest nations under strain, that as a small, fertile, sparsely-populated island we are in an almost unique position to take control of our own destiny. And far from trying to weather the approaching storm, we should be looking to disembark the leaky ship of international capitalism and take shelter before it hits.

Of course, our government hasn’t got the intelligence, the vision or — let’s face it — the balls to pursue such plans. Will the next one? I can only hope so.

This morning as I sat reading the news and shaking my head in dismay at the dozen examples of human folly it presented, someone came to the front door. There’s nothing unusual about that… the postman often rings the bell so he can tell me a corny joke while delivering the mail. And we get a lot of sales people here… often, inexplicably, trying to sell us services we already use. “Sorry to bother you, sir”, they always begin, “but are you an Eircom customer?” Trying to hide my exasperation from the person in the Eircom jacket, I reply “Yes I am, actually”. They then smile, tell me to have a nice day, and move on to the next door. Airtricity do it every couple of months too.

I guarantee it would be more cost effective, in terms of time spent and numbers of households targeted, to issue their sales teams with a simple print-out of addresses of existing customers. It would also put an end to the slow erosion of my goodwill towards my service providers that makes it more likely I’ll listen to rival sales teams when they arrive.

Anyway, this morning when I opened the door I was greeted not by the avuncular postie, nor by a corporate wind-breaker wrapped around a human hard-sell. Instead there were two women with the kind of broad, earnest smiles that serve as a warning that you’re about to have a conversation in which biblical quotations will feature prominently. “We’re sorry to bother you”, said the younger of the two. It was early enough that my brain hadn’t yet kicked fully into gear and I wondered briefly if they learned their script from the corporate sales folk. It was only later I realised it was obviously the other way round. She continued in that measured, reasonable tone that so often masks deep unreason. “I’m sure you have your own beliefs”, she said.

I nodded. “Yes I do”, I said quite emphatically. She thrust a leaflet into my hand. “Well, we’re Jehovah’s witnesses and we thought you might like to take some time to consider what the bible has to say…”

It’s at this point in any encounter with a religious fundamentalist that the option to engage or disengage presents itself. On another day I might have spent quite a while trying to patiently explain why I felt so troubled by their presence on my doorstep… always knowing that it was water off a duck’s back. But this morning I just wasn’t in the mood. I shook my head and handed back the leaflet. “I’ve read the bible as it happens. And I just don’t accept that your interpretation is more valid than my own. Thank you and goodbye.” Their smiles didn’t change a single iota. They thanked me for my time and walked away.

A little later I glanced out of my upstairs window and saw eight or ten extremely clean and smartly dressed people standing outside, clearly comparing their experiences of my street. Where once they would have genuinely angered me, now my overwhelming emotion was one of sadness. They were trapped in a cage not of their own making. And so are damn near all of us. Theirs is just easier to see than most.

With 154 of the 166 seats filled and only three constituencies still counting, the results are pretty much in at this stage. Based on the the exclusions that have already happened in those three constituencies it now seems certain that Fine Gael will end up with 75 or 76 seats. This means they’ll be at least 7 seats short of an overall majority. Fianna Fáil will likely finish with 19 seats (though have an outside chance of 20), which represents the most dramatic collapse in their support in Irish history. The party of De Valera — the party of the Irish establishment — has been effectively wiped out in Dublin (retaining a single seat in the commuter belt) and beaten into a very distant third place nationally, with Labour returning perhaps twice as many TDs (they’re neck-and-neck with independent candidates in a couple of counts as I write this, but they’ll end up with between 36 and 38). The Greens have been entirely removed from national politics in Ireland. They failed to secure election for a single candidate and my prediction – soon after they joined the last government – that they’d “end up as little more than Fianna Fáil’s new scapegoat” seems to have been reasonably correct. Certainly, Fianna Fáil didn’t escape damage by using them as a scapegoat, but the Greens have clearly suffered a similar fate to the PDs, who were the last party to get savaged by the electorate as a result of joining FF at the top table.

It’s worth making the point that I’m far from happy at what’s happened to the Green Party. On the one hand, the individuals who helped prop up such a disastrous Fianna Fáil administration certainly did not deserve to be returned to the Dáil. On the other hand, the wider environmental movement in Ireland can’t help but be harmed by what’s happened.

With regards to the other parties and groupings, there’s part of me that acknowledges that Sinn Féin and the other genuinely left wing candidates have done well relative to their position prior to the election. But there’s also a (probably bigger) part of me that wonders why they didn’t do even better. Given the current situation Ireland finds itself in, the left should arguably have been able to carve out a much bigger place for itself. Sinn Féin will probably end up with 15 seats, a trebling of their current representation. While at the same time, there will probably be at least 8 or 9 other left TDs in the guise of 2 from The Socialist Party, 2 from the People Before Profit Alliance plus a handful of left wing independents. It’s questionable whether they’d be able to work harmoniously enough with Sinn Féin to form a strong alliance, but if they managed it, they could end up as the the official opposition. Which would be a good thing for the country.

Of course, it’s still not absolutely certain that the next government will be a Fine Gael / Labour coalition. There may be enough independents willing to prop up a minority Fine Gael government to save Enda Kenny from having to give away precious cabinet seats to Labour and ensure he doesn’t have to compromise in any policy areas. On the other hand, Fine Gael may well want the security of a large majority (it would be the largest majority in the history of the state were they to form a coalition). Though given the possibility of economic disaster and the internal strains that might create, Kenny could also be concerned about Labour pulling their support when the going got tough, rather than risk the fate of the Greens. I wouldn’t like to predict how that’ll turn out; and neither a minority Fine Gael government nor a FG/Lab coalition would surprise me.

Such contempt

Now that the campaign is over, however, and before we know the final outcome one way or the other, I’d like to make a couple of observations about the last few weeks. About the way the media dealt with the situation, and the way the political parties dealt with the public. While I’ll be making specific reference to Irish politicians and issues, be very clear that these are general and widespread problems that affect modern politics the world over (or at least, in countries that are ostensibly “democracies”).

From my perspective, one of the most frustrating things about the recent election campaign was the ham-fisted media management engaged in by the political parties. This was far and away most prevalent in the Fine Gael camp where their party leader was wrapped in cotton-wool and effectively insulated from potentially antagonistic interviewers.

The most famous example, of course, was his point-blank refusal to take place in the first leaders debate because it was to be chaired by Vincent Browne. In September of last year Browne suggested that the best thing Kenny could do for Ireland would be to “go into a dark room with a revolver and a bottle of whiskey”. A week later, after an outraged reaction from Fine Gael and suicide victim support groups, Browne issued a comprehensive on-air apology. Five months later, in the midst of arguably the most important election campaign in the history of the nation, Enda Kenny seized on that grudge to avoid being questioned before the Irish public.

It was political cowardice. And it demonstrated a contempt for the Irish electorate that he would compound time and again over the next few weeks. It also suggests that Kenny just doesn’t have what it takes to lead a nation in a time of crisis. If he petulantly refuses to talk to someone for a 5-month old slight that’s been apologised for, will he be on speaking terms with anyone outside his party in a couple of years? Because frankly, he’s going to have much worse said about him in the months to come.

Kenny’s strategy appeared to be “say as little as possible and try to look superior”. Bizarrely, when questioned on his policies in the midst of the campaign, he consistently refused to elaborate and instead referred the interviewer (and by extension, the Irish people) to the Fine Gael website. This became so prevalent that it became a point of satire. Opposition politicians (including the Fianna Fáil leader) would often refer to Fine Gael policy by intoning “double-yew double-yew double-yew dot fine gael dot i e”.

The first thing to point out about Enda Kenny’s strategy is that the most recent statistics suggest that 34.2% of Irish people do not use / have access to the internet. That no interviewer challenged him on this fact is a disgrace (you can be bloody sure that Vincent Browne would have!) They were letting Kenny express open contempt for more than a third of the population without drawing any attention to it. The other point to make is that by allowing Kenny to effectively ignore questions about policy detail, the “friendly” media figures he’d allowed to interview him were actively helping Fine Gael be elected. It’s a travesty and RTÉ should be investigated for such craven complicity.

It’s also worth pointing out that Fine Gael’s website doesn’t actually carry the kind of policy detail that Kenny insisted was there. It just doesn’t. The much-vaunted 5-point-plan wasn’t a plan at all. It was five bloody aspirations. Nothing more. “Get Ireland working again” isn’t a plan! Dear God, do they think we’re fools?

Actually yes. They clearly do. And by awarding Fine Gael almost 50% of the seats in the Dáil, the Irish people appear eager to vindicate that opinion.

It should be noted that the majority of people in the media didn’t hold the other parties to much greater account, but the media strategy of the others didn’t involve quite so much overt evasion. Well, not this time. I suspect during the next election, the others will have learnt a lesson or two from Fine Gael and our national broadcaster will have played a large part in ushering in a glorious new era where politicians cherry-pick their media appearances so that they only ever get interviewed by people prepared to lob softballs in their direction and show them in a positive light. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t leave so many people in the dark.

The ‘No Plan B’ issue

There’s another thing I really want to get off my chest, because it’s frustrated me ever since I started taking notice of politicians. It happens in every election campaign I’ve watched, whether in Ireland, the UK or elsewhere. It’s the point-blank refusal of political candidates to respond to “hypothetical questions”. Sometimes it reaches surreal proportions. A question is asked… “Candidate Joe Bloggs, if your party gets into power will you implement Policy A?” To which the response is… “Well, the election is still some weeks away and it’s up to the people to decide who is in power or not. I’m certainly not going to presume anything at this stage. In fact, I think it would be dreadfully wrong for anyone to be so presumptuous as to assume to know which way the people will vote!” A tenacious interviewer will object… “but Candidate Joe, I asked if you get into power” only to be interrupted… “I can’t answer hypothetical questions”.

Now, obviously that’s an exaggeration, but I suspect everyone reading this recognises the pattern.

In this recent campaign, it was used time and again (by all parties except those on the left, who were very up front indeed on the issue) regarding the IMF/EU “bail out” and the obscenity of the debt transfer. It was a very simple question, and probably the single most important one during this entire campaign. That anyone cast a vote in favour of a party that refused to answer it is utterly scandalous. Yet most of us did. The question goes something like this…

Right now, pretty much everyone accepts that, when combined, the bank debt and sovereign debt will simply bankrupt this country. Nobody sane believes we are capable of bearing such a massive burden. It will crush Ireland. Every party is determined to renegotiate the terms of the deal that saddled us with the bank debt, as well as the levels of interest we must pay on the funds made available to us in the “bail out”. However, if the negotiations do not reduce the burden to a sustainable level, what then? What is Plan B?

The left has a simple response… we default on the bank debt while honouring our sovereign debt and restructuring the economy in such a way as to repay it. At that point, you can argue back and forth about the merits of default, or the details of restructuring. You agree or disagree with the proposal.

But Fianna Fáil, Labour, Fine Gael and even the Greens all refused to answer the question. “The negotiations have not happened yet”, they tell us. “The stress tests on the banking system won’t be complete until the end of March”, they tell us. “it would be wrong to presume the outcome of the negotiations / stress tests”, they insist.

I wanted an interviewer — just one of them! — to bellow into their complacent faces “No it damn well wouldn’t be wrong! In fact, it’s your job to presume! We want a government that already has answers to the obvious hypothetical situations, not one just making it up as they go along. Any fricking idiot can do that! Is that what you are? A fricking idiot!!?”

In fact, I’d want the interviewer to use even more exclamation points and italics than that.

How are these fools and charlatans allowed to get away with either not having plans for critical potential situations, or else not telling the electorate what those plans are, so that we can vote in an informed manner? It’s not democracy if the agenda is hidden.

UPDATE: The Jim Bliss 5-Point Plan for Recovery

1. Free jet-packs for everyone
2. Top grades for every child in school
3. A cure for cancer
4. The winning lottery numbers mailed to every home the day before the draw
5. Get Ireland Working!

Vote Jim Bliss in 2014. I guarantee nobody has a better 5-point plan.

Tomorrow, the country goes to the polls. Finally! The election campaign feels like it’s been going on for about a year, which would have been draining even if the candidates had anything interesting or illuminating to say. But of course, they didn’t. They spent their time filling the airwaves with words aimed at obscuring their policies and the issues facing the country. The three main party leaders argued with apparent passion about policy differences so slight as to be essentially insignificant. And they joined forces to pour scorn on any alternative to their crony-capitalism whenever it raised its head. It speaks volumes that given a straight choice between the current government (who facilitated the capitalist smash-and-grab that has been perpetrated upon Ireland) and their likely successor, led by Enda Kenny — a man who whenever he’s questioned on policy in public tells the people to log onto their website (you can almost see the contempt dripping from his lips) — I’d probably leave the old lot in power.

Seriously. That’s how bad the situation is.

But of course, that’s not the choice facing the country. If opinion polls are to be believed (and they’ve all been remarkably consistent), Fianna Fáil will experience complete electoral meltdown. Remarkably, they are not running enough candidates to gain an overall majority even if every single one of them were elected. That’s pretty mind-boggling. Imagine a UK general election where the Labour party only fielded 290 candidates. Or a US congressional election where the Democrats fielded 194. It’s less an admission of defeat as it is an active refusal to be in power. De Valera must be turning in his grave. Though of course, Fianna Fáil exorcised the spirit of De Valera from their party the moment they placed the interests of private financial institutions above the interests of Irish citizens. Whatever his faults (and he had many) Dev would never have done that. In fact, he’d probably have had any finance minister who proposed such a move tried for treason.

In fairness to Fine Gael, they’ve always had more of a pro-capitalist outlook than Fianna Fáil, even before the Celtic Tiger got its claws into Bertie. Which makes it all the more remarkable that the Irish people seem to be turning to them to get us out of a crisis caused by the failure of international capitalism. Ultimately the story of this election will be the astonishing failure of the left wing parties to take advantage of this failure. A member of the United Left Alliance interviewed on Vincent Browne’s show last night appeared proud to predict his alliance would gain between 4 and 8 seats. Browne was incredulous. As, quite frankly, am I. When the vice-like grip of international capital begins choking the life out of a country, why aren’t the socialist left confidently predicting 40 to 80 seats!? How have they failed to capitalise (pun intended) on this situation? Even Sinn Féin, a left wing party hampered by the fact that half the country will never vote for them for historical reasons, appear likely to do better than the ULA.

The argument is that the Irish population is inherently conservative. That despite claiming they want change, they’re actually too scared of it to do anything other than prop up the existing establishment. It’s depressing, and frankly, if they elect a Fine Gael majority government, they are essentially stating — unambiguously — that they are happy with the way the country was governed during the past few years. It’s just bizarre. I have heard people say that they wouldn’t want to take a risk with the left… that the left might bankrupt the country. As though a nation of less than 5 million people can take on a hundred billion euro of private gambling debt and not already be bankrupt. It’s an insane perspective, but one that seems prevalent.

We can only hope that the opinion polls are wrong. That Fine Gael get nowhere near an overall majority and are consequently forced to water down their savage policies to appease a coalition partner. That the left parties gain far more seats than they expect. That whoever is in government realises that forcing the Irish people to pay off debts they didn’t run up is both morally wrong and logistically impossible. That come Saturday night, we have a government that will place the interests of the Irish people above the interests of financial institutions… a government for whom the phrase “we must all share the burden” doesn’t automatically have an unspoken “except the very wealthy” tagged on the end.

Anyway, it’ll all be over soon. The election’s tomorrow. The count’s on Saturday. If Fine Gael get an overall majority, we’ll know the outcome by Saturday night. If they need a coalition partner, it’ll be the middle of next week. After that, I’ll ease off on the rants about Irish politics and return to rants about sustainability and the occasional music review. I suspect my regular readers will be happy about that.