Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

[Paul Mackin]

On 1/6/2012 1:26 PM, rich wrote:
> Yes, I'm with you. I would just point out that on a more granular 
> level there are differences between say Nazi imperialism and US forays 
> on the world stage during the post-war. The latter lacked the 
> ideological foundation for mass murder (though in many respects they 
> were goosed by economic concerns and pressures) or if you will US 
> foreign policy was politically-driven whereas the Nazis were mostly 
> concerned with race.Of course the results were equally gruesome for 
> millions

The Germans were MOSTLY  concerned with territorial expansion, gaining 
"living space" or Lebensraum. And they weren't at the time interested in 
colonial acquisitions as other European nations earlier had been but 
rather in conquering lands immediately to the east where Germans could 
live.  This would require the removal of indigenous occupants. Racial 
and inferior peoples theories were useful in justifying these foreign 
policy goals. The internal policies entailing the removal of Jews and 
others I believe historians pretty much agree were secondary to the 
territorial expansion aims.

But in the end, 20 or was it 50 million people were dead.

P


>
> rich
>
> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net 
> <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
>
>     I've always thought he was talking about both , that summoning the
>     image of living in dread of the rockets  mapped naturally onto
>     American imperial warfare and the use of aerial bombardment in
>     Vietnam. These can all be seen as surrogate resource wars by the
>     cartels.   The spirit behind it moves around, Jews become Viet
>     peasants, Central Americans, Chechens, Muslims, pretty Thai 12
>     year olds. Always the same lies, the same profits accrueing to the
>     informed investors and  industrialists. Oil being the ultimate in
>     fungible liquidity, an erasure of the past to control the future.
>     On Jan 5, 2012, at 1:50 PM, rich wrote:
>
>     > a bit but you do learn abit of things you hadnt known if not
>     abiding by his conclusions. i think the fault may lay in the fact
>     that Hollander's critique seems to work more when  talking about
>     post-war America/Vietnam and not specifically with the WW2
>     generation. at least I read GR that way; others may differ
>     >
>     > rich
>     >
>     > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Paul Mackin
>     <mackin.paul at verizon.net <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>     > On 1/5/2012 11:05 AM, rich wrote:
>     >> is this the conventional wisdom re: GR. I'm not so sure anymore
>     myself. It doesnt factor in the motivating ideology that allows
>     one small section of humans to place another larger section of
>     humans into gas chambers or shoot women and children into hastily
>     dug ditches. men plotting in small rooms did this and it most
>     definitely had a name
>     >>
>     >> I like the literary aspects that Mr. Hollander instigates; as
>     history though it falls short
>     >
>     > Hollander makes Pynchon quite nutty sounding.
>     >
>     > P
>     >>
>     >>
>     >> the carbon democracy book does sound very interesting. thanks
>     for that, dave
>     >>
>     >> rich
>     >>
>     >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 9:44 PM, Dave Monroe
>     <against.the.dave at gmail.com <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>>
>     wrote:
>     >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Dave Monroe
>     <against.the.dave at gmail.com <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>> wrote
>     >> :
>     >> > Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
>     >> > by Timothy Mitchell
>     >> >
>     >> > http://www.versobooks.com/books/1020-carbon-democracy
>     >>
>     >> For Pynchon, World War II was a monstrous holocaust, a
>     cataclysm of 40
>     >> million souls, resulting from a competition among technologies. The
>     >> old dynasty, the J. P. Morgan dynasty, was built on the
>     technologies
>     >> of coal, steel, and railroads; the newer Rockefeller dynasty on the
>     >> technologies of oil (petrochemicals, plastics), aluminum, and
>     >> aircraft. Pynchon says that World War II was a corporate war
>     >> reflecting those technologies, that for many their “first loyalty,
>     >> legal and moral, is to the estate [corporation] she represents.
>     Not to
>     >> our boys in uniform [the nation-state], however gallant,
>     whenever they
>     >> died” ( Lot 49, 53).
>     >>
>     >> In Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon has to bring up the long ago
>     >> relationship between Standard Oil and the I.G. Farbenindustrie.
>     >> Standard Oil and I.G. Farben did arrange to share world markets in
>     >> 1936, and as an act of good faith, they exchanged some 2,000
>     patents
>     >> just prior to World War II. Their multinational character
>     forced them
>     >> to make arrangements for the contingencies of war.
>     >>
>     >> When World War II erupted, their loyalties were so strongly
>     with each
>     >> other that the US government had to bring legal action against both
>     >> the Standard Oil Co. (NJ) and I.G. Farbenindustrie (see Pynchon’s
>     >> list, Rainbow 538) for illegal monopolistic practices involving
>     >> gasoline, toluene, and synthetic rubber patents. The US government
>     >> seized many of these patents ultimately. Standard Oil, it
>     seems, also
>     >> gave Farben the technology, personnel and equipment for the
>     production
>     >> of tetraethyl lead, without which there would have been no high
>     octane
>     >> aircraft fuel, no luftwaffe, and no war. Then Sen. Harry S. Truman,
>     >> the investigating committee’s chairman, viewed the relationship
>     >> between these multinational corporations as treasonable.
>     >>
>     >> By referring to this multinational liaison as “the century’s master
>     >> cabal,” Pynchon is suggesting more than corporate cooperation.
>     He is
>     >> suggesting that World War II was part of the “Plot Which Has No
>     Name,”
>     >> the concerted effort by the new dynasty to bring down the old
>     >> dynasty....
>     >>
>     >> [...]
>     >>
>     >> http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/inferno.htm
>     >>
>     >
>     >
>
>

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