Linda McQuaig, with a forward by Noam Chomsky (Toronto: Doubleday, 2004). Review by Ron Dart.

"With a keen eye and grim wit, McQuaig’s perceptive inquiry
into the world’s energy system strips away layer after layer of deceit, cynicism,
racism, sordid manipulation, violence and aggression, in the dedicated effort
to extract every possible ounce of profit and power in a race to the edge of
disaster, perhaps beyond. It is an urgent wake-up call that should-that must-be
read and acted upon, without delay."
—Noam Chomsky

Linda McQuaig is no foreigner to hard questions. She has, in
her limpid and incisive way, asked the hard questions of the makers and shapers
of power in Canada and beyond. Few escape McQuaig’s penetrating gaze. It is from
such a clear-headed voice of conscience that we need to hear more.

It’s The Crude, Dude
unravels and unveils, for those who have not yet dared to see, why the Middle
East is of such concern to the power brokers in the world. McQuaig argues it is
the crude, and it is best to face this obvious fact. Kuwait was liberated from
Iraq because of the crude. The American preoccupation with Iraq has much to do
with the crude oil that lies beneath that country. Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and Saudi
Arabia (of course) produce more black gold than most places in the world;
hence, they are the focus and interest of the powerful in the world. McQuaig
does not linger just in the Middle East. The oil-rich and bumper crop country
of Venezuela is also brought to front stage for one and all to see.

The strength of It’s
The Crude, Dude is the way McQuaig painstakingly tracks and traces this
drama. Chapter after chapter walks the reader ever closer to the real issues at
stake in the Middle East. Her approach is both historical and ideological.
McQuaig’s journalistic style compels and holds the reader. It’s hard to put the
book down as her tale unfolds.

Rightly so, McQuaig makes the connection between the
ravenous and insatiable hunger for oil in most first world nations and the hard
fact of global warming. The world we live in, for the most part, runs on and is
well lubricated by oil. We are, though, facing the reality of this
one-dimensional approach to energy consumption. It is impossible to ignore the
fact that the planet is warming up, and this will have dire consequences for
one and all. In It’s The Crude, Dude, McQuaig
makes sure we don’t miss this important connection.

The fact that we are facing dire environmental issues should
raise some concerns, but, as McQuaig makes clear, most of the powerful nations
continue to indulge their rather dated energy interests and refuse to sign the
Kyoto document on the environment.

The bulk of It’s The
Crude, Dude deals with the history and politics of black gold and the
actors in the drama. McQuaig sees this as the real issue that one and all must
see. There is, though, something McQuaig might have noted. There might be more
reasons for the USA and England being in the Middle East than merely the crude.
Some of the leading Neo-liberals in the USA published a document in 1997 called
Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
Many of those who contributed to PNAC have been active in the Bush
administration. PNAC makes it clear, though, that the real world power to
anticipate is China. China has been the sleeping bear for most of the 20th
century. But now the bear is slowly awakening from its slumber. The fact that
China will be, in time, the real threat to the first world energy demands means
that China needs to be slowly circled. The friendship between the USA and
Russia is part of this. The dominance of the Middle East by the USA is another
part. Yes, oil is an easy explanation, but there is more. It would have been
helpful if McQuaig had pondered this. But, back to the crude.

If the use of crude is a dominating problem, and global
warming is like the canary in the mineshaft, how do we deal with the toxins
coming our inevitable way? Most of It’s
The

Crude, Dude is
strong on analysis and diagnosis but rather weak on suggesting a prognosis. In
this sense, it reminds me of Henny Penny, best known for saying “The sky is
falling in, the sky is falling in!”

In the laurel wreath he lays at the beginning of this book,
Noam Chomsky argues that It’s The Crude,
Dude “is an urgent wake-up call that should—that must—be read and acted
upon, without delay.” The question, then, is how are we to act without delay?
What forms of action are before us? Are education, protest, advocacy and
citizens groups and agendas enough?

It’s The Crude, Dude
reminds me in many ways of Global
Showdown: How The New Activists Are Fighting Global Corporate Rule (2001).
Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (authors of Global
Showdown) are very much in the same tribe as McQuaig. Chomsky is much at
home in this clan, also. The intellectual analysis of this family is quite
predictable, as is their means of solving the problem of corporate rule. The
argument, at a deeper structural level, goes like this:: The world is dominated
by a power elite. Those who took C.W. Mills in with their mother’s milk know
this line and lineage well. The second step of the argument takes things a step
further: The State is very much an integral part of the military industrial
complex. The conclusion follows from premises one and two: We do not like what
the power elite is doing. Therefore, we do not trust the State. The State is
seen as the problem in this approach, and Society is seen as the answer. Global Showdown follows this approach as
surely as night follows day. The new activists in Global Showdown are those honest and true citizens who are part of
the new activists and citizens’ agenda. It all reminds me of the purist nature
of the puritans in the 16th century reformation. There is the pure
remnant elite, and there are those who have compromised and are traitors to the
cause. The dualist paradigm is an old one. Those who lived long in history get
a sense of déjà vu.

We do need, as Canadians, to ask ourselves after reading
books like It’s the Crude, Dude and Global Showdown whether this simplistic
dualism is the most intelligent way of being political. Is it wise and
prudential to set Society and the State in opposition to each other? What are
the limitations of Society in dealing with globalization and American
imperialism? In short, what are the strengths and weaknesses of protest and
advocacy politics? It does little good to idealize Society while demonizing the
State. This just further plays into the hands of power and negates the very
thing (a strong state) that might be able to oppose and resist globalization
and American imperialism. We also need to ask the reverse question: What is the
limitation of the State and the appeal and strength of Society and the role of
citizens? Those who merely demonize the one while romanticizing the other
easily slip into a comic book way of dealing with politics. This dualistic
mindset does need to be questioned, and those who cannot question their dearest
and nearest assumptions are ideologues of a worrisome and fundamentalist type.

Noam Chomsky urges those who read It’s The Crude, Dude to act without delay. If the action taken is
framed in a way that idealizes Society and the citizens while demonizing and
denigrating the State and formal party politics, the action will be
counter-productive and miss the mark it so desires to hit. It is in the living
of the tensions between Society and the State (seeing the good and bad in both)
that we can deal with the real problems of black gold, global warming,
globalization and the New Romans to the south of us. Those like Chomsky,
McQuaig, Barlow, Clarke, Dobbins and many others offer a necessary albeit
insufficient way of thinking and being political. This is both their legitimate
appeal and their worrisome limitation.

rsd