Contrasting News - Linked in the Middle
It seems that something very interesting and positive is going on in Bolivia, as the Qhepus Anarchist Collective (posed on the excellent ainfos anarchist newswire) take up the story...

Bolivia is a poor, backward country, turned into a colony of Yankee imperialism, where an insipid bourgeoisie uses this "nation" as its own property, rotating the country's governors between the members of its social class, and opening the doors of the country to imperialism and the transnational companies so that they can pillage the natural resources of the country however they feel fit. And this has already been going on for a long time....To all this must be added that there are a total of 10 municipalities that have expelled the state authorities and got rid of institutions like the police and army, to put into practice, once and for all, the communitarian model that the Aymará people call "ayllu".

This "ayllu", in agreement with the Aymará view of things, is a system where Direct Democracy is put into practice, as the main decisions are made on the basis of open assemblies of the whole population, and where Mutual Aid and Solidarity form part of daily life for these people, who are looking to build a better society through means of these valuable tools. And without doubt they will obtain it, as long as they, together with the inhabitants of the cities, can free themselves from the claws of the State, be it national or supranational (imperialist).

The world's libertarians must salute with raised fists these initiatives by the indigenous communities that inhabit Bolivia, who, without parties or vanguards, support each other in natural organizations, seeking by themselves to construct a future of Freedom....

Well, if it is as you say, I salute you with raised fist.

On the flip side - Seymour Hersh, the multi-award winning journalist who originally broke the My Lai massacre story and who recently broke the Abu Ghraib torture, gave a speech recently in which he shows how deep the hole goes in that prison and Iraq really goes. It's really deep:

"I can tell you it was much worse. There are worse photos, worse events....some of the worse things that happened you don't know about.....The women were passing messages out saying 'please come and kill me' because of what's happened, basically what happened is those women who were arrested with young boys, children, the boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, the worse above all of them is the sound track of the boys shrieking. That your government has...."

You could dismiss this as the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist with a tinfoil-hat if it was not for the fact that the assertions come from somebody who has received the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. How fundamentally wrong can this Iraq enterprise be when we are asked to stand shoulder to shoulder with a corpse-machine that uses the rape of children as a weapon of war? Can you rape your way to a democracy? If you accept (as the evidence points to) that the horrific operations in Abu Ghraib come from the top - there is no other conclusion than it is all wrong. Blair can ask us to rejoice because Iraq is free, well Tony, state sanctioned rape is not freedom. It is all wrong. The enterprise that is Operation Iraqi Freedom and the system that spawned and sustained it must be brought down, person by person, bit by bit. Then we can talk freedom.

And here is the link between the two - I am hopeful that what is happening in Bolivia is part and parcel of building a better world. A world without the corpse-machine of the military industrial complex. A world of direct democracy. Dick Cheney was right, we are entering a state of perpetual war - but for those opposing the corpse machine, the war will not be fought with cruise missiles or Depleted Uranium rounds - it will be fought in hearts and minds, on streets, in lockdowns, insurgencies, petitions, die-ins, demos, by surviving, through non-compliance and a million other ways - until their whole enterprise is stopped dead.

Head-Meld-Update
 
The Russians might be sending troops to Iraq.  The report going around is that in exchange for oil concessions and help in getting Russia into the World Trade Organisation.  The report says that it may be as many as 40,000.  Money not only talks, it mobilises armies!  It circular irony of the few al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq, who cut their teeth fighting the Russians in Afghanistan in the 80s then alongside the US – will now once more be facing the Russians – different decade, different land – but to them, I guess, its all for the same cause.
 
On a totally unrelated topic – there is a cool picture of Roni Size at Ashton Court here:  
http://www.photex.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Image012.jpg
 

Ashton Court Walkabout
 
Well for anyone who missed it, another year of Ashton Court madness has come and gone.  First up I’d like to send a shout-out to the people who made it a great two days – the mentalists!  You knows you make it what it is!  Guy in all-over body-glove dancing round talking to people who weren’t there – mentalist.  Guy who stood on the comedy tent stage with his tackle out singing (badly) the Burt Bacharach cover the Stranglers do, to an audience of around 200 people – mentalist.  The people at the disinformation tent – mentalists.  The (many) people whos summer tipple of choice was a gallon bottle of skullfuck cider – apple mentalists. 
 
Here is how it went down for me:  Saturday I spent quite a while at the Blackout stage and hugely enjoyed Distance/Time (but I’m bias in that opinion).  Distance/Time kept the audience pretty rapt with contemporary dance, electro-acoustic music and VJing and is (I guess) the first time contemporary dance has been done with a breakcore soundtrack?  Correct me if I’m wrong.  I hung around to see Deaf Rave:  When I first heard about this event I was thinking Death Rave – which sounded pretty hardcore, in the event it was actually Deaf Rave; but it was really focused, impressive and got the crowd moving. The performers were very confident and full-on, resulting in an event that felt like a kind of top of the pops on acid.  I also spend some time in the comedy tent and really enjoyed that too; partly thanks to the mentalist described, but also due to some very funny people giving it some.  I ended the evening listening to Goldie Lookin Chain and could not hear a fucking word.  All I could see is around 150 people in tracksuits running around on stage trying not to bump into each other.  Given that the fun of Goldie Lookin Chain is in the lyrics – this was a bit of a disappointment.  The only line I heard was the chorus, "...JLo ain't shit to me, PDiddy ain't shit to me, fuck you Alisha Keys" ….From there I went off to a party, which was a bit of a washout because, given the bridge was shut, by the time people had yomped the 38 miles back home everyone – party organisers included – were knackered and only seemed to have enough energy to make tea, not war.
 
Incidentally the security were living up to the rep of Bristol bounders, generally driving round at boy-racer speed and busily dismounting their Armoured Personal Carriers to tackle non-existent emergencies each time.  They had also taken a lesson from the cops that is familiar to activists – getting a camera stuffed into your face - I saw a gaggle of these body-armoured goons videoing and shunting a trader along like there were pulling protestors from lockdown as Fairford rather than trying to stop some woman selling hash-cake.
 
So Sunday I got up early (1.30pm) and aimed to get to Ashton Court by 5.15pm to see Five Knuckle Shuffle.  I got there and had a place in the sun ready to punk-out and the boys did not disappoint.  Full-on-punk!  I also noted that the lead singer pledged to do all he could to keep the festival community and cheap to attend.  From there I wondered around (aimlessly) for a bit (as you do) and observed the mentalists being mental.  In the meantime I saw some of Bug Planet, which was good, but as I could only get space to sit by the speaker – was painful in one ear.  The Blackout tent was a top destination for me this year – they had lots of kooky shit on and it was always worth staggering in to check out the sounds.  From there I then saw Rebalado, which was a Brazilian-salsa-carnival type thing.  The rhythms were pretty funky and I noticed that the audience for the show went from a gender mix of around 50/50 to being 70/30 in favour of males after the carnival dancers in silver bikinis and half the EC glitter mountain on, emerged.   That said, they did get the crowd moving and for a while it seemed that the only difference between Bristol and Brazil was the weather.  That done I was dragged to see Banghra Fever; the poor guys of whom were having massive technical troubles and ended up doing the gig with only 1 turntable and no CD player, but they had lots energy and enthusiasm and that made up the slack.  From there more comedy tent stuff, which was still funny but no naked people (invite the mentalist back next year!) and once that was done it the stage went to Blackout (not the top tent, but a drum'n'bass act).  Now, I know Roni and the Stranglers were playing, and I only saw one Roni track in passing, but for me, ending the festival in a tent with full-on grassroots drum'and'bass, a nod to the place where the sound was tempered all those years ago, made a kind of poetic sense.  Blackout were pretty fantastic and kept the huge crowd jumping with singers, MCs, guitars, DJ, wired-noise boxes, flute and sax.  As the sun set to the thumping bass and banging drum, this, rather than the big names, was where Ashton Court belongs.
 

So I’m at the St.Pauls Carnival and enjoyed the day – much fun was had and it was a late night/eary morining when the party ended. But a few things happened that night I think worthy of note: First up is that the army had three recruiters out in the crowd offering people the opportunity to sign up and go to facilitate the plunder foreign lands at gun point – very in-keeping with the carnival feel. The irony of the army looking for more willing cannon fodder for the US empire, in a district of St.Pauls who's population are still suffering the historic schism of an earlier empire was not lost of those I saw hassling these army drones.

Second up was later on: While sitting with some cold lager I was sat down chatting to an enthusiastic council official (she/he will remain nameless) and we had a good chat about plunder. The view of this person (and I'm sure other enthusiastic employees) is that they are making the city a better place. From my point of view they are not. Not because they are evil minions planning our impoverishment - but because they are the administrators of a system that cannot, indeed will not let power go. Ever. We talked about the Broadmead development – which in my world view is not a million miles from what is going on in Iraq: The state facilitated plunder. In both cases the infrastructure of the state (here the council, there the US army) smooth the ground over for the transfer of wealth into private hands (here through London based developers who are looking to make a killing from luxury housing, there as Haliburton et al come in to mop up the oil/tax revenues). State facilitated plunder. In both cases the wishes of those to be effected by this wealth-transfer are an unknown quantity. (People objected to both the Iraq war and the Broadmead development and in both cases it went ahead anyway.) Even if there had been access to a truthful account of what people wanted, how could this be separated from the propaganda of either the developers manipulation (see Bristle #16) or the US empire's psyops to result in anything as valuable as a truth?

This council employee's heart might be in the right place – and I don't doubt that – but while you only glimpse tiny portions of the whole, its easy to miss the truth. Because the truth is that if the council was democratic then the Broadmead development would not consist of luxury housing. Because if there was economic justice then the residents of St.Pauls would have a wealth comparable to that of the slavery-made Merchant Ventures. If there was no state propaganda machine then we would have revolted at the government support for Saddam in the 80s and not arrived at the mess we are at now. I would urge this employee to get radical – and by that I mean the real meaning of the word, which is from the Latin for root.

Well, Oil Be Dammed.

Bristol saw the first Peak Oil workshop on the Saturday just gone (19th) which was the first organised event by Sally, the woman who had originally been posting the issue on Bristol Indymedia. It was a good event with lots of positive discussion, a testament to Sally’s hard work and the diligent mindset of those who attended. There is an egroup for interested people to join at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bristolpeakoilers

It has been pointed out by a comrade how little the oil issue springs into the mainstream until it is forced there either by economics (when the price of a barrel goes up) or death (of westerners, not Jonnie Foreigner). He cited a report of the destruction of an oil storage depot in Russia – al Qaeda expanding their targeting of the oil infrastructure – knowing it to be a sure-fire way to send a message to the military-industrical complex? Well, IMHO it is time to look at that which is not talked about, so here’s my info sheet from the Peak Oil day:

Websites:

http://energybulletin.net/
This excellent site captures news stories about peak oil and related issues from all over the web and deposits them in one helpful place - a good spot to keeping up-to-date on energy developments.

http://www.peakoil.net
This is the main site of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas. This has lots of facts, figures and graphs plus links to other sites and articles. Not the best site design and organisation - but full of good links.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/
This site (aka copvcia.com) is run by former LADP Officer Mike Rupert. Some of the stuff can be a little conspiracy-like, but overall it is a good resource with many excellent articles and analysis of oil and geopolitics.

http://www.dieoff.org/
A very depressing site who's name comes from the biological term given for a given species population crash once it exceeds the resources it needs to survive. If you ignore the doom-and-gloom outlook on the site these is some good analysis of oil and population.


Books:

(can I suggest you order these from Greenleaf, as an essential component to a future without oil is a strong local economy - this is something you won't help by shopping at Amazon, Borders or Waterstones! Greenleaf can be contacted at 0117 921 1369, email: info@greenleafbookshop.co.uk or pop in and see them at 82 Colston St, Bristol, BS1 5BB. Website: http://www.greenleafbookshop.co.uk)

'The End of the Oil Age' by Dale Allen Pfieffer
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1411606299
The End of the Oil Age is an anthology of science and geopolitical articles written by Dale Allen Pfeiffer. This collection contains all of the author's major articles about energy depletion, the confluence of environmental problems set to converge upon the world, and the implications for modern civilization. Understanding the global peak of oil production and the North American natural gas cliff is essential for making sense of what is happening in the world today. The book is a warning about the end of hydrocarbon based technological civilization.

'Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict' by Michael T. Clare
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 0805055762
From the oilfields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the pipelines of Central Asia , Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations.

The PARTY'S OVER: Oil, War and the fate of Industrial Societies by Richard Heinberg
Publisher: Clairview Books
ISBN: 1902636457
When Mike Bowlin, Chairman of ARCO, said in 1999 that "We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil," he was voicing a truth that many others in the petroleum industry knew but dared not utter. Over the past few years, evidence has mounted that global oil production is nearing its historic peak. Richard Heinberg has distilled complex facts, histories, and events into a readable overview of the energy systems that keep today's mass society running. The result is jarring.

Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren
Publisher: Holmgren Design Services
ISBN: 0646418440
This book uses permaculture principles as a framework for an empowering but challenging vision of creative adaptation to a world of energy descent. David Holmgren builds on the extraordinary success of the permaculture concept (which he co-originated with Bill Mollison 25 years ago) and the global permaculture movement, to provide a more cerebral and controversial contribution to the sustainability debate.

Renewables Are Ready: People Creating Renewable Energy Solutions by Nancy Cole and P.J. Skerrett
ISBN: 0-930031-73-3
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

Energy use in the world has reached a critical crossroads. To prevent exhaustion of the last of our fossil fuels, we must commit ourselves to two goals: reduction of present levels of energy consumption, and widespread development and implementation of practical, affordable renewable energy technologies. In Renewables Are Ready, authors Nancy Cole and P.J. Skerrett tell the inspirational stories of Americans who have made renewable energy a reality in their own communities.

Wind Energy Basics: A Guide to Small and Micro Wind Systems by Paul Gipe; Foreword by Richard Perez of Home Power Magazine
ISBN: 1-890132-07-1
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

The wind power industry has been transformed in the 1990s by dramatic breakthroughs in efficiency, economy, and adaptability. Wind Energy Basics is the most up-to-date source available of information about small wind systems. The book includes the unique "standard small wind turbine rating" developed by the author, which is designed to help readers wade through conflicting performance claims by manufacturers in the U.S. and overseas. Also included is detailed information on planning, siting, and installing a wind system, and on integrating wind power with solar for more cost-effective and reliable off-the-grid applications.