[Peace-discuss] video suggestion: "History of Oil" / 20th century Western foreign policy, including WWI, is a continuous struggle to control oil

[Karen Medina]

Carl, Ron, Jason, and peace-discuss,

I would like to suggest the following 45.23 minute video for next
Tuesday's (August 30, 2011) Aware on the Air:
"Robert Newman's History of Oil"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159

Description: Robert Newman is a British stand-up comedian. "History of
Oil" is a mixture of stand-up comedy and introductory lecture on
geopolitics, Newman argues that twentieth-century Western foreign
policy, including World War I, should be seen as a continuous struggle
by the West to control Middle Eastern oil not to bring democracy to
the Middle East.

This was shown on BBC's Ch4 and More4.

The video is downloadable at IndyBay (
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/04/12/18149991.php ).

The link I gave you is from google video (not great video quality).

I think this work was originally "Apocalypso Now or, from P45 to AK47,
how to Grow the Economy with the Use of War" 2005.

Newman used several books for this piece, but two stick out in my memory:
Marching to the Drums Eyewitness Accounts of War from the Kabul
Massacre to the Siege of Mafikeng by Ian Knight
Richard Heinberg's book The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of
Industrial Societies

Another description of the video:
"This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman's
stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills
with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests
to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street
lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we
are going to survive when the world's oil supplies are finally
exhausted."

Respectfully,
Karen Medina