A tinderbox waiting to be ignited, the world over!

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Based on David Grann's book (2017)
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

The narration is always the same. Again and again, history has repeatedly shown the same narration. The local population would live in harmony, in sync with their environment. The rambunctious mavericks from outside, with both eyes fixed on the wealth, would trickle in, peddle their snake oil elixirs and promise the moons and the stars. They would bulldoze their thinking into the local populace. The host would be cordial enough to accommodate the newcomers' wisdom, too. Once the shields are lowered, when the host treats the visitors as equals and gives them due recognition, they would zap. 

The bottom line is all about wealth, money and control. 

The Native Indians were nicely tugged into the New World, as 'discovered' by Europeans. The areas around Missouri and Kansas were occupied by a group that later became known as the Osage (Middle River) people. As the 13 original states of the USA expanded westwards, winning over the West, the Osage people were relocated to present-day Oklahoma. Even though their new land was hilly and barren, devoid of hunting grounds, they took it as they told themselves that at least they got the White men off their backs. 

Life works in mysterious tangents. Behind every prosperous find, there lies a catch. The discovery of black gold, aka petroleum, aka devil's excrement* is no different. 

Petroleum wells started welling up in their backyards, and their family coffers started bulging. The Osage proudly displayed their newfound wealth, buying the latest edition of the early 1920s post-WW1 prosperity automobiles, shopping the latest designs of luxurious Parisian outfits and basically living the life. Many were living the white men's lives, embracing the high life and the white men's religion. The Osage Elders realised the tide change would not last forever and decided that the deed of the Osage land would be collectively held as communal head rights. Leasing of land for oil earned them much royalty. It could not be sold to outsiders. 

Meanwhile, the US government decreed (Burke Act, 1906) that the Osage were not smart enough to manage their money. An act was passed to make them appoint a white guardian to manage their finances. This led to much exploitation. It became a legitimate means to cheat the Osage blind. The Osage had to obtain approval for their expenditure and were often over-billed through the roof by their guardians. Soon, there was a trend for white men to marry wealthy Osage women to manage their affairs. Pretty soon, a spade of deaths emerged amongst the Osage Indians in Oklahoma.

David Grann did his own research to write about the 20 Osage people murdered probably because of their ties to oil. The newly formed precursor to the FBI, the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), was assigned to investigate. The local rancher, politician and philanthropist was charged with murder. This book shows the ugly side of the self-proclaimed defender of the Truth, one who introduced culture to the Natives and a Christian to stoop so low as to wilfully bully, cheat and kill the people who invited them to their homes. The local white leader, who was seen as a do-gooder and a philanthropist with his nephew, had masterminded the killing of many Osage people. The nephew had even married an Osage lady but had conspired in her death and, probably, her sisters and mother, too. 

This episode is just an example of the numerous atrocities that white Americans have inflicted upon their brethren. In 1897, 300-400 unarmed immigrant miners at the Lattimer Mines, who marched peacefully for better wages and better living conditions, were gunned down by the Deputies. The Deputies would not acted like that if the miners were English-speaking Anglo-Saxons. 

Around the time of the Osage murders, in another part of Oklahoma, which was dubbed as one of the wealthiest black communities in the USA, colloquially known as 'Black Wall Street', the worst racial massacre in US history took place. A 19-year-old black man was accused of assaulting a 17-year-old white woman. Rumours spread that whites were going to lynch the accused. The blacks gathered around the jail to protect the accused. In that tense situation, a gunshot went off, and mayhem ensued.

There had been many Native American-related movies from Hollywood before. 'The Last Mohican' and 'Dances of Wolves' are some shining examples. Unlike the earlier films that stand guilty of having been 'whitewashed' to suit the narrative of the day, this movie tells the story from the Osage's point of view. The 3.5-hour-long film is worth the indulgence. 

*Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, a Venezuelan diplomat and one of the two founders of OPEC was the first to use this phrase in 1975: "I call petroleum the devil's excrement. It brings trouble. Look at this locura (madness in Spanish), waste, corruption, consumption, and our public services falling apart. And debt, debt we shall have for years. We are all drowning in devil's excrement!"

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The history of Man is the story of Oil.

The Prize(1992) 

8 part documentary based on Daniel Bergen’s bestseller “The PRIZE: Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power”

"The kingdom of Heaven is based on righteousness,
The kingdom of the world is based on oil.”

This is a mind-blowing 8-hour long documentary detailing from beginning the time when petroleum was drilled on a scale in America in the mid 19th century. Just the gold rush, oil was drilled haphazardly without much planning. With more and more new towns being opened as an oil town, so did shady characters.

Interestingly, oil was used for lighting lamps with kerosene. John D. Rockefeller emerged as a ruthless businessman who tried to undercut his competitors by controlling all aspects of oil production, the barrelling, transportation, distribution, by devious methods.

An investigative journalist Ida Tarbell exposed his ways. The courts punished him for anti-trust violations, but he found solace in philanthropy and church matters.

Rockefeller, through his subsidiaries, continued to prosper, nevertheless.

Shell Oil was a British company that had their fields in Russia. Dutch Oil was maltreating the natives in Indonesia for their oil. Shell and Dutch Oil combine forces to challenge Standard Oil, owned by Rockefeller family. The owner of Shell Oil, a British Jew, showed more interest in politics and sold his share to Royal Dutch company.

Oil firmly put in place in the civilisation of mankind when automobiles rolled in. World War 1 was won by the allies with the help of petroleum power.

After the war, cars became an important part of life. Oil shortage was seen for the first time. The need was there to explore newer frontiers. Iraq was earmarked as a potential oil producer.

Oil again was the deciding factor in World War 2.

After WW2, Americans formed a close liaison with the Arabs to drill, process and even fought their wars. Many small companies mushroomed to oppose the hegemony of big oil companies but lost. The world we are living only got more chaotic as many developed nations wrestle for domination of oil control. The Oil producing countries, OPEC, formed a cartel formed a cartel in the 70s to raise the price turning the world into a spin. Leaders were changed for oil.

In the 80s onwards, people have realised the damaging effect on the environment that many have environmental consciousness.

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/riflerangeboy/!

He stirred the hornet's nest!

The Mattei Affair (Italian, Il Caso Mattei; 1972)


Heard about this guy through Hussain Najadi's autobiography. Enrico Mattei, a self made entrepreneur from a humble beginning. He started working in tannery industry at the age of 15 only to climb the social ladder to be a threat to the Anglo-American oil cartel.

His path crossed with Najadi when both were trying to get Kuwait's oil industry going. Unlike Najadi who missed an ill-fated flight to cheat death in 1963, Mattei succumbed to one.
This offering is an Italian documentary trying to outline the events leading to his untimely death. Foul play has always been suggested. Even the journalist who tried to investigate his death mysteriously disappeared and was never found.

Enrico Mattei

Growing up in WW2 Italy, he became Mussolini's Fascist party inactive member. He later became a Christian Democrat and a nationalist. He tried to sell the idea of mining methane gas in Northern Italy. Even though initially ridiculed as a Fascist's propaganda, he managed to drill natural gas and a little petrol there, stimulating local industry. Through companies ENI and AGIP, he tried to drill petrol in countries like Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Iran and China.

He incurred the wrath of the kingpin of the oil industries at time who dictated how oil should be drilled and how much should be paid to the producing nations. He offered higher remuneration and even financed pre-Independent Algeria.

Mattei named the oil cartel as the 'Seven Sisters' - 7 Anglo American companies including Standard Oil, Shell, Texaco, Gulf Oil etc.
Even though the cause of his plane crash remain a mystery, the consensus is that a bomb could have been planted in the tail of plane either by the CIA, French secret police or the Sicilian mafia.

A little cat arrives where a few big dogs are eating in a pot. The dogs attack him and toss him away. We Italians are like that little cat: in that pot there is oil for everybody, but someone does not want to let us get close to it.

http://asok22.wix.com/rifle-range-boy

All in the name of oil and gas!

BBC Storyville: Mad Dog, Gaddafi's Secret World (2014)

The story of a the son of a Bedouin goatherd sounds almost similar to many other leaders who initially starts a revolution with many big plans to uplift the welfare of the people. He has grand plans but some how many of the plans fall flat. People start asking questioning whilst others support him. He gains absolute power and it corrupts absolutely. His enemies become enemy of the state and witch hunt starts.
One thing leads to another and things spiral out of control. Despot is killed by the same people who hailed him as king. Does it not give you the sense of deja vu?
This documentary makers managed to track down some of the people who were close to the despot when the going was good. Many of them were on the FBI's most wanted list; Gary Korkala, former poison dealer; Frank Terpil; Lutz Kayser, a German rocket scientist.
Muammar Gaddafi's father went out of his way to ensure that his son got some education. Gaddafi hero worshipped President Nasser of Egypt and yearned to build a socialist republic in Libya. After graduating from Royal Military Academy,  he masterminded a coup de tat of the Libya royalty King Idris. With the plush of oil money to spend obscenely, he initially invested a lot for the country. Unfortunately, the plans did not really work well. For example, schools were built but then there were no teachers to teach. Gaddafi soon developed a sense of grandiosity. He started financing terrorist activities. He became suspicious of his enemies. Anwar Sadat who tried to patch up with the Isralites became his enemy. Gaddafi even offered a reward for his assassination. As his influence waned in the Arab world, he started associating himself with the rest of Africa. He was close to Idi Amin and he called himself the King of Africa.
He openly supported the famed assassin Carlos the Jackal and Charles Taylor, the dictator from Liberia. Even the Africans started laughing at him.
He is said to have brokered the 1988 Pan Am 103 explosion in Lockerbie, Scotland.
International sanction of Libya followed. Gaddafi became a lonely man suspicious of all around him. He had a band of female bodyguards. He shot a local plane down just to show to the international audience and local people on the atrocity of international sanctions. He had a harem of girls and boys to entertain him. He was an avid user of Viagra. He even had a band of soldiers to apprehend young university students that pleases his eyes to gratify his urges.
Another grandiose plan of his is to be a nuclear power. Admiring Pakistan for their nuclear capabilities, he tried to engage a certain Pakistani scientist to this end. He also tried to buy Soviet bombs but in vain.
At one juncture, he was caught red handed trying to smuggle nuclear centrifuge part. Libya was warned as it might have the same fate as Iraq. Time went on...
Suddenly, the superpowers of the world lifted international sanctions. Libya and Gaddafi were no ore international pariahs, all in the name of oil and gas.
A rebel uprising in 2011 opposing widespread hardship and corruption executed him.

Petroleum and Civilisation (or end of?)

27.5.2010

Petroleum and civilisation (or end of?)

I remember visiting Petrosains at KL City Centre a few years ago. I had an uneasy feeling on exiting that visitors to the venue had been hoodwinked into believing (via its exhibits and messages) that petroleum had indeed made Mother Earth a more delightful place to live. Really? Sorry, I cannot buy your story!

Recently one of my friends emailed me an article narrating the potential devastation waiting to happen as a result of BP's misadventure of oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the environment is said to be in gargantuan proportions as evidenced by the 22,000 people and 10,000 vessels deployed in rescue plan making it the most massive effort in the history of disaster recovery. That got me thinking.

Actually, petroleum seems to me like a curse or the root of all evil rather than our saviour. Most of the world catastrophes are somehow linked it -e.g. Twin Tower incident, Iraq War etc. etc. 

The Second Industrial Revolution, fuelled by the discovery of Colonel Edwin Drake helped to jump-start the modernisation of the world as we see it today. We can build mammoth structures and architectural marvels at a fraction of time used by our ancestors. Anyway, the Incas and the Egyptians built these too, but at the expense of much human (slave) sufferings and lives. We are not much now after so many years - now we have sweatshops! I digress.

I am not a proponent of anti modernisation, and that we should all be moving from point A to point B on a bullock cart or that we should all don cavemen hide and be stoned in Stone Age - anyway, I am too lazy to hunt for my meals!

Revolutionary ways of extracting petroleum deeper into the ground rather than scooping it off Earth's surface made kerosene replace whale oil in lamp fuels in Northern America at the turn of the 19th century. This, with many other innovations, made petrol the most sort after commodity creating strings of obnoxious billionaires especially in the US who worshipped the God of Capitalism. Over time money seem to justify and compensate all our deficiencies and inadequacies. The ferocious appetite of these billionaires seems insatiable that they have ventured beyond their shores, influencing governments and warlords towards this end. The ugly side of Man is revealed by his fixation of expanding his arsenal of nuclear heads to achieve his goal.

In the early 70's, the oil cartels held the world at its throat by fixing the oil prices. It then showed us how vital petroleum was to mankind. It is also quite evident to us by now how George W. Bush and Tony Blair smoke-screened us into believing on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, hence justifying their march into and colonisation of a sovereign nation, all in the name of the completing the missing link between the Siberian-Caspian pipeline!  As a result of these, air travel had never been more cumbersome and human being, who had been quite accommodating of each other, (are you sure?) have started staring at each other with suspicion, especially at those who believed that they should cover the religion-sanctioned areas of their bodies (aurat).

Do not even bother talking about the environmental damage caused by oil spillage and the carbon footprints left by this fossil fuel.  Marine biologists working in the tropical waters off the coast of US in the 80's actually found extinction of the male gender in a group of marine life some ten years after a massive oil spill. So, petroleum has changed mankind in a big way. Right! Even my toes are not laughing.

@Thanks to Sweeney for the email. Now I am more confused now than ever and have been put on suicide alert! There I see it now, the shadow that had been following me all day....

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson