Gangsters, Banksters, and Sustainable Business

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Whatever one’s opinions in regard to Peak Oil, renewable energy, or the possibility of understanding contemporary contradictions in the political economy of power, those who read these pages might nod that seeing things in relation to each other is ever so sensible, such that we might ponder what are the parameters of sustainable business in a richly satisfying way. That said, in this week of recalling planes flying into buildings, a couple of points are apt to make.

These ideas revolve around a tension that M. King Hubbert, operating from the pulsing petroleonic heart of current day capitalism, understood very well. Long-term thinking often reaches different conclusions from short-term ideation. This is particularly apt for those who seek to evoke “business…better” in relation to the overarching operation of empire, and its concomitant drive toward war and domination.

One needn’t spend one’s life studying history to realize that, as a long lasting model, setting out to conquer all other cousins is a sorry proposition. “The rise and fall” is the curve of every imperial venture, whether that attempt is relatively stable, as was the case with Rome, or as evanescent as Napoleon’s slog through the snows of Russia.

As Jared Diamond recently summarized, 
 

“One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse. Few people, however, least of all our politicians, realize that a primary cause of the collapse of those societies has been the destruction of the environmental resources on which they depended. Fewer still appreciate that many of those civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth, and power. …(D)eclines of societies tend to follow swiftly on their peaks. These combinations of undermining factors were compounded by cultural attitudes preventing those in power from perceiving or resolving the crisis. That’s a familiar problem today. Some of us are inclined to dismiss the importance of a healthy environment, or at least to suggest that it’s just one of many problems facing us-an “issue.” That dismissal is based on three dangerous misconceptions.”

On the other hand, copious positive feedback loops indicate indubitably that profiting from the exigencies of carnage today is as close to a no-brainer as Blackwater’s most recent name change in order to reattach the Pentagon feedbag to its corporate coffers. And, of course, this brief beat of riches ‘beyond the bounds of avarice (were it only true)’ is especially accessible wherever oil or its attendant fossil fuels bubble near enough to the earth’s surface to add a few more million barrels to the world’s carbon feedstocks.

This sort of dilemma–operating ethically and sustainably over a long period of time versus ‘taking the money and running for the exit’ now–ever constrains those who would practice corporate social responsibility. Were an easy answer apt, no ‘dilemma’ would threaten to gore the boards and other leaders of capitalist enterprise. 

These essays have, in a halting and circumlocutory fashion, sought to offer guidelines in such issues.Social justice, community empowerment, and open transparency of process have been just a few of the benchmarks that have appeared in these pages.

Yesterday, readers met a fellow who has a well known name now among the Peak Oil cognoscenti: M. King Hubbert, who exemplifies a characteristic that is of key importance to those who would ascribe to the philosophy of “business…better.” This is the capacity for change. Of course, attendants to the cultural conversation have the task of paying attention to reality, if they are to notice such alterations as Hubbert’s shift from pro-nuclear to pro-solar. 

 

Arguably, among the most surprising transformations in history occurred in the personage of Smedley Darlington Butler, whose storied career in theUnited States Marine Corps included the receipt of two Congressional Medals of Honor (CMH). Most recipients don’t even survive one. I would be interested to know how many JustMeans afficianados are familiar with this tough ‘leatherneck.’ 

That his official USMC biography called him “one of the most colorful officers” in the history of the Corps is telling to those who know this fellow’s story, about which the Marine Corps biographers only mentioned the drab parts. Today’s essay, on the other hand, is all about living color, from the hue of arterial blood to the cool green tones of money.

INTRODUCTION

“From the halls of Montezuma” started my favorite song as a boy. Like most youngsters around my neighborhood, I glorified war despite the fact that my uncle nearly burned to death in Korea, and I was a child of some privilege for at least a portion of my early years, not long after my namesake, Uncle Jim, returned from his nearly crisped young life. Those who don’t know are the only ones ever to celebrate war. 

From all accounts, Butler was another who exalted an imagined epiphany of combat. His father, a Congressman from Philadelphia, sent his son to an elite Quaker school from which the boy absconded with himself at age 16 in order to enlist in the early stages of the Spanish American War. 

He won a battlefield commission in Cuba, then returned to Pennsylvania and an Honorable Discharge. Within a year, however, he had reenlisted to honor his calling, and the next thirty years took him to outposts, and conflicts throughout the Americas and Asia, and onto the battlefields of Europe during WWI. 

From his first far-flung assignment, traveling halfway round the world to join the forces charged with protecting embassy and business personnel during the ‘Boxer Rebellion’ in China, where he received the first two of many combat wounds, to his nominal duties in Washington as a retired Major General in the restive first days of FDR’s Presidency, Butler appeared the exemplar of the patriotic hero. His troops, according to many sources, not only admired and respected him, but also literally loved him.
 

Both of his CMH’s resulted from service in the Carribean, one from Vera Cruz in 1914, the other from “the Haitian Campaign” of 1915. Those folks who like dates, as I do, find that these humble numbers can excite a certain ardor if one is cognizant of enough of other time code with which to compare the new ones. 

“Hmmmmmmmmm, 1914. War just broke out in Europe. But Wilson, the bigoted fraud, had not won reelection yet on the slogan, ‘He kept us out of war,’ while he plotted entry into the conflict. How in heck did Smedley, ‘Old Gimlet Eye,’ his troops called him, win not just one, but two CMH’s–one in Mexico and the other in Haiti–before the U.S. even joined the fratricidal fray in Europe?”

The unfolding of that story, which takes us to the pounding black heart of oil and empire, involves a man of integrity, who silently learned lessons for thirty years as a conquistador that he proffered to us in under ten short years as a servant of peace. Anyone familiar with Butler may learn a thing or two: those unaware of this true American hero should pay careful attention, for lessons of blood and oil are on the way.

When this ‘colorful’ cousin enlisted, he spoke something like the following oath: “I, Smedley D. Butler, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States.” In honoring that oath, he had no choice but to reject much of what his life had stood for.

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