7 Responses to Prep Material for Riki Ott and the Not One Drop Sunday FDL Book Salon

1. tw3k December 13th, 2008 at 12:38 am 1

   Sounds like an awesome book salon, thanks.

   28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that would mandate separation of corporation and state

   Music to my ears.

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2. EdwardTeller December 13th, 2008 at 1:11 am 2

   Dr. Ott told me that as the book tour in the lower 48 states progressed through October and November, and the economy was melting, people starting giving standing ovations after she described the 28th Amendment idea in detail.

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3. readerOfTeaLeaves December 13th, 2008 at 10:03 pm 3

   In response to EdwardTeller @ 2

   Well, I don’t know where in hell I’ve been, but I missed her visit to my city completely and would love to have heard her in person.

   I don’t recall the last time that I read a book and thought, “My God, this is a tour de force!” I almost certainly won’t finish before the start of the Book Salon. (Indeed, I’m hoping that I’ll have power and wifi during the Book Salon — if I don’t logon, it’ll be because my power will be out due to storm and winds.)

   I began the book on Friday evening, then toddled off to bed after several hours. At 2 am, I woke with my brain buzzing madly because I literally could not sleep — I HAD to get up and keep reading this book. (Grrrr…….!!!!!!!!!)

   I would like to leave a few notes here, in case I’m not able to make the Book Salon:

   1. I hope that you mention the ‘28th Amendment‘ issue as part of your intro. It’s only the past… 16 months or so that I’ve heard friends and acquaintances who are accountants and auditors talk about how completely out of whack the accounting procedures have become. Post-Enron, and now post-bailout, Riki’s points about the corrosive effects of the failure to separate corporations from the state is becoming a topic that it sure looks like more people are willing to explore — and not simply people on the ‘left’, but also more conservative people who are furious and seething about their portfolio losses and really losing faith in the current system. (Including employees of corporations – go figure!) The inability of US government to get a handle on corporate power is definitely a theme that needs a lot more discussion — and IMHO the time is ripe. Two years ago, people would have dismissed the idea; now, I think a whole lot more people are really fed up with predatory entities like Enron and Exxon.

   2. The influence of Alyeska $$ on corruption in many layers of Alaskan government: Sen Stevens, down to the city of Valdez, and even the Coast Guard’s willingness to allow Exxon to be ‘the expert’ rather than relying on publicly paid scientists. I thought that Riki’s description of how the State of AK received around 85% of its funds from Alyeska is something that a lot more people really need to grasp. Tail wags dog. Not only in Alaska, but in many places… it goes a long way toward explaining the State of AK’s willingness to want to believe Exxon’s bullshit. How might things have been different if Alyeska’s $$ were only 5% of the state’s revenues…?

   3. I have a personal interest in ‘environmental propaganda’ going back several years. Riki gives a terrific, powerful explanation of how Exxon’s needs to ‘look as if it were solving the spill problem’ created a dynamic that drove BAD science and made a disaster even worse.
   I hope that you’ll help FDLers understand WHAT DROVE the destructiveness of using highly toxic ‘dispersants’***, and the completely out-of-my-arse response (implemented by VECO) — which included inadvertantly cooking beach mussels by powerwashing them with hot water, so that Exxon could APPEAR to be cleaning up the environment . I think it’s important that more people grasp that fact that the cleanup was 90% bullshit, done for the sake of the media, and I hope that this topic is raised on the forum. I kind of think of it as, “Exxon’s Rovian response to a disaster they’d told everyone could never happen.”

   Lots of other topics and themes come to mind, particularly how genetic damage and health problems compound over generations, how toxins have entered our bodies — all over the planet — and how dangerous that is for each of us, and for future generations. However, it’s a 2 hour Book Salon and I will try very hard not to hog in too many questions.

   Used to kayak around Bligh Island, once upon a time.
   When the spill hit, I turned off every bit of media and refused to read the news — anyone with a functioning mind knew there was going to be a disaster, and I was furious at the media, as well as gutless, feckless, toadying government employees who didn’t have the balls to stand up to a donut, let alone stand up to Exxon.

   I think if every reader who comes to the Book Salon is able to understand that in 1989, the value of a Copper River red was higher (certainly in Tokyo and Paris) than a barrel of Alyeska oil, that alone would be a huge piece of evidence for people to grasp.

   This spill, occuring almost precisely at vernal equinox when all the plankton blooms and the herring were coming in to spawn was one of the worst possible moments this could have occurred. And it was an ECONOMIC disaster, perpetuated by a an economic entity called a ‘corporation’ that is entirely a legal construct. The oil can only be extracted once time, but those quarterly reports and dividends get the business pages. The fish were bringing in revenue year in, year out… so if you actually did a solid Benefits–Costs Analysis, the pipeline would actually not have pencilled out if the accounting rules had accurately measured long term revenues, health impacts, yadda, yadda.

   Well, I’ve got much of this out of my system tonight.
   If I’m able to login during the Salon, I’ll be really curious to see what kinds of questions people have.

   This book is just incredibly good.
   It’s the Silent Spring of the next 20 years, along with Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge.

   Awesome piece of work.
   Really, really impressive.

   *** ‘dispersants’: i.e., toxic chemical solvents, made by Exxon and not designed for subarctic waters

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4. readerOfTeaLeaves December 14th, 2008 at 11:16 am 4

   Yeah, even getting distracted with Sarah Palin would be way off topic for this book.

   ET, you didn’t include the book’s page at Chelsea Green publishers here at Oxdown, so allow me b/c even if people only have time to watch the video beforehand, it would be a great resource: http://www.chelseagreen.com/bo…..:paperback

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5. EdwardTeller December 14th, 2008 at 11:45 am 5

   thanks, readerOfTeaLeaves!

   See you this afternoon…

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6. readerOfTeaLeaves December 14th, 2008 at 4:08 pm 6

   Well, sorry to haul in so many ideas and I definitely typed so fast that I wasn’t always clear…. (rats!).

   Nevertheless, I really thank you and FDL for the Book Salon.
   And hey, not one bit of it was OT or devolved into any Palin bashing, which is really very, very cool!

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7. EdwardTeller December 14th, 2008 at 6:37 pm 7

   In response to readerOfTeaLeaves @ 6

   My first experience hosting something like that. Whew!

   I really appreciate the thoroughness of your understanding of this interesting, important new book.

   Reply