Dana Blankenhorn

The Oil Standard

Think of this as Volume 11, Number 18 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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I have long been intrigued by what stands for value. (Picture from The Zoo.)

Throughout the 19th century, gold was the standard of value.

The 1896 Crisis, the Cross of Gold speech, these were outgrowths of the 1895 gold loan by J.P. Morgan to the U.S. government in exchange for bonds, which Morgan then sold at the "usurious" interest rate of 4%. With gold as the standard of value, the value of other commodities (like wheat) withered. Farmers suffered, bankers gained. The farmers' uprising was called Populism, and it made Democrats dominant in the farm belt for decades.

Today we have a new standard of value. Oil. And the impact is much the same. For wheat read dollars, for farmers read Americans, and for J.P. Morgan read the Saudi sheikhs, Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin.

What makes a "strong" store of value is the fact that its supply is limited, that it doesn't inflate. It's stable. It's sound.

The U.S. dollar is no longer sound. It's being tossed out by Helicopter Ben the way farmers a century ago tossed wheat on the market, and the result is very predictable. The age of the "dollar standard" is over, and while the world seeks a new safe haven, oil will do nicely.

There can be only one response.

Pushing the Process Revolution

Top netroots bloggers are making a key mistake right now, one which could cost them this election.

It has to do with the nature of  our revolution.

The Internet Thesis is, at heart, a process revolution. What is changing, more than our policy preference, is the means we use to choose that policy.

It's a lot like the 1896 Crisis which produced the Progressive era. While that earlier process revolution was about mass production, mass markets and mass media, this one is about custom production, micro-markets and the Internet medium, which enables -- not mere immediacy -- but immediacy in infinite depth.

So what's the mistake and how do we fix it?

Making It About Us Again

Why are people so disgusted with the present political campaign?

It's not about us. (Picture by Fred Askew from MonthlyReview.)

Candidates give lip service to this being about us, but it seems to be more about the media and the pundits and their own obsessions than about us.

Campaigns generally get into the weeds like this when the discussion about us becomes uncomfortable to the elites in power. It's not policy choices which make the elites uncomfortable. It's the idea of someone other than the elites making those choices which makes them uncomfortable.

I'm not talking here of idiots and know-nothings making decisions based on their own prejudices. I'm talking about candidates and parties addressing our real crisis, not just pandering to our short-term problems but inspiring us with a different future.

What's happening, to both young and old, is we fear losing control of our future. We don't know where our next job is. We don't know if America can ever lead again. We don't know how we'll pay our bills or educate our children. We fear we've lost control, personally, politically, economically. We're scared.

Why the Press Hates America

There are several good reasons why the TV media wants to use Jeremiah Wright to push Barack Obama to the sidelines:

1. This decade has been very-very-good for Big Media. Monopolization means you don't have to work hard for profits. Disney, GE, Time-Warner, Microsoft and Fox have gotten everything they could have wanted (and more) from this Administration.
2. The Internet threatens to destroy Big Media's ability to create campaign narratives, which lie at the heart of its political power. You spend your life working toward the height of power, you're going to resent another medium trying to take that power from you.
3. The myths, values and assumptions of 40 years are deeply ingrained in New York and Washington. Power isn't going to give up easily. It has to be seized.
4. After decades of basing power on Nixon's McCarthyism, using 30-second soundbites, TV can't conceive of people sitting through a long speech and getting information on their own.

It is telling that Obama is having problems right now with under-educated, older women, people who are unlikely to use the Internet. They're the people most easily manipulated by Big Media. That's the greatest threat the Internet Thesis has right now.

When a comedian is the best reporter in the room there is something wrong with the room. It's not just Jon Stewart's interviews. His bit about the rice shortage last week was classic, getting the message of American arrogance through our resistance.

Not everyone is helping, however, which says something very interesting about this medium.

The American Disease

I have no scientific proof of this, but I have long believed ADHD to be the American Disease.

Up to 5% of Americans are diagnosed with ADHD. I'm one of them. I'm creative, I'm quick, I tend to being a polymath. I also have trouble finishing anything longer than a blog post, I'm quick to anger, and I have enormous trouble concentrating on anything I'm told I have to concentrate on (as opposed to what I want to concentrate on). I am very difficult to compel.

In other words, I am both hyper-focused and distractable, I can be charming but I'm prone to depression. These are symptoms typical of what I call "male" ADHD, the kind you hear about and read about most often. I have likened it, most popularly, to having Robin Williams in my head. (This also brings a tendency to self-medicate. Robin's had two stints in rehab.)

There is another kind of ADHD, which may be dramatically under-diagnosed. I learned about it from my daughter. I call it "female" ADHD. In this version you become Robin's audience. You're lost in your own world, and breaking out into the real world can be a struggle. This often comes with learning disabilities -- dyslexia in my daughter's case.

So why do I call this the American disease? Partly because very few Europeans have it. To many Europeans this proves Americans are making the whole thing up. But think about it. If you were living in, say Germany or Italy 100 years ago, or in Ireland or Scotland 200 years ago, or in England 300 years ago, and you had ADHD, what's the first thing you'd think of doing?

Right, getting the heck out of there. Going to America.