Tells the Facts and Names the Names

june 16-30, 2010 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair vol. 17, no. 12 The Best Way to Create Jobs? Bad to Worse to Catastrophic Cut the Work Week Oil Drilling Under Clinton, Bush By Eugene P. Coyle and Obama e have been trained to think of unemployment and stag- By Jeffrey St. Clair nant pay as a shortage of he mood in the Alaska office Environmental reviews, when they were jobs.W That fits the neoliberal sales mes- of the Minerals Management undertaken – which was rarely – were sage of endless growth and expansion. Service (MMS) was festive. Word cursory and fast-tracked. The only ob- If we think of our problem as shortage Thad just reached Anchorage that the ligation for the oil companies was: just of jobs and stagnant wages, the policy is president was preparing plans to expand drill. Drill where you want, how you always stimulus, more production, more offshore drilling in Alaska. John Goll, the want. consumption, more growth. In short, service’s regional director, summoned his There’s nothing to indicate that after the treadmill the economy has been on top lieutenants to his office for a briefing Ken Salazar piously declared that he was for years. The stimulus is a high-energy of the joyous news. After confirming the going to weed out and reinvent the MMS drink to get us back on the treadmill. rumors that had circulated all morning, as a fierce regulatory watchdog, Goll and But if we think of the problem as a sur- Goll invited “all hands” in the office to his cronies did anything but chuckle. plus of workers instead of a shortage of join him for coffee and pastries. At the Perhaps Goll knew more about the real jobs, then a third tool beyond monetary center of the table the cheering staffers Salazar than the mainstream environ- and fiscal policy emerges – cutting the were greeted by a large cake, with “Drill mental groups who had blindly lauded workweek. From that good things unfold. Baby Drill” scrawled across it in choco- the man-in-the-hat’s appointment as in- The policy becomes more jobs, environ- late icing. terior secretary. In the first year of the mental cleanup, and a transfer of income The year was not 2004. The president Obama administration, Salazar’s Interior from the richer to the poorer. Most im- was not George W. Bush. This scene took Department had put 53 million acres portant, it is scalable to fit the problem. place in 2009, a few months into Barack of offshore oil reserves up for lease, far Standard working hours can be cut again Obama’s first term as president. eclipsing the records set by the Bush as needed, while monetary and fiscal As it turned out, Goll had several rea- administration. This staggering achieve- policies are exhausted and at the limit of sons to be upbeat. Not only had the new ment probably came as no surprise to how low interest rates and how high the administration steamrolled its environ- Goll and his oil industry cronies. When deficit can go. mentalist allies and decided to move for- Salazar served in the U.S. Senate, he A pay squeeze was going on for years ward with new drilling operations along publicly chided the Bush administration before the current collapse in the econo- Alaska’s fragile coastline, but Goll and his for the lethargic pace of its drilling op- my made it worse. The economy crashed troubled agency had survived the presi- erations in the Gulf of Mexico. Peeved, because for years workers in the U.S.A. dential transition intact. Goll, who was Salazar co-sponsored the Gulf of Mexico have been unable to buy, out of income, appointed to the powerful post of Alaska Energy Security Act, which opened an what they produce. Real wages have regional director in 1997 during the additional eight million acres of the Gulf hardly grown, even for well-trained and Clinton administration’s drive to escalate to new drilling. well-educated workers. Bureau of Labor drilling on the North Slope, had come In this optimistic spirit, Goll’s office Statistics data show a drop in real money into his prime as a bureaucratic facilita- proceeded to swiftly and blithely approve earnings for every educational group, tor of big oil under George W. Bush. one of the most contentious oil drill- from high school dropout through col- As detailed in a Government Account- ing plans of the last decade – a scheme lege graduate, over the period 2000- ability Office investigation of the Alaska by Shell Oil to sink exploratory wells in 2005. Even master’s degree holders Office of the MMS under Goll’s tenure, Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, crucial habi- showed a drop, unless the degree was the relationship between the government tat for the endangered bowhead whale. a professional one. Only those with an regulators and the oil industry was in- The drilling plan was hastily consecrat- M.D., M.B.A., J.D. or Ph.D. saw gains in cestuous. The report revealed an agency ed on the basis of a boilerplate environ- money earnings. While pay stagnated, which approved nearly every drilling mental review despite the fact that even a per capita GDP soared, meaning the plan without restrictions, muzzled inter- minor oil spill in these remote Arctic seas gains were going to profits rather than nal dissent and gagged agency scientists. would prove to be an uncontrollable eco- coyle continued on page 2 st. clair continued on page 7 june 16-30, 2010 coyle continued From page 1 special visas lobbied for by high-tech immigrants and other workers added to pay. The picture is not better now. employers and the more publicized large- the supply, the official unemployment Following Larry Summers, the Obama scale immigration of documented and rate would soar above today’s 9.7 per administration is attacking the problem undocumented workers from distressed cent, unless new demand required add- from the wrong direction. They believe economies like Ireland, Mexico and other ing workers. Against this background, that a dose of Keynesian spending to add countries have added significantly to the the embrace of growth is easily under- to demand will make everything good labor surplus. The share of immigrants in stood. again. The Republicans are stuck even the U.S. work force climbed steadily since What replaced the eliminated jobs was further back in time, advocating tax sub- its post-WW II low in 1970, and by 2007 shopping. The U.S.A. is on its treadmill sidies to business to hire workers to turn reached over 15 per cent of the total, ac- for jobs rather than stuff. Yes, we like the out more stuff for which there is no mar- cording to The State of Working America stuff, but we are really shopping to keep ket and little use. The twin deficits of the 2008-2009 and sources cited in it. each other working. The stimulus is sim- federal budget and balance of payments Moreover, as family income stagnates ply the government buying stuff or giving constrain politically both tax cuts and and the very rich get more and more of money to others to buy stuff, so still oth- government spending. Our problem isn’t the national income, women and other ers will have the income to buy stuff. As cyclical but chronic. Stimulus is essential family members have chosen or been noted above, our problem isn’t cyclical. to create jobs immediately, but it won’t forced by necessity to enter paid work. It is chronic. A stimulus jolt won’t repair cure the economy. The real remedy lies in In an attempt to sustain income, families a dysfunctional economy. A different ap- dealing with the imbalance between the send more workers into the job market or proach is required. demand for work and its supply. Everyone cheers if That different approach is cutting A problem that has always been called the workweek. The supply of workers a job shortage is rather a worker glut. manufacturing 100 must be reduced to meet weak demand Employers have been able to cut and hold cars took 500 workers for workers. At the end of the Great wages down because there is an excess Depression, when the nation similarly supply of trained and eager workers on last year and only 490 faced a severe jobs issue, a new Wages the job market. The reasons for the sur- this year. Productivity and Hours law in 1940 cut the workweek plus are mostly familiar. Corporations from six to five days, the now standard send production abroad to get cheaper has jumped, but ten 40 hours. Hours have not been reduced labor. The total of U.S. jobs eliminated people are out of in the 70 years since, despite the relent- that way in recent years is disputed but is less gains in productivity. probably more than 5 million. work. A productiv- The ideal first step would be national At the same time, we have added job ity gain, taken alone, adoption of the four-day workweek, re- seekers from abroad in significant num- taining the eight-hour day. A first step, bers. Immigration of skilled workers on means a loss of jobs. more practical politically, is to make a cut of four hours per week, with the cut work longer hours. In this way, families taken as eight hours every other week. achieve income gains that are ultimately The standard routine would be five days self-defeating, as general wage levels re- one week, four the next, for a 10 per cent EDITORS main depressed by the collective increase cut in hours. Alexander Cockburn in labor hours on offer. Productivity gains and a transfer of Jeffrey St. Clair Finally, the unremarked elephant in the national income from profits to pay will room: productivity gains. Productivity ASSISTANT EDITOR cover the cost of a shorter workweek. gains are seen as a blessing, raising the A temporary cut in the withholding tax Alevtina Rea national income. TV anchors announce can support the transition to the short- BUSINESS the quarterly number and remark that er hours at first. Korea in 2004 used productivity improvements are what Becky Grant a temporary cut in payroll taxes for a allow business to pay higher wages – Deva Wheeler transition to shorter hours, cutting to a without adding the obvious, that they sel- five-day week. A phased program there DESIGN dom do. Everyone cheers if manufactur- began with employers of 1,000 or more Tiffany Wardle ing 100 cars took 500 workers last year workers. A year later, businesses employ- and only 490 this year. Productivity has COUNSELOR ing more than 300 workers were added jumped, but ten people are out of work. Ben Sonnenberg to the program, with smaller employers A productivity gain, taken alone, means a joining gradually thereafter. CounterPunch loss of jobs. The long-term trend in pro- In the U.S.A., the payroll tax is 7.65 ductivity growth in the U.S. economy is PO Box 228 per cent for the employer plus the same around 2 to 2.5 per cent a year, climbing Petrolia, CA 95558 amount paid by workers for a total of to 2.7 per cent annually over the past de- 1-800-840-3683 15.30 per cent. Suspending the employer’s cade. [email protected] portion and adding the average annual Each decade at this rate results in www.counterpunch.org productivity gain would make the em- elimination of a shocking 25 per cent of All rights reserved. our jobs. With other jobs sent abroad and coyle continued on page 8

2 june 16-30, 2010

Interviewing Howard Blake ond study. The first term was fine. My composition professor was Howard Have the CIA and British Intelligence Ferguson and the first thing he asked me to do was to make a folk song arrange- Destroyed Classical Music in the ment (in the English tradition of Vaughan Williams or Walton, both then still alive Western World? and working.) We were looking at classi- cal models, studying counterpoint, har- mony, orchestration, and so on. In my By Afshin Rattansi second term, he raised the hurdle and set hen it comes to the visual the lives of young composers today. me a theme by Bartok on which to write arts, there is a plethora of Howard Blake: If you even suggest variations. It was European and exciting! evidence for the CIA’s ac- the idea, people laugh at you and say This really set me alight, and I wrote my tivitiesW in fostering the work of U.S. ab- that you are a crazed conspiracy theorist. first serious piece of classical composi- stract expressionism by means of Nelson However, when I read Frances Stonor tion – Variations on a theme of Bartok. Rockefeller’s New York Museum of Saunders’ book, it confirmed something It was entered for a prize, and my Modern Art, which deprecated figurative, piano professor Harold Craxton was so and often populist, art in favor of what Blake, the man whose impressed that he asked his star pupil Rockefeller approvingly called “free en- Benedictus was pre- Thorunn Tryggvaason to perform it at terprise painting.” It is a well-known tale, her final recital. But something very odd much of it focused on the CIA-backed miered in Westminster happened at this moment and every- U.S. Congress for Cultural Freedom, Cathedral with Cardinal thing changed. The word went around which many know from Frances Stonor that one had to write twelve-tone music. Saunders’ book, Who Paid The Piper? The Hume as narrator, says This wasn’t a new thing since, let’s face CIA and the Cultural Cold War. the U.S. Congress for it, it had started around 1900. Fifty-eight Perhaps less well known from years later, we were suddenly being in- Saunders’ book is the bizarre story of Cultural Freedom not structed to write atonally. how intelligence agencies sought to take only cast a shadow on Surely this was just one of many exer- charge of classical music. I recently talk- cises as part of your degree? ed to Howard Blake, pianist and conduc- his life but continues to HB: Yes, as such it would have been tor and arguably Britain’s best-known affect the lives of young fine. I remember saying to Howard living composer, about his reading of the Ferguson, “Well, let’s study it,” and he allegations made by Saunders. I ran into co m p o s e r s to d ay. said, “No, it wouldn’t be for you.” Blake amid the melee of those demon- It was a strange time. He suddenly strating against Zionism in High Street that I have known from my own personal resigned. It seemed that he had realized Kensington after the killing of anti-Zi- experience but was never able to prove or that what he was writing was no longer onist peace protestors on the Freedom even completely understand. It had been acceptable. Somehow or other, I was Flotilla to Gaza. (The Israeli embassy is in impossible to understand why such a dumped along with him, and I stopped nearby Billionaire’s Row). He was rumi- policy would have been adopted, or why writing music. I was nineteen. nating on writing something in solidarity people could have been taken in, in the Did they say you were basically very with those who died. way that they were. conservative? Would you say that about Blake, most famous for his work Afshin Rattansi: Some would surely yourself? for the Oscar-nominated film, The argue that composers complaining about HB: I happened to have written a few Snowman, was commissioned by the CIA and MI6 involvement in preventing things at school in Brighton, but I wasn’t Philharmonia Orchestra for the 30th their work from being performed is the at the Royal Academy to study composi- birthday of Princess Diana in 1991, as well kind of thing one might expect from dis- tion. It was their idea that I did so, actual- as music to celebrate the 50th anniver- gruntled artists? ly. I showed them a piece, and they liked sary of the United Nations Organization HB: Of course, some might say just it and they said I ought to study composi- in 1995. One would think that Howard that – “you’re saying this because no one tion. It hadn’t occurred to me whether I Blake, awarded the Order of the British wants to play your music and it is just was conventional or conservative or any- Empire by the queen, would have sour grapes.” However, I have some jus- thing else. I basically won a scholarship baulked at allegations about intelligence tification for saying it because I have be- to study piano. I was playing Beethoven, services controlling classical music, given come a successful composer and I actual- Chopin and Bach, and so on. I just adored his success and his own place in “the ly have somehow found my way through great classical music and suddenly had to establishment,” but the man whose dra- this maze. But the maze has haunted me grapple with this sea change in attitude. matic oratorio Benedictus was premiered and troubled my life right from my sec- So, I just gave up writing. I thought that in Westminster Cathedral with Cardinal ond year at the Royal Academy of Music I must have no aptitude for it. I did ap- Hume as narrator, says the U.S. Congress until now, half a century. At 18, I won a proach the BBC, Sadler’s Wells and oth- for Cultural Freedom not only cast a scholarship to the Royal Academy as ers, I remember, but didn’t get anywhere. shadow on his life but continues to affect a pianist, taking composition as a sec- I felt I was a square peg in a round hole.

3 june 16-30, 2010

Because “they” were going for atonal they didn’t have films with completely work composing and conducting The classical music? Who were the top classi- black screens! They were expressing stuff Avengers TV series. One could say that cal contemporaries? that was actually about stuff. Film also I became an outsider in relation to the HB: Well, Peter Maxwell-Davies, used music in a completely free way. And classical music world and found a home Benjamin Britten, Tippett ... but there there didn’t seem to be any restriction on in the film and studio world. was a whole sheaf of 12-tone composers film or its music at all. I remember an amusing example of like Humphrey Searle, Elizabeth Lutyens, I wanted to immerse myself in the attitudes of that time. Driving back Thea Musgrave, and they were played at film, and I tried to get a place at a film from The Avengers at Elstree Studios, I The Proms and were held up as “state of school but without success. I left the dropped in on Harold Craxton. He asked the art.” Royal Academy in 1960 and managed what I was doing. I said, I was writing When did it dawn on you that there to get a job at the National Film Theatre and conducting scores for 25-piece big was a conspiracy? [NFT] as a film projectionist. All I had band for The Avengers at Elstree. “Is that HB: I didn’t see it as a “conspiracy”; I was a degree in piano playing, which jazz,” he asked? I said, “Yes, essentially saw it as a policy adopted by members wasn’t very useful. So I got that job and I suppose it is jazz-based.” “You learnt of the musical establishment, who pre- immersed myself in cinema. I made a to play jazz, did you?” he asked. I said I sumably had their reasons for taking it. film in my spare time. I got a little group did. “How long did that take you? An af- I took the attitude as a fact of life, a fait ternoon?” he replied. I thought that such accompli. It didn’t dawn on me for a very In the first bar, it had ignorance was beyond belief. long time, because I moved away from nineteen hemi-demi- Despite my distancing in regard to the the classical music world and into the classical establishment, I hadn’t given film world. So, I “grew up” as a compos- semi quavers played by up on serious composition. I wrote a er for feature films, where the problem the entire viola section Symphony in One Movement during this didn’t arise. However, The Snowman has time of pubs and clubs, and finished it achieved its gigantic success very much in the space of a cro- whilst working at Elstree. I had found a because it is pigeonholed within film chet. I asked whether small-time publisher for something I had and NOT classical music. Therefore, it written. His name was Richard Franks. is no threat. For serious concert work it he thought it was play- He was Polish and before the war had is far more difficult. It only dawned on able. He said, “no.” I been the music director at Krakow Ballet. me that such a weird conspiracy could He thought I was a good composer and have emanated from the CIA when I asked whether he could that I should take this piece to the BBC. read Saunders’ book. It is far easier to sing it. And he said, “no.” The BBC were totally uninterested. believe that a secret cabal of musically And who was the gatekeeper at the ignorant, politically motivated paranoids together and I found this experience BBC, at that time? could create such a system than to be- marvelous. I could compose my own HB: We are talking about Willliam lieve that any people who genuinely love music and put it on the film soundtrack. Glock, BBC Controller of Music from the wonderful art of music could even I was absolutely riveted by all the people 1959 to 1972. Glock put the block on dream of causing such damage! who were making films at the time. And mainstream music composed in England But surely Beethoven and Bach were I met, believe it or not, Visconti, Fellini, (my friend Malcom Arnold was one of considered unconventional in their own Vincente Minelli, Jean Renoir and Fritz the principal victims and frequently said times, and so you were showing your own Lang who came to lecture. I recorded so). Glock had a henchman/assistant lack of understanding of the history of them! It was an amazing place to be. This called Hans Keller, who was very much … music by not understanding this relatively was around 1961. well, the UK satirical magazine, Private newer composition mode? I became fascinated by the music Eye, called him Hans Killer. Glock abol- HB: I was trying to find a way to ex- of film, and we used to run films from ished all light music and publishers in press myself and, of course, I was look- Brazil, China, Iran, Poland, Algeria, London and they all went out of business, ing at all sorts of modern music and Ukraine, Sweden – from everywhere in as did the light orchestras. For me, I be- listening to all sorts of music, just as I the world. It was fascinating to see and lieve that light music was a bridge that continue to listen to every sort of music hear. There was a lot of jazz on film, and introduced the greater public to the idea to this day. But as far as my experience I also became interested in that. All of and language of serious music, and for went as a student, the advice to restrict this was completely outside the practice many years the BBC damaged that link. myself to atonalism wasn’t very helpful of any music academy at that time, which (Many of the greatest composers wrote and I gave up composition and presumed tended to dismiss jazz as garbage. After light music – Sibelius, Elgar, Mozart, I was not any good at it. I didn’t know a while working at the NFT, I found that Tchaikovsky, to name a few.) what to do and I had become a nuisance, I missed music so much that I started to Glock’s theory was that it was all right and the RAM seemed to want to get rid play piano in pubs and clubs, and this to play early music. Romantic music of me, except that I had won a three-year led me into the session world where I presented a problem. What they re- scholarship. At that moment, I became played at Abbey Road on recording ses- ally wanted was atonal music – “cutting interested in film. It seemed like a free sions. This, in its turn, led toward writ- edge.” Reading Frances Stoner Saunders’ medium. It appeared that people could ing for film, and, with the help of Bernard book confirmed what I always felt but re- make films any way they wanted. And Herrmann and Laurie Johnson, I got to ally couldn’t understand. It appears, and

4 june 16-30, 2010 it’s documented, that the CIA, working write “real” music that stood alone and Agency. for the U.S. government, had come to the that said something, and somehow I had And so it was, many claim, the policy conclusion that the Soviet Communist been unable to do that. vis-à-vis the visual arts – but surely now government of the U.S.S.R. was occupy- I took time out and decided to rethink the Berlin Wall has come down, it doesn’t ing the high ground in terms of culture. my entire outlook. I thought, ‘‘I am going have any effect? It had the best ballet companies in the to write music that I want to write. If it HB: Well, up until the Wall came world, and they were considered the turns out that it is considered conserva- down, the BBC tended to only support greatest performers of traditional ballet. tive or rubbish or bad or boring, well… anyone within the avant-garde, which (Nureyev caused an enormous sensa- tough, because I can only write the way fitted in with this attitude… the same tion.) Prokofiev wrote the most success- that I can write and do the best that I attitude that exists in the visual arts. ful ballet of the 20th century under Stalin can do, and I am only alive once. I will Anybody painting a picture of anything – Romeo and Juliet. He was a truly major write regardless. What can anyone do recognizable would be laughed at. But composer. The U.S.S.R. was producing about it?” I got out of London and moved even after the fall of Soviet Communism, the best violinists, like Oistrakh, the best to the country in Sussex. I started re-ex- the attitude still lurks. It still hasn’t been pianists, like Sviatoslav Richter. They had amining the whole of classical music in got rid off, because of the legacy of deci- the best conductors … and all this just a way I had never done before. I started sions made in the 1950s. And it is laugh- wouldn’t do. re-examining the forms of Beethoven, able that some are saying we are doing it The CIA, burdened by the American Stravinsky, Bach, Schubert, Mozart, and because of the Soviets, when all of that cultural inferiority complex of that peri- I rediscovered the fantastic world of stopped years ago. It simply became in- od, seemed to fear that their culture was great orchestral music, which I had never tegral to the way universities and institu- regarded as producing “hillbilly” stuff. tions were set up, and nobody has so far Elvis Presley and so on. “We are losing The CIA, burdened by got around to changing it. points,” they said, “we have got to prove the American cultural I’ll give you an example of this. Two that the whole point of the capitalist sys- weeks ago, I went to the giving of prizes tem is that it is free and people can do inferiority complex of at the Royal College of Music as a guest of whatever they like, and it takes the ideas that period, seemed to the director Colin Wilson. Prince Charles of the mind forward, and we have got to was there, and they gave out prizes for prove that the communist bloc is actu- fear that their culture the best pianist and the best cellist, and ally looking backward and is not free.” was regarded as pro- then they came to prizes for composi- This led to them awarding a hefty bud- tion. And they gave a doctorate to some- get from the CIA to promote this view. ducing “hillbilly” stuff. body I had never heard of – a 60-year-old For instance, composers would be sought Elvis Presley and so on. Swede. And the grateful recipient read who would exemplify this principle. They out that he had spent his whole life ex- discovered that the composer, John Cage, amining ways of making sounds from truly experienced. It was an inspiration. I had written a totally silent piano sonata. instruments that nobody else had ever didn’t have my own original style but was “He comes on and just sits there and made and that he didn’t believe in the searching for one. In 1973 I wrote a piece, looks at the music and just thinks about relationship of the audience to music. He Diversions for Cello, which later became it. That is really interesting. So, we’ll push believed that the sounds that are made Diversions for Cello and Orchestra. that.” I mean, somebody must have said, exist as entities in a world of his own It was eventually done with the Royal ‘‘but don’t you think that is nuts?” I mean, making and that that world has a right to Philharmonic in 1989. it would appear to anyone with a brain exist. And I thought – more madness! It Not much of conspiracy then – the that that is nuts. But they said, “We like is the same old stuff, and it saddened me Royal Philharmonic was performing your John Cage.” So, Cage became a major fig- to think that people are pouring millions work! ure, all of a sudden. into institutions and that opera houses HB: Sixteen years is quite a long time Now, becoming a major figure in the are being built around the world for to wait for a performance. But you’re arts does not happen by accident. It has this. Yes, they are perfectly happy to give right, it did happen! Francis Stonor to be backed up by the cognoscenti. It money to anybody who plays, providing Saunders mentions another dimension has to be proclaimed worthwhile. About they play stuff that is at least 200 years of CIA involvement, when she says that 1970, I started to realize that, due to the old. Or, that nobody wants to listen to. art forms were seen to be dominated above situation, the chances were remote Surely, there must be at least one prom- by white males. The thought was: ‘’Let’s that any serious music that I wrote was ising student composer whom we could find a black singer and make her into a likely to be hailed by the classical world. all be proud of – and we’d actually like to great diva’’. They discovered Leontyne It was acceptable to write “commercially” listen to? Price and gave her huge promotion. As to keep the economy circulating but far But surely the policy has failed when it Saunders put it, Moscow at the time less acceptable to interfere in “high cul- comes to you, given your popularity? could say that the “U.S.A. claims to be ture,” which was closely monitored and HB: Well, I have never managed to be free but is killing black people down in guarded. I had done very well for a while, able to talk to anyone at the BBC about Alabama and denying human rights.’’ The writing every sort of music imaginable the music that I write. I have now reached idea of promoting those like Price would for the media but had again felt that this the stage in my life – I have reached opus help to change this perception, and it “wasn’t what I wanted to do.” I wanted to 620 – that I despair for younger compos- started to become another policy of the

5 june 16-30, 2010 ers. I despair of Faber Music, which ac- is!” at it. In the first bar it had 19 hemi-demi- tually took my work, The Snowman, and But what proof? semi quavers played by the entire viola which made all the money for their firm, HB: Faber and Faber were evidently section in the space of a crochet. I asked, only to invest it in people who write the tied to Encounter magazine, the literary whether he thought it was playable. He sort of garbage we’re discussing here and magazine co-founded in 1953 by Faber said, “no.” I asked whether he could sing stamp on everything else. I finally got all poet Stephen Spender and later co-edited it. And he said, “no.” I asked whether he of my music rights back in 2004 and I by neoconservative, Irving Kristol. knew what it sounded like, and he said publish myself. I have a crusading energy I know that, say, Mayakovsky is out of that it didn’t matter what it sounded like. to do that and now sell my music over the print, but I would never think that Faber He had won a prize and that, in order to web and get to people from all over the and Faber has been told by MI6 to make get a degree, this was the way one had to world. This is through no help of the “es- it go out of print. write. Then he said he wanted to write tablishment” and, if I told you the appall- HB: I think it would have been a bit film music like me. He had won a very ing story of Faber Music litigating against more subtle than that. notable prize that was against his very me between 1998-2000, you would know So, it is the legacy of that Cold War nature and intelligence. what I mean. But the legal system makes thinking? They don’t need MI6 agents in But what about the fact that music that such revelation difficult. publishers’ offices? once seems obscure and from the academy What about the process itself? Are you HB: I think, it’s become integral, in- then filters down to popular imagination? really suggesting that the heads of top stitutionalized – in the Arts Council, the HB: That is certainly the thought that classical music institutions were in touch universities. is fed to us and what we are led to believe. with the security forces? But how true is it? Most of the real mas- HB: They appear out of nowhere. They After the performance, terpieces, once given a decent perfor- get lots of funding and they are played mance, were recognized immediately. on the BBC and their names are littered I met a city banker Tchaikovsky attended the first perfor- all over the world, and one asks, “Who at the patron’s dinner. mance of Carmen and immediately said is listening to this stuff?” There’s one fa- it would become the most popular opera mous, notable example: Elliott Carter, the He asked me whether of all time. He was right. It did, of course, American composer who is now over 100 I was the composer, take years to circulate and get known and has been massively pushed. He came worldwide, but that is a different matter. over to London several years ago and and went on to say Nowadays, with instant communication, had the whole of the Royal Festival Hall that he “instinctive- a different time frame is in operation. with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and It is more the case that the connoisseur the whole of the outside of the Festival ly distrusts anything expects a work to be incomprehensible Hall with a huge placard proclaiming the he can understand.” and difficult, otherwise it must be sus- “Elliot Carter Festival.” pect! I wrote a clarinet concerto for Thea But are you suggesting that UK arts ad- You mean that the next generation no- King back in 1984 – a serious, passionate ministration officials went over to the U.S. tices what is preferred and what styles to piece, not light music but using melodic and talked to Agency officials, or are you take up? lines, counterpoint, harmony and orches- talking about MI6? HB: Yes, indeed. Here’s a story tration – it was commissioned by Thea HB: I believe MI6 cooperates with to prove what I’m trying to say. for the English Chamber Orchestra. CIA, but I wouldn’t know how. Several years ago, I went into a piano After the performance, I met a city Actual art administrators whom you bar in Kensington, and there was a boy banker at the patron’s dinner. He asked would meet at concerts or whatever? playing the piano. I got talking to him me whether I was the composer, and HB: I went to the biggest concert of and asked what he was doing. He said went on to say that he “instinctively dis- the Elliot Carter Festival out of interest he was a 5th year student at the Royal trusts anything he can understand.” Well, and thought, “This is costing a fortune.” College of Music studying composition. if that is the establishment view – that I wondered who it was all for. I bought I asked him what sort of stuff interested music has to be incomprehensible to a ticket in the side-stalls, and I sat there him. After all, he was playing Gershwin be any good … well, we are hearing the and I looked over and saw William and things like “A Nightingale Sang in echoes of the U.S. Congress for Cultural Glock, now retired and in his 60s. He Berkeley Square.” It didn’t sound like 5th Freedom, set up way back in 1950. was the pope of that whole school of year Royal College. When he said that he These are the symptoms of the CIA and making music incomprehensible. He was doing this for money, I asked what he Ford Foundation-backed International was there along with Sally Cavender, the wrote for himself. He replied that he had Association for Cultural Freedom, sixty PR director from Faber Music, one or actually won the top prize at the Royal years on. two from Boosey and Hawkes publishers College for the best modern music piece. CP – one or two critics and some BBC staff. I congratulated him and said that that All in all, about sixteen people. There was was marvelous and asked whether I could Afshin Rattansi is co-host and execu- no one else in the whole auditorium – take a look. He came over to visit me and tive producer of Rattansi & Ridley, which not one – except for me who was looking brought out a score from his bag – a typi- broadcasts internationally every Saturday at them. I heard Mr. Glock say to them in cal Stockhausen-looking post-Schoen- at 2032 GMT on Press TV. He can be the bar, “What a resounding success this berg/Boulez type of thing – and I looked reached at [email protected]

6 june 16-30, 2010 st.clair continued from page 1 logical catastrophe. Indeed, under Goll’s vestigators with the inspector general’s levels of the Department of Interior.” direction, the Alaska office of the MMS office that he had been instructed to re- What Devaney termed a “blunder” was so uninterested in environmental move the price trigger language from the ended up allowing the deepwater drill- analysis that it had failed to even develop leases. ers to stiff the federal treasury out of an a handbook for writing environmental The man who signed off on most of the estimated $12 billion in royalty payments. reviews, as required by the Department 113 deepwater leases offered in 1998 and Some might write this off as a monumen- of Interior. Why bother, when Shell Oil 1999 was the MMS’s regional director tal mistake. But at the MMS, these kinds could be depended on to write its own at the time, Chris Oynes, who duly told of screwups always seem to end up bulg- environmental analysis? That’s efficiency. investigators that he simply overlooked ing the pockets of the oil companies. Goll wasn’t the only Bush holdover the missing language. But executives at As for Oynes, he survived the royalty at MMS to survive the Obama transi- Chevron, ever conscious of the bottom affair unscathed. He escaped indictment. tion. There is the scandalous case of line, noticed the absence of price triggers He wasn’t forced to resign. He wasn’t Chris C. Oynes. He served for 12 years and met with Oynes three times to dis- even demoted. Instead, in 2007 Johnnie as the director of oil and gas leasing cuss the matter. Apparently satisfied with Burton, Bush’s head of MMS, appoint- operations for the MMS in the Gulf of the terms of the deal, Chevron plunged ed Oynes assistant director of MMS in Mexico. Those were buxom years for into the deepwater bonanza in the Gulf. charge of offshore drilling. His charmed the oil industry. During his tenure in For his part, Oynes said he had no recol- career continued a year later, when Ken the Louisiana regional office, Oynes ap- lection of these meetings. Salazar, ignoring furious protests from proved nearly 1,000 new oil drilling per- A year later, officials at the Interior environmentalists and former Interior mits, roughly a fifth of all the current Department staffers, decided to retain drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico. Few In the first year of the Oynes in that fatal post. of these operations underwent even the Obama administra- Oynes is the one constant figure in most simplistic environmental reviews or the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. The on-site inspections. Instead, as detailed tion, Salazar’s Interior project originated during his term in the in a blistering report from the Interior Department had put Bush administration and was approved, Department’s inspector general, under under his watch, in the Obama admin- Oynes’ watch the repeat offenders in the 53 million acres of off- istration. Despite the highly experimen- oil industry were allowed to police them- shore oil reserves up tal nature of the drilling operation, the selves, writing their own environmental MMS’s approval came without environ- analyses, safety inspections and compli- for lease, far eclipsing ance reports, often in pencil for MMS the records set by the regulators to trace over in ink. Subscription Information The inspector general concluded that Bush administration. Subscription information can be found the agency fostered a “culture of ethical at www.counterpunch.org or call failure.” That may be putting it mildly. For Department discovered the mistake. toll-free inside the U.S. Oynes and his colleagues, it wasn’t about Panicky emails flew back and forth inside 1-800-840-3683 ethics but serving the interests of big oil. the agency. But instead of exposing the And he did that in a big way that meant debacle and trying to rectify the problem, Published twice monthly billions for Gulf oil drillers. they covered it up for the next six years. except July and August, Here’s how it went down. In 1995, The assistant director of MMS decided 22 issues a year. Congress, in collaboration with the not to inform the head of the agency, and 1 - year hardcopy edition $45 Clinton administration, passed the Deep the sweetheart deal with deepwater drill- 2 - year hardcopy edition $80 Water Royalty Relief Act, a bill meant ers remained buried until 2006, when it 1 - year email edition $35 to encourage oil companies like BP to was unearthed by Inspector General Earl 2 - year email edition $65 begin the risky proposition of drilling Devaney, who called the affair “a jaw- 1 - year email & hardcopy edition $50 for oil more than a mile beneath the sur- dropping example of bureaucratic bun- 1 - year institutions/supporters $100 face of the Gulf. As an incentive to drill, gling.” 1 - year student/low income $35 the deepwater operators were exempted Devaney put dozens of MMS officials from paying royalties until the amount under the microscope in an attempt to Renew by telephone, mail or on our of oil produced hit certain price and identify the official who ordered that website. For mailed orders please production triggers. These triggers were the price triggers be removed from the include name, address and email supposed to be written into the lease deepwater leases. Oynes himself was address with payment, or call 1-800- contracts. For example, the price trigger made to take a polygraph test. But, in 840-3683 or 1-707-629 3683. Add was set at $28 per barrel. The companies the end, Devaney found no smoking gun, $17.50 per year for subscriptions mailed were meant to pay royalties to MMS on largely because of the convenient death outside the U.S.A. all oil sold above this rate, which was of one of the central players in the affair. Make checks or money orders payable to: substantially below the market price of Frustrated at every turn, the inspector CounterPunch crude in the late 1990s. But this language general ended his investigation, appalled Business Office mysteriously disappeared from the con- at the entire agency: “Simply stated, short PO Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 tracts. One MMS staffer later told in- of a crime, anything goes at the highest

7 PO Box 228 1stPresort Class Petrolia, CA 95558 U.S. Postage PAID Phone 1-800-840-3683 Permit No. 269 or visit our website to find Skokie, IL out about CounterPunch’s latest books! First Class return service requested

coyle continued From page 2 mental review. It contained no special at the office or job site to maintain pay restrictions or impositions on BP’s oper- ployer roughly financially whole for the when hours are cut, broad-based among ating plan. Just like old times. change in the first year. Productivity typi- all workers, could lead to strengthen- On May 16, however, after the explo- cally jumps when hours are cut, so the ing unions, rather than depending on sion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and relentless gains in productivity – past, strengthening unions first, before fight- with a damaging new IG report on crimi- present, and future – can also be appro- ing to cut hours. nally lax safety inspections by the MMS priated to finance a cut to the four-day The greenest jobs of all will be those at Gulf drilling sites during Oynes’ years week. created by adopting the four-day week. as head of the Louisiana regional office For many jobs there would be little Jobs created by cutting hours rely less on looming, he quietly resigned his post. drop in output, for managers and work- buying stuff than does the treadmill ap- As Oynes skulked from his office, with ers alike find better ways to get the work proach. The jump in the quality of life oil tides coating the marshes of coastal out the door. There would be, neverthe- will be pronounced, as we spend less of Louisiana in an indelible brown crude, less, a significant need for additional our lives working. he must have looked back on his 30-year workers. If workers fight hard to keep It is time to use a new tool for manag- career with a sense of pride. Servicing income the same, profits would tempor- ing the economy. Cutting working hours big oil is precisely what MMS has always arily be hurt. The necessary correction in is that tool. The fight to cut hours will been about. The agency was created dur- income distribution would occur. be intense, but it was won in the Great ing the Reagan administration by James Actual pay scales will be fought out, in- Depression, the last time we faced a simi- Watt as a bureaucratic handmaiden for dustry by industry, employer by employ- lar job crisis. CP the oil and gas industry. Oynes had done er, despite the transition support through his job and done it well. As an MMS suspending the payroll tax. A key to the Eugene Coyle consults on natural re- press release noted, “During his tenure in economy’s dysfunction, addressed nei- souce economics for environmental the Gulf of Mexico he conducted 30 lease ther by Democrats, Republicans, nor by and consumer groups and govern- sales and oversaw a 50 per cent rise in oil the Tea Party, is the untenable shift of ments. He advised the Mexican Senate’s production.” income to the richest people in the coun- Constitutional Commisson and the And that, after all, is the name of the try over recent decades. The objection House of Representatives of Brazil game. that unions are too weak now to keep in- against electric privatization. He can be CP come up is a reasonable one, but a fight reached at [email protected]

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