Midnight Notes #11 (1992) – Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War 1973-1992

Midnight Oil is a political journey through two decades of social struggles, ranging from the Middle East and Africa to Appalachia, tracing the unifying themes of work, energy, oil, and war. It suggests new boundaries, hidden political commonalities, and possible strategies for confronting the “New World Order.”

Tracing the unifying themes of work, energy, oil and war, it draws a physiognomy of the planetary proletariat, connecting escaped indentured servants from India to oil workers sabotaging production in the Niger Delta; Gulf War resisters in New York to Kurdish rebels in Iraq; insurrectionary Iranian students to wildcat autoworkers in Detroit; housewives on rent strike in Italy to Boston burners of midnight oil.

The book suggests new boundaries, hidden political commonalities and possible strategies for confronting the "New World Order".

Midnight Notes is a collective which for more than a decade has directed its political intervention and theoretical work to the anti-nuclear, anti-war, and anti-capitalist movements.

Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................... vii

PART ONE: OIL WORKERS AND OIL WARS

1 Oil, Guns and Money
Midnight Notes Collective ....................................................................... 3

2 To Saudi with Love: Working Class Composition in the Mideast
Midnight Notes Collective ..................................................................... 23

3 Recolonizing the Oil Fields
Midnight Notes Collective ..................................................................... 39

4 The Post-Energy Crisis US Working Class Composition
Midnight Notes Collective ..................................................................... 59

5 Some Photographs That I Was Not Able To Take .......................... 67

6 Development and Underdevelopment in Nigeria
Silvia Federici ......................................................................................... 87

7 Resistance and Hidden Forms of Protest Amongst the Petroleum Proletariat in Nigeria
Julius 0. Ihonvbere ................................................................................ 91

PART TWO: THE WORK/ENERGY CRISIS, 1973-1981

8 Introduction to Zerowork I
Zerowork Collective ............................................................................ 108

9 Notes on the International Crisis
Mario Montano .................................................................................... 115

10 Crisis in the Auto Sector
Peter Linebaugh Et Bruno Ramirez .................................................. 143

11 Wildcats In The Appalachian Coal Fields
William Cleaver .................................................................................. 169

12 Self-Reduction of Prices In Italy
Bruno Ramirez .................................................................................... 185

13 Strange Victories
p.m ....................................................................................................... 193

14 The Work/Energy Crisis and the Apocalypse
George Caffentzis ........................................................ , ...................... 215

15 Audit of the Crisis
Monty Neill ......................................................................................... 273

PART THREE: THE NEW ENCLOSURES, 1982-1992

16 Rambo on the Barbary Shore
George Caffentzis ............................................................................... 283

17 The Debt Crisis, Africa and the New Enclosures
Silvia Federici ..................................................................................... 303

18 The New Enclosures
Midnight Notes Collective ................................................................ 317