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

PART ONE: OIL WORKERS AND OIL WARS

• Oil, Guns and Money - Midnight Notes Collective

• To Saudi with Love: Working Class Composition in the Mideast - Midnight Notes Collective
• Recolonizing the Oil Fields - Midnight Notes Collective
• The Post-Energy Crisis US Working Class Composition - Midnight Notes Collective
• Some Photographs That I Was Not Able To Take
• Development and Underdevelopment in Nigeria - Silvia Federici
• Resistance and Hidden Forms of Protest Amongst the Petroleum Proletariat in Nigeria - Julius 0. Ihonvbere

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

• Introduction to Zerowork I - Zerowork Collective

• Notes on the International Crisis - Mario Montano
• Crisis in the Auto Sector - Peter Linebaugh & Bruno Ramirez
• Wildcats In The Appalachian Coal Fields - William Cleaver
• Self-Reduction of Prices In Italy - Bruno Ramirez
• Strange Victories - p.m
• The Work/Energy Crisis and the Apocalypse - George Caffentzis
• Audit of the Crisis - Monty Neill

PART THREE: THE NEW ENCLOSURES, 1982-1992

• Rambo on the Barbary Shore - George Caffentzis

• The Debt Crisis, Africa and the New Enclosures - Silvia Federici
• The New Enclosures - Midnight Notes Collective