#the universe has dictated that no one can speak the forbidden name

[flickeringart]

The Transpersonal Planets - the confusion that surrounds them

People tend to look to the luminaries (Sun & Moon) and inner planets (Mercury, Venus and Mars) and in order to summarize their personality. People also look to their Ascendant/Rising sign in order to understand their persona, commonly described as the “mask” or “energetic filter” that we express through. Most people can wrap their heads around the concepts of the self (Sun), the temperament (Moon), the communicative function (Mercury), the love-nature (Venus) and the aggressive instinct (Mars).

However.

The social planets (Jupiter and Saturn) and the transpersonal planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) tend to be a little bit more difficult. They seem to exist outside of individual control but the personal planets are not really more “in our hands” than the outer ones.

The outer planets are, admittedly, more complex as they represent social and universal forces. This being the case, many people tend to confidently proclaim that they are of little relevance to the individual, that they are above and beyond anything that can be comprehended, that they have nothing to do with individuality and the personal will. This is not true. The social-transpersonal planets are obviously of great relevance to the individual because they are part of life – furthermore, they are part of our experiences as forces within our natal charts – they are not separate from us. We can intuitively understand and recognize these planetary principals in our lives – just like we can with our personal planets.

I’d like to emphasize the point that all of the planets, as energies, belong to us because they dictate our experiences. They are not abstract concepts open for interpretation. They are what they are – not because of intellectual definition but because of their distinct energy signatures that can only be perceived and known through the intuition. The intuition automatically picks up on the signature of a certain planet (archetypal energy) in a way in which the intellect can't.

In my post about Satanism, I linked the archetypal energy of Pluto with the philosophy of Satanism. It’s obvious to me that Satanism is an attempt to affirm the hidden, the dark, the primitive and everything that has traditionally been associated with “evil” as a legitimate and necessary force of existence. In Satanism, Pluto is affirmed and recognized – not as force that corrupts and violates people’s so called "goodness", but as a force that is part of existence – inseparable from us - serving a purpose. In Satanism, this force is accepted as part of life and part of human beings - not as an external "devil" that makes people act in a way that is condemnable. Some people didn’t like the association I made between Pluto and Satan. Some pointed out that “Pluto has nothing to do with Satan”. I, however, don’t see why it is necessary to make a distinction. Yes, strictly speaking Pluto is associated with the Roman god of the underworld and not Satan. However, symbolic characters of myth are not supposed to be taken literally. Satan is the figure that seduces humans into sin, into the forbidden, into the taboo and the things that are “off limits”. Pluto is a similar agent – he forces and compels individuals to destructive actions that could be labeled “cruel” and “evil”, “immoral” and “horrendous”. The dark adversary shows up in many guises in religion, myth and culture. All of these are more or less the same; each varying slightly from the other but in many cases, the essence and the theme are the same. It’s not useful to try to separate different dark and powerful universal forces - they are supposed to add to each other. The images help to perfect our knowledge of the specific energy that is Pluto.

If I should correlate Mars with a Viking, no one would think that it was strange. I could write a post named “Releasing your inner Viking – an attempt to embrace Mars” and people would understand where I was coming from. I doubt that anyone would comment; “Mars has nothing to do with the Vikings”. It’s true that Mars, the god of war in Roman mythology isn’t a Viking, but he certainly represents the fighting spirit and warrior energy. It’s not far-fetched or difficult to associate the principle of Mars with the Viking spirit. The key to navigating astrology is to look for and recognize the spirit– we have to understand the martial spirit in order to fully know this archetypal principle. I feel like this is basic common sense to people who are drawn to astrology, but apparently not so much as it relates to the outer planets. Pluto in particular seems to be a planet that people are very passionate about – some claim to know him very well, he has “nothing to do with the individual”, he is not “Satan”, I’ve been told. “He has nothing to do with the devil from the Bible”. I would say that it’s important to remember that Pluto and Satan are images and characters of something that we didn’t create – we have experienced this ”something” - it’s real, in so far as experience itself can be considered real. The same can be said of all the planets. Neptune is a certain experience to us and Uranus is a certain experience. They aren’t fixed key words thrown around for fun, they are part of our psyche otherwise we wouldn’t be dealing with them or see them in the world around us.

To further drive home my point – it’s possible for everyone to associate and pick up on the energy of Venus in a flower, Mars in a sword, the Moon in the ebb and flow, Neptune in a certain feeling of impersonal grief or joy, Uranus in the electric impulses and twitches, Pluto in the existential fear of annihilation, rape and loss of control. These particular examples are very specific to the planets they belong to and to the domain that they fall under. We know these things because we have personally felt and seen them. The outer planets are not lost to us. They are involved with us. We know them.

#astrology #outer planets #transpersonal planets #pluto #zodiac signs #natal chart #planets in astrology #planets #myth #religion #mars #venus #saturn #uranus #neptune #mercury #moon #sun #planetary principals #satanism #tumblr astrology #learn about astrology

[sbooksbowm]

The ‘Does this make sense?’ check: Chapter 3, Part 1, intertextuality and reader recognition

This chape examines the reader function of the fandom communication circuit. What makes the reading experience of fic? How do readers acknowledge and interpret meaning, and how do they set expectations for the reading material with which they engage? Finally, how does the practice of reading (which is often considered private) actually maintain community? Let’s break it down:

Part 1 examines intertextuality, or how a fic makes reference to other works in its text, and how those references build an in-text universe for the reader

Part 2 examines paratexts, which are all the texts in a work that is not the body (i.e. the title, the tags, the chapter titles, summaries, author notes, appendices, etc. as opposed to the actual story). I look at how paratexts, particularly tags, are crucial infrastructure for signaling a fic’s content, which helps readers set expectations for what the fic will do

Part 3 puts the two together, looking at how the reading experience unfolds with these two textual features and how reading fic maintains the boundaries of a fandom

Introduction: intertextuality? paratexts? 

In this chapter, I explore the reader node of the fandom communication circuit, discussing how circulating textual meaning to readers relies on paratexts and intertextuality, which root fanfiction in the network of writing from which it was born. Rather than focus on individual selection, which I foreground in Chapter 2, Brownian motion is a useful model for considering the overall motion and interpretation of these textual means, aligning it with the community aspects of reading fanfiction. I argue how the intertextual and paratextual elements of fic are crucial to its reading. Readers expect resonances of intertextuality in a fic, and they rely on paratexts to signal a fic’s basic content for their reading selection purposes. 

I define intertextuality, to paraphrase Busse, as the explicit or implicit references in a fic to metatexts, cultural and literary contexts, and other interpretive texts (i.e. other fic) [1]. The intertextuality with other fic is most important in developing fanon and signaling the place of a fic in the larger fandom. Busse characterizes fic through fragmentation, intertextuality, performativity, and intimacy [2]. These elements, especially fragmentation and intertextuality, underscore the Brownian motion of fic production, a concept adopted by Juli Parrish to describe the aggregation of fannish textual output in constituting fanon [3]. Fic—as works-in-progress, stand-alone pieces, series—constitutes the broader fandom, and the referential intertextuality employed by fic moves the fandom in a given direction [4]. Intertextuality also signals to the reader the writer’s experience and knowledge of the boundaries of the universe, and it employs self-referential elements that, when understood, affirm the reader’s own fandom experience and knowledge. Goodman argues that fanon and rigorous classification ‘actually help police or maintain the boundaries of the official fictional universe’, by signaling to a reader what differences from canon they will encounter in a fic [5]. 

Paratexts, which signal interpretation, are an expression of those boundaries, a framework that speaks to the agreed upon or favored tropes, styles, conventions, and characterizations. Paratexts amount to ‘authorial guidance, instructions and injunctions’, and writers must choose paratexts themselves, thus these boundaries are necessarily dictated by the writers [6]. For example, AO3’s robust tagging system serves as boundary markers for readers looking for fic, who can filter for specific relationships or content. The tagging system is managed by tag wranglers, who monitor the tags of a fandom and group similar tags that express the same fannish ideas. Tag wrangling is a concrete expression of the boundaries of the fictional universe, which are ever expanding with each new interpretation.

The first section of this chapter examines how intertextuality crosses multiple zones of the community model, couching reading practices in community-generated context. I illustrate this phenomenon with a Percy Jackson meta-speculative analysis on Tumblr that was transformed into a fanfiction piece and a series of Harry Potter ‘what if?’ reimaginings built from Tumblr prompts.

As a reminder, the community model looks like this:

Part 1: Intertextuality as Reader Recognition

‘the jackson files’ by ideasofmarch exemplifies how the ‘dialogic amateur community status’ of fic ‘foregrounds collective and intertextual aspects’ of reading and writing, demonstrating how intertextual reading crosses multiple zones of the Community Model [7]. Based on a Tumblr post by couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name, ‘the jackson files’ articulates the meta-speculative analysis presented in couldnt’s Tumblr post in a mix of narrative and Twitter-style storytelling. Notably, couldnt posted her analysis on 10 July, and ‘the jackson files’ was posted on AO3 four days later, capturing the rapid reader response that ebbs and flows on Tumblr and that is usually difficult to track ex-post-facto. The fic’s reliance on that post affirms the transitional relationship between writer and reader in the fandom communication circuit, as well as reader-as-participant in a quickly-moving development of fanon (couldnt’s post has 11,727 notes as of 5 August, 2020 and 13,015 notes as of 25 Aug, 2020) [8]. ‘the jackson files’ is doubly intertextual: it is a Percy Jackson fic and Buzzfeed Unsolved crossover, and it draws from a Tumblr meta-analysis. The fic is more legible in the context of couldnt’s post, demonstrating how ‘the text’s meaning can be tied to a specific place, time, and community in ways that make it difficult to read’ outside of the context of the fandom and the circulation of the Tumblr post [9].

ideasofmarch’s interpretation demonstrates how the circulation of fic text through the reader is a multi-layered process: ‘Fan fiction becomes an exemplary instantiation of reader-response-based approaches, not only because the source text’s readers clearly and literally respond but also because any reading of these responses requires a complex reading model that cannot separate text from reader and author’ [10]. In this case, ideasofmarch’s roles as narrative and creative interpreter of couldnt’s post cross multiple zones of the community model: drawing from meta-analysis in the response zone, acting as reader and writer, in order to form the text.

Although tracking the fannish artifacts that anchor fic production can prove difficult after discourse has swept into new territory, some fic writers consistently cite the digital artifacts that service their fic production. The writing practice of both ideasofmarch and dirgewithoutmusic is predicated on reading practices that are engrained in the community context. Many of dirgewithoutmusic’s AU fics, for example, respond to reader prompts, articulating dirge’s role as an interpreter of said prompts. dirge, as a reader of Harry Potter, plays on the structure of the books, which relies on the reader’s knowledge of the series to understand the poignancy of certain moments, motifs, alterations, and flourishes. In ‘the last son’, dirge imagines the progression of the Harry Potter series with Ron Weasley as the Chosen One instead of Harry Potter. 

**(an aside: if you enjoy HP fic and have not read this piece, go read it now so I don’t spoil it for you)**

Among the many changes, including different deaths of major characters and a shift in the Weasley family dynamic, is the motif of the blue Ford Anglia owned by Ron’s now-deceased father, Arthur. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Ron and Harry fly the Ford Anglia to school because they’ve missed the train; the car later rescues them from acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest. dirge concludes the fic—after two Weasley brothers are lost to the war and the surviving siblings return home—with Ginny Weasley repairing the car, claiming, ‘I bet I can get this thing to fly’ [11]. The conclusion resonates with the reader because it points to what the car symbolizes in another strand of the Harry Potter universe while containing the promise of adventure in the current iteration. dirge’s works are bookended by community-based reading practices: a reader-submitted prompt, then a reader response contingent on understanding the intertextuality of the fic.

Kristina Busse, Framing fan fiction, p.142.

Busse, p.142.

Juli Parrish, ‘Metaphors we read by: People, process, and fan fiction’, 3.11. 

Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, p.9. ‘The events created by the fan community in a particular fandom and repeated pervasively throughout the fantext [body of fan creations]. Fanon often creates particular details or character readings even though canon does not fully support it—or, at times, outright contradicts it’.

Lesley Goodman, ‘Disappointing Fans: Fandom, Fictional Theory, and the Death of the Author’, p.666-667. 

Martin Barker, ‘Speaking of “paratexts”: A theoretical revisitation’, p.240, 242. Paratexts ‘points of reference and relevance in relation to the work, suggest and contribute to the mode of participation in it’.

Busse, p.143.

couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name, “okay, so: Rachel is literally one of the richest people in the country…’, Tumblr, 10 Jul, 2020; Busse, p.114. ‘Fan fiction increases both the quantity and the speed of dissemination and intertextuality, however, so that fans can often see tropes get created, picked up, subverted, and dismissed within months, if not days.’

Busse, p.151.

Busse, p.155.

dirgewithoutmusic, ‘the last son’, Archive of Our Own, 29 Sept, 2016. 

#does this make sense check #dissertation #research #Kristina Busse #Lesley Goodman #Martin Barker #Juli Parrish #Karen Hellekson #dirgewithoutmusic #ideasofmarch #couldn't-think-of-a-funny-name #the last son #the jackson files #intertextuality #reader response #fic legibility #fic readers

[juleswolverton-hyde]

Confessions of a Coffee-Eater | 02

Genre: Smut, College/University AU

Pairing: Student!/Poet!Namjoon x Student!/Poet!

Warnings: sub!Namjoon gets a handjob in the classroom during a lecture, allusion to smoking

Summary: It is in hard times beautiful things can occur and the addiction of primal instincts be suppressed in their proximity. However, when two souls from different social worlds meet in a poetry class, any former urges gain a new direction.

Some of which are sensual in emotion.

And may not be reciprocated.

Masterlist

Previous part / Next part

There is a lyric which dictates that “sorry” seems to be the hardest word and last night while pondering a way to offer sincere apologies for the unintentional harassment the true meaning came forth as the song played on the radio. Replayed itself again and again as a pen twisted between fingers free from the engraving ink on skin, waiting for any potential customers. The last of the twilight cigarette smoke dissipated before settling into the corner of the back office to catch a few hours of sleep since the last hours of the night shift are dead in business.

The sole idea is offering a cup of anything but fantastic coffee from one of the machines spread around the building and hope a listening ear will be given to a remorseful poor man from Ilsan. A concept that becomes more and more terrifying with each step advancing towards the university building outside the city centre that both students and professors complain about, especially with having to attend and give morning lectures.

The cafeteria is bland like the rest of the dated interior which makes one think more of a high school than a proper academic environment, the only attempt at enlivening the area being the crisp white picnic tables standing in a neat row against an ugly brick wall between the stairs and the guard’s booth. Across from the still empty benches sits the wronged woman, engrossed in noting something down and thus not paying any attention to the anxious onyx beanie passing by towards the tiny coffee corner.

Ignorant to the split second of stopping to simply gaze for a little bit at how flowing hair falls over the shoulder clad in nighttime fabric, the outfit of the day not out of place in an office as the blouse on top of monotone pants and made more interesting with golden accents in the form of a belt and watch radiate a chic mood.

She’s way out of my league. But still, I have to apologize.

Bearing the thought in mind, begotten in that instance of allowing romantic fascination without perverse intent to overtake body and soul, the debit card with little money on it is used to pay for two cappuccinos. Fortunately, last night’s tips make up for the expense so some groceries, later on, will have to be paid for in cash.

The coffees in hand, slowly the table at which Y/N is still working on something is approached while trying to keep breathing under control and composure steady. Notwithstanding, it crumbles to reveal a hint of panic when the busily scribbling pen is put down and eyes look from the page to the steaming cup of caffeine to a well-meaning man in a denim jacket beneath a grey vest with a brown collar.

A slim finger points at one of the bright yellow cups on the table. ‘Is that for me?’

‘Y- Yeah.’ A hand automatically rises to rub the back of the neck, gaze slightly averted to hide cheeks burning as the temperature inside seems to rise. ‘I want to say sorry. For yesterday, because what I- I shouldn’t have done what I did bu- but I couldn’t-’

‘Namjoon. That’s your name, right?’ The inquiry halts the apologetic stammering waterfall likely leading nowhere, a brief nod confirming the assumption. ‘It’s fine.’

‘But I looked at-’

‘Really, it’s okay.’ A welcoming hand gestures casually at the chair of which the back has been unconsciously gripped tightly, knuckles turning white. Strangely, though it could have been due to still being half-asleep, the same motioning fingers appear to want to reach out but can barely withhold themselves. A silly idea, judging by the even voice continuing to speak. ‘Have a seat. We still got a bit of time before we need to go. If you want to, of course.’

Without a second thought, any outerwear is draped over the offered seat before rapidly plopping down. Apparently doing so with much eagerness for a stunned breathless laugh escapes the girl about to take a sip of the peace offering. ‘Thank you, Miss.’

‘Miss?’ An inquisitive eyebrow raises, the unconsciously made mistake only realized too late.

Lips part in panic, wanting to protest yet all words fail to string themselves into a proper excuse. ‘I- I mean- I didn’t mean to- Y- Y/N, I swear I-’

‘Namjoon,’ kind digits wrap around the nautical map covering tensed muscles bared from beneath denim, ‘take a deep breath. Like that. There you go. Good b- Good.’

The slip of the tongue is laughed off, locks shaking slightly in unjust embarrassment fueling a heart truly wanting to shrink before vanishing from the earth entirely. 

Or so it did want to, the warmth in the chest now spreading its rosy glow throughout while repeating the error over and over mentally.

I’m pleasing her. She wanted to say I’m her good boy. I can be. I am. I am your good boy, Y/N.

‘Uhm, are you alright?’ The digits that retracted in a fashion wrongly perceived as trembling reach out again, slightly shaking the feather resting eternally on skin. The warmth of the palm perfectly enveloping it is comforting, a steady beacon guiding consciousness back to reality. 

Away from the perverse thought of that same hand pinning an absent-minded poor soul to the mattress in the same manner. Henceforth, albeit with a suppressed jolt of surprise as if waking from a dream, sight gradually focuses on the beautiful woman wearing a concerned expression. ‘Huh, what?’

‘You were spacing out.’ A whimper can barely be silenced before being made audible at feeling the light squeeze asking for attention, fast-beating heart skipping beats. Once again distracted by the contact and the lips that want to be experienced from up close instead of far away. 

Yet sharply sane enough to muster a half-hearted excuse blaming the morning for the ridiculous behaviour. ‘Oh, ehm, yeah. I’m fine. It’s early.’

What am I doing? She doesn’t know me and I don’t really know her. I need to get a grip on myself.

‘Fortunately, there’s coffee to wake us up.’ The worry melts away into gentle kindness, leaving digits creating a cold wake as they wrap around the bright yellow cardboard cup bearing the university’s logo. But not chilling the honest man turned into a lovesick puppy mimicking the normalcy of drinking coffee while ignoring the pooling heat below.

We still have some time and I can’t move until I’ve calmed down. She shouldn’t know what she does to me, not yet. Not... ever.

‘Can I ask you something?’ To keep the conversation flowing, an innocent desire appears to form the lead to follow. Awkwardly shuffling to hide the strain in jeans, voice is kept as steadily as possible regardless of shyness overtaking demeanour slowly. 

‘Sure. Fire away.’

‘What were you penning down earlier? I- I saw you... uhm, just now- I saw you write something in your notebook.’

Why did I stutter? Why is she looking like that? Oh God, what do I do?

‘And you don’t suppose it actually has to do with the course?’ The sarcastic chuckle on the rim of the cup has a strangely flattered undertone, almost to be called endeared. 

Withholding innermost personal emotions. 

That circulate beneath the indecipherable surface of breathtaking affectionate irises locking gazes with genuine curiosity. ‘Why would it at this hour? It’s just a random thought more than a poem but then again, so is all my poetry. If it can be even called that.’ However, all playfulness fades into under-the-breath muttering as melancholia takes over and Y/N’s focus moves away to finish the cheap warm drink. ‘Just an amalgamation of thoughts.’

A loathsome sight to a boy with love for a woman whom he barely knows yet wants to ensure the happiness of. 

Without being aware of it, a hand glides over the thigh clad in obsidian as speech becomes urgent. ‘Hey, don’t talk like that. I’m sure it’s good.’

And moves away as if burned by fire when the intimacy is noticed thanks to a tilt of the head, enchanting eyes leaning to the side in rather odd fascination. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. Still, may- No, what am I saying? Y/N, I didn’t-’

‘Namjoon, it’s alright.’ Softly smiling fingers brush over shivering honey skin, gliding over it and drawing intricate calming patterns over inked stories to still the panic. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘Y- You don’t?’

‘No, I don’t. Please, say what you wanted to say.’

The bottom lip is briefly worried between teeth, a sigh rolling off the tongue when deciding to speak up at last in spite of wanting to disappear, be swallowed whole by the onyx beanie hiding earthly brown locks in dire need of a cut. ‘May I read it?’

‘Promise you won’t judge? You seem to know a great deal more than I about the genre.’ Mayhaps unaware of it, the palm resting on the place formerly deemed forbidden is enveloped as much as possible by a smaller one as a tiny thumb caresses the back of it.

Thus for a few seconds stretching into moments we sit, newly met strangers already of a bond with one another that does not touch grounds with that of lovers nor mere friends. It is of a different indescribable nature, testing the waters of uncharted territory.

But it feels safe.

Trusted.

Like a safe haven the map on the arm leads to.

She is my anchor. 

Which is shown by flipping the tables enough that Y/N’s hand rests between those of a poor sod from Ilsan on foreign soil. And it takes all inner strength to not put it on the cheek, to bask in the kindness. ‘Tell you what, I’ll let you read mine if you let me read yours. ‘Fair?’

The last sip of coffee is quickly gulped down before answering with the same confidence that shines bright in illuminated irises. ‘Fair.’

That dim when noticing the time. ‘We have to go.’

For nine o’clock on a September Tuesday will always be too early to analyze poetry.

But never too soon to see her.

‘Let’s go.’

Nine o’clock on a September Tuesday will always be too early to analyze poetry.

But never too soon to see him.

To lean against the deep-voiced mixture of nicotine and cologne wearing glasses with a thick black frame that others shun, ignorantly afraid of the person they deem a delinquent. However, they cannot see the gentle soul beneath a prejudiced exterior, not feel the fast stiffening of muscles that melt away at a pleased hum.

‘Are you still awake?’ A low giggle resonates in the baritone inquiry, having a chance to talk in a short ten-minute break after processing a ton of poetical and theoretical analysis. 

Judging by the sloth-like sensation spreading throughout, the information might not be committed to memory until notes made on the automatic pilot are read through. ‘Barely.’

‘Want to get another coffee?’

‘Mhm, I’d rather sit here.’ A pleased smile naturally carves itself into lips. An odd thing to happen, but there is something in the subdued scent of soap beneath the heavier aromas of musk and tobacco or perhaps the combination of the three that creates a small piece of happiness. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ Regardless of not being able to see Namjoon’s face, lashes fluttering shut, the quizzical look can vividly be imagined behind closed eyes. And it enhances the sense of kind joy, glad to be in the company of a good friend.

Or more. No, less. What are we? What do we mean? Hm, doesn’t matter now. Gods, should have drunk another espresso before heading out the door.

‘For letting me lean against you like this.’ As a sign of honest appreciation and to be more comfortable, the warm tribal jungle of aquatic blue and emerald green is further snuggled up against. ‘I like it.’

‘Don’t fall asleep, though. We’re halfway there.’ For a split second, there is the curious wish or, rather, expectation for the statement to be sealed with a chaste kiss on the top of the head. Withal, to unjust disappointment, it does not come for. It would have been absurd if it had, of course.

And yet the desire keeps gnawing on the inside. 

‘If I do, please wake me up before the professor sees.’ Fortunately, inner sensations can be suppressed by taking on a playful tone barely shy of badly lying. Nevertheless, a sudden memory of a promise erases the thought of being like this outside of the university, huddled together on a couch.

Or between the sheets.

The timid giant spent in the arms of a girl turned weirdly mischievous as of late.

Eyes languidly open, brought back from the equally as sudden and vibrant recalling of the awkward shuffling to apparently hide the endearing hardened shape in jeans. Voice remains even, luckily, when reminding the buff sweetheart of what is due to him as well. ‘Oh, right. I promised I’d let you read my new poem. Hold on, let me grab my notebook.’ 

Perhaps thanks to the fear of being caught red-handed with furiously blushing cheeks, locks immediately duck under the table to rummage around the backpack that is hardly filled with anything. Notwithstanding, the opposite is acted out until the rampant thoughts of a racing heart have calmed down. 

Only to almost start anew when bumping into Joon’s hand upon rising from beneath the piece of furniture.

‘I- I didn’t- Just making sure you wouldn’t get hurt.’ Swiftly, composure crumbles appealingly into haphazard helplessness as the shield against injury is retracted while actively trying not to stutter. 

‘Much appreciated. Truly.’ To quiet the doubt in the fellow poet’s behaviour, an assuring tone naturally slips into soft-spoken smiling speech. And works effectively as a rapidly breathing chest falls slower. 

Once more, comfort is sought by leaning against the jungle-shaded arm, leafing to the correct page before closing eyes again with the risk of falling asleep. ‘Here you go.’

Without waiting for another cue, Namjoon starts reading the poem in the only manner one should read poetry.

As much shame as it may cause.

It has to be done out loud.

‘Youth shouldn’t think

About Death yet it

Contemplates its very

Existence and the relation

Between them.

Why fear something distant?

Distant.

But incredibly close.

Lurking in effervescent ever-

Present shadows.

Waiting patiently.

For Age.

For Chance.

For Fate. 

For Opportunity.

For Time.

For Me.’

A breathless laugh attracts the tall man’s attention. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ In spite of partially meaning to mock oneself for the quality of the writing, the sudden outburst is mostly due to the surprising effect a voice, Namjoon’s voice has on the piece of writing. A hand unconsciously comes to rest on a muscled thigh, basking in the warmth and the slight movement leaning into the touch by pressing it against the one secretly wanting more. ‘I just like the way you read poetry. You have a good voice for it. It’s nice to listen to.’

‘Y/N,’ breath hitches in a beautiful whimper when the palm moves slightly upward, ‘people are looking.’

A shrug dismisses the worry, not bothered whatsoever by the ones who have silently cast a peer out on grounds of appearance. None would admit this outright, of course, but it is obvious in behaviour during seminars and lectures. ‘Don’t care.’

‘What if they think we are... you know... together?’

‘We’re all adults here, grownups with a sense of what a relationship entails. Besides, does it matter? Let them think whatever, Namjoon.’ As languidly as a cat, eyes open again to blink a few times before looking up at a flustered tanned face. Mayhaps a misperception, but it seems closer than before. 

He looks adorable. No, what am I doing? Focus! He read your poem, so this is not the time for fantasy.

Moving away a little bit from the intoxication caused by the combination of musk and tobacco, enhanced by the sensation of a big palm enveloping the one wandered more towards the inside of denim, speech is endeavoured to be made steady. Nevertheless, the attempt only succeeds in part as careful guidance testing the waters beneath the table leads to an intenser heat. ‘But what did you think of it?’ 

And ends in boldly being spread out across clothed hardened skin of which the ego rapidly grows breathless. Especially more so when willingly applying pressure, thoroughly enjoying the parting of plush lips risking being heard and expression contorting into laboured concentration. ‘Come on, don’t be shy.’

‘I- Is this what you, ah, ehm, think about in the morning?’ Hips slowly rock against the offender, seeking the desperately needed friction as skin begins to pass the state of glowing and grows dewy.

‘“I was a woman who thought of dead things. All the time. I couldn’t help it.”’ Enough mental stability can be gathered to manage a blank stare signifying ignorance as to where the applicable quote stems from. Forcefully, the ability to pay attention is compelled to be enhanced as the waist is suppressed with a smirk into sitting quietly on the chair. ‘Ah, ah, ah. Sit still before someone catches you. Lidia Yuknavitch said this in The Chronology of Water: A Memoir. And I’ll be honest, I got that quote from Tumblr.’

‘D- Don’t stop.’ All attention is returned to the movements below that have not stopped in the meanwhile, teeth biting down on the lower lip succeeding in nullifying the groan that wants to become audible. 

‘Break time is almost over.’ Time for contact is running out, the chatty professor pacing back towards the lecturer with a steaming cup of cheap coffee. Every second ticks away faster, but the steps in the race towards craved oblivion are too little. On the other hand, it would be a just punishment for the public brashness. 

‘Could we- Can we g-get lunch? Together?’

‘Is that what you want? What you think about?’ The absurdity evokes an amused low chuckle, truly finding joy in seeing the tough yet submissive poet struggle. ‘We just met, Joon.’

‘Y- Yet you let m- me do this, Miss.’ Digits free from tribal ink wrap around the wrist, willing it to remain out of sight beneath the table without stopping. 

What are we doing? We’re basically strangers. But... he held my hand and now we’re doing this. We both want this. This is ridiculous and yet, with the way he calls me that, the power is intoxicating.

And held onto a tad longer, mischief triumphing long enough to find pleasure in the whine at being left hanging high and dry after the squeeze that could have invoked embarrassing euphoria. ‘Not for long, bad boy.’

‘Alright, so! Where were we? Ah, right, why rhyme pleases.’ The professor has returned from the momentous coffee break fully, yellow cup empty and the little caffeine forming enough fuel to make it through the last three quarters filled with poetic analysis. 

Forty-five minutes of swatting away secretive undecorated hands trying to find release, as shameful as it is, by themselves.

To, perhaps, play the part of the devil to the end.

And maybe, just maybe admit to something.

To desire bordering on young love.

To a tribal jungle and nautical map on muscled buff arms.

To him who is clearly struggling.

To Namjoon. 

#hyunglinenetwork #thekimlinenet #ksmutclub #BTS #BTS smut #BTS x Reader #Namjoon #RM #Kim Namjoon #Joon #Confessions of a Coffee-Eater

[doomedandstoned]

BAILEY’S CHOICE

Youngblood Supercult guitarist Bailey Gonzales shares her 10 favorite albums of Autumn.

Photo by Johnny Hubbard at Doomed & Stoned Fest

First off, let me preface by saying that this list is just a fraction of what I would include on a good, solid Autumn playlist, but everything must end at some point. Most of these you’ve probably heard, some you may not be familiar with, and others perhaps long forgotten and thus need a good revisiting. So here goes:

1. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young – Déjà vu

This has been in my catalog since I first started smoking weed in the fall of my freshman year of high school and learned to enjoy the hazy, beautiful strains of intricate harmonies that permeate CSNY’s iconic brand of folk-blues rock. Their albums were always on rotation in my house when I was growing up, but until I started to fully understand its cosmic, layered beauty, Déjà vu fell more or less into the “lame music my parents listen to” category for me. Now it’s a staple, especially as the weather starts to cool and the leaves start to turn, and I’m thrown into some kind of sepia-tinged yearning for the past. Funny how things change. This album holds some of the group’s most acclaimed work; I can’t point out a single track I’d skip over.

2. Graveyard – Graveyard

Graveyard by Graveyard

Speaking of high school—I grew up in a very small town in Southeast Kansas, and when MySpace made its debut (yes, MySpace), I found a page for this indie label called Tee Pee Records that absolutely dictated what I would listen to take the edge of my Black Sabbath cravings—this is where I was ultimately introduced to stoner rock and all of the branches of the retro heavy metal genre—and one of them that always stuck with me as I worshipped this label’s releases thereafter was Graveyard’s self-titled album. There are so many great tracks on this album, with “Thin Line” being an absolute favorite and even an echoing of one of my darkest autumn remembrances (won’t delve into it, but the subject matter will lead you where you need to go). Fantastic, timeless album.

3. Jonathan Snipes & William Hutson – Room 237

Room 237 (2012) is a funny little documentary. I love it, despite the fact that this film lays out conspiracies about Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining that range from absolutely Kubrickesque crazy-but-plausible to totally ludicrous, leaping-to-judgement scenarios and breakdowns related to the hidden puzzles within the original adaptation. But, we are talking about music here: this album plays like Stranger Things meets Goblin meets John Carpenter. There is nothing necessarily special about it, but in trying to find an OST that would fit neatly within this list, this fella kind of jumped out to me. Not everybody enjoys soundtracks, and while I could listen to creepy, ambient synth all day long, every day, Room 237 seems like it could entrance any listener, especially with standout tracks like “To Keep From Falling Off” to “Universal Weak Male” and even with the closing track, “Dies Irae” which plays off the original theme from The Shining.

4. Trouble – Trouble

It blows my mind that this album was released in 1990. Everything about it screams, “I WANT TO MAKE YOUR EARS BLEED: ‘70s METAL STLYE.” It’s like a lost and very angry Sir Lord Baltimore album was found in someone’s murky basement and sold in a musty, long forgotten record shop. The kind of place where you might hear whispers of dark legends. Somewhere that may be evocative, in legend, of the kind of place that Mayhem’s late singer, Dead, slit his wrists, throat, and blew his brains out and everyone commenced for this orgiastic blood feast of mourning to say, uh, “let’s take a photo of his dead body and slap it on a bootleg album cover and make necklaces out of his skull...” It’s not that harsh, but there’s definitely something spooky, dark, and forbidden about it. You may ask yourself, if you’re just hearing this album for the first time: “Why don’t they play some of these tracks on the radio?” Well, my child...do you really want to know?

5. The Steepwater Band – Revelation Sunday

This collection of hot tunes from The Steepwater Band is, apart from 2011’s Clava, one of our band’s road staples. We often don’t agree on much when that road cagey feeling hits or when disagreements happen, which incidentally is why things tend to work well with us, but The Steepwater Band, Mount Carmel, and Gary Clark Junior are all things we can come to terms with through the van’s trebly stock speakers. Maybe it’s the bluesiness. Very moody folk-blues rock tunes, with a touch of whiskey-fueled country, is what these guys exhibit in songs like “Slow Train Drag,” “Dance Me A Number,” and “Steel Sky.” A plus material, in my book, and good for the road on a cold night’s ramble.

6. Black Sabbath – Never Say Die!

Can people stop it with the “I’m tired of Black Sabbath” comments??? You know they are the reason we’re all here, and whether you like to admit it or not, you dig a good Sabbath tune either once in a while or every day. Doctor’s orders. Now I don’t think that a playlist is complete without a Black Sabbath album, but autumn seems the appropriate time for their fumbling, but strong conclusion — 1978’s Never Say Die!   And I really don’t care that I know I’m in the minority for loving this album. To me, while it’s their most strained Ozzy-era album (I won’t even touch 13, so don’t ask), it’s full of premonitions of things to come, including a full out jazz brawl in “Breakout” that reminds me of the mean streets in Dirty Harry, and songs that might make the bravest of our genre cry, like “Junior’s Eyes.” “Shock Wave” goes through the typical rough and tumble changes that Black Sabbath fans learn to embrace, but it comes in wave after wave after wave. Hell, even the title track is nearly full-out punk rock. If you’ve avoided this album, please—give it a spin. Even if it’s only to hear Bill Ward sing. It’s the album I fell into when I joined my first band in the fall of 2008 and what pushed me into the direction of branching out to things I’d long avoided. I literally shit my pants every time the first synth breakdown in “Johnny Blade” comes over the speakers, and I think you should, too.

7. Madonna – Madonna

Speaking of shit you probably don’t wanna read…who out of us has given Madonna’s 1983 debut a spin? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, I didn’t think so. For you folks who can appreciate this one, I applaud you for admitting it. It’s not a sin to listen to Madonna (tell that one to the Vatican), but unless she’s been covertly transformed into Lana Del Rey or someone else on the darker and more modern side of the pop spectrum, you’d be hard pressed to find an admitted fan in our heavy underground group. And you know what? I don’t give a single fuck (yes, I learned that language from M herself). She’s a goddess, an icon, a killer songwriter—if you don’t believe me, tell that to the $400 million she has neatly tucked away—and dammit, she taught me to give a little less of a fuck in times where I don’t have too many to spare. This is another reason my parents are badass. Who in the world would buy their kid the “Like A Virgin” album only if their 11-year-old can ask for it by name without getting too embarrassed at the thought of saying “virgin” out loud to the Camelot Music clerk? Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, listen to this. Just do it...Madonna would.

8. The Midnight Ghost Train – Buffalo

Buffalo by The Midnight Ghost Train

I met Steve Moss at a show in Topeka in late 2009 at a dive bar where the drummer from my first band was singing in his new group. We did the obligatory thing and then, holy shit—this band starts playing and glasses start clinking and I swear to god I thought the whole damn place was going to cave in. They play a bunch of tunes and I’m so fully entranced it’s stupid. After the show, I went up to their singer/guitarist and said, “Um, that was really fucking awesome. I loved how you slipped “Hand of Doom into the middle of one of your songs.” Bam. We were instant buds. I couldn’t believe that they had come out of Topeka, Kansas. Later, while they were prepping to record 2012’s Buffalo, we had a very memorable fall jam session and some shows together, and EVERY. DAMNED. TIME. I felt like there was just something insanely special happening. Buffalo proved to be an instant classic, and even though The Midnight Ghost Train boys seem to always be on tour, I visit with my old pal Steve from time to time when he’s around, and nothing can erase those crazy, almost LSD-like imprinted memories of our house shows together. Hell, we reunited again just last month in another Topeka dive bar. I still have almost 3 hours’ worth of an interview I need to write that documents Steve’s early life up until the recording of Cold Was The Ground. The circle goes round and round. And I sure as hell can’t shake that sound.

9. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Green River

I don’t know what everyone else thinks about when they hear the track “Green River” from Creedence Clearwater Revival, but I think of Gary Ridgeway. I know that’s way far off, but I can’t help it. I also think about the album cover, and how many people still try to copy it, unintentionally. And I think about Stephen King. If you’ve read a few of his novels, you know from some of his passages, he’s a total CCR freak. I’ll give him a pass for mentioning Springsteen so much just because he’s a damn genius. But I bet the casual listener has never heard the song “Sinister Purpose” on the radio airwaves. It sounds like it belongs on a damn Leaf Hound album or something. Thank god for small favors. This is the epitome of southern blues rock. All you Lynyrd Skynyrd fans can fight me (although I won’t knock them), but CCR has earned their grimy, yet rightful spot as the Bayou’s most raw and creepy rock group. And way down in the fall, there’s always a bad moon rising.

10. Buffalo – Dead Forever...

Man, I was going to write up a few more albums, but this is the end of the line, folks. Australia’s Buffalo caps it off with their 1972 album, Dead Forever...   I can see this piece being released today, and that’s why I’m so glad everyone in this community puts out music that can rival little-known bands like Buffalo. I have a sweet spot for this group. Nobody will ever be able to answer why this killer band could never receive any airplay, and that question still lingers as absolute over processed shit continues to infiltrate the airwaves and real emotion can’t shine through. One of the promotional stickers for this record was, “Play this album LOUD.” Seen that before? Is history repeating itself in belittling our efforts to get out there and WARP THE FUCK out of people’s minds? I guess so. But we can fix that. Put the needle on some Buffalo, don your battle jacket, and work on getting some fuzz into some onlooker’s ears. Listen carefully, and don’t let the Buffalo situation happen to us all.

Hear Bailey's 'Autumn Vibes' Playlist on Spotify

Photo by Johnny Hubbard

The Great American Death Rattle by Youngblood Supercult

#D&S Reviews #Baily Gonzales #Youngblood Supercult #Topeka #Kansas #Autumn #Playlist #Black Sabbath #Buffalo #Creedence Clearwater Revival #CCR #Crosby Stills and Nash #Graveyard #Jonathan Snipes & William Huston #Madonna #The Midnight Ghost Train #The Steepwater Band #Trouble #Doom #Metal #Stoner Rock #psychedelique #Hard Rock #Doomed & Stoned

[we-legodesk-lawfirm-things]

Cornelia Sorabji: Who Became First woman Lawyer in India

Introduction

What can be said about India that hasn't been said already? A country so big and beautiful where the culture and history run so deep! The Indian culture is known to be rich and diverse and one of the key components of our culture includes giving respect to women. The principle of gender equality is also enshrined in the preamble of the Indian Constitution. Despite India's reputation for respecting women and to an extent even treating women as goddesses, history tells us that women were ill-treated or neglected in various spheres of life. Right from the early days, women have been seen as nurturers and the providers of emotional caretaking, while men have been considered providers of economic support. The birth of a boy has always been celebrated more while the birth of a girl – especially a second or subsequent daughter – is often perceived as a crisis! Read Also: Copy linkWhy We Need More Women Lawyer In India? It might be a different story now that we're in the 21st Century. It's not a challenge to find inspiring women doing powerful work in today's world. However, it is worth remembering that those living here and now aren't the only names to draw from. One such inspiring woman who broke the shackles of gender stereotyping and forged her way ahead in the legal field and went on to become the first woman Lawyer in India was Cornelia Sorabji.

Flashback to Cornelia's Early Childhood and Education

Cornelia Sorabji was born in 1866 to a Christian Parsi family. She enjoyed the support of her parents when it came to her education and career as her parents were great advocates of girl child education. Her father Reverend Sorabji Karsedji, was a Christian missionary. He played a key role in convincing Bombay University to admit women to its degree programs. Her mother, Francina Ford, on the other hand, helped to establish several girls' schools in Pune. Cornelia was one of nine kids in her family. She had to experience loss early on in her life when two of her brothers died in infancy. Despite these setbacks, the Sorabji's encouraged all of their children, especially their daughters, to attend Bombay University. However, female applications were rejected until Cornelia, the fifth daughter finally broke through the barrier to entry. Read Also: Plight of Women Employed In Unorganised Sector Cornelia received her education both at home and at mission schools. She got enrolled in Deccan College and duly completed her law degree with top honours in 1888 but was denied a scholarship that would have allowed her to study in England. These days we are quick to voice our opinions on gender-based inequalities and discrimination but this is the story of a woman from a time when words like 'feminism' or 'women empowerment' weren't even coined, where women had to struggle to break the so-called 'norms' of society! Despite all this, Cornelia was undeterred and she took up a temporary teaching post at a men's college in Gujarat. After becoming the first female graduate of Bombay University, Sorabji wrote to the National Indian Association appealing for funds to allow her to continue her education abroad. In the year 1892, she was given special permission to take the postgraduate Bachelor of Civil Law exam at Somerville College and became the first woman to ever do so. She eventually graduated from Oxford University and became the first female advocate in India and the first woman to practice law in India and as well as Britain. A Look into Cornelia's Legal Career and the Social & Reform Work  A couple of years after graduating, Sorabji returned to India and became a specialist advocate for purdahnashins, women who were forbidden to communicate with the outside male world. She was, however, unable to represent them in court due to a blanket ban that discriminated against women and barred them from practising as a lawyer. It is indeed unfortunate, that one of the biggest battles she had to face was a battle against patriarchy itself. She wasn't recognized as a barrister until 1923 when this law was finally changed. However, in her zeal to help the socially excluded communities, she often worked without pay and fought courageously for both the inheritance rights of these neglected women and her own as a professional. Read Also: Copy linkFirst Chief Justice of India Sorabji became a government legal adviser on the issue and won the right for purdahnashins to train as nurses. She was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal in 1909 for her social reforming efforts on behalf of these women and other causes. She fearlessly challenged the orthodox Hindu attitudes and promoted reform of Hindu laws regarding child marriage and Sati by widows. When the legal profession finally opened its doors to female lawyers in the 1920s, Sorabji opened her practice in Kolkata. Unfortunately, even then, she was denied the chance to make her pleas in person before the court and was reduced to preparing arguments in absentia. Cornelia Sorabji is thought to have helped over 600 clients fight legal battles throughout her career. It's no mean feat considering the obstacles stacked against her by deeply oppressive and conservative patriarchy and a legal system that failed her more times than we can count! Cornelia was an ambitious and courageous woman and many regarded her as a feminist who paved the way for women in India in the field of law. However, while this is true, her approach to Indian Independence was rather conservative and she did not see eye to eye with Gandhi and his Independence Movement. Although she recognized that colonialism wasn't ideal, she supported the British rule and was against the Independence movement and Gandhi, in the latter part of her life. Having spent so much time in England, she developed great friendships with a lot of English people, who showered her with a lot of support throughout her career and Cornelia being loyal to them, formed opinions in favour to the British Rule. Her approach was, of course, challenged. Some of her words were misappropriated, and her work was also maligned in some circles. A complicated and complex figure, nevertheless, Cornelia having worked for 20 years in the legal field, eventually retired and left India in 1929. Despite her countless achievements, Cornelia has somehow escaped the pages of history. Our history books are more or less a narrative dominated by men writing about men, women often only appear when they're being vilified. But that doesn't mean it's true. India's history is, in fact, replete with powerful women like Cornelia Sorabji. Her life story is opaque in many ways and more has come to light through scholarship and her papers in recent years. However, in this case, a lack of clarity in the narrative was more or less purposefully created by Cornelia herself. Since her career primarily involved assisting women who lived behind the purdah, she wasn't always free to speak of the details of her work. Consequently, it appears that identities were often concealed and the timelines in her narratives were tweaked. She also spoke through literature, and, at times, simply avoided mentioning specific details altogether. She followed the same strategy in speaking of her personal life as well and was a private person. After having left India, she returned to England, where she spent her last years. She passed away in London in 1954. Cornelia was indeed a remarkable woman who changed the course of history and is someone worth celebrating! A brass bust was unveiled in her honour at Lincoln's Inn, London's judicial heartland, in 2012, on what would have been her 151st birthday. This brass bust, by another female sculptor, Sachidanand Unavane, shows Cornelia in her sari which is partially draped over her head. Read Also: Top 7 Inspirational Female Lawyers in India

Conclusion

Cornelia Sorabji was a woman ahead of her time who was not willing to let others define her role in society and dictate what she can or cannot do. Let us never forget the sacrifices of this female hero who truly made a difference to thousands of lives with her unwavering patience and resilience! Read the full article

[reviewape-blog]

Universal Life Secrets

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[theconservativebrief]

MOSCOW — “Stay in the car,” Yuri says. He looks out the window, up at the grey Soviet-era tower block we’re idling outside. An old woman is staring out the window. “She’s looking at us. She’s suspicious.”

Eugeny and his wife, Lyudmilla, have already gone inside. But Yuri (who, like everyone quoted in this article, has asked to be identified by first name only for security reasons) is worried that entering as a group will attract attention. Attention means somebody might call the police. And when you’re a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia — labeled by the government as a member of an “extremist” sect, the same designation they use for neo-Nazis and ISIS members — dealing with the police is the last thing you need.

Eight million Christians around the world self-identify as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their worship is characterized by frequent public proselytizing.

And, according to a new law signed this week by President Putin, they are unable to share their faith with one another in the street — or in private homes. The law, among the most sweeping in post-Soviet history, prevents any form of evangelism outside of state-approved buildings, including in private, in homes, and on the Internet. In practice, it affects members of non-Russian-Orthodox religious groups, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, and Protestant Christians.

This is not the first legal strike against Russia’s religious minorities. In April 2017, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses, which represents the faith of an estimated 175,000 Russians, violates the country’s anti-extremist statutes. An appeal was refused in June 2017 continuing years of state-sponsored persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religious group.

Police frequently raid Jehovah’s Witness services — both in private homes and in Kingdom Halls — and, according to members, turn a blind eye to discriminatory civilian violence. Yuri recalls one instance where a “sister” — as Jehovah’s Witnesses refer to female members of their community — was beaten and threatened with a gun by another woman while out preaching, only for the police to dismiss her as a “cult member” and a thief when they finally arrived. But since the most recent Supreme Court ruling, Yuri says, things have gotten worse.

“We’re on their radar at all times,” says Yuri, an affable man in his 50s who apologizes, frequently, for his near-perfect English, which he taught himself through the internet. Their largest Kingdom Hall, located in a northern suburb of Moscow, lies empty, the entrance marked with caution tape, after the building’s owner deemed it too risky to let Jehovah’s Witnesses use. We are meeting in July of 2017, shortly after the refusal of the first ruling’s appeal.

Still, the community has developed a strategy to keep its faith and worship alive. They enter the building in twos and threes to avoid attracting attention. They mix up the homes they use, to keep it difficult for government forces or potential harassers to track. They set a table laden with food, which, during the Saturday worship session I attended in July, goes entirely untouched. It’s there so that if police arrive, they can claim that they’re simply gathering for a party. And, Yuri tells me, they always keep a few bottles of vodka on hand. If the police come, he says, they can down it quickly. The police will smell their breath, notice their inebriation, and believe that they’re been carousing, not worshipping.

Because the Jehovah’s Witness translation of the Bible is banned in Russia, many access their sacred texts via smartphone.

Today, about 20 Witnesses gather in this Moscow suburb. They are roughly split evenly by gender, and a mix of ages. Nearly all follow the lesson on their tablets or phones, using specialized apps. (Importing physical copies of the Jehovah’s Witness Bible is also forbidden.)

Yuri’s wife, Alla, helpfully translates the verses from Russian to English for me on her phone. They pray for the wisdom of their rulers, reading verses from the Book of Daniel about faith in times of turmoil. They affirm Jehovah — their rendering of the term for the Judeo-Christian God — as lord of the universe. From time to time Yuri and his friend Eugeny, a wide-eyed bald man fond of speaking with his hands, ask questions of the flock, calling on members of the community to help interpret the Bible.

The worship service, which runs about 90 minutes, is a muted affair. After all, they can no longer sing during services in people’s homes, lest the sound attract the suspicion of neighbors.

But it is, Yuri says, the best they can do.

To be a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia, after all, is to fall afoul of the extremely complex interplay between nationality, faith, and nationalism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which — as I have previously written — bolsters its authoritarian regime by appealing to the fundamental “Russianness” of the state Orthodox Church. For Putin and his supporters, Jehovah’s Witnesses seem like a dangerous foreign influence. Yuri jokes that other Russians think Jehovah’s Witnesses are foreign spies, or that their frequent doorstop evangelism is actually a ploy to gather data to send back to the CIA; after all, in Russia, their religious expression inherently codes them as dangerously “Western” and “other.”

The history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, and the former USSR more widely, has always been tied up with politics. They were the subject of suspicion under the hyper-secularist Soviet regime. Lyudmilla, Eugeny’s wife, tells me that both her grandfather and father were sent to Siberian gulags by Stalin for decades for being Jehovah’s Witnesses. The religion spread during the chaotic 1990s, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, when religion was finally no longer taboo, and people started asking questions about God.

“A lot of people started when the Soviet Union was destroyed, to say what is written in the Bible,” Alla recalls. “[Talking about religion] became open. After the Soviet Union fell, you could talk about God openly — no problem! That was very interesting [to me] — [I wondered] what was inside [the Bible]?”

Kingdom Halls like this one in a northern suburb of Moscow lie empty after the latest Supreme Court decisions.

For others, faith allowed them to find meaning in the chaos of the fall of the Soviet Union. Eugeny proudly tells me his religion under the USSR was “communism!” He served in the army, all the way up until what he called “civil war — Russians firing on Russians” — marking the fall of the Soviet Union.

When communism started to fall, Eugeny felt himself at sea. “I was communist, but at the same time, geopolitics was interesting for me,” he says. “And in the army I realized that the most great geopolitician was Jehovah. But I didn’t know him [yet]” — he had felt the stirrings of religious longing but had not yet become a true believer.

Only when his now-wife Lyudmilla started to preach did the world start to make sense to him. “[I realized that I] have to serve God. I realized that God is Almighty and I wanted to serve him,” he said. Geopolitics at last makes sense, he says. Now, he says, he sees the world as a chess board, God as the ultimate player.

For all four of the Jehovah’s Witnesses I interviewed, religion in the Soviet years had been primarily a function of national and ethnic identity, not faith. Yuri, who was raised in Uzbekistan, considered himself Muslim because of his ethnicity, nothing more. “I was born in a Muslim family?” He shrugs to demonstrate emphasis. “Okay, I’m Muslim.”

He remembers being shocked the first time he saw an Uzbek Witness try to convert him. “I said, what? Look at you? Look in the mirror, you are Muslim. And you became … Christian? Why?”

His wife, Alla, was a “Christian” in the same way Yuri was raised as a “Muslim.” She grew up in Siberia before moving to the warmer climate of Uzbekistan for her health. That’s where she met Yuri.

At first, Alla was more receptive than her husband to the Jehovah’s Witness evangelists who knocked on their door. But Yuri was worried at first about the mysterious strangers who studied the Bible with his wife — and their foreign ways.

“I was worried, a little bit, that it wasn’t the traditional way … I worried that it was a cult,” he said. But he started to warm to the idea of a faith that was led by discussion and asking questions — not tradition. And the idea of being religious in name only did not appeal to him. “[Russian] Orthodox people, they drink a lot. They can lie, they can steal, they can do many things. But at the same time, they wear the cross. I said, ‘Hey, you are not afraid of God. If you are Christian, your behavior should be according to the Bible.’ But I didn’t find [that] with Orthodox people.” Jehovah’s Witnesses were different, Yuri says. He stopped drinking, smoking, hanging out with a “bad crowd.” His family was shocked — and suspicious. What he was doing wasn’t “traditional” after all. But they couldn’t deny the change in his behavior.

For as long as Yuri can remember, Jehovah’s Witnesses in his native Uzbekistan dealt with similar harassment under the recently deceased nationalist dictator Islam Karimov as they face now in Russia, where he moved for work some decades ago. They’d have to pay the odd bribe or fine at a police station, or they’d get into trouble with local toughs. But the situation in Russia under Putin, all agree, has gotten worse, reminding them of the worst days of Stalinism, except with a different ethos. In the old days, Jehovah’s Witnesses were a threat to the secularist state. Today, they are a threat to the Russian Orthodox establishment. But the methods remain the same.

“My father, my grandfather, were prisoners for reading the Bible,” sighs Lyudmilla, “Then they were rehabilitated [after the fall of the USSR and considered] the victims of political repression. The government said sorry to that generation. But now they’ve started to put us under stress again.”

They all agree, however, that this does not let them stop practicing their faith — or even proselytizing. Although they do not stand on street corners any longer, they go a few times a week to knock on doors and try to preach what they believe is God’s word, even if they’re more likely than not to be shouted at or attacked as suspected foreign spies or agents of treason. “The [state-run] TV and newspapers, they demonize Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Yuri says. “But we aren’t stopping preaching — and we won’t stop preaching.”

Yuri makes sure to say that he is not political. Jehovah’s Witnesses are expected to be neutral bystanders in political affairs (worldwide, for example, they request exemptions from mandatory military service, something that they are denied in Russia). “It doesn’t matter who is the president. Just don’t touch us. We don’t want to change the president. We have to pray for the [leaders] — that they can manage the country with wisdom.”

Still, he is more than a little caustic when reminding me of the story of the biblical prophet Daniel, once the prisoner of a disbelieving king.

“Daniel, he had good days, he had bad days,” Yuri says. “But he held to his faith. Every day, he served God.” He points out that the biblical word he uses in Russian, spastayanstvom, has the connotation of a donkey: day by day, turning in circles to mill the grain. In other words: Daniel was stubborn.

“Now we have bad day in Russia,” he says. “But we will continue to worship God as Daniel did. Thanks to God, Daniel was saved. And he will save us. But who has to worry? The people who put Daniel in the lion’s den. They had to worry. Because when Daniel was released from the lion’s place, the bad people were killed by the king — you see what I mean?”

Yuri winks at me. “So, the people who do the same things in Russia have to worry. Not us. Jehovah’s Witnesses survived in Hitler’s time. In Stalin’s time. We survived gulags. Siberia. We have a God. The people who persecute us — they’re the ones who have to worry.”

Update: this story, originally reported in July 2017, has been updated to reflect Russia’s latest legal developments

Original Source -> Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned in Russia. That doesn’t stop them from worshipping.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

[christophertheodore-org]

Rex Tillerson could be America’s most dangerous Secretary of State

“My philosophy is to make money.”—Rex Tillerson

On January 1, Rex Tillerson retired from oil giant Exxon Mobil after 41 years, the last 10 as CEO and chairman of the board. When he appears in January before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be considered for U.S. Secretary of State, Exxon Mobil will be preparing to appear before a jury at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, just blocks away. There, the company will face allegations that security forces under its employ engaged in serious human rights abuses, including murder, torture, sexual violence, kidnapping, battery, assault, burning, arbitrary arrest, detention and false imprisonment. The complaint specifically names Rex Tillerson.

Among the plaintiffs, all of whom use aliases out of fear for their lives, is “John Doe II.” According to the complaint, in August 2000, soldiers working for Exxon Mobil beat and tortured him “using electricity all over his body, includ[ing] his genitals.” After approximately three months, the “soldiers took off his blindfold, took him outside the building where he had been detained and showed him a pit where there was a large pile of human heads. The soldiers threatened to kill him and add his head to the pile.” He was ultimately released, only to have the soldiers return later to burn down his house.

John Doe I, et al., v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al. is awaiting a trial date expected “any day now,” according to lead plaintiff attorney Terrence Collingsworth. The complaint alleges that from 2000 through 2004, private military security forces employed by Exxon Mobil to protect its natural gas operations in Aceh province, Indonesia, committed the cited offenses against local villagers. From 1976 to 2005, Aceh was embroiled in a violent independence struggle. In the midst of the conflict, Exxon Mobil essentially privatized Indonesian soldiers, the complaint argues, despite their well-documented history of abusing Indonesian citizens, and aided and abetted the human rights violations through financial and other direct material support.

Exxon Mobil has fought the case for 15 years, denying not the human rights abuses, but rather that the company should be liable. A federal judge ruled, however, not only that the company must stand trial, but also that “sufficient evidence demonstrates” that Exxon Mobil corporate officers “exerted significant control” over the security decisions made by its Indonesian subsidiary.

A 2006 amendment and a 2007 complaint adding new plaintiffs allege that top Exxon Mobil officials “have been continuously involved” in the Indonesian operations and that “Exxon Mobil Corp. officials who have met with Indonesian officials include … Rex W. Tillerson, president of Exxon Mobil Corp.”

It is just one of countless lawsuits, investigations and allegations confronting the company and its former CEO involving human rights abuses; unsafe working conditions; investor and public fraud; destruction of the environment, climate and public health; support of dictators; contributions to global instability and inequality; and being party to wars and conflict—in addition to decades of verdicts against the company—all of which will follow Tillerson into and haunt the next administration, should Congress permit him to join it.

Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, speaks at the annual shareholders  meeting in Dallas. (Mike Fuentes/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Workers clean up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which released 11 to 38 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound in 1989. (Photo: Vick Vanessa)

T-Rex

Rex Tillerson has carefully constructed a public veneer for Exxon Mobil as a law-abiding, spit and polish, model corporate citizen. The storyline goes that because it is so big and has so much money, Exxon Mobil can afford to do everything just right. That may be true in some cases, but more often, Exxon Mobil wields its vast influence and wealth in a manner more closely in line with the philosophy of its infamous founder, John D. Rockefeller, who once said, “The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”

Rockefeller founded Standard Oil Company in 1870 and quickly built one of the world’s most ruthless corporate monopolies. In describing the company’s tactics and practices over the next 30 years, the Interstate Commerce Commission’s late-19th-century reports did not mince words: “unjust,” “intentional disregard of rights,” “illegal,” “excessive,” “extraordinary,” “forbidden,” “wholly indefensible,” “obnoxious,” “absurd and inexcusable,” and “so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no discussion of it is necessary.”

The nation and the courts were equally repulsed. The Populist movement railed against the erosion of democracy and subsequent inequality resulting from Standard Oil’s power over the federal and multiple state governments, and in a key 1911 victory, a Supreme Court ruling broke up Standard Oil into 34 separate corporate parts. The largest pieces were Standard Oil of New Jersey—later Exxon—and Standard Oil of New York—later Mobil. In 1999, the two were allowed to re-merge, forming today’s Exxon Mobil. It is the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, and the sixth-largest company on the planet. Were Exxon a country, its $246 billion in revenue in 2015 would make it the 42nd-largest by GDP.

Like generations of senior management before him, Rex Tillerson has spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil. Recruited fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin in 1975, Tillerson, who is known to colleagues as “T-Rex,” rose through the ranks, becoming senior vice president of Exxon Mobil in 2001, president and board member in 2004, and CEO and board chairman in 2006. His 2015 salary was $27.3 million, or about 500 times the median U.S. household income. If confirmed, he will join what is set to be the wealthiest cabinet in U.S. history.

Exxon Mobil is a uniquely insular company, often referred to as a “cult.” In Steve Coll’s Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power, executives of other oil companies describe Exxon Mobil as “ruthless, self-isolating and inscrutable … priggish Presbyterian deacons” who maintain “kind of a 1950s Southern religious culture. They’re all engineers, mostly white males, mostly from the South. … They shared a belief in the One Right Answer.”

“All of the top executives are imbued with the Exxon culture and regard themselves as carriers of the culture,” Neva Goodwin, great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, told me in 2013. Tillerson, she said, is civil, “but [he] never responds in such a way that suggests that he could be at all influenced to change his positions.”

As George W. Bush once famously said of Exxon Mobil: “Nobody tells those guys what to do.”

Other than a stint as president of the Boy Scouts of America from 2010 to 2012, Tillerson does not publicly step outside his role as Exxon Mobil executive. It is as its voice that he gives speeches, offers policy analyses and grants interviews. To understand Rex Tillerson as a man or intuit how he will behave as secretary of state, therefore, we must observe Exxon Mobil’s actions under his leadership and his stated objectives for its future.

Until required to change policy in 2014 to continue receiving federal government contracts, Exxon Mobil failed to meet a single Human Rights Campaign criterion for an LGBTQ-inclusive workplace. When I investigated Exxon Mobil’s LGBTQ polices for The Advocate in 2013, a gay former employee told me, “I feel that [Exxon is like that] racist old aunt, that racist grandfather figure, that person completely out of touch with the times.”

The word I hear most often to describe Exxon Mobil under Tillerson is “bully.”

It is a viewpoint shared by Exxon Mobil’s closest neighbors in its home state of Texas. “They are a major polluter that is breaking the law and threatening the health of millions of Texans and I think they are grossly irresponsible to their neighbors,” says Luke Metzger, director of Austin-based nonprofit Environment Texas. The group is suing Exxon Mobil for breaking clean air laws at its Baytown oil refinery and chemical plant more than 4,000 times between 2005 and 2010, pollution which Metzger alleges continues to this day in this largely Hispanic community near Houston.

In 2013, two workers died and 10 were injured with severe burns at Exxon Mobil’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery. The Department of Labor cited the company for numerous safety violations that resulted in the deadly flash fire. “People do get hurt, and it’s because of the way that Exxon handles its business inside,” said Ricky Brooks, president of the United Steelworkers local representing workers at Exxon Mobil’s facility in nearby Baytown, when I spoke with him a few months after the fire.

The company is vehemently anti-union, says Brooks, and workers, whether unionized or not, are made to fear for their jobs if they speak out. Size and influence, he argues, allow Exxon Mobil to get away with what others cannot. “Exxon only changes when forced to,” he says, “and few people, or governments for that matter, are in a position to force them.”

Within months of my conversation with Brooks in 2013, farmers in Basra, Iraq protested Exxon Mobil, demanding compensation for lost jobs and what they allege is stolen farmland; families in Mayflower, Ark., were forced from their homes when 210,000 gallons of heavy Canadian tar sands oil spilled from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline; and locals in Eket, Nigeria protested Exxon Mobilin response to a November 2012 oil spill that they said wreaked havoc on coastal land and livelihoods.

Why he wants the job

Exxon Mobil operates in some 200 countries and has current direct joint ventures with companies from China and Russia to Saudi Arabia. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, it also keeps a lot of its profits outside the United States, with a whopping $51 billion offshored in both 2014 and 2015, and another $47 billion in 2013. On Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful People 2016, Tillerson clocks in at #24, while President Obama is #48. Secretary of State John Kerry did not make the list.

So why does Rex Tillerson want a job that could easily be seen as a step down in power and influence? A partial answer is that Tillerson turns 65 in March and faced a forced retirement. He also has unfinished business, particularly in Russia, which he likely does not trust the Trump administration to handle. His personal interests and those of Exxon Mobil—often referred to as “Mother Exxon” by employees—have been seemingly one and the same for his entire adult life.

Rex Tillerson is leaving Exxon Mobil in far worse condition than when he took over. This is problematic by several measures, including his own personal legacy and fortune.

In 2003, Exxon Mobil had the most profitable year of any corporation ever. It then beat its own record every year for the next five years. Its $45.2 billion in 2008 remained the highest annual corporate profits ever recorded until surpassed in 2015 by Apple.

Then oil prices crashed in 2009, and have yet to recover. Exxon Mobil’s profits in 2015—though still a staggering $16 billion—were 65 percent less than 2008’s high, and less than half of what they were in 2014.

Tillerson owns some 600,000 shares of Exxon Mobil stock and was promised approximately 1.8 million more upon his retirement. In response to potentially insurmountable conflicts of interests as secretary of state, however, his golden parachute was altered one week prior to his scheduled confirmation hearing. Tillerson will sell his current stocks worth about $54 million (though valued at almost $25 less per share today than 2014) and convert the rest to $180 million in cash that cannot be invested in Exxon Mobil for 10 years.

Exxon Mobil is cash-poor and debt-ridden, such that, for the first time since the Great Depression, Standard & Poor’s stripped it of a AAA credit rating in April 2016, citing the “reserve-replacement ratio” as the company’s greatest challenge—that is, finding enough new oil reserves to replace that which it pumps from the ground.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating whether Exxon Mobil has been inflating the size of its oil reserves by counting reserves as “booked”—meaning planned and accessible for producing—when they should not be. In response, the company was forced to report in late October that it would likely need to “de-book” some 3.6 billion barrels of tar sands oil in Canada and about 1 billion oil-equivalent barrels in other North American fracking operations. This means that with the stroke of a pen, Exxon Mobil may soon lose nearly 20 percent of its booked reserves—the measure that most determines the value of oil company stock.

To increase its value, therefore, Exxon Mobil needs more oil. Fortunately for the company, it has the potential for a good deal more in Russia’s Arctic.

In 2001, George W. Bush famously looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, saw his soul and dubbed him “Pootie Poot.” The Bush administration was not shy about its oil agenda and how far it would go to achieve it. Russian reserves were a key target, and Putin a leading ally.

At the time, Tillerson had already been hard at work building relationships in Russia as president of Exxon Neftegas Limited (1998-1999), the subsidiary responsible for Exxon Mobil’s Russian and Caspian Sea holdings. Between 2011 and 2013, after more than a decade of work, Tillerson signed cooperation agreements for 10 joint ventures with Russia’s state-controlled oil company Rosneft, including those in the Russian Arctic. The Financial Times reported in 2014, “Russia was going to be Exxon’s next mega-area. And the list of mega-areas in the world is very short.”

As a result, Exxon Mobil’s 63.7 million-acre Russian holdings are nearly five times larger than its second-largest holdings—its 14 million acres in the United States.

The Obama administration, however, did not see Russia in the same warm light. In 2014, the president imposed sanctions against Russia after it sent troops into Crimea. The sanctions permit some of Exxon Mobil’s projects, but none of its Arctic or other offshore exploration, not only halting these operations but also making it impossible for the company to book the potentially enormous reserves.

Oil from Russian drilling operations gushes from damaged pipelines in Usinsk in the Russian Arctic in May 2012. Greenpeace Russia reports that every 18 months, over 4 million barrels of oil spew into the Arctic Ocean from Russian operations. (Photo: Staffan Julén/Greenpeace)

Exxon Mobil’s Russian Arctic holdings became even more valuable when, in late December, Obama joined Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in banning oil and gas activities in virtually the entire U.S.—and all of Canada’s—Arctic waters. Unlike the Russian sanctions, which were implemented with a presidential executive order that can be overturned by another such order, the drilling ban is more akin to the designation of a National Monument and would require an act of Congress to overrule.

According to Bloomberg, Tillerson made multiple personal visits to the White House since 2014 to discuss, among other things, Russian sanctions. Unable to budge Obama, Tillerson may now just get the job done himself, directing negotiations as secretary of state and advocating for Donald Trump to revoke the sanctions.

Trump has Russian sympathies of his own, and the Russian government made well-apparent its preference for his candidacy over that of Hillary Clinton. Trump is also building one of the most fossil-fueled administrations in U.S. history. Nonetheless, I doubt Tillerson trusts Trump, and he certainly did not support Trump.

The oil industry, including Rex Tillerson, gave its overwhelming financial support to Jeb Bush for president in 2016. Tillerson gave the maximum individual contribution of $2,700 to Bush and $5,000 to Bush’s Super PAC. He gave another $33,400 to the Republican National Committee. He never gave a dime to Trump.

Once it was clear that Bush was no longer a contender, the oil industry, including Exxon Mobil’s employees, shifted support to Clinton. Meanwhile, the Exxon Mobil PAC focused on taking the House and Senate for the Republicans, greatly increasing the money spent on these races. Exxon Mobil ultimately spent nearly nine times more on congressional races (close to $1.5 million) than on the presidency (less than $170,000), just barely edging out Koch Industries to become the oil industry’s biggest spender in the 2016 election, according to data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Why would the oil industry, a GOP mainstay, put its money behind Clinton? Perhaps the companies wanted to back the odds-on favorite; perhaps an industry that works on 25- to 50-year timelines decided that it could weather another four to eight years of a known quantity (even an unfriendly one) like Clinton better than an unknown one like Trump, who could cause irreparable damage. Controlling Congress was the security measure against either presidential victor.

But once Trump became president-elect, a full-court Republican-establishment press composed of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, James Baker, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates reportedly offered “glowing endorsements” of Tillerson either to Trump or to Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As I detail in The Bush Agenda, the ties that bind these men and women to Exxon Mobil run deep. In 2000, for example, the oil industry, including Exxon Mobil, spent more money than on any previous election to get fellow oilmen Bush and Cheney into office, while Baker’s law firm has represented Exxon Mobil for decades, and Gates and Rice have a consulting firm that has Exxon Mobil as a client.

Simply put, Exxon Mobil needs the U.S. government to play ball, or at least behave.

Tillerson serving as some sort of Trump overseer for the Bush-era Republican oil establishment, however, should raise many red flags, particularly with the possibility of fellow Bush administration alum John Bolton—who reiterated in November a call for regime change in Iran—as his undersecretary. We have already experienced, and continue to suffer the consequences of, the devastation wrought by this group in pursuit of its crude objectives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin presents Rex Tillerson with a medal at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 21, 2012. (Photo: Michael Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images)

By any means necessary

Exxon Mobil has never been shy about working with dictators, be they Hajji Muhammad Suharto of Indonesia, Idriss Déby of Chad, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola or Saddam Hussein of Iraq (to name but a few).

But sometimes alliances go sour. Change is often necessary.

Members of the Bush administration, many of whom had worked together for decades, made fully transparent their ambitions for American “empire” (their word) long before taking office in 2000, including the plan to invade Iraq (with Iran next in their sights).

Prior to the March 2003 invasion, Iraq’s domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. Within six years, it was largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms, including Exxon Mobil. “Of course it’s about oil; we can’t really deny that,” said Gen. John Abizaid, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, in 2007.

Exxon Mobil joined with other Western oil giants to have a direct hand in this long-desired outcome. The company participated in the Cheney Energy Task Force, which first met just 10 days into the new administration. Its work included reviewing “operational policies” toward Iraq and “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.” In its final report in May 2001, the task force argued that Middle Eastern countries should be urged “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” This is precisely what was achieved in Iraq.

Exxon Mobil met with Cheney’s staff in January 2003, two months before the invasion, to discuss plans for Iraq’s postwar industry, while then-CEO Lee Raymond had many private meetings with longtime friend Dick Cheney. For the next decade, former and current executives of Western oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, acted first as administrators of Iraq’s oil ministry and then as “advisers” to the Iraqi government.

Gary Vogler, an executive and 21-year company veteran, left Exxon Mobil in 2002 to help plan and lead the U.S. government’s oil agenda in Iraq. Vogler later told MSNBC that in an October 2002 meeting in Houston, he and other members of the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group for Iraq were told by Army Corps Lt. Col. Paul Shelton, “Look, the military can get you a lot of information, but you’ve got to keep in mind the cost of that information … may be the lives of 19-year-old Marines and soldiers.”

In April 2003, Vogler joined former Shell Oil CEO Philip Carroll on the ground in Iraq. “The ministry once again has a strong man at its helm,” reported Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine upon Vogler’s arrival at the Iraqi Oil Ministry. By that summer, Exxon Mobil had joined with several other Western oil companies to articulate their own goals for post-war Iraq through the International Tax and Investment Center’s (ITIC) Iraq project. The ITIC’s report, “Petroleum in Iraq’s Future,” released in the fall of 2004, made the case for opening Iraq’s oil industry to foreign oil companies using Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that grant companies control over production decisions, the right to book reserves as their own and contract lengths 10 times longer than is typical.

As I detailed on CNN.com in 2013, as the war continued, so too did the administration and industry efforts to open Iraq’s oil sector under their preferred terms. Western oil companies met with the Iraqi government and ultimately signed contracts to gain not all they had hoped for, but enough. In 2009, Exxon Mobil emerged as one of the war’s biggest winners, joining with PetroChina to sign a PSA for the super-giant West Qurna oil field, one of the largest oil fields in the world, and later acquiring exploration contracts in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

While the war did have its victors, it was of course disastrous not only for Iraqis, but for the entire region, contributing to the formation of the Islamic State, the Syrian War and today’s refugee crisis.

We know very little of Trump’s actual foreign policy agenda other than an intention to put “America First” while turning toward Russia and against Iran. But perhaps we can gain some guidance from Trump’s words to Anderson Cooper in 2015 on taking on the Islamic State: “I’d bomb the hell out of the oil fields …. I’d then get Exxon, I’d then get these great oil companies to go in­—they would rebuild them so fast your head will spin.” A “ring” of U.S. troops would then surround the wells, Trump said, protecting the oil companies.

Climate “risk” or climate change?

January will be a busy month for Rex Tillerson. On January 19, he has been called to testify in a federal lawsuit brought by 21 young people alleging that the oil and gas industry has sought to both prevent the U.S. government from taking action to protect the environment from climate change and lock in a fossil-fuel-based national energy system with full knowledge of the extreme dangers it poses. Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, et al. v. United States of America, et al. is before the U.S. District Court of Oregon and will be set for trial this year.

The suit stems from a 2016 investigation by InsideClimate News, as do the state and federal investigations into potential fraud perpetrated by Exxon Mobil against the public and its shareholders regarding what the company knew about climate change and when, and what it did with that information. A finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, the investigation uncovered that Exxon’s own scientists confirmed in the 1970s that the burning of fossil fuels harms the climate. The company then chose to publicly deny the reality of climate change and finance the climate denialist movement (findings Exxon Mobil disputes).

As secretary of state, Rex Tillerson would lead U.S. negotiations tackling climate change. Tillerson’s rhetoric has led some to conclude that this may not be such a bad thing. The facts, however, reveal that it would be disastrous.

On the one hand, Tillerson acknowledges the reality of climate change and has publicly stated his support for carbon taxation and the Paris Climate Agreement. Exxon Mobil’s lobbying disclosures under Tillerson, however, expose a very different picture. In 2008 and 2009, the company nearly doubled its already top-tier federal lobbying expenditures (spending $29 million and $27.4 million, respectively), outspending every other corporation, to successfully thwart congressional and White House efforts to pass meaningful climate change legislation, dashing the 2009 U.N. Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in the process. Exxon Mobil continues to fund climate denialist organizations and those that are leading the attacks on the Paris Agreement and Obama’s Clean Power Plan, including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As for the company’s actual operations, a 2014 study published in Climatic Change journal found that Exxon Mobil has contributed more global greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere over the last 150 years than all but one company (Chevron). Under Tillerson, Exxon Mobil has fought climate-related initiatives launched by shareholders and rejected any meaningful commitment to renewable or alternative energy. As I reported for Rolling Stone in 2013, “Since 2002, Exxon Mobil, which took in $45 billion in profit last year alone, put a grand total of $188 million into its alternative [energy] investments, compared to the $250 million it dedicated to U.S. advertising in the last two years alone.”

A close read of Tillerson and the company’s words on the topic, moreover, reveal a very careful focus on “risks” posed by climate change (or by those responding to it). Exxon Mobil’s annual report to the SEC in 2016 stated, for example, “Due to concern over the risk of climate change, a number of countries have adopted … frameworks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Tillerson’s line is one of scientific uncertainty about what those risks may be, blind faith in the ability of technology to address any such risks should they emerge, and a zealous commitment to the necessity and dominance of oil and natural gas.

The language of “risk” implies that all climate effects are yet to come—such as when Tillerson said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in 2013 that climate change “does present serious risk” yet “our ability to project with any degree of certainty the future is continuing to be very limited.” But, as of 2012, nearly 1,000 children a day were already dying because of climate change, and the estimated annual death toll was 400,000 people worldwide.

In 2008, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President J.S. Simon told Congress: “The pursuit of alternative fuels must not detract from the development of oil and gas.” To grasp the threat posed by Exxon Mobil and Rex Tillerson, one could replace “alternative fuels” with just about any phrase, word or concept expected of a just U.S. secretary of state—be it “diplomacy,” “equality,” “peace,” “climate justice” or “human rights.”

US Exxon Mobil refinery workers in Port-Jerome, western France, joined a strike in support of workers at the French multinational integrated oil and gas company Total S.A. on February 23, 2010. (Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images)

Choosing sides

“This is the purest test you can imagine: Either you’re pro-science or anti-science; either you stand with the people, or you stand with the polluters. It’s that simple,” said Jamie Henn of 350.org. He was speaking in advance of a protest in Cheyenne, Wyo., planned for January 9, to urge Republican Sen. John Barrasso to use his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to reject Tillerson’s nomination. The protest is part of a month-long series of protests which include “flooding Capitol Hill” with events targeting key senators who play a big role in cabinet picks.

Tillerson is scheduled to appear in January for hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Democrats have promised a bruising fight. They would need just one Republican to join them to block the nomination and Marco Rubio (Fla.) may be that Republican, having voiced concerns about Tillerson’s Russian ties. If the vote goes to the full Senate and Democrats stand united there, just three Republicans would be needed to block Tillerson. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) have expressed deep reservations.

With leading international human rights organizations, including Global Witness and Amnesty International, condemning Tillerson’s nomination in no uncertain terms, and with Greenpeace coordinating petitions and actions with numerous other groups to block it, the fight is far from over. Tillerson’s nomination comes at a time of heightened unity and strength within the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground, brought to national attention with the years-long battle led by Native Americans to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Terrence Collingsworth, the human-rights lawyer who has fought Exxon Mobil for more than 15 years in defense of the people of Aceh, worries about the damage done simply through the nomination of Rex Tillerson—which, he believes, makes it clear which side the United States government is now on under the presidency of Donald Trump.

“Imagine what will happen in the future,” he says. “[People around the world] will not feel that the U.S. will back them up in trying to hold these companies accountable.” Instead, he argues, we will have—even more than today—“a sweetheart arrangement between foreign governments and the U.S. government to promote the exploitation of natural resources at all costs.”

This article has been updated to include the 2007 amended complaint in John Doe I, et al., v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al.

Antonia Juhasz, a leading energy analyst, author, and investigative journalist specializing in oil.  An award-winning writer, her articles appear in Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Harper’s, The Atlantic and more. Juhasz is the author of three books: “The Bush Agenda,” “The Tyranny of Oil” and “Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.” Follow her on Twitter at @AntoniaJuhaz.

Source:

inthesetimes.

[msteacherblog-blog]

Multicultural - Diverse YA Books

Annotated Bibliography – Multicultural and Diverse Books

Alexie, S., & Forney, E. (2015). The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. London: Andersen Press.

The Absolutely True Diary is a first-person narrative from the perspective of Native American teenager Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior", a 14-year-old budding cartoonist.[3] The book is a bildungsroman, detailing Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation, and his decision, upon encouragement from a reservation high school teacher, to go to an all-white public high school in the off-reservation town of Reardon, Washington.[5] The novel has 65 comic illustrations by Forney, which sometimes act as punchlines while also revealing Junior's character and furthering the plot. Identity crisis and Displacement are the universal YA themes, this book could be used to discuss and analyze in an ELA class. The Lexile level of this book is 600L.

 Tan, A. (2016). The Joy Luck Club. New York: Penguin Books.

The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as The Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters (one mother, Suyuan Woo, dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the game. Identity crisis and Displacement are the universal YA themes, this book could be used to discuss and analyze in an ELA class. The Lexile level of this book is 930L.

 Alvarez, J. (2002). Before we were free. New York: Laurel-Leaf Books.

Anita de la Torre is a twelve-year-old girl living in the Dominican Republic in 1960. Most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her Tío Toni has disappeared, Papi has been getting mysterious phone calls about butterflies and someone named Mr. Smith, and the secret police have started terrorizing her family for their suspected opposition to the country’s dictator. While Anita deals with a frightening series of events, she also struggles with her adolescence and her own personal fight to be free. Identity crisis and Displacement are the universal YA themes, this book could be used to discuss and analyze in an ELA class. The Lexile level of this book is 890L.

 Say, A. (2011). Drawing from memory. New York: Scholastic Press.

DRAWING FROM MEMORY is Allen Say's own story of his path to becoming the renowned artist he is today. Shunned by his father, who didn't understand his son's artistic leanings, Allen was embraced by Noro Shinpei, Japan's leading cartoonist and the man he came to love as his "spiritual father." As WWII raged, Allen was further inspired to consider questions of his own heritage and the motivations of those around him. He worked hard in rigorous drawing classes, studied, trained--and ultimately came to understand who he really is. Identity crisis and Displacement are the universal YA themes, this book could be used to discuss and analyze in an ELA class. The Lexile level of this book is approximately 900L.

 Nye, N. S. (1997). Habibi. New York: Simon Pulse.

The day after Liyana got her first real kiss, her life changed forever. Not because of the kiss, but because it was the day her father announced that the family was moving from St. Louis all the way to Palestine. Though her father grew up there, Liyana knows very little about her family's Arab heritage. Her grandmother and the rest of her relatives who live in the West Bank are strangers, and speak a language she can't understand. It isn't until she meets Omer that her homesickness fades. But Omer is Jewish, and their friendship is silently forbidden in this land. How can they make their families understand? And how can Liyana ever learn to call this place home? Identity crisis and Displacement are the universal YA themes, this book could be used to discuss and analyze in an ELA class. The Lexile level of this book is 850L.

[newstfionline]

Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned in Russia. That doesn’t stop them from worshipping.

By Tara Isabella Burton, Vox, Aug 24, 2017

MOSCOW--”Stay in the car,” Yuri says. He looks out the window, up at the grey Soviet-era tower block we’re idling outside. An old woman is staring out the window. “She’s looking at us. She’s suspicious.”

Eugeny and his wife, Lyudmilla, have already gone inside. But Yuri (who, like everyone quoted in this article, has asked to be identified by first name only for security reasons) is worried that entering as a group will attract attention. Attention means somebody might call the police. And when you’re a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia--labeled by the government as a member of an “extremist” sect, the same designation they use for neo-Nazis and ISIS members--dealing with the police is the last thing you need.

Eight million Christians around the world self-identify as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their worship is characterized by frequent public proselytizing. In April, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that the faith of an estimated 175,000 Russians violates the country’s anti-extremist statutes.

An appeal was refused late last month, continuing years of state-sponsored persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religious group. Police frequently raid Jehovah’s Witness services--both in private homes and in Kingdom Halls--and, according to members, turn a blind eye to discriminatory civilian violence. Yuri recalls one instance where a “sister”--as Jehovah’s Witnesses refer to female members of their community--was beaten and threatened with a gun by another woman while out preaching, only for the police to dismiss her as a “cult member” and a thief when they finally arrived. But since the most recent Supreme Court ruling, Yuri says, things have gotten worse.

“We’re on their radar at all times,” says Yuri, an affable man in his 50s who apologizes, frequently, for his near-perfect English, which he taught himself through the internet. Their largest Kingdom Hall, located in a northern suburb of Moscow, lies empty, the entrance marked with caution tape, after the building’s owner deemed it too risky to let Jehovah’s Witnesses use.

Still, the community has developed a strategy to keep its faith and worship alive. They enter the building in twos and threes to avoid attracting attention. They mix up the homes they use, to keep it difficult for government forces or potential harassers to track. They set a table laden with food, which, during the Saturday worship session I attended in July, goes entirely untouched. It’s there so that if police arrive, they can claim that they’re simply gathering for a party. And, Yuri tells me, they always keep a few bottles of vodka on hand. If the police come, he says, they can down it quickly. The police will smell their breath, notice their inebriation, and believe that they’re been carousing, not worshipping.

Today, about 20 Witnesses gather in this Moscow suburb. They are roughly split evenly by gender, and a mix of ages. Nearly all follow the lesson on their tablets or phones, using specialized apps. (Importing physical copies of the Jehovah’s Witness Bible is also forbidden.)

Yuri’s wife, Alla, helpfully translates the verses from Russian to English for me on her phone. They pray for the wisdom of their rulers, reading verses from the Book of Daniel about faith in times of turmoil. They affirm Jehovah--their rendering of the term for the Judeo-Christian God--as lord of the universe. From time to time Yuri and his friend Eugeny, a wide-eyed bald man fond of speaking with his hands, ask questions of the flock, calling on members of the community to help interpret the Bible.

The worship service, which runs about 90 minutes, is a muted affair. After all, they can no longer sing during services in people’s homes, lest the sound attract the suspicion of neighbors.

But it is, Yuri says, the best they can do.

To be a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia, after all, is to fall afoul of the extremely complex interplay between nationality, faith, and nationalism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which--as I have previously written--bolsters its authoritarian regime by appealing to the fundamental “Russianness” of the state Orthodox Church. For Putin and his supporters, Jehovah’s Witnesses seem like a dangerous foreign influence. Yuri jokes that other Russians think Jehovah’s Witnesses are foreign spies, or that their frequent doorstop evangelism is actually a ploy to gather data to send back to the CIA.

The history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, and the former USSR more widely, has always been tied up with politics. They were the subject of suspicion under the hyper-secularist Soviet regime. Lyudmilla, Eugeny’s wife, tells me that both her grandfather and father were sent to Siberian gulags by Stalin for decades for being Jehovah’s Witnesses. The religion spread during the chaotic 1990s, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, when religion was finally no longer taboo, and people started asking questions about God.

“A lot of people started when the Soviet Union was destroyed, to say what is written in the Bible,” Alla recalls. “[Talking about religion] became open. After the Soviet Union fell, you could talk about God openly--no problem! That was very interesting [to me]--[I wondered] what was inside [the Bible]?”

For others, faith allowed them to find meaning in the chaos of the fall of the Soviet Union. Eugeny proudly tells me his religion under the USSR was “communism!” He served in the army, all the way up until what he called “civil war--Russians firing on Russians”--marking the fall of the Soviet Union.

When communism started to fall, Eugeny felt himself at sea. “I was communist, but at the same time, geopolitics was interesting for me,” he says. “And in the army I realized that the most great geopolitician was Jehovah. But I didn’t know him [yet]”--he had felt the stirrings of religious longing but had not yet become a true believer.

Only when his now-wife Lyudmilla started to preach did the world start to make sense to him. “[I realized that I] have to serve God. I realized that God is Almighty and I wanted to serve him,” he said. Geopolitics at last makes sense, he says. Now, he says, he sees the world as a chess board, God as the ultimate player.

For all four of the Jehovah’s Witnesses I interviewed, religion in the Soviet years had been primarily a function of national and ethnic identity, not faith. Yuri, who was raised in Uzbekistan, considered himself Muslim because of his ethnicity, nothing more. “I was born in a Muslim family?” He shrugs to demonstrate emphasis. “Okay, I’m Muslim.”

He remembers being shocked the first time he saw an Uzbek Witness try to convert him. “I said, what? Look at you? Look in the mirror, you are Muslim. And you became … Christian? Why?”

His wife, Alla, was a “Christian” in the same way Yuri was raised as a “Muslim.” She grew up in Siberia before moving to the warmer climate of Uzbekistan for her health. That’s where she met Yuri.

At first, Alla was more receptive than her husband to the Jehovah’s Witness evangelists who knocked on their door. But Yuri was worried at first about the mysterious strangers who studied the Bible with his wife--and their foreign ways.

“I was worried, a little bit, that it wasn’t the traditional way … I worried that it was a cult,” he said. But he started to warm to the idea of a faith that was led by discussion and asking questions--not tradition. And the idea of being religious in name only did not appeal to him. “[Russian] Orthodox people, they drink a lot. They can lie, they can steal, they can do many things. But at the same time, they wear the cross. I said, ‘Hey, you are not afraid of God. If you are Christian, your behavior should be according to the Bible.’ But I didn’t find [that] with Orthodox people.” Jehovah’s Witnesses were different, Yuri says. He stopped drinking, smoking, hanging out with a “bad crowd.” His family was shocked--and suspicious. What he was doing wasn’t “traditional” after all. But they couldn’t deny the change in his behavior.

For as long as Yuri can remember, Jehovah’s Witnesses in his native Uzbekistan dealt with similar harassment under the recently deceased nationalist dictator Islam Karimov as they face now in Russia, where he moved for work some decades ago. They’d have to pay the odd bribe or fine at a police station, or they’d get into trouble with local toughs. But the situation in Russia under Putin, all agree, has gotten worse, reminding them of the worst days of Stalinism, except with a different ethos. In the old days, Jehovah’s Witnesses were a threat to the secularist state. Today, they are a threat to the Russian Orthodox establishment. But the methods remain the same.

“My father, my grandfather, were prisoners for reading the Bible,” sighs Lyudmilla, “Then they were rehabilitated [after the fall of the USSR and considered] the victims of political repression. The government said sorry to that generation. But now they’ve started to put us under stress again.”

They all agree, however, that this does not let them stop practicing their faith--or even proselytizing. Although they do not stand on street corners any longer, they go a few times a week to knock on doors and try to preach what they believe is God’s word, even if they’re more likely than not to be shouted at or attacked as suspected foreign spies or agents of treason. “The [state-run] TV and newspapers, they demonize Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Yuri says. “But we aren’t stopping preaching--and we won’t stop preaching.”

Yuri makes sure to say that he is not political. Jehovah’s Witnesses are expected to be neutral bystanders in political affairs (worldwide, for example, they request exemptions from mandatory military service, something that they are denied in Russia). “It doesn’t matter who is the president. Just don’t touch us. We don’t want to change the president. We have to pray for the [leaders]--that they can manage the country with wisdom.”

Still, he is more than a little caustic when reminding me of the story of the biblical prophet Daniel, once the prisoner of a disbelieving king.

“Daniel, he had good days, he had bad days,” Yuri says. “But he held to his faith. Every day, he served God.” He points out that the biblical word he uses in Russian, spastayanstvom, has the connotation of a donkey: day by day, turning in circles to mill the grain. In other words: Daniel was stubborn.

“Now we have bad day in Russia,” he says. “But we will continue to worship God as Daniel did. Thanks to God, Daniel was saved. And he will save us. But who has to worry? The people who put Daniel in the lion’s den. They had to worry. Because when Daniel was released from the lion’s place, the bad people were killed by the king--you see what I mean?”

Yuri winks at me. “So, the people who do the same things in Russia have to worry. Not us. Jehovah’s Witnesses survived in Hitler’s time. In Stalin’s time. We survived gulags. Siberia. We have a God. The people who persecute us--they’re the ones who have to worry.”

#Russia #Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia #persecution

[christheodore]

Rex Tillerson could be America’s most dangerous Secretary of State

“My philosophy is to make money.”—Rex Tillerson

On January 1, Rex Tillerson retired from oil giant Exxon Mobil after 41 years, the last 10 as CEO and chairman of the board. When he appears in January before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be considered for U.S. Secretary of State, Exxon Mobil will be preparing to appear before a jury at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, just blocks away. There, the company will face allegations that security forces under its employ engaged in serious human rights abuses, including murder, torture, sexual violence, kidnapping, battery, assault, burning, arbitrary arrest, detention and false imprisonment. The complaint specifically names Rex Tillerson.

Among the plaintiffs, all of whom use aliases out of fear for their lives, is “John Doe II.” According to the complaint, in August 2000, soldiers working for Exxon Mobil beat and tortured him “using electricity all over his body, includ[ing] his genitals.” After approximately three months, the “soldiers took off his blindfold, took him outside the building where he had been detained and showed him a pit where there was a large pile of human heads. The soldiers threatened to kill him and add his head to the pile.” He was ultimately released, only to have the soldiers return later to burn down his house.

John Doe I, et al., v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al. is awaiting a trial date expected “any day now,” according to lead plaintiff attorney Terrence Collingsworth. The complaint alleges that from 2000 through 2004, private military security forces employed by Exxon Mobil to protect its natural gas operations in Aceh province, Indonesia, committed the cited offenses against local villagers. From 1976 to 2005, Aceh was embroiled in a violent independence struggle. In the midst of the conflict, Exxon Mobil essentially privatized Indonesian soldiers, the complaint argues, despite their well-documented history of abusing Indonesian citizens, and aided and abetted the human rights violations through financial and other direct material support.

Exxon Mobil has fought the case for 15 years, denying not the human rights abuses, but rather that the company should be liable. A federal judge ruled, however, not only that the company must stand trial, but also that “sufficient evidence demonstrates” that Exxon Mobil corporate officers “exerted significant control” over the security decisions made by its Indonesian subsidiary.

A 2006 amendment and a 2007 complaint adding new plaintiffs allege that top Exxon Mobil officials “have been continuously involved” in the Indonesian operations and that “Exxon Mobil Corp. officials who have met with Indonesian officials include … Rex W. Tillerson, president of Exxon Mobil Corp.”

It is just one of countless lawsuits, investigations and allegations confronting the company and its former CEO involving human rights abuses; unsafe working conditions; investor and public fraud; destruction of the environment, climate and public health; support of dictators; contributions to global instability and inequality; and being party to wars and conflict—in addition to decades of verdicts against the company—all of which will follow Tillerson into and haunt the next administration, should Congress permit him to join it.

Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, speaks at the annual shareholders  meeting in Dallas. (Mike Fuentes/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Workers clean up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which released 11 to 38 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound in 1989. (Photo: Vick Vanessa)

T-Rex

Rex Tillerson has carefully constructed a public veneer for Exxon Mobil as a law-abiding, spit and polish, model corporate citizen. The storyline goes that because it is so big and has so much money, Exxon Mobil can afford to do everything just right. That may be true in some cases, but more often, Exxon Mobil wields its vast influence and wealth in a manner more closely in line with the philosophy of its infamous founder, John D. Rockefeller, who once said, “The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”

Rockefeller founded Standard Oil Company in 1870 and quickly built one of the world’s most ruthless corporate monopolies. In describing the company’s tactics and practices over the next 30 years, the Interstate Commerce Commission’s late-19th-century reports did not mince words: “unjust,” “intentional disregard of rights,” “illegal,” “excessive,” “extraordinary,” “forbidden,” “wholly indefensible,” “obnoxious,” “absurd and inexcusable,” and “so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no discussion of it is necessary.”

The nation and the courts were equally repulsed. The Populist movement railed against the erosion of democracy and subsequent inequality resulting from Standard Oil’s power over the federal and multiple state governments, and in a key 1911 victory, a Supreme Court ruling broke up Standard Oil into 34 separate corporate parts. The largest pieces were Standard Oil of New Jersey—later Exxon—and Standard Oil of New York—later Mobil. In 1999, the two were allowed to re-merge, forming today’s Exxon Mobil. It is the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, and the sixth-largest company on the planet. Were Exxon a country, its $246 billion in revenue in 2015 would make it the 42nd-largest by GDP.

Like generations of senior management before him, Rex Tillerson has spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil. Recruited fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin in 1975, Tillerson, who is known to colleagues as “T-Rex,” rose through the ranks, becoming senior vice president of Exxon Mobil in 2001, president and board member in 2004, and CEO and board chairman in 2006. His 2015 salary was $27.3 million, or about 500 times the median U.S. household income. If confirmed, he will join what is set to be the wealthiest cabinet in U.S. history.

Exxon Mobil is a uniquely insular company, often referred to as a “cult.” In Steve Coll’s Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power, executives of other oil companies describe Exxon Mobil as “ruthless, self-isolating and inscrutable … priggish Presbyterian deacons” who maintain “kind of a 1950s Southern religious culture. They’re all engineers, mostly white males, mostly from the South. … They shared a belief in the One Right Answer.”

“All of the top executives are imbued with the Exxon culture and regard themselves as carriers of the culture,” Neva Goodwin, great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, told me in 2013. Tillerson, she said, is civil, “but [he] never responds in such a way that suggests that he could be at all influenced to change his positions.”

As George W. Bush once famously said of Exxon Mobil: “Nobody tells those guys what to do.”

Other than a stint as president of the Boy Scouts of America from 2010 to 2012, Tillerson does not publicly step outside his role as Exxon Mobil executive. It is as its voice that he gives speeches, offers policy analyses and grants interviews. To understand Rex Tillerson as a man or intuit how he will behave as secretary of state, therefore, we must observe Exxon Mobil’s actions under his leadership and his stated objectives for its future.

Until required to change policy in 2014 to continue receiving federal government contracts, Exxon Mobil failed to meet a single Human Rights Campaign criterion for an LGBTQ-inclusive workplace. When I investigated Exxon Mobil’s LGBTQ polices for The Advocate in 2013, a gay former employee told me, “I feel that [Exxon is like that] racist old aunt, that racist grandfather figure, that person completely out of touch with the times.”

The word I hear most often to describe Exxon Mobil under Tillerson is “bully.”

It is a viewpoint shared by Exxon Mobil’s closest neighbors in its home state of Texas. “They are a major polluter that is breaking the law and threatening the health of millions of Texans and I think they are grossly irresponsible to their neighbors,” says Luke Metzger, director of Austin-based nonprofit Environment Texas. The group is suing Exxon Mobil for breaking clean air laws at its Baytown oil refinery and chemical plant more than 4,000 times between 2005 and 2010, pollution which Metzger alleges continues to this day in this largely Hispanic community near Houston.

In 2013, two workers died and 10 were injured with severe burns at Exxon Mobil’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery. The Department of Labor cited the company for numerous safety violations that resulted in the deadly flash fire. “People do get hurt, and it’s because of the way that Exxon handles its business inside,” said Ricky Brooks, president of the United Steelworkers local representing workers at Exxon Mobil’s facility in nearby Baytown, when I spoke with him a few months after the fire.

The company is vehemently anti-union, says Brooks, and workers, whether unionized or not, are made to fear for their jobs if they speak out. Size and influence, he argues, allow Exxon Mobil to get away with what others cannot. “Exxon only changes when forced to,” he says, “and few people, or governments for that matter, are in a position to force them.”

Within months of my conversation with Brooks in 2013, farmers in Basra, Iraq protested Exxon Mobil, demanding compensation for lost jobs and what they allege is stolen farmland; families in Mayflower, Ark., were forced from their homes when 210,000 gallons of heavy Canadian tar sands oil spilled from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline; and locals in Eket, Nigeria protested Exxon Mobil in response to a November 2012 oil spill that they said wreaked havoc on coastal land and livelihoods.

Why he wants the job

Exxon Mobil operates in some 200 countries and has current direct joint ventures with companies from China and Russia to Saudi Arabia. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, it also keeps a lot of its profits outside the United States, with a whopping $51 billion offshored in both 2014 and 2015, and another $47 billion in 2013. On Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful People 2016, Tillerson clocks in at #24, while President Obama is #48. Secretary of State John Kerry did not make the list.

So why does Rex Tillerson want a job that could easily be seen as a step down in power and influence? A partial answer is that Tillerson turns 65 in March and faced a forced retirement. He also has unfinished business, particularly in Russia, which he likely does not trust the Trump administration to handle. His personal interests and those of Exxon Mobil—often referred to as “Mother Exxon” by employees—have been seemingly one and the same for his entire adult life.

Rex Tillerson is leaving Exxon Mobil in far worse condition than when he took over. This is problematic by several measures, including his own personal legacy and fortune.

In 2003, Exxon Mobil had the most profitable year of any corporation ever. It then beat its own record every year for the next five years. Its $45.2 billion in 2008 remained the highest annual corporate profits ever recorded until surpassed in 2015 by Apple.

Then oil prices crashed in 2009, and have yet to recover. Exxon Mobil’s profits in 2015—though still a staggering $16 billion—were 65 percent less than 2008’s high, and less than half of what they were in 2014.

Tillerson owns some 600,000 shares of Exxon Mobil stock and was promised approximately 1.8 million more upon his retirement. In response to potentially insurmountable conflicts of interests as secretary of state, however, his golden parachute was altered one week prior to his scheduled confirmation hearing. Tillerson will sell his current stocks worth about $54 million (though valued at almost $25 less per share today than 2014) and convert the rest to $180 million in cash that cannot be invested in Exxon Mobil for 10 years.

Exxon Mobil is cash-poor and debt-ridden, such that, for the first time since the Great Depression, Standard & Poor’s stripped it of a AAA credit rating in April 2016, citing the “reserve-replacement ratio” as the company’s greatest challenge—that is, finding enough new oil reserves to replace that which it pumps from the ground.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating whether Exxon Mobil has been inflating the size of its oil reserves by counting reserves as “booked”—meaning planned and accessible for producing—when they should not be. In response, the company was forced to report in late October that it would likely need to “de-book” some 3.6 billion barrels of tar sands oil in Canada and about 1 billion oil-equivalent barrels in other North American fracking operations. This means that with the stroke of a pen, Exxon Mobil may soon lose nearly 20 percent of its booked reserves—the measure that most determines the value of oil company stock.

To increase its value, therefore, Exxon Mobil needs more oil. Fortunately for the company, it has the potential for a good deal more in Russia’s Arctic.

In 2001, George W. Bush famously looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, saw his soul and dubbed him “Pootie Poot.” The Bush administration was not shy about its oil agenda and how far it would go to achieve it. Russian reserves were a key target, and Putin a leading ally.

At the time, Tillerson had already been hard at work building relationships in Russia as president of Exxon Neftegas Limited (1998-1999), the subsidiary responsible for Exxon Mobil’s Russian and Caspian Sea holdings. Between 2011 and 2013, after more than a decade of work, Tillerson signed cooperation agreements for 10 joint ventures with Russia’s state-controlled oil company Rosneft, including those in the Russian Arctic. The Financial Times reported in 2014, “Russia was going to be Exxon’s next mega-area. And the list of mega-areas in the world is very short.”

As a result, Exxon Mobil’s 63.7 million-acre Russian holdings are nearly five times larger than its second-largest holdings—its 14 million acres in the United States.

The Obama administration, however, did not see Russia in the same warm light. In 2014, the president imposed sanctions against Russia after it sent troops into Crimea. The sanctions permit some of Exxon Mobil’s projects, but none of its Arctic or other offshore exploration, not only halting these operations but also making it impossible for the company to book the potentially enormous reserves.

Oil from Russian drilling operations gushes from damaged pipelines in Usinsk in the Russian Arctic in May 2012. Greenpeace Russia reports that every 18 months, over 4 million barrels of oil spew into the Arctic Ocean from Russian operations. (Photo: Staffan Julén/Greenpeace)

Exxon Mobil’s Russian Arctic holdings became even more valuable when, in late December, Obama joined Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in banning oil and gas activities in virtually the entire U.S.—and all of Canada’s—Arctic waters. Unlike the Russian sanctions, which were implemented with a presidential executive order that can be overturned by another such order, the drilling ban is more akin to the designation of a National Monument and would require an act of Congress to overrule.

According to Bloomberg, Tillerson made multiple personal visits to the White House since 2014 to discuss, among other things, Russian sanctions. Unable to budge Obama, Tillerson may now just get the job done himself, directing negotiations as secretary of state and advocating for Donald Trump to revoke the sanctions.

Trump has Russian sympathies of his own, and the Russian government made well-apparent its preference for his candidacy over that of Hillary Clinton. Trump is also building one of the most fossil-fueled administrations in U.S. history. Nonetheless, I doubt Tillerson trusts Trump, and he certainly did not support Trump.

The oil industry, including Rex Tillerson, gave its overwhelming financial support to Jeb Bush for president in 2016. Tillerson gave the maximum individual contribution of $2,700 to Bush and $5,000 to Bush’s Super PAC. He gave another $33,400 to the Republican National Committee. He never gave a dime to Trump.

Once it was clear that Bush was no longer a contender, the oil industry, including Exxon Mobil’s employees, shifted support to Clinton. Meanwhile, the Exxon Mobil PAC focused on taking the House and Senate for the Republicans, greatly increasing the money spent on these races. Exxon Mobil ultimately spent nearly nine times more on congressional races (close to $1.5 million) than on the presidency (less than $170,000), just barely edging out Koch Industries to become the oil industry’s biggest spender in the 2016 election, according to data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Why would the oil industry, a GOP mainstay, put its money behind Clinton? Perhaps the companies wanted to back the odds-on favorite; perhaps an industry that works on 25- to 50-year timelines decided that it could weather another four to eight years of a known quantity (even an unfriendly one) like Clinton better than an unknown one like Trump, who could cause irreparable damage. Controlling Congress was the security measure against either presidential victor.

But once Trump became president-elect, a full-court Republican-establishment press composed of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, James Baker, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates reportedly offered “glowing endorsements” of Tillerson either to Trump or to Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As I detail in The Bush Agenda, the ties that bind these men and women to Exxon Mobil run deep. In 2000, for example, the oil industry, including Exxon Mobil, spent more money than on any previous election to get fellow oilmen Bush and Cheney into office, while Baker’s law firm has represented Exxon Mobil for decades, and Gates and Rice have a consulting firm that has Exxon Mobil as a client.

Simply put, Exxon Mobil needs the U.S. government to play ball, or at least behave.

Tillerson serving as some sort of Trump overseer for the Bush-era Republican oil establishment, however, should raise many red flags, particularly with the possibility of fellow Bush administration alum John Bolton—who reiterated in November a call for regime change in Iran—as his undersecretary. We have already experienced, and continue to suffer the consequences of, the devastation wrought by this group in pursuit of its crude objectives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin presents Rex Tillerson with a medal at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 21, 2012. (Photo: Michael Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images)

By any means necessary

Exxon Mobil has never been shy about working with dictators, be they Hajji Muhammad Suharto of Indonesia, Idriss Déby of Chad, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola or Saddam Hussein of Iraq (to name but a few).

But sometimes alliances go sour. Change is often necessary.

Members of the Bush administration, many of whom had worked together for decades, made fully transparent their ambitions for American “empire” (their word) long before taking office in 2000, including the plan to invade Iraq (with Iran next in their sights).

Prior to the March 2003 invasion, Iraq’s domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. Within six years, it was largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms, including Exxon Mobil. “Of course it’s about oil; we can’t really deny that,” said Gen. John Abizaid, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, in 2007.

Exxon Mobil joined with other Western oil giants to have a direct hand in this long-desired outcome. The company participated in the Cheney Energy Task Force, which first met just 10 days into the new administration. Its work included reviewing “operational policies” toward Iraq and “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.” In its final report in May 2001, the task force argued that Middle Eastern countries should be urged “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” This is precisely what was achieved in Iraq.

Exxon Mobil met with Cheney’s staff in January 2003, two months before the invasion, to discuss plans for Iraq’s postwar industry, while then-CEO Lee Raymond had many private meetings with longtime friend Dick Cheney. For the next decade, former and current executives of Western oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, acted first as administrators of Iraq’s oil ministry and then as “advisers” to the Iraqi government.

Gary Vogler, an executive and 21-year company veteran, left Exxon Mobil in 2002 to help plan and lead the U.S. government’s oil agenda in Iraq. Vogler later told MSNBC that in an October 2002 meeting in Houston, he and other members of the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group for Iraq were told by Army Corps Lt. Col. Paul Shelton, “Look, the military can get you a lot of information, but you’ve got to keep in mind the cost of that information … may be the lives of 19-year-old Marines and soldiers.”

In April 2003, Vogler joined former Shell Oil CEO Philip Carroll on the ground in Iraq. “The ministry once again has a strong man at its helm,” reported Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine upon Vogler’s arrival at the Iraqi Oil Ministry. By that summer, Exxon Mobil had joined with several other Western oil companies to articulate their own goals for post-war Iraq through the International Tax and Investment Center’s (ITIC) Iraq project. The ITIC’s report, “Petroleum in Iraq’s Future,” released in the fall of 2004, made the case for opening Iraq’s oil industry to foreign oil companies using Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that grant companies control over production decisions, the right to book reserves as their own and contract lengths 10 times longer than is typical.

As I detailed on CNN.com in 2013, as the war continued, so too did the administration and industry efforts to open Iraq’s oil sector under their preferred terms. Western oil companies met with the Iraqi government and ultimately signed contracts to gain not all they had hoped for, but enough. In 2009, Exxon Mobil emerged as one of the war’s biggest winners, joining with PetroChina to sign a PSA for the super-giant West Qurna oil field, one of the largest oil fields in the world, and later acquiring exploration contracts in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

While the war did have its victors, it was of course disastrous not only for Iraqis, but for the entire region, contributing to the formation of the Islamic State, the Syrian War and today’s refugee crisis.

We know very little of Trump’s actual foreign policy agenda other than an intention to put “America First” while turning toward Russia and against Iran. But perhaps we can gain some guidance from Trump’s words to Anderson Cooper in 2015 on taking on the Islamic State: “I’d bomb the hell out of the oil fields .... I’d then get Exxon, I’d then get these great oil companies to go in­—they would rebuild them so fast your head will spin.” A “ring” of U.S. troops would then surround the wells, Trump said, protecting the oil companies.

Climate “risk” or climate change?

January will be a busy month for Rex Tillerson. On January 19, he has been called to testify in a federal lawsuit brought by 21 young people alleging that the oil and gas industry has sought to both prevent the U.S. government from taking action to protect the environment from climate change and lock in a fossil-fuel-based national energy system with full knowledge of the extreme dangers it poses. Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, et al. v. United States of America, et al. is before the U.S. District Court of Oregon and will be set for trial this year.

The suit stems from a 2016 investigation by InsideClimate News, as do the state and federal investigations into potential fraud perpetrated by Exxon Mobil against the public and its shareholders regarding what the company knew about climate change and when, and what it did with that information. A finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, the investigation uncovered that Exxon’s own scientists confirmed in the 1970s that the burning of fossil fuels harms the climate. The company then chose to publicly deny the reality of climate change and finance the climate denialist movement (findings Exxon Mobil disputes).

As secretary of state, Rex Tillerson would lead U.S. negotiations tackling climate change. Tillerson’s rhetoric has led some to conclude that this may not be such a bad thing. The facts, however, reveal that it would be disastrous.

On the one hand, Tillerson acknowledges the reality of climate change and has publicly stated his support for carbon taxation and the Paris Climate Agreement. Exxon Mobil’s lobbying disclosures under Tillerson, however, expose a very different picture. In 2008 and 2009, the company nearly doubled its already top-tier federal lobbying expenditures (spending $29 million and $27.4 million, respectively), outspending every other corporation, to successfully thwart congressional and White House efforts to pass meaningful climate change legislation, dashing the 2009 U.N. Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in the process. Exxon Mobil continues to fund climate denialist organizations and those that are leading the attacks on the Paris Agreement and Obama’s Clean Power Plan, including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As for the company’s actual operations, a 2014 study published in Climatic Change journal found that Exxon Mobil has contributed more global greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere over the last 150 years than all but one company (Chevron). Under Tillerson, Exxon Mobil has fought climate-related initiatives launched by shareholders and rejected any meaningful commitment to renewable or alternative energy. As I reported for Rolling Stone in 2013, “Since 2002, Exxon Mobil, which took in $45 billion in profit last year alone, put a grand total of $188 million into its alternative [energy] investments, compared to the $250 million it dedicated to U.S. advertising in the last two years alone.”

A close read of Tillerson and the company’s words on the topic, moreover, reveal a very careful focus on “risks” posed by climate change (or by those responding to it). Exxon Mobil’s annual report to the SEC in 2016 stated, for example, “Due to concern over the risk of climate change, a number of countries have adopted … frameworks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Tillerson’s line is one of scientific uncertainty about what those risks may be, blind faith in the ability of technology to address any such risks should they emerge, and a zealous commitment to the necessity and dominance of oil and natural gas.

The language of “risk” implies that all climate effects are yet to come—such as when Tillerson said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in 2013 that climate change “does present serious risk” yet “our ability to project with any degree of certainty the future is continuing to be very limited.” But, as of 2012, nearly 1,000 children a day were already dying because of climate change, and the estimated annual death toll was 400,000 people worldwide.

In 2008, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President J.S. Simon told Congress: “The pursuit of alternative fuels must not detract from the development of oil and gas.” To grasp the threat posed by Exxon Mobil and Rex Tillerson, one could replace “alternative fuels” with just about any phrase, word or concept expected of a just U.S. secretary of state—be it “diplomacy,” “equality,” “peace,” “climate justice” or “human rights.”

US Exxon Mobil refinery workers in Port-Jerome, western France, joined a strike in support of workers at the French multinational integrated oil and gas company Total S.A. on February 23, 2010. (Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images)

Choosing sides

“This is the purest test you can imagine: Either you’re pro-science or anti-science; either you stand with the people, or you stand with the polluters. It’s that simple,” said Jamie Henn of 350.org. He was speaking in advance of a protest in Cheyenne, Wyo., planned for January 9, to urge Republican Sen. John Barrasso to use his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to reject Tillerson’s nomination. The protest is part of a month-long series of protests which include “flooding Capitol Hill” with events targeting key senators who play a big role in cabinet picks.

Tillerson is scheduled to appear in January for hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Democrats have promised a bruising fight. They would need just one Republican to join them to block the nomination and Marco Rubio (Fla.) may be that Republican, having voiced concerns about Tillerson’s Russian ties. If the vote goes to the full Senate and Democrats stand united there, just three Republicans would be needed to block Tillerson. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) have expressed deep reservations.

With leading international human rights organizations, including Global Witness and Amnesty International, condemning Tillerson’s nomination in no uncertain terms, and with Greenpeace coordinating petitions and actions with numerous other groups to block it, the fight is far from over. Tillerson’s nomination comes at a time of heightened unity and strength within the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground, brought to national attention with the years-long battle led by Native Americans to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Terrence Collingsworth, the human-rights lawyer who has fought Exxon Mobil for more than 15 years in defense of the people of Aceh, worries about the damage done simply through the nomination of Rex Tillerson—which, he believes, makes it clear which side the United States government is now on under the presidency of Donald Trump.

“Imagine what will happen in the future,” he says. “[People around the world] will not feel that the U.S. will back them up in trying to hold these companies accountable.” Instead, he argues, we will have—even more than today—“a sweetheart arrangement between foreign governments and the U.S. government to promote the exploitation of natural resources at all costs.”

This article has been updated to include the 2007 amended complaint in John Doe I, et al., v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al.

Antonia Juhasz, a leading energy analyst, author, and investigative journalist specializing in oil.  An award-winning writer, her articles appear in Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Harper’s, The Atlantic and more. Juhasz is the author of three books: “The Bush Agenda,” “The Tyranny of Oil” and “Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.” Follow her on Twitter at @AntoniaJuhaz.

[christophertheodore-org]

Rex Tillerson could be America’s most dangerous Secretary of State

“My philosophy is to make money.”—Rex Tillerson

On January 1, Rex Tillerson retired from oil giant Exxon Mobil after 41 years, the last 10 as CEO and chairman of the board. When he appears in January before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be considered for U.S. Secretary of State, Exxon Mobil will be preparing to appear before a jury at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, just blocks away. There, the company will face allegations that security forces under its employ engaged in serious human rights abuses, including murder, torture, sexual violence, kidnapping, battery, assault, burning, arbitrary arrest, detention and false imprisonment. The complaint specifically names Rex Tillerson.

Among the plaintiffs, all of whom use aliases out of fear for their lives, is “John Doe II.” According to the complaint, in August 2000, soldiers working for Exxon Mobil beat and tortured him “using electricity all over his body, includ[ing] his genitals.” After approximately three months, the “soldiers took off his blindfold, took him outside the building where he had been detained and showed him a pit where there was a large pile of human heads. The soldiers threatened to kill him and add his head to the pile.” He was ultimately released, only to have the soldiers return later to burn down his house.

John Doe I, et al., v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al. is awaiting a trial date expected “any day now,” according to lead plaintiff attorney Terrence Collingsworth. The complaint alleges that from 2000 through 2004, private military security forces employed by Exxon Mobil to protect its natural gas operations in Aceh province, Indonesia, committed the cited offenses against local villagers. From 1976 to 2005, Aceh was embroiled in a violent independence struggle. In the midst of the conflict, Exxon Mobil essentially privatized Indonesian soldiers, the complaint argues, despite their well-documented history of abusing Indonesian citizens, and aided and abetted the human rights violations through financial and other direct material support.

Exxon Mobil has fought the case for 15 years, denying not the human rights abuses, but rather that the company should be liable. A federal judge ruled, however, not only that the company must stand trial, but also that “sufficient evidence demonstrates” that Exxon Mobil corporate officers “exerted significant control” over the security decisions made by its Indonesian subsidiary.

A 2006 amendment and a 2007 complaint adding new plaintiffs allege that top Exxon Mobil officials “have been continuously involved” in the Indonesian operations and that “Exxon Mobil Corp. officials who have met with Indonesian officials include … Rex W. Tillerson, president of Exxon Mobil Corp.”

It is just one of countless lawsuits, investigations and allegations confronting the company and its former CEO involving human rights abuses; unsafe working conditions; investor and public fraud; destruction of the environment, climate and public health; support of dictators; contributions to global instability and inequality; and being party to wars and conflict—in addition to decades of verdicts against the company—all of which will follow Tillerson into and haunt the next administration, should Congress permit him to join it.

Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, speaks at the annual shareholders  meeting in Dallas. (Mike Fuentes/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Workers clean up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which released 11 to 38 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound in 1989. (Photo: Vick Vanessa)

T-Rex

Rex Tillerson has carefully constructed a public veneer for Exxon Mobil as a law-abiding, spit and polish, model corporate citizen. The storyline goes that because it is so big and has so much money, Exxon Mobil can afford to do everything just right. That may be true in some cases, but more often, Exxon Mobil wields its vast influence and wealth in a manner more closely in line with the philosophy of its infamous founder, John D. Rockefeller, who once said, “The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”

Rockefeller founded Standard Oil Company in 1870 and quickly built one of the world’s most ruthless corporate monopolies. In describing the company’s tactics and practices over the next 30 years, the Interstate Commerce Commission’s late-19th-century reports did not mince words: “unjust,” “intentional disregard of rights,” “illegal,” “excessive,” “extraordinary,” “forbidden,” “wholly indefensible,” “obnoxious,” “absurd and inexcusable,” and “so obvious and palpable a discrimination that no discussion of it is necessary.”

The nation and the courts were equally repulsed. The Populist movement railed against the erosion of democracy and subsequent inequality resulting from Standard Oil’s power over the federal and multiple state governments, and in a key 1911 victory, a Supreme Court ruling broke up Standard Oil into 34 separate corporate parts. The largest pieces were Standard Oil of New Jersey—later Exxon—and Standard Oil of New York—later Mobil. In 1999, the two were allowed to re-merge, forming today’s Exxon Mobil. It is the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, and the sixth-largest company on the planet. Were Exxon a country, its $246 billion in revenue in 2015 would make it the 42nd-largest by GDP.

Like generations of senior management before him, Rex Tillerson has spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil. Recruited fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin in 1975, Tillerson, who is known to colleagues as “T-Rex,” rose through the ranks, becoming senior vice president of Exxon Mobil in 2001, president and board member in 2004, and CEO and board chairman in 2006. His 2015 salary was $27.3 million, or about 500 times the median U.S. household income. If confirmed, he will join what is set to be the wealthiest cabinet in U.S. history.

Exxon Mobil is a uniquely insular company, often referred to as a “cult.” In Steve Coll’s Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power, executives of other oil companies describe Exxon Mobil as “ruthless, self-isolating and inscrutable … priggish Presbyterian deacons” who maintain “kind of a 1950s Southern religious culture. They’re all engineers, mostly white males, mostly from the South. … They shared a belief in the One Right Answer.”

“All of the top executives are imbued with the Exxon culture and regard themselves as carriers of the culture,” Neva Goodwin, great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, told me in 2013. Tillerson, she said, is civil, “but [he] never responds in such a way that suggests that he could be at all influenced to change his positions.”

As George W. Bush once famously said of Exxon Mobil: “Nobody tells those guys what to do.”

Other than a stint as president of the Boy Scouts of America from 2010 to 2012, Tillerson does not publicly step outside his role as Exxon Mobil executive. It is as its voice that he gives speeches, offers policy analyses and grants interviews. To understand Rex Tillerson as a man or intuit how he will behave as secretary of state, therefore, we must observe Exxon Mobil’s actions under his leadership and his stated objectives for its future.

Until required to change policy in 2014 to continue receiving federal government contracts, Exxon Mobil failed to meet a single Human Rights Campaign criterion for an LGBTQ-inclusive workplace. When I investigated Exxon Mobil’s LGBTQ polices for The Advocate in 2013, a gay former employee told me, “I feel that [Exxon is like that] racist old aunt, that racist grandfather figure, that person completely out of touch with the times.”

The word I hear most often to describe Exxon Mobil under Tillerson is “bully.”

It is a viewpoint shared by Exxon Mobil’s closest neighbors in its home state of Texas. “They are a major polluter that is breaking the law and threatening the health of millions of Texans and I think they are grossly irresponsible to their neighbors,” says Luke Metzger, director of Austin-based nonprofit Environment Texas. The group is suing Exxon Mobil for breaking clean air laws at its Baytown oil refinery and chemical plant more than 4,000 times between 2005 and 2010, pollution which Metzger alleges continues to this day in this largely Hispanic community near Houston.

In 2013, two workers died and 10 were injured with severe burns at Exxon Mobil’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery. The Department of Labor cited the company for numerous safety violations that resulted in the deadly flash fire. “People do get hurt, and it’s because of the way that Exxon handles its business inside,” said Ricky Brooks, president of the United Steelworkers local representing workers at Exxon Mobil’s facility in nearby Baytown, when I spoke with him a few months after the fire.

The company is vehemently anti-union, says Brooks, and workers, whether unionized or not, are made to fear for their jobs if they speak out. Size and influence, he argues, allow Exxon Mobil to get away with what others cannot. “Exxon only changes when forced to,” he says, “and few people, or governments for that matter, are in a position to force them.”

Within months of my conversation with Brooks in 2013, farmers in Basra, Iraq protested Exxon Mobil, demanding compensation for lost jobs and what they allege is stolen farmland; families in Mayflower, Ark., were forced from their homes when 210,000 gallons of heavy Canadian tar sands oil spilled from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline; and locals in Eket, Nigeria protested Exxon Mobilin response to a November 2012 oil spill that they said wreaked havoc on coastal land and livelihoods.

Why he wants the job

Exxon Mobil operates in some 200 countries and has current direct joint ventures with companies from China and Russia to Saudi Arabia. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, it also keeps a lot of its profits outside the United States, with a whopping $51 billion offshored in both 2014 and 2015, and another $47 billion in 2013. On Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful People 2016, Tillerson clocks in at #24, while President Obama is #48. Secretary of State John Kerry did not make the list.

So why does Rex Tillerson want a job that could easily be seen as a step down in power and influence? A partial answer is that Tillerson turns 65 in March and faced a forced retirement. He also has unfinished business, particularly in Russia, which he likely does not trust the Trump administration to handle. His personal interests and those of Exxon Mobil—often referred to as “Mother Exxon” by employees—have been seemingly one and the same for his entire adult life.

Rex Tillerson is leaving Exxon Mobil in far worse condition than when he took over. This is problematic by several measures, including his own personal legacy and fortune.

In 2003, Exxon Mobil had the most profitable year of any corporation ever. It then beat its own record every year for the next five years. Its $45.2 billion in 2008 remained the highest annual corporate profits ever recorded until surpassed in 2015 by Apple.

Then oil prices crashed in 2009, and have yet to recover. Exxon Mobil’s profits in 2015—though still a staggering $16 billion—were 65 percent less than 2008’s high, and less than half of what they were in 2014.

Tillerson owns some 600,000 shares of Exxon Mobil stock and was promised approximately 1.8 million more upon his retirement. In response to potentially insurmountable conflicts of interests as secretary of state, however, his golden parachute was altered one week prior to his scheduled confirmation hearing. Tillerson will sell his current stocks worth about $54 million (though valued at almost $25 less per share today than 2014) and convert the rest to $180 million in cash that cannot be invested in Exxon Mobil for 10 years.

Exxon Mobil is cash-poor and debt-ridden, such that, for the first time since the Great Depression, Standard & Poor’s stripped it of a AAA credit rating in April 2016, citing the “reserve-replacement ratio” as the company’s greatest challenge—that is, finding enough new oil reserves to replace that which it pumps from the ground.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating whether Exxon Mobil has been inflating the size of its oil reserves by counting reserves as “booked”—meaning planned and accessible for producing—when they should not be. In response, the company was forced to report in late October that it would likely need to “de-book” some 3.6 billion barrels of tar sands oil in Canada and about 1 billion oil-equivalent barrels in other North American fracking operations. This means that with the stroke of a pen, Exxon Mobil may soon lose nearly 20 percent of its booked reserves—the measure that most determines the value of oil company stock.

To increase its value, therefore, Exxon Mobil needs more oil. Fortunately for the company, it has the potential for a good deal more in Russia’s Arctic.

In 2001, George W. Bush famously looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, saw his soul and dubbed him “Pootie Poot.” The Bush administration was not shy about its oil agenda and how far it would go to achieve it. Russian reserves were a key target, and Putin a leading ally.

At the time, Tillerson had already been hard at work building relationships in Russia as president of Exxon Neftegas Limited (1998-1999), the subsidiary responsible for Exxon Mobil’s Russian and Caspian Sea holdings. Between 2011 and 2013, after more than a decade of work, Tillerson signed cooperation agreements for 10 joint ventures with Russia’s state-controlled oil company Rosneft, including those in the Russian Arctic. The Financial Times reported in 2014, “Russia was going to be Exxon’s next mega-area. And the list of mega-areas in the world is very short.”

As a result, Exxon Mobil’s 63.7 million-acre Russian holdings are nearly five times larger than its second-largest holdings—its 14 million acres in the United States.

The Obama administration, however, did not see Russia in the same warm light. In 2014, the president imposed sanctions against Russia after it sent troops into Crimea. The sanctions permit some of Exxon Mobil’s projects, but none of its Arctic or other offshore exploration, not only halting these operations but also making it impossible for the company to book the potentially enormous reserves.

Oil from Russian drilling operations gushes from damaged pipelines in Usinsk in the Russian Arctic in May 2012. Greenpeace Russia reports that every 18 months, over 4 million barrels of oil spew into the Arctic Ocean from Russian operations. (Photo: Staffan Julén/Greenpeace)

Exxon Mobil’s Russian Arctic holdings became even more valuable when, in late December, Obama joined Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in banning oil and gas activities in virtually the entire U.S.—and all of Canada’s—Arctic waters. Unlike the Russian sanctions, which were implemented with a presidential executive order that can be overturned by another such order, the drilling ban is more akin to the designation of a National Monument and would require an act of Congress to overrule.

According to Bloomberg, Tillerson made multiple personal visits to the White House since 2014 to discuss, among other things, Russian sanctions. Unable to budge Obama, Tillerson may now just get the job done himself, directing negotiations as secretary of state and advocating for Donald Trump to revoke the sanctions.

Trump has Russian sympathies of his own, and the Russian government made well-apparent its preference for his candidacy over that of Hillary Clinton. Trump is also building one of the most fossil-fueled administrations in U.S. history. Nonetheless, I doubt Tillerson trusts Trump, and he certainly did not support Trump.

The oil industry, including Rex Tillerson, gave its overwhelming financial support to Jeb Bush for president in 2016. Tillerson gave the maximum individual contribution of $2,700 to Bush and $5,000 to Bush’s Super PAC. He gave another $33,400 to the Republican National Committee. He never gave a dime to Trump.

Once it was clear that Bush was no longer a contender, the oil industry, including Exxon Mobil’s employees, shifted support to Clinton. Meanwhile, the Exxon Mobil PAC focused on taking the House and Senate for the Republicans, greatly increasing the money spent on these races. Exxon Mobil ultimately spent nearly nine times more on congressional races (close to $1.5 million) than on the presidency (less than $170,000), just barely edging out Koch Industries to become the oil industry’s biggest spender in the 2016 election, according to data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Why would the oil industry, a GOP mainstay, put its money behind Clinton? Perhaps the companies wanted to back the odds-on favorite; perhaps an industry that works on 25- to 50-year timelines decided that it could weather another four to eight years of a known quantity (even an unfriendly one) like Clinton better than an unknown one like Trump, who could cause irreparable damage. Controlling Congress was the security measure against either presidential victor.

But once Trump became president-elect, a full-court Republican-establishment press composed of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, James Baker, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates reportedly offered “glowing endorsements” of Tillerson either to Trump or to Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As I detail in The Bush Agenda, the ties that bind these men and women to Exxon Mobil run deep. In 2000, for example, the oil industry, including Exxon Mobil, spent more money than on any previous election to get fellow oilmen Bush and Cheney into office, while Baker’s law firm has represented Exxon Mobil for decades, and Gates and Rice have a consulting firm that has Exxon Mobil as a client.

Simply put, Exxon Mobil needs the U.S. government to play ball, or at least behave.

Tillerson serving as some sort of Trump overseer for the Bush-era Republican oil establishment, however, should raise many red flags, particularly with the possibility of fellow Bush administration alum John Bolton—who reiterated in November a call for regime change in Iran—as his undersecretary. We have already experienced, and continue to suffer the consequences of, the devastation wrought by this group in pursuit of its crude objectives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin presents Rex Tillerson with a medal at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 21, 2012. (Photo: Michael Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images)

By any means necessary

Exxon Mobil has never been shy about working with dictators, be they Hajji Muhammad Suharto of Indonesia, Idriss Déby of Chad, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola or Saddam Hussein of Iraq (to name but a few).

But sometimes alliances go sour. Change is often necessary.

Members of the Bush administration, many of whom had worked together for decades, made fully transparent their ambitions for American “empire” (their word) long before taking office in 2000, including the plan to invade Iraq (with Iran next in their sights).

Prior to the March 2003 invasion, Iraq’s domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. Within six years, it was largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms, including Exxon Mobil. “Of course it’s about oil; we can’t really deny that,” said Gen. John Abizaid, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, in 2007.

Exxon Mobil joined with other Western oil giants to have a direct hand in this long-desired outcome. The company participated in the Cheney Energy Task Force, which first met just 10 days into the new administration. Its work included reviewing “operational policies” toward Iraq and “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.” In its final report in May 2001, the task force argued that Middle Eastern countries should be urged “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” This is precisely what was achieved in Iraq.

Exxon Mobil met with Cheney’s staff in January 2003, two months before the invasion, to discuss plans for Iraq’s postwar industry, while then-CEO Lee Raymond had many private meetings with longtime friend Dick Cheney. For the next decade, former and current executives of Western oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, acted first as administrators of Iraq’s oil ministry and then as “advisers” to the Iraqi government.

Gary Vogler, an executive and 21-year company veteran, left Exxon Mobil in 2002 to help plan and lead the U.S. government’s oil agenda in Iraq. Vogler later told MSNBC that in an October 2002 meeting in Houston, he and other members of the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group for Iraq were told by Army Corps Lt. Col. Paul Shelton, “Look, the military can get you a lot of information, but you’ve got to keep in mind the cost of that information … may be the lives of 19-year-old Marines and soldiers.”

In April 2003, Vogler joined former Shell Oil CEO Philip Carroll on the ground in Iraq. “The ministry once again has a strong man at its helm,” reported Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine upon Vogler’s arrival at the Iraqi Oil Ministry. By that summer, Exxon Mobil had joined with several other Western oil companies to articulate their own goals for post-war Iraq through the International Tax and Investment Center’s (ITIC) Iraq project. The ITIC’s report, “Petroleum in Iraq’s Future,” released in the fall of 2004, made the case for opening Iraq’s oil industry to foreign oil companies using Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that grant companies control over production decisions, the right to book reserves as their own and contract lengths 10 times longer than is typical.

As I detailed on CNN.com in 2013, as the war continued, so too did the administration and industry efforts to open Iraq’s oil sector under their preferred terms. Western oil companies met with the Iraqi government and ultimately signed contracts to gain not all they had hoped for, but enough. In 2009, Exxon Mobil emerged as one of the war’s biggest winners, joining with PetroChina to sign a PSA for the super-giant West Qurna oil field, one of the largest oil fields in the world, and later acquiring exploration contracts in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

While the war did have its victors, it was of course disastrous not only for Iraqis, but for the entire region, contributing to the formation of the Islamic State, the Syrian War and today’s refugee crisis.

We know very little of Trump’s actual foreign policy agenda other than an intention to put “America First” while turning toward Russia and against Iran. But perhaps we can gain some guidance from Trump’s words to Anderson Cooper in 2015 on taking on the Islamic State: “I’d bomb the hell out of the oil fields …. I’d then get Exxon, I’d then get these great oil companies to go in­—they would rebuild them so fast your head will spin.” A “ring” of U.S. troops would then surround the wells, Trump said, protecting the oil companies.

Climate “risk” or climate change?

January will be a busy month for Rex Tillerson. On January 19, he has been called to testify in a federal lawsuit brought by 21 young people alleging that the oil and gas industry has sought to both prevent the U.S. government from taking action to protect the environment from climate change and lock in a fossil-fuel-based national energy system with full knowledge of the extreme dangers it poses. Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, et al. v. United States of America, et al. is before the U.S. District Court of Oregon and will be set for trial this year.

The suit stems from a 2016 investigation by InsideClimate News, as do the state and federal investigations into potential fraud perpetrated by Exxon Mobil against the public and its shareholders regarding what the company knew about climate change and when, and what it did with that information. A finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, the investigation uncovered that Exxon’s own scientists confirmed in the 1970s that the burning of fossil fuels harms the climate. The company then chose to publicly deny the reality of climate change and finance the climate denialist movement (findings Exxon Mobil disputes).

As secretary of state, Rex Tillerson would lead U.S. negotiations tackling climate change. Tillerson’s rhetoric has led some to conclude that this may not be such a bad thing. The facts, however, reveal that it would be disastrous.

On the one hand, Tillerson acknowledges the reality of climate change and has publicly stated his support for carbon taxation and the Paris Climate Agreement. Exxon Mobil’s lobbying disclosures under Tillerson, however, expose a very different picture. In 2008 and 2009, the company nearly doubled its already top-tier federal lobbying expenditures (spending $29 million and $27.4 million, respectively), outspending every other corporation, to successfully thwart congressional and White House efforts to pass meaningful climate change legislation, dashing the 2009 U.N. Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in the process. Exxon Mobil continues to fund climate denialist organizations and those that are leading the attacks on the Paris Agreement and Obama’s Clean Power Plan, including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As for the company’s actual operations, a 2014 study published in Climatic Change journal found that Exxon Mobil has contributed more global greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere over the last 150 years than all but one company (Chevron). Under Tillerson, Exxon Mobil has fought climate-related initiatives launched by shareholders and rejected any meaningful commitment to renewable or alternative energy. As I reported for Rolling Stone in 2013, “Since 2002, Exxon Mobil, which took in $45 billion in profit last year alone, put a grand total of $188 million into its alternative [energy] investments, compared to the $250 million it dedicated to U.S. advertising in the last two years alone.”

A close read of Tillerson and the company’s words on the topic, moreover, reveal a very careful focus on “risks” posed by climate change (or by those responding to it). Exxon Mobil’s annual report to the SEC in 2016 stated, for example, “Due to concern over the risk of climate change, a number of countries have adopted … frameworks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Tillerson’s line is one of scientific uncertainty about what those risks may be, blind faith in the ability of technology to address any such risks should they emerge, and a zealous commitment to the necessity and dominance of oil and natural gas.

The language of “risk” implies that all climate effects are yet to come—such as when Tillerson said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in 2013 that climate change “does present serious risk” yet “our ability to project with any degree of certainty the future is continuing to be very limited.” But, as of 2012, nearly 1,000 children a day were already dying because of climate change, and the estimated annual death toll was 400,000 people worldwide.

In 2008, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President J.S. Simon told Congress: “The pursuit of alternative fuels must not detract from the development of oil and gas.” To grasp the threat posed by Exxon Mobil and Rex Tillerson, one could replace “alternative fuels” with just about any phrase, word or concept expected of a just U.S. secretary of state—be it “diplomacy,” “equality,” “peace,” “climate justice” or “human rights.”

US Exxon Mobil refinery workers in Port-Jerome, western France, joined a strike in support of workers at the French multinational integrated oil and gas company Total S.A. on February 23, 2010. (Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images)

Choosing sides

“This is the purest test you can imagine: Either you’re pro-science or anti-science; either you stand with the people, or you stand with the polluters. It’s that simple,” said Jamie Henn of 350.org. He was speaking in advance of a protest in Cheyenne, Wyo., planned for January 9, to urge Republican Sen. John Barrasso to use his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to reject Tillerson’s nomination. The protest is part of a month-long series of protests which include “flooding Capitol Hill” with events targeting key senators who play a big role in cabinet picks.

Tillerson is scheduled to appear in January for hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Democrats have promised a bruising fight. They would need just one Republican to join them to block the nomination and Marco Rubio (Fla.) may be that Republican, having voiced concerns about Tillerson’s Russian ties. If the vote goes to the full Senate and Democrats stand united there, just three Republicans would be needed to block Tillerson. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) have expressed deep reservations.

With leading international human rights organizations, including Global Witness and Amnesty International, condemning Tillerson’s nomination in no uncertain terms, and with Greenpeace coordinating petitions and actions with numerous other groups to block it, the fight is far from over. Tillerson’s nomination comes at a time of heightened unity and strength within the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground, brought to national attention with the years-long battle led by Native Americans to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Terrence Collingsworth, the human-rights lawyer who has fought Exxon Mobil for more than 15 years in defense of the people of Aceh, worries about the damage done simply through the nomination of Rex Tillerson—which, he believes, makes it clear which side the United States government is now on under the presidency of Donald Trump.

“Imagine what will happen in the future,” he says. “[People around the world] will not feel that the U.S. will back them up in trying to hold these companies accountable.” Instead, he argues, we will have—even more than today—“a sweetheart arrangement between foreign governments and the U.S. government to promote the exploitation of natural resources at all costs.”

This article has been updated to include the 2007 amended complaint in John Doe I, et al., v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al.

Antonia Juhasz, a leading energy analyst, author, and investigative journalist specializing in oil.  An award-winning writer, her articles appear in Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Harper’s, The Atlantic and more. Juhasz is the author of three books: “The Bush Agenda,” “The Tyranny of Oil” and “Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.” Follow her on Twitter at @AntoniaJuhaz.