As an instrument of disempowerment oil has been spectacularly effective in removing the levers of power from the reach of the populace. ‘No matter how many people take to the streets in massive marches,’ writes Roy Scranton, ‘they cannot put their hands on the real flows of power because they do not help to produce it. They only consume.’ Under these circumstances, a march or a demonstration of popular feeling amounts to ‘little more than an orgy of democratic emotion, an activist-themed street fair, a real-world analogue to Twitter hashtag campaigns: something that gives you a nice feeling,
...more
