The Kutztown Democratic Club presented Crude Awakening, Oil Crash, that was produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers, Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack. These are not lefty conspiracy types. Gelpke has a background in anthropology, economics, war reporting, and science films, and McCormack holds an honors degree in Environmental Policy and Management.

The documentary spells out how our civilization’s addiction to oil makes our future a lot more bleak than we could imagine. Not at all like we were led to believe by the corporate/government happy talk we grew up on. We can no longer assume things will carry on as they have. Compelling and intelligent, this flick takes us on a visit with the world’s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion: The world’s industrial society and our imagined picture of a future America built on cheap oil, readily available, must be completely revised. A sad commentary from this depressing, thought- provoking documentary is that more than likely your grandchildren will never get to take a ride in an airplane. The price of oil may prohibit this. Sums it up concisely.

Cheap oil was king when much of this black and white scrapbook-like pictorial took us on a memory tour of the days in Texas and Azerbaijan when rusty oil rigs sprouted from the land like dirty, rusty corn stalks. Nothing grew around them, but there were plenty of dirty puddles looking for all the world like bomb craters. Not a thought given then of the environmental consequences.The only thing lacking in this documentary was that there’s very little time given over to alternative energy methods, and no experts spoke on it. All of the information comes from experts in the gas industry or those who monitor it. All in all, though, I do recommend that we all see this well-done effort. It is good. To make it a more comprehensive, well-rounded program It would have been appropriate to link some of their well-made points to a conversation about alternative car manufacturing and other items that are undoubtedly headed our way.

I left the Potluck and Politics meeting with a cold feeling. Fear for the future. Dearth, not plenty for our children for the first time in our national life is our prospectus. We, as a nation have already seen the future in the past. Will we kill and steal to survive in a world where shortage is common? Will the neo-con philosophy that allowed our blatant play for a country’s natural resourses in Iraq accelerate elsewhere. Will future presidents, under pressure from diminishing oil supplies, resort to “thinking out of the barrel” and be tempted to “lob one”. Greece and Rome did it. What makes you think we won’t?

Print This Article