Naomi Klein: Bush Sees Crises in Fuel, Food, Housing and Banking as Chance to Exploit Us More

[marmar]

Democracy Now!, via AlterNet:



Naomi Klein: Bush Sees Crises in Fuel, Food, Housing and Banking as Chance to Exploit Us More

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted July 16, 2008.

People are desperate for solutions but instead they're handed policies that don't solve the crises, and are highly profitable for corporations.



As the country and the world reel from crises ranging from skyrocketing oil prices and global food shortages to housing and climate change, how best to understand the government policies being pushed through? Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman interviewed Naomi Klein, author of 'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism'.

Amy Goodman: President Bush has lifted an almost two-decade-old executive order banning offshore and natural gas drilling. With prices at the pump over $4 a gallon, Bush has been pushing to allow more drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge, amidst strong opposition from environmentalists.

The executive drilling ban was issued by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. His son's lifting of the ban yesterday is largely symbolic, because a separate congressional ban has prohibited offshore drilling since 1981. Speaking on the White House lawn Monday, the President urged lawmakers to lift the ban.

President George Bush: The failure to act is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me, and it's unacceptable to the American people. So today I've issued a memorandum to lift the executive prohibition on oil exploration in the OCS. With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away. This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the US Congress. Now the ball is squarely in Congress's court.

Goodman: In President Bush's final months of office, the economy is at the top of the agenda. Oil prices now exceed $140 a barrel, more than double $70 a year ago. The high cost of oil has helped exacerbate the global food crisis that threatens to push over 100 million people below the poverty line due to rising food prices. This all comes amidst an ongoing housing crisis, with the US Treasury and Federal Reserve unveiling sweeping steps to possibly bail out the nation's two largest mortgage lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Amidst these multiple crises, how best to understand government policies being enacted? Naomi Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The book is out in paperback this month. It was first published in September, and in some ways, much of what Naomi writes about in the book is more relevant today. ... Food, fuel, housing, climate change -- talk about these crises. First, start with oil.

Klein: There really is a kind of a tsunami of shocks facing not just the economy but people's lives, people's real lives. They're all intersecting. They're making each other worse. And I think we really are seeing some very live examples of what a write about in the book, which is how there is a strategy. And this is what I mean by "the shock doctrine." There is a clear political strategy, and has been for several decades, to exploit these moments when people are desperate for quick-fix solutions and more inclined to believe in a kind of a magical cure, to push through very, very unpopular policies that don't actually solve the crisis at hand, that don't actually help people, but are incredibly profitable for multinational corporations.

And I think we are seeing a very vivid example of this with this speech from George Bush yesterday, where he is taking a very real crisis, which is demanding complex and profound changes in the way we live, in the way we organize our economy, but particularly in the need to diversify our energy sources. And I think there's a tremendous actual amount of support for this idea from the public. And he comes in -- and I call him in my recent column the "extortionist-in-chief." Basically what he's saying is he's holding the country ransom. He's not taking any of these long-term policy routes to dealing with climate change, to dealing with high oil prices. It's just let us drill, or, you know, nobody can go on summer vacation. And he's selling a myth, which is that by allowing drilling, the price at the pump is going to go down, which is really interesting, because just yesterday, in response to Bush's announcement, oil went up, and oil futures went up. And so, the price of oil is going to keep going up. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/91656/?ses=e734ed46eb84bb9ee3a8aee860736bae

[Solly Mack]

1. Yep

[raccoon]

2. Off to greatest! nt

[Froward69]

3. Republican greed has no

bounds nor limits.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Right on the nail, Naomi.

The only time they start appealing to your sense of community and ask you to "be a good neighbor," is when they want something from you for free. But they certainly don't know how to be one in return.

Like the right-winger I saw the other day. Huge sticker on the back of his SUV: "Don't apologize for killing America's Enemies in Iraq," and his bumper sticker read, "ESY MONY."

[Joanne98]

5. It's in paperback now. If you haven't read it yet, get the book!

[whistle]

6. Here is a key paragraph from the interview as stated by Naomi Klein

"What's actually going on is the oil companies may not even bother drilling. What they're doing is they're stockpiling leases. And what that means is that the oil companies will have a much greater control over the oil supply. When the oil companies have a much larger control over the oil supply, they can turn it on and off. They can control price. They can fix the price. So, in fact, what this is doing is the opposite of what they're saying. It's actually giving the oil industry much more power to drive the price of oil up by controlling supply, by just giving them all of these leases. And we keep hearing, well, they have all these leases already, and they're not using them, and they want more. Why? Why do they want all these leases? Because that is what gives them control over supply. That's what allows them to fix prices."

[Helga Scow Stern]

7. She has some good advice about Obama too:

So, I think that the point of this is not just to bash Obama. I mean, what I've been trying to -- the point I've been trying to make is that Obama needs more than super fans. He needs pressure from his base, because he has all the energy of the antiwar movement and the antiwar infrastructure. I mean, you've got groups like MoveOn that really built their infrastructure out of the huge anger and desire for change around Iraq, and now the infrastructure of the antiwar movement largely is going to support Obama, but there aren't clear demands being made of him to deserve that support.

The interview is full of up to the moment observations about what's going on all over the place.

[Tutonic]

8. Why can't the Democratic leadership hit back?

Pelosi, Reid and their shadow brigade are the equivalent of a garden full of pretty flowers that keep getting consumed by the snails. Its time for somebody to get out a box of salt and put an end to this juvenile man's shadow boxing. He ain't that bright Nancy. Can we maybe do a Hillary and step up to a microphone and say "Shame on you Junior! Shame, Shame, shame..."

[slay]

9. Soooo true - the exploitation of a crisis for political and monetary gain - 9/11 anyone?

That's all these fuckers do - use our fears against us. If we don't stand up to these assholes here and now, there won't be anything left to stand up for soon! :grr: :(

[applegrove]

10. Interesting. I always wonder how she is so well informed. She must have

quite the network.