Naomi Klein: Bush Sees Crises in Fuel, Food

Tag : Fuel Oil Gas

As the country and the world reel from crises ranging fromskyrocketing oil prices and global food shortages to housing andclimate change, how best to understand the government policiesbeing pushed through? Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman interviewedNaomi Klein, author of ' The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism ' .
Amy Goodman: President Bush has lifted an almost two-decade-old executive orderbanning offshore and natural gas drilling. With prices at the pumpover $4 a gallon, Bush has been pushing to allow more drilling inthe Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic Wildlife NationalRefuge, amidst strong opposition from environmentalists.

The executive drilling ban was issued by President George H.W. Bushin 1990. His son's lifting of the ban yesterday is largelysymbolic, because a separate congressional ban has prohibitedoffshore drilling since 1981. Speaking on the White House lawnMonday, the President urged lawmakers to lift the ban.

President George Bush: The failure to act is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me, andit's unacceptable to the American people. So today I've issued amemorandum to lift the executive prohibition on oil exploration inthe OCS. With this action, the executive branch's restrictions onthis exploration have been cleared away. This means that the onlything standing between the American people and these vast oilresources is action from the US Congress. Now the ball is squarelyin Congress's court.

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

Amidst these multiple crises, how best to understand governmentpolicies 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 publishedin September, and in some ways, much of what Naomi writes about inthe book is more relevant today. ... Food, fuel, housing, climatechange -- talk about these crises. First, start with oil.

Klein: There really is a kind of a tsunami of shocks facing not just theeconomy but people's lives, people's real lives. They're allintersecting. They're making each other worse. And I think wereally are seeing some very live examples of what a write about inthe book, which is how there is a strategy. And this is what I meanby "the shock doctrine." There is a clear political strategy, andhas been for several decades, to exploit these moments when peopleare desperate for quick-fix solutions and more inclined to believein a kind of a magical cure, to push through very, very unpopularpolicies that don't actually solve the crisis at hand, that don'tactually help people, but are incredibly profitable formultinational corporations.

And I think we are seeing a very vivid example of this with thisspeech from George Bush yesterday, where he is taking a very realcrisis, which is demanding complex and profound changes in the waywe live, in the way we organize our economy, but particularly inthe need to diversify our energy sources. And I think there's atremendous 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 holdingthe country ransom. He's not taking any of these long-term policyroutes to dealing with climate change, to dealing with high oilprices. It's just let us drill, or, you know, nobody can go onsummer vacation. And he's selling a myth, which is that by allowingdrilling, the price at the pump is going to go down, which isreally interesting, because just yesterday, in response to Bush'sannouncement, oil went up, and oil futures went up. And so, theprice of oil is going to keep going up.

Goodman: What would -- how long would it take the oil drilled offshore, ifhe succeeds in getting his father's ban reversed, to get into thesupply?

Klein: Well, first of all, I think it's really important for people tounderstand that we are being subjected to an incredibly aggressivemedia campaign sponsored by the oil and gas industry. And, youknow, it's to the point where it really is impossible to tell thedifference between the paid advertisements, which we're beingbombarded with on cable news from the oil and gas industry, talkingabout how they can solve the problem of high prices with moredrilling, and all of these commentators, from Larry Kudlow to SeanHannity, repeating these talking points, and not to mention DickCheney, who just propagated a complete lie, saying that China wasdrilling off the coast of Cuba, and the Vice President's officeactually had to retract that. It turns out his source was GeorgeWill, who also had to issue a correction. China is not drilling offof Cuba. And so, there's a very aggressive campaign going on.