The Real News Network: Shock Doctrine Opens Way for Oil Drilling
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18, 2008
12:20 PM
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CONTACT: The Real News Network
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Shock Doctrine Opens Way for Oil Drilling
Naomi Klein on disaster capitalism
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August 18 - In the most recent segment of his interview, The Real News senior editor Paul Jay discusses disaster capitalism with Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine.
Using the current high oil prices as an example, Klein explains that disaster capitalism is what she calls the ideological political strategy in which politicians use disasters to help push through unpopular policies, such as privatization and cuts to government spending. There is "a very deliberate change of topic coming from the oil and gas industry to get all of the focus on high gas prices and present a policy alternative that will not solve the prices, but will be certainly in the economic interest of the oil and gas industry, which is to allow drilling the continental shelf in Anwar."
Previous efforts to gain support for drilling in Anwar have failed because there could be serious environmental repercussions, but Klein believes that will soon change. "If you get all the people on corporate TV just reiterating the talking points of the oil and gas industry, and then you get a couple of presidential candidates also doing it then people will start to say 'Yeah! Drill now, drill now! Pay less!'" Klein says that this creates "an illusion that [drilling in Anwar] will actually help your gas prices before you go on vacation next week" when the reality is that the drilling would not even take place for a minimum of 5 years from now.
Watch this story on The Real News Network.
If you missed the previous segments in which Paul Jay and Naomi Klein discuss China and the Olympics, watch them now at therealnews.com.
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