But after the camera crew stopped rolling, Naomi and I kept talking. Here's a transcript of part of that conversation...
Cusack: One of my favorite quotes is from Arthur Miller, who said: "An era can be considered over when its basic illusions have been exhausted." And with The Shock Doctrine, you are basically trying to shatter and obliterate the illusion of the neo-liberal or neo-con fundamentalist free market -- this official narrative wherein we not only are supposed to worship free markets that really aren't free, we must actually kill to feed them.
What the book rightly asks is what many have felt for a very long time: shouldn't we make a moral choice that you either make defense policy or you profit from it? I think that kind of transparency would be very important to have in the public sphere. Those people who go on CNN and are treated as impartial statesmen when, in reality, the book -- which is triple footnoted and sourced -- suggests otherwise. They did hold their former jobs...I guess by defintion they are statesmen....but if we are compelled to be honest we know they are other things as well... I'm speaking of people like George Shultz or Richard Perle.
Klein: Right. If we look at who the real intellectual engines of this war are, we'd see a web of people who are not simply the statesmen they appear to me but card-carrying members of the disaster capitalism complex -- shareholders, board-members and directors of companies that profit directly and enormously from war and other disasters --
Cusack: Who would these people be..?
Klein: Well, for instance, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was a propaganda arm of the Bush administration, publicly making the case for the invasion of Iraq. And it was founded by Bruce Jackson, a vice president of Lockheed Martin who had been out of his job for just three months. Jackson stacked the committee with old colleagues from Lockheed -- Charles Kupperman, Lockheed Martin's vice president for space and strategic missiles was on it, and so was Douglas Graham, Lockheed's director of defense systems. And even though the committee was formed at the explicit request of the White House to make the case for war in the public mind, no one had to step down from Lockheed or sell his shares. Which was certainly good for committee members, since Lockheed's share price jumped 145 percent thanks to the war they helped engineer -- from $41 in March 2003 to $102 in February 2007. The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was chaired by George Shultz, who wrote op-eds and went on TV beating the drums, and was presented just as this respected statesman. But Shultz hasn't been in office for decades. And in the meantime, he'd been working for Bechtel -- at the time he was calling for the invasion, he was still on its board, and since Bechtel is a privately held company, we don't know anything about his holdings. We do know that Bechtel was one of the biggest winners of the reconstruction game in Iraq, landing $2.3-billion in contracts.
Cusack: How about James Baker and the $1 billion kickback that the Carlyle Group used him to try to get from the government of Kuwait, which you wrote about in The Nation?
Klein: Right. I talk about the incredible power of the "formers." One of the distinguishing features of the Bush administration has been its reliance on outside advisers and freelance envoys to perform key functions: James Baker, Paul Bremer, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Richard Perle, Bruce Jackson, and so on. So you have Congress playing a rubber-stamp role during the pivotal decision-making years, and Supreme Court rulings treated as little more than gentle suggestions, while these mostly volunteer advisers have wielded enormous influence, especially when it comes to Iraq. Their power stems from the fact that they used to perform key roles in government -- they are former secretaries of state, former ambassadors and former undersecretaries of defense. All have been out of government for years and, in the meantime, have set up lucrative careers in the disaster capitalism complex. And because they are freelance government contractors, they aren't subject to the same conflict-of-interest rules as elected or appointed politicians. The effect has been to eliminate the so-called revolving door between government and industry and allow the disaster industries to simply set up shop inside the government, using the reputations of these supposedly illustrious ex-politicians as cover.
As you say, in the press, they maintain their credibility as statesmen -- their current, far more relevant work in the corporate world is almost never mentioned. You brought up Baker. He was Bush's debt envoy to Iraq while he was still a partner in the Carlyle Group, which is a major arms trader whose fortunes have exploded since the war. He was also still a partner at Baker Botts, which represents some of the largest oil companies in the world, as well as Halliburton. Kissinger is another classic example of the power of the formers because he's primarily been a businessman, not a statesman, now for some 25 years. He met with Bush and Cheney regularly making Iraq policy -- according to Bob Woodward, more than any other advisor. But who was he representing in those meetings? Kissinger has repeatedly put his business interests ahead of the public interest, most dramatically when he resigned as chair of the 9/11 Commission rather than disclose his list of corporate clients at Kissinger Associates.
Another example is Richard Perle. Richard Perle headed the Defense Policy Board. Just two months after 9/11 he launched a venture capital firm called Trireme Partners that exists to invest in the homeland security and defense sectors. One of his first investors was Boeing -- it sunk $20 million in Trireme. Meanwhile, Perle is using the Defense Policy Board to make the case for war. And of course Boeing was another one of the huge winners from the invasion of Iraq.
So I asked the question, "Why is it that we refer to Richard Perle merely as an ideologue -- rather than, say, as an arms dealer with an impressive vocabulary?"
Cusack: The question becomes one of intellectual honesty and basic morality. I wanted to talk about the players or the heirs of the Friedman legacy who are in the public sector today... The Grover Norquists and Bill Kristols of the world come to mind ...You also talk about the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute as pursuing the goal of the elimination of the public sphere and the total liberation of corporations.
Klein: I refer to the people in those think tanks as "the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks" because a huge amount of the funding for these think tanks is coming directly from the weapons and homeland security industry. They are funded by some of the wealthiest families and the wealthiest corporations in this country so the question of intellectual honesty really has to come up. They exist in a strange intellectual gray zone where they get money in order to think. And besides, I'm not sure thinking really belongs in tanks.
Cusack: So you're saying that the Shultzes and the Perles and the Kissingers and the Jim Bakers of the world are embedded in the homeland security/privatized war economy?
Klein: More than embedded. I mean, they are it.
Cusack: I was trying to --
[laughter ]
Klein: Why are you trying to be polite?
Cusack: I don't know. I don't know. That's part of the problem, too: being polite with this immorality and not having the courage to call something what it is...The refusal of the Congress to challenge Bush in a meaningful way is proof of the Democratic complicity in the new economy. To name only right wing people is to ignore the central thesis of intellectual honesty as the first step in a long corrective march... So we'll have to talk about what Democrats are in on this game and name them, too...we'll have to get into that later.
I have to wonder how much longer we will be allowed to have free speech. The neo-cons have hijacked the Republican Party, and even the federal government, so I imagine blogs like what we just read must be embarassing for them. With all the power they have given themselves, and with their diminishing base, it just seems logical that they would work on getting rid of something as inconvenient to them as free speech.
AsCongrats to John for using his democratic right to voice his opinion.
As mentioned by Naomi, unfortunately this kind of action has been around for many a moon – Australia is also a guilty party in exploiting close neighbours of the Pacific region for their many natural resources – including oil.
Check out John Pilger – Aust.n journalist, writer and Doco filmmaker.
“War on Democracy” is in cinema release now – to some regions.(Lions Gate Films)
mentioned by Naomi, unfortunately this kind of action has been around for many a moon – Australia is also a guilty party in exploiting close neighbours of the Pacific region for their many natural resources – including oil.
Check out John Pilger – Aust.n journalist, writer and Doco filmmaker.
“War on Democracy” is in cinema release now – to some regions.(Lions Gate Films)
back to the first gulf war. I was there right at
the end of the occupation, working to rebuild
Kuwait TV and other media. The story was that
Kuwait airport was for the most part intact when
the Iraqui's were driven out. It was due to a
"favor" asked of the US mil that the runaways, etc.
were bombed so as to need rebuilding, as a
"favor" to numerous US contractors. And that was
just a drop in the bucket to other stories that
were making the rounds as to how that war was
capitalized on. In the case of the TV station,
every bit of gear/wire was ripped out and sold
by the pound to a guy sitting offshore with a
boatload of empty containers, waiting to haul
off perfectly good broadcasting gear to be sold
elsewhere as new or surplus.. That I saw with
my own eyes.. Happy that I still have them!!
LB
Why on earth did MSM adopt the term 'coalition forces'?
Shame on them.
appearance up here in Victoria B.C. where she
appeared both on our local radio, as well as
a public lecture on Sat. evening. If she comes
to your area, it's worth the effort to get out
to see her in person, just amazing!!
LB
Thanks to both of you.
This only underscores America's desperate need for TRANSPARENCY wherever & whenever possible in BOTH our government and all major business dealings. We also need NEW LAWS to shut-down the loopholes currently being exploited so hideously by the parties mentioned.
This could definitely be done if we, as a society, decided it were necessary (and it IS!).
And yet these vampire-gangsters just keep on
their campaign of literally bleeding and consuming our country.
Do we have to reach the point of utter disaster
and almost total destruction by these Corporate THUGS before we have the powerful, society-wide consensus we need to make the necessary changes
(i.e.Business/Gov't REGULATION) America so desperately needs?
When The People finally get pissed enough, watch those barricades.
Thank you. This article and interview are enlightening and I am excited to get Naomi's book, albeit she is preaching to the choir with me. Last night she was on CSpan and I kept saying;
"Yes, of course." So much of what she has said has been on the minds of many like myself for a long time. In 2005 I was working for a candidate. There were many debates with the five or six right wingers vying to win the chance to go up against the one dem who ran (and sadly lost as this district is so right wing, it is frightening). One of those men was L. Paul Bremer's brother. When I saw him at a debate the first thing that came to mind was when Bremer said "Iraq is open for business." I remember the anger I felt at this man, after so many had lost their lives gleefully proclaiming his "free market." He looked like a man jumping on the corpse of a rich dead grandmother. His brother was no better.
Anyway, John, you have always been favorite actor of mine. Now, you are a favorite person because you are obviously bright as well as talented, caring as well as smart. It will be up to young people like you (that have visibility) to get the message and the truth out when gifted writers like Naomi put it together for us all.
We are headed towards a Dictatorship by these people - we should be in step 9 of the process. Our media is out of control and watch out Mr. Cusack, Bush just bashed Hollywood this week. AT&T put something in your bill this week, that they will cancel your service if they see that people are jeapardizing the AT&T reputation. Does that mean Dissentence? Why has the Space Shuttle gone up so much lately? What are they really doing in space? There were 2 peace activists this week, put on the terror list, and refused entry into Canada, for being a Peace Activist. We are getting the Drumbeat for War with Iran. Bush has used complete Executive Powers and Priviledges across the whole Country. All they need now is a Disaster in America, Constitute Martial law, and cancel the elections in 2008.
I really don't like to think about this, but this is what is happening. The good news is that evil is evil and will only be tolerated for so long. Don't get up there to close to God, He may shake the tree. Bush and his chronies may have all the plans in the works, but they are also very incompetent of doing anything right. Unlike Germany, the U.S. is massive in size, Germany could be contained, the U.S., they are going to have some real problems with that one. This is the good news.
We are headed in this Country for major disaster and that is a fact. So you better get prepared for the worst. As I said before America is sleeping and trying to do something about it would take massive awakening and movements.
Bill and Hill entered the whitehouse with a few hundred thousand to their name. Their net worth is now between $30M and $50M.
We know Bill and Hill's salary. Where did the rest come from? What work did they actually do to achieve this wealth?
The fact is that there are certain jobs that pay amazing salaries to folks for simply existing. John Cusack, you are no stranger to this either. I love your work, buddy, and I always have since Say Anything. But getting in a tither over some folks being payed obscene salaries for jobs that just about anyone could do if they were lucky enough to be thrust into that role seems a bit, uh, strange.
As for Bill, he started some of this, such as the Privitization of Government contracts, Bush just put them on Steroids. The Clintons, I don't want to see back in the White House either. Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, doesn't work so well with me either.
You are trying to make a Republican vs Democrat issue, the way I see it, is they all work for the same machine, just different values.
As for John Cusack, at least Hollywood has a sense of morality in what we have seen in the 6 1/2 years. They do have means and at least they are speaking out for the little people, which is more than I can say for the people running for President. If Hollywood has the means then let them wake up America. Germany was asleep also.
If I were, I'd get a serious wake up call as to what Naomi and John are saying.
They are fuckin' pirates. Pirate kings.
They fly the Jolly Roger, they even have it printed on their memorabilia T-Shirts. They have no rules, just a code... And it ain't exactly "Chivalric."
These are the pirate crusades, and they probably idolize the stories of pagan Christian practices of the Crusaders of yore.