Well, first of all I don't think it's conspiratorial.
I think it's a basic principle of journalism
to follow the money.
And we have conflict of interest rules precisely
because people are human.
And when you can benefit personally, economically
from policies that you are advancing, then
those policies are called into question and
the questions are raised.
So that's why we have this legal architecture
to prevent obvious conflicts of interest.
And the Bush administration . . . Key figures
in the Bush administration have just shown
enormous defiance in the face of those rules,
and twisted the White House lawyers in knots
trying to rationalize them holding onto these
stocks.
But to me it's a broader question about the
economy . . . what I call the "disaster capitalism
complex".
And the fact that I don't believe . . . Well
I think that there's a particular way of thinking
that comes with being in the business of disaster;
being . . . You know and I'm not talking about
just any old economic holdings, right?
I'm talking about those particular economic
holdings that increase, or whose fortunes
increase when things go bad, right?
So oil and gas.
You know bad things happen, the price of oil
goes up.
This we know, right, whether it's a hurricane.
Whether it's a war.
Whether it's a fear of a war.
Whether it's Chavez and Ahmadinejad hugging.
Whatever it is bad, the price of oil goes
up, right?
And the same is true for defense stocks.
The same is true of Homeland Security stocks.
The same is true of drug companies that are
in the business of pandemics.
So this is how I'm defining broadly the disaster
capitalism complex, which is bigger than the
military industrial complex.
The reason why Eisenhower warned . . . gave
that famous warning in his last presidential
address about the danger of the military industrial
complex is precisely because this is an industry
that has an economic incentive for war and
instability.
So I think that there is something really
significant that we need to talk about in
that the Bush administration -- the people
who have been running the government in Washington,
but also the occupation of Iraq -- are card
carrying members of the disaster capitalism
complex.
You know I realize . . . I don't think it
sounds conspiratorial.
I think it sound obvious, right?
I'm in fact embarrassed to be pointing this
out because it's such an obvious point.
But it amazes me that people don't talk about
it all the time; that Dick Cheney was in the
business of privatizing the U.S. military
before he went into office; that Donald Rumsfeld
was in the business of profiting from pandemics
before he went into office; that Bush was
in the oil and gas business before he went
. . . came into office; that his father was
connected to the Carlyle Group, which is a
major weapons dealer; that Paul Bremer, the
chief envoy in Iraq who laid the economic
framework for the occupation, that one month
after September 11th he launched a Homeland
Security company to advise other corporations
on how they could protect themselves in this
new era; that Rudy Giuliani did the same thing
three months later.
So these are all people who see profit directly
from terrorism, natural disasters, and pandemics.
What is their economic incentive to get us
off this disastrous course?
I mean we need political leaders who think
disasters are bad.
You know, I mean that to me is a good starting
premise.
