amy it's it's been great talking with you it's an art it was thank you so much. thanks so much tom for what you do to watch this conversation again as well as other conversations with great minds go to our website conversations are very much stuck up. next.

welcome back to the big picture earlier this week i sat down with naomi klein a syndicated columnist who has become one of today's leading voices in social justice journalism she shared her insights on the ninety nine percent movement that has taken to the streets all across the country right now and gave us her predictions on the next major crises facing the united states and the world take a look. at the nice conversations and great minds enjoyed by award winning journalist syndicated columnist and internationally bestselling author naomi klein and the klan is a contributing editor for harper's and a reporter for rolling stone and writes a regular column for the nation and the guardian is also syndicated internationally

her writing has appeared in dozens of other major newspapers including the new york times the washington post newsweek and the los angeles times in two thousand and four reporting from iraq for harper's magazine earned her the james aronsen award for social justice journalism she is a former miliband fellow at the london school of economics and holds an honorary doctorate of civil laws from the university of king's college in canada in two thousand and seven her book the shock doctrine the rise of disaster capitalism became a number one international bestseller it is now been published in thirty languages with over a million copies in print her first book no logo taking aim at the brand bullies was published in one nine hundred ninety nine and was also an international bestseller a new york times called it a movement bible time magazine named as one of the top one hundred nonfiction books published since one thousand nine hundred twenty three and a literary review of canada is named as one of the most and as one of the hundred most important canadian books ever published very pleased to welcome naomi klein to

our new york city studio and this edition of conversations of great minds and we welcome. thank you. to be with you thanks for joining us you say the image that ultimately caused you to join your for wall street movement protests was a photograph of a young woman holding up and made it so that i care about you you call those you call the radical way to can you elaborate on that. yeah i found it very moving there was there was actually another another another sign that was part of the same photo essay that i was looking at of somebody else holding up a sign that said compassion is a radical act. and i was really moved by it in large part because i am increasingly convinced that all of the change that we want and we talk about you know what are your demands and you know maybe universal health care or it might be

free public education that none of this is going to happen in less we really shift the underlying values of our culture particularly american culture and the idea that these young people would be holding up signs that say i care about you you know on wall street it is such a radical act because you think about what this culture treat teaches us to do it it really is to to not care about each other to harden our hearts to each other to not look at the homeless on the street or at the extreme end to shout let them die at a republican. presidential debate when a question is raised about what to do about somebody who hasn't purchased health care insurance so you know these are the types of the values that govern this culture that make the sorts of excesses that people are protesting possible so that's why i was so moved by that sign of just somebody holding up

a sign that said i care about you and as i talk to people at the protest camp at the occupy wall street at liberty plaza there. i often hear the stories about what strong people they are why are they there they could they talk about people coming up to them on the street and i met a young woman who told a story about have a man came up to her on the street and said i love you and she was completely taken aback by this but then she just realized you know well maybe that's not so bad she told him she looked into. the kind of thing happening in new york right now it's very odd moment do you think it might be a. you know i suspect this is something probably canadians are far more aware of than americans because the indigenous rights movement in canada has been so well established over the way as to at least the last few decades and so well publicized that it would change the northwest territories and all that other thing and the the idea of decisions being made in a circle by consensus by actual governmental body which doesn't exist anywhere in

the united states but does in a province in canada and we're seeing that kind of thing and almost a potlatch culture or. be out of it which again i think most americans are unfamiliar with and get it and most canadians probably are happening if a heart is over for most canadians are i mean i don't think most canadians are familiar with this kind of gift economy that you see down there and it is that is so radical the idea of just freely giving each other health care freely feeding one another and that nothing is asked in return and you know that is is if you think about this generation of young people who have grown up at the absolute peak of consumerism and everything is about consumption and buying and selling and people are just in love with the idea of a space that is de commodify but yeah i think there is a difference in canada and this is where it's sort of like how do you change the

values of a culture it's tricky because you know in canada we do have public healthcare we do have universal health care and i've always felt that that changes the care. dr of our country here the fact that we don't have to as canadians develop a rationale for why we let people die if they don't have the money to pay for their health care that that has that makes us i think somewhat of a you know more compassionate people in some way so yeah it's tricky because once when you bring in these the big when you bring in policies that universalize education that universalize health care people change their values change as well so maybe that's how you do change the values that are of the culture i think you nailed it in shark doctrine you talk about disaster capitalism capital cities and disasters to institutions in the world to their favor and i'm curious how this

kind of a two part question here for you first we just saw a bank nationalized by frank france and belgium you know this whole mess that's happening in europe i'm curious your thoughts on that but also and this may even segue out of at least for europe and hopefully here doesn't history also show the reverse that for example f.d.r. seized on the disaster or public in great depression to create a strong social safety net and you're into the right to unionize and if so might this crisis equally backfire on the disaster capitalists. it could well i you know in in the shock doctrine i am very clear about the fact that what is wrong with this tactic as practiced by right wing ideologues is not that they respond decisively to i disaster with profound policy changes because of course a crisis is usually in some kind of

a message i mean there are some crises that are just like an earthquake and you know it doesn't mean anything it just happened although that society might be even more vulnerable to the effects of that. earthquake if they've neglected the public sphere but if you're talking about an economic crisis or you're talking about disasters linked to climate change. these these disasters these crises are telling us there's something broken in the system you should fix that you should respond what is sinister about what i describe in the shock doctrine is using crises to push through policies that the vast majority of people oppose often policies that are the exact opposite of what people voted for. and it's using the chaos and panic to push through these these measures under the guise of sort of emergency measures but what's interesting about the top tactic is exactly what you say time that really what we've seen is a strategy developed on the right in response to the understanding that if you don't have this right wing shock doctrine strategy particularly an economic crisis

will be an opportunity for progressives and of course the case in point is the new deal this was studied very closely and if we understand what the phase of capitalism that we've been living through a deregulated privatization you know what is often called neo liberalism this whole phase of capitalism is a revolt of the elites against the gains of the new deal and doing those gains so a huge amount of study has gone into trying to figure out how to prevent a repeat of that and that and that's why you have all these think tanks that are ready and waiting with their policies no matter what the crisis is to push it through and so this economic crisis despite the fact that it was created by deregulate deregulated capitalism the solution that ends up getting proposed to pay the bill for this crisis is more deregulation more tax cuts for the rich it made absolutely no sense that's the shock doctrine that's disaster capitalism what's

happening on the streets of new york and in cities around the world is people demanding what they actually voted for and and demanding. it's a firm response to real crises that actually gets at the underlying issues that caused the crisis and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that not only is there nothing wrong with it we desperately need it well and speaking to what people voted for and here in the united states in two thousand and eight president obama one of the speeches he gave just four days before his election was you know you stand with me and i will fundamentally change america and we will fundamentally change the world that's a revolutionary call it's it's not the kind of call that you would expect to hear from a republican running for even or even a democrat in times of stability. and well i mean people often forget at the core debate right the real standoff at the turning point in the two thousand and eight election was when mccain said the fundamentals of the economy are strong great and

that when obama said no they're not so of course as you say you with elected to the to implement fundamental change and he didn't and that's why people have taken to the streets and gone to the locations the symbols of financial power that people understand is as has been the blockade to that kind of change of thoughts on where he may be going or where the american political process may going be going as a consequence of this short call it sure to be a missed opportunity. well i think you know where it's gone is into the streets and this to me is a tremendous source of hope because my fear about the obama presidency met one of my greatest fears about the obama presidency was that the young people who really were the heart and soul of his campaign in two thousand and eight who knocked on doors and slept on floors and who got in politics got into politics for the first

time because they were inspired by the type of rhetoric that you were just quoting and they believed that this was going. the fundamental change and of course one of the issues that most energized young people was climate change because this is their future and and then when when when nothing happened in so many areas and particularly in and viral mental. environmental regulation but but also in job creation and student and student indebtedness and the ability to afford education and so what i was afraid of is that this generation would just go back you know it to their homes and decide that politics is just for losers and disengaged because of course there have been many generations of young people who didn't disengage from politics in this country and that's what's so hopeful about this moment is that rather than disengaging and lapsing into cynicism or nihilism you have a generation that says that's learning from learning from their experience and

going ok we see that the system it's had some fundamental flaws even if the president isn't interested in fixing those flaws we're going to get to work fixing them and so you have all kinds of debates about what you know what are the structural problems money and politics the fact that corporations are treated as persons under the law these are the type of debates that are happening. down in occupy wall street and i think we're going to start to see some very radical demands come out of this movement. it's just takes a while to have a democratic process that can articulate those demands but i don't think that you know some people have talked about how this is sort of. a left wing tea party or that they're just going to be kind of the sort of street he for the washington policy wonks who have ideas for how to tinker with the system i don't think that this wave of demonstrations and outrage is going to be satisfied with only being

that i think if they're going to want to articulate their vision for a better world and i hope they do because. because they deserve that it certainly seems that they are we'll be back with more of our conversation with naomi klein in just a moment. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who made the decision to break through get through it you can maybe you can you trust no one. you. see where we had a state controlled capital. actions when nobody dares to ask we do our t.v. question more. welcome back to conversations with great minds than other i'm joined by award

winning journalist syndicated columnist and internationally bestselling author. naomi you were recently arrested as part of a two week old civil disobedience campaign and her pressuring u.s. president barack obama to walk the proposed keystone x.l. pipeline what was pipeline mean and what motivated you to just stand on the front lines like. well you know i've never been arrested before but i have spent the past three years really immersing myself in research about climate change i'm working on a on a documentary film a book that is about how climate change can be a catalyst for us to make the kinds of social transformations that we've been talking to talking about because so many of the real solutions to climate change are also solutions to the economic crisis in terms of real localizing our economies

and rebuilding our infrastructure and creating jobs so i'm very immersed in this and very aware of of the clock ticking. of how little time we have to get this right which is also why i am so excited about occupy wall street and the potential for a new energy and fusing mission. but the x.l. pipeline the reason it is such a very big deal for the climate is because because it's a pipeline from the alberta tar sands down to texas a very large pipeline that will actually massively increase the capacity of the tar sands right now what's happening is that alberta canada is landlocked and one of our politicians recently used the phrase that alberta finds itself landlocked investment which means that human is the is is the name for the tare

substance that eventually gets kind of boiled down to crude now the process of turning that tar into into a barrel of oil is it an incredibly energy intensive process so it isn't it's just you know we're against the tar sands because its oil it's the particular kind of oil that it is it's because it's unconventional oil and it emits three times as much greenhouse gases to produce a barrel of oil out of the tar sands than it does to do so out of conventional canadian crude so personally and you know in the opinion of a great many environmentalists who are who i trust that has just been absolutely viable and immoral project it's the largest industrial project on earth and it and because of it my country canada is emissions have gone up by thirty percent despite the fact that we have signed the kyoto protocol so it's really an illegal operation and so the keystone x.l. pipeline would increase the capacity because right now they don't have enough

arteries to get the oil out of alberta right now so they need to build more arteries and keystone x.l. is a major major artery so that would. allow them to do to to accelerate in the production of the tar sands bill mckibben the wonderful environmental writer and co-founder of three fifty dot org described the keystone x.l. pipeline as the world's longest fuse to the world's largest carbon bomb so that is why so many people got got so passionate about stopping the keystone x.l. pipeline the other reasons are just the dangers inherent in the transportation of the oil because tar sands oil is more corrosive because it has been exposed so many different chemicals just to get it through the pipeline so there's been all kinds of spills on other pipelines carrying tar sands oil or that had carried her says oil so that communities that live along the pipeline the proposed pipeline

route have their own reasons for being against it but my reason for going to washington and getting arrested alongside twelve more than twelve hundred other people is really about my opposition to the tar sands itself and you know i've been very open about that the reason why we got arrested outside the white house is because you know one of the things we're always hearing from the obama white house is that you know they would like to do more of but they're always being stopped by these republicans and and and you know obama sort of positions himself to the environmental movement as being their ally as being our ally but were it not for all of these obstructionist people in congress the thing about the keystone x.l. pipeline is that because it is a project that comes from canada which is still another country it actually doesn't have to go through congress the approval process it has to be approved by the state department because it's a foreign project so the state department has to issue what's called

a certificate of national interest they have to say that this pipeline is in the national interest of the united states and then obama has to sign off on it it doesn't go to congress. at all so in a sense we've really called obama's bluff and said ok we're taking you at your word you really want to do something about climate change but congress won't let you now you can't hide behind congress this one's on you you have all the power to stop this thing it's an environmental disaster twenty of the top climate scientists have come out and said so several of them got arrested alongside us in washington d.c. including james hansen and so now we're waiting to see what obama. is that. i mean here's a major political move from the united states again to the bill because that is by and large driving although there are a lot of people involved with it is there are. in canada because this is you know that's the source of this oil absolutely and there was a there was there was

a solidarity action in ottawa even though it isn't up to our government whether this happens it's up to the u.s. government whether this happened our government has made it absolutely clear that they want this to travel back and forth to washington like traveling salesman pushing this thing so we're under no illusions that our government will stop this but there was a big action in ottawa where i think four hundred people were arrested so this is happening and it is true that the wonderful bill mckibben has spearheaded this but . there are major partners in this was a group called the indigenous environmental network and they really have been the organization that have put the tar sands on the map around the world they do a lot of work in europe campaigning against the headquarters of the oil companies that are in in the tar sands doing work with pensions things like this and the indigenous environmental network and it has really led this campaign and we kind of

joined it late in the game as bill said when we were in washington and they played a huge role in organizing the washington d.c. protest and the day i was there arrested was the indigenous day of action. so i was arrested alongside some really wonderful indigenous leaders like tom gold tooth so it was a very very moving day because. because the tar sands you know they are not just a disaster for the atmosphere they're also a disaster for the land for the water in alberta and the people who are most directly impacted by that are indigenous people who live downstream from the tar sands you know low go back and in ninety nine which. i think energize a lot of people will weaken the people to the. influence of corporate. corporate culture but really the impact of corporate marketing shall we say for like a better word on culture how corporations are holding in shaping culture and and i'm going how we can push back i'm curious if you see your four minutes we have

left here and. from that book to the conversation we just had about the x.l. pipeline and and all the stuff we've talked about in between it's seems to me that there's a fairly smooth curious your thoughts on that. you know the book was about the rich the rise of corporate power and corporations emerging as more powerful than governments but also as our as swallowing our public spaces and swallowing our political process privatizing our education and absolutely see a thread of connection and one of the reasons why i see it's so powerful the way that young people at occupy wall street are taking such tremendous pride in their ability to create a commodified space in the center of capital and in the center

of maybe the most consumer city in the world. and it just speaks to that perennial desire. for freedom for real freedom that these companies are so good at marketing and selling to us as a product i found it really kind of interesting to think about. as all the memorials were emerging for steve jobs and thinking about the way in which. apple can come modify the desire for liberation in so many ways that this think different campaigns using imagery of of martin luther king and gandhi and it's really a double edged sword because of course these technologies have helped the protesters and i mean the fact that so many of us are on twitter and and and that we have this ease of communication is has helped us come together but once we're together what what is most meaningful to people is the fact that they are really connecting you hear stat words so much when you're down and occupied wall street.

is is is people are people say that they finally feel connected to each other they realize that they're not isolated and they're not just communicating with their friends on facebook or on twitter they're having these face to face exchanges that they've never had before in a really liberated space so it the technology in some ways allowed us to come together but once we're together what's what's so liberating is being free of the technology which kind of brings us back to the part where it's culture conversation where we begin we have about a minute i have to wonder what do you see in the short time what do you see as the biggest problems facing us right now on your thoughts about what we should be doing about it. i mean for me it really is it really is the climate crisis and i would like to see the aca logical crisis more integrated into these protests

against the failing economics of failing economic model or failing economic system because personally i see the echo. logical crisis of which the climate crisis is and it's always the most dramatic but i am no means the only example of the ways in which we're sort of hitting the wall of what our natural systems are capable of absorbing it's true if that's true the climate speaks to the ability of the atmosphere to absorb our pollution to absorb our carbon but our oceans can't absorb what we're doing to then either are reversed can't either so you know our this is also about the logic of of greed taking over our lives and we need to see that we have an economic system that is destroying the systems on which it depends it's devouring those systems and that's happening socially and economically when we see how our infrastructure is falling apart and we're failing to educate our young people we're destroying ourselves just for profit but it's also happening

ecologically and i believe that is the strongest indictment against this economic logic and also that it has to be our catalyst for acting quickly because we don't have much time brilliantly so the only client thank you so much for being with us. thank you for having me tom it's an honor to watch this conversation again as well as other conversations the great minds go to our website of conversations with great minds dot com. and that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our web sites to tom hartman dot com free speech to organize. to you tube channels there are links of. this entire show is also available for free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free tom hartman i phone and i pad app at the app store because honest feedback at twitter a time underscore arbonne on facebook at a time underscore harben our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at

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