Politics and Culture, an excellent online publication, just posted an interview with me.
Michael Perelman. 2009. "On Globalization, Economics, and the History of Food Crises: An Interview with Michael Perelman by Max Haiven." Politics and Culture, No. 2. Special Issue on Food and Sovereignty."
http://aspen.conncoll.edu/politicsandculture/page.cfm?key=720
"...with food and oil in private hands...“Once we began to consider oil supply contracts directly with the Saudi Arabian government we would have to face a declaration of some kind of war by the major international oil companies. Nor could we expect that those companies which controlled ALL Australian overseas borrowing, and their friends in and out of government departments in Australia, would remain inactive....I considered for some time that the threat to the Australian government which would arise from this network of forces would be so great that we would not survive....With food and oil in private hands, in hands that were seriously considering dropping paratroops on Saudi oil wells, how could an Australian government with a small majority in one House, none in the other, with no public consciousness for social change, and with opponents of this policy within and without its ranks, guarantee anything?”
ReplyDeleteOil in Troubled Waters, author: Jim Cairns (former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia under the Whitlam Government in the 1970s). Pages 80 and 81.