2008 52 Mins 1-932869-25-5 This film has subtitles English

Blood & Oil

The Middle East & U.S. Energy Policy
Featuring Michael T. Klare

or

Synopsis

Blood and Oil, featuring Michael Klare, a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington D.C. and the defense correspondent for The Nation, offers a riveting look at how U.S. efforts to control the global flow of fossil fuels has led to endless war, alliances with authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, and the undermining of democratic movements around the world. The film also details how the militarization of U.S. energy policy has been deceptively spun and sold to the American public by American political leaders and a largely complicit corporate news media. Blood and Oil is an ideal resource for university courses that look at U.S. politics, relations between democratic and authoritarian regimes, energy and security policy, American militarism and interventionism, corporate news media framing, political propaganda, and pro-war disinformation campaigns.

Release Date:2008
Duration:52 Mins
ISBN:1-932869-25-5
Subtitles:English

Trailers

Watch the trailer

Filmmaker Credits

Director
Jeremy Earp
Producer
Scott Morris
Co-Producer
Andrew Killoy
Executive Producer
Sut Jhally
Writers
Michael T. Klare
Writers
Jeremy Earp
Writers
Scott Morris
Editors
Andrew Killoy
Editors
Scott Morris
Associate Producers
Loretta Alper
Associate Producers
Jason Young

Filmmaker Biographies

Professor
Michael T. Klare, one of the world's most renowned experts on energy and security issues, is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies (a joint appointment at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst) and Director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS), positions he has held since 1985. He is the author of thirteen books, including, most recently Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books, 2008), Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (Metropolitan Books, 2004), and Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (Metropolitan Books, 2001).

Professor Klare has written widely on U.S. defense policy, the arms trade, global resource politics, and world security affairs. He is the defense correspondent of The Nation magazine and a Contributing Editor of Current History. He also regularly contributes to various publications including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harper's, International Security,, Le Monde Diplomatique, Newsweek,, Scientific American, Technology Review, Third World Quarterly, and World Policy Journal. Professor Klare received his B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University in 1963 and 1968, respectively, and his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the Union Institute in 1976.

Film Festivals

Resources: Downloads and Related Links

Praise

"Powerful! Provocative! A must see!"
Ed Begley, Jr.
Actor & Environmental Activist
"The film of Michael T. Klare, Blood and Oil, provides an invaluable visual and oral historical overview of how intertwined the U.S. foreign policy agenda and private U.S. interest in controlling foreign sources of oil have been since World War II. This film should be available in every school film library from high school to university. I strongly recommend it."
F. William Engdahl
Author, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order
"Michael Klare looks into the future with sharper eyes than almost anyone else around. Pay attention!"
Bill McKibben
Author, The End of Nature
"Michael Klare's analysis of the role of oil in U.S. foreign policy since 1945 is indispensable to an understanding of the critical problems we face. I hope that this lucid and historically accurate film is widely seen."
Chalmers Johnson
Author, The Blowback Trilogy
"Blood and Oil is a compelling, credible and thought-provoking history lesson for all Americans. A must-see for current and older generations who served America's militaristic pursuit of oil, and for their children who will soon be required to conduct a serious intervention at home to heal this nation's blood for oil compulsion."
Karen Kwiatowski
Retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel
"Blood and Oil is an indispensable primer on the role of oil in driving US military policy. Every peace activist, every environmental activist, and every concerned citizen should see this film for the perspective it provides on how to free the U.S. and the world of our addiction to oil."
William Hartung
New America Foundation
"A thought-provoking contemporary history lesson, this is highly recommended."
Video Librarian
"... An absolutely necessary -- and totally riveting -- documentary that every American must see to fully understand the events unfolding around us in today's world."
Thom Hartmann
Host of The Thom Hartmann Program on Air America Radio
"Blood and Oil zeroes in on the most fundamental issue of our time - the intersection between oil and war. With a surgeon's precision, Michael Klare exposes our recurring pathology: Overconsumption of oil leads to imperial interventions and support of dictators, making us the target of terrorist attacks, which in turn lead to more interventions. A must see for the general public who has been duped into believing that we make war to liberate the natives rather than to liberate "our resources" from their lands."
Medea Benjamin
Cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace
"Michael T. Klare's Blood and Oil is a thoughtful and important look at the history of U.S. dependency on petroleum. It is an important contribution to understanding how our nation got itself into the dire and completely avoidable addiction to a substance that threatens both our global economy and our planetary survival."
Harvey Wasserman
Author, SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth
"...a very, very well made film"
AfterDowningStreet.org
"Digging into the archives of military history, Klare discerns a clear pattern: Presidential commitment to oil addiction entails mounting costs and loss of life."
Deron Lovaas
Co-Director of the NRDC's Move America Beyond Oil project
"Blood and Oil makes it plain and simple -- it's the oil, stupid. Michael Klare provides a chilling and compelling argument that oil is and has been at the foundation of many dire conflicts around the world. The film dramatizes this fact with gripping historic footage of the confluence of oil and militarism."
Andy Shallal
Owner, Busboys & Poets
"Laying his case out rather like a seasoned prosecutor, Michael T. Klare incontrovertibly and beyond a doubt demonstrates in this film that, as writer Jim Holt put it, 'It's the oil, stupid!' Not that the film doesn't open with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity separately ridiculing the very idea. But in this documentary structured as a kind of illustrated lecture, Klare, Five College Professor at Hampshire College, convincingly shows that, more than any other factor, it's the insatiable appetite for oil that has driven American foreign policy since the end of World War II -- not only in the Middle East but elsewhere in the world as well. The evidence overwhelms. Highly recommended."
Rebecca Adler
Educational Media Reviews Online

Press Reviews

THE ROOTS OF OUR PAINFUL OIL ADDICTION
NRDC | Moving Beyond Oil blog | June 9, 2008
BLOOD AND OIL
LewRockwell.com | Karen Kwiatkowski | July 7, 2008