Less than three days after Sandy made landfall on the East Coast of the United States, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute blamed New Yorkers' resistance to big-box stores for the misery they were about to endure. Writing on Forbes.com, he explained that the city's refusal to embrace Walmart will likely make the recovery much harder: <"Mom-and-pop stores simply can't do what big stores can in these circumstances," he wrote.

And the preemptive scapegoating didn't stop there. He also warned that if the pace of reconstruction turned out to be sluggish (as it so often is) then "pro-union rules such as the Davis-Bacon Act" would be to blame, a reference to the statute that requires workers on public-works projects to be paid not the minimum wage, but the prevailing wage in the region.

The same day, Frank Rapoport, a lawyer representing several billion-dollar construction and real estate contractors, jumped in to suggest that many of those public works projects shouldn't be public at all. Instead, cash-strapped governments should turn to "public private partnerships," known as "P3s." That means roads, bridges and tunnels being rebuilt by private companies, which, for instance, could install tolls and keep the profits.

The overriding principle must be addressing the twin crises of inequality and climate change at the same time.

Up until now, the only thing stopping them has been the law-specifically the absence of laws in New York State and New Jersey that enable these sorts of deals. But Rapoport is convinced that the combination of broke governments and needy people will provide just the catalyst needed to break the deadlock. "There were some bridges that were washed out in New Jersey that need structural replacement, and it's going to be very expensive," he told The Nation. "And so the government may well not have the money to build it the right way. And that's when you turn to a P3."

Ray Lehmann, co-founder of the R Street Institute, a mouthpiece for the insurance lobby (formerly a division of the climate-denying Heartland Institute), had another public prize in his sights. In a Wall Street Journal article about Sandy, he was quoted arguing for the eventual "full privatization" of the National Flood Insurance Program, the federal initiative that provides affordable protection from some natural disasters-and which private insurers see as unfair competition.

But the prize for shameless disaster capitalism surely goes to right-wing economist Russell S. Sobel, writing in a New York Times online forum. Sobel suggested that, in hard-hit areas, FEMA should create "free trade zones-in which all normal regulations, licensing and taxes [are] suspended." This corporate free-for-all would, apparently, "better provide the goods and services victims need."

Yes that's right: this catastrophe very likely created by climate change-a crisis born of the colossal regulatory failure to prevent corporations from treating the atmosphere as their open sewer-is just one more opportunity for more deregulation. And the fact that this storm has demonstrated that poor and working-class people are far more vulnerable to the climate crisis shows that this is clearly the right moment to strip those people of what few labor protections they have left, as well as to privatize the meager public services available to them. Most of all, when faced with an extraordinarily costly crisis born of corporate greed, hand out tax holidays to corporations.

Is there anyone who can still feign surprise at this stuff? The flurry of attempts to use Sandy's destructive power as a cash grab is just the latest chapter in the very long story I have called The Shock Doctrine. And it is but the tiniest glimpse into the ways large corporations are seeking to reap enormous profits from climate chaos.

One example: between 2008 and 2010, at least 261 patents were filed or issued related to "climate-ready" crops-seeds supposedly able to withstand extreme conditions like droughts and floods; of these patents close to 80 percent were controlled by just six agribusiness giants, including Monsanto and Syngenta. With history as our teacher, we know that small farmers will go into debt trying to buy these new miracle seeds, and that many will lose their land.

Unlike the disaster capitalists who use crisis to end-run democracy, a People's Recovery... would call for new democratic processes.

When these displaced farmers move to cities seeking work, they will find other peasants, indigenous people and artisanal fishing people who lost their lands for similar reasons. Some will have been displaced by foreign agribusiness companies looking to grow export crops for wealthy nations worried about their own food security in a climate stressed future. Some will have moved because a new breed of carbon entrepreneur was determined to plant a tree farm on what used to be a community-managed forest, in order to collect lucrative credits.

In November 2010, The Economist ran a climate change cover story that serves as a useful (if harrowing) blueprint for how climate change could serve as the pretext for the last great land grab, a final colonial clearing of the forests, farms and coastlines by a handful of multinationals. The editors explain that droughts and heat stress are such a threat to farmers that only big players can survive the turmoil, and that "abandoning the farm may be the way many farmers choose to adapt." They had the same message for fisher folk inconveniently occupying valuable ocean-front lands: wouldn't it be so much safer, given rising seas and all, if they joined their fellow farmers in the urban slums? "Protecting a single port city from floods is easier than protecting a similar population spread out along a coastline of fishing villages."

But, you might wonder, isn't there a joblessness crisis in most of these cities? Nothing a little "reform of labor markets" and free trade can't fix. Besides, cities, they explain, have "social strategies, formal or informal." I'm pretty sure that means that people whose "social strategies" used to involve growing and catching their own food can now cling to life by selling broken pens at intersections, or perhaps by dealing drugs. What the informal social strategy should be when super storm winds howl through those precarious slums remains unspoken.

For a long time, climate change was treated by environmentalists as a great equalizer, the one issue that affected everyone, rich or poor. They failed to account for the myriad ways by which the superrich would protect themselves from the less savory effects of the economic model that made them so wealthy. In the past six years, we have seen the emergence of private firefighters in the United States, hired by insurance companies to offer a "concierge" service to their wealthier clients, as well as the short-lived "HelpJet"-a charter airline in Florida that offered five-star evacuation services from hurricane zones. "No standing in lines, no hassle with crowds, just a first class experience that turns a problem into a vacation." And, post-Sandy, upscale real estate agents are predicting that back-up power generators will be the new status symbol with the penthouse and mansion set.

It seems that for some, climate change is imagined less as a clear and present danger than as a kind of spa vacation; nothing that the right combination of bespoke services and well-curated accessories can't overcome. That, at least, was the impression left by the Barneys New York pre-Sandy sale-which offered deals on Sencha green tea, backgammon sets and $500 throw blankets so its high-end customers could "settle in with style." Let the rest of the world eat "social strategies, formal or informal."

So we know how the shock doctors are readying to exploit the climate crisis, and we know from the past how that would turn out. But here is the real question: Could this crisis present a different kind of opportunity, one that disperses power into the hands of the many rather than consolidating it the hands of the few; one that radically expands the commons, rather than auctions it off in pieces? In short, could Sandy be the beginning of a People's Shock?

I think it can. As I outlined last year in these pages, there are changes we can make that actually have a chance of getting our emissions down to the level science demands. These include relocalizing our economies (so we are going to need those farmers where they are); vastly expanding and reimagining the public sphere to not just hold back the next storm but to prevent even worse disruptions in the future; regulating the hell out of corporations and reducing their poisonous political power; and reinventing economics so it no longer defines success as the endless expansion of consumption.

At the same time as we ramp up alternatives, we need to step up the fight against the forces actively making the climate crisis worse.

These are approaches to the crisis would help rebuild the real economy at a time when most of us have had it with speculative bubbles. They would create lasting jobs at a time when they are urgently needed. And they would strengthen our ties to one another and to our communities- goals that, while abstract, can nonetheless save lives in a crisis.

Just as the Great Depression and the Second World War launched populist movements that claimed as their proud legacies social safety nets across the industrialized world, so climate change can be a historic moment to usher in the next great wave of progressive change. Moreover, none of the anti-democratic trickery I described in The Shock Doctrine is necessary to advance this agenda. Far from seizing on the climate crisis to push through unpopular policies, our task is to seize upon it to demand a truly populist agenda.

The reconstruction from Sandy is a great place to start road testing these ideas. Unlike the disaster capitalists who use crisis to end-run democracy, a People's Recovery (as many from the Occupy movement are already demanding) would call for new democratic processes, including neighborhood assemblies, to decide how hard-hit communities should be rebuilt. The overriding principle must be addressing the twin crises of inequality and climate change at the same time. For starters, that means reconstruction that doesn't just create jobs but jobs that pay a living wage. It means not just more public transit, but energy efficient affordable housing along those transit lines. It also means not just more renewable power but democratic community control over those projects.

But at the same time as we ramp up alternatives, we need to step up the fight against the forces actively making the climate crisis worse. Regardless of who wins the election, that means standing firm against the continued expansion of the fossil fuel sector into new and high-risk territories, whether through tar sands, fracking, coal exports to China or Arctic drilling. It also means recognizing the limits of political pressure and going after the fossil fuel companies directly, as we are doing at 350.org with our "Do The Math" tour. These companies have shown that they are willing to burn five times as much carbon as the most conservative estimates say is compatible with a livable planet. We've done the math, and we simply can't let them.

We find ourselves in a race against time: either this crisis will become an opportunity for an evolutionary leap, a holistic readjustment of our relationship with the natural world. Or it will become an opportunity for the biggest disaster capitalism free-for-all in human history, leaving the world even more brutally cleaved between winners and losers.

When I wrote The Shock Doctrine, I was documenting crimes of the past. The good news is that this is a crime in progress; it is still within our power to stop it. Let's make sure that this time, the good guys win.
(c) 2012 Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org. You can follow her on Twitter: @NaomiAKlein.

TO A foreigner, like myself, the US election system looks cockeyed.

The president is elected by an "electoral college", which does not necessarily reflect the will of the people. This system, rooted in the realities of the 18th century, has no connection with the conditions of today. It easily leads to the election of a president who has attracted the votes of only a minority, depriving the majority of its democratic rights.

Because of this archaic system, the final three days of the campaign are devoted solely to "swing states" - those whose electoral college votes are still in doubt.

At best, a curious way of electing the leader of the world's mightiest power and self-proclaimed champion of democracy.

The system of electing governors, senators and representatives is also very dubious, as far as democracy is concerned. It's the ancient British system of "winner takes all". This means that there is no chance at all for ideological or sectarian minorities to be represented in the entire political system. New and controversial ideas have no chance.

The philosophy behind such a system is to prefer stability over full democracy, slow down change and innovation or prevent it altogether. It is typical for a conservative aristocracy.

It seems that no serious voices in the US advocate change in the system. If President Obama or President Romney is elected this week by a tiny majority in Ohio, whatever the popular vote nationwide, so be it. After all, the system has worked well enough for more than 200 years, so why tinker with it now?

IN THE Israel elections, on the contrary, several parties talk incessantly about "The System". "The System is bad". "The System must be changed". "Vote for me, because I am going to change The System".

What system, exactly? Well, that's up to you, the voter. You can read into it whatever you like (or, rather, whatever you dislike). The elections. The economy. The courts. Democracy. Religion. You name it.

Frankly, whenever a politician starts to talk about "The System", I get goose pimples. Translate these two words into German, and you get "Das System".

"Das System" was the main propaganda target of Adolf Hitler throughout his 13-year struggle for power. It was incredibly effective. (The second most effective one was his condemnation of the "November Criminals" who signed the armistice after the defeat of Germany in World War I. Our own fascists now speak about the "Oslo Criminals".)

What did the Nazis mean when they spoke about "Das System"? Everything and nothing. Whatever their audience hated at any particular moment. The economy, which condemned millions to unemployment and destitution. The republic, which was responsible for economic policy. Democracy, which founded the republic. The Jews, for sure, who invented democracy and ruled the republic. The political parties, who served the Jews. And so on.

WHEN ISRAELI politicians thunder against "The System", they generally mean the electoral system.

This started right from the beginning of the state. David Ben-Gurion was a democrat, but he was also an autocrat. He wanted more power. He was disgruntled by the proliferation of political parties, which compelled him to cobble together cumbersome coalitions. Who needs them?

The State of Israel was but a continuation of the Zionist movement, which always had some kind of elections. These were strictly proportional. Every group could set up a party, every party was represented in the Zionist congresses according to the number of its voters. Simple and democratic.

When the Israeli state was founded in 1948, this system was automatically adopted. It has not changed to this day, except that the "minimum clause" was raised from one percent to two. At the last elections, 33 parties competed, 12 of which passed the 2% threshold and are represented in the Knesset, which has just resolved to dissolve itself.

On the whole, this system worked reasonably well. It assured that all segments of society - national, ethnic, confessional, socio-economic and so on - were represented and could feel that they belonged. New ideas could find political expression. I myself was elected three times.

That is one of the explanations for the miracle that was Israeli democracy - a phenomenon that is well-nigh inexplicable, considering that almost all Israelis came from severely anti-democratic countries - Russia of the Czar and the commissars, Morocco, Iraq and Iran of the authoritarian kings, Poland of Jozef Pilsudski and his heirs, and of course Jews and Arabs born in Ottoman and British Palestine.

But the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, was an admirer of the Kaiser's Germany, in which democracy developed to a certain degree, and also of Great Britain. The founding fathers who came from Russia wanted to be progressive like Western Europeans.

Because of this, Israel maintained a democracy that was, at least at the beginning, equal to the best. The slogan "The Only Democracy in the Middle East" was not yet a joke. It also provided stable government, based on changing coalitions.

Ben-Gurion hated the electoral system. His fulminations against it were dismissed by the general public, including his own voters, as a personal quirk. In 1977 a new party, called Dash, gained 15 seats on the sole platform point of changing the electoral system, which it blamed for all the country's ills. The party disappeared at the next election.

THIS DECEASED party's rightful heir is now the new party of Ya'ir Lapid, "There is a Future" which wants to "Change The System", including the electoral system.

In which direction? Up to this moment, that is not clear at all. A US-type presidential system? A British winner-takes-all constituency system? The postwar German system (which I prefer) under which half the Parliament is elected in country-wide proportional elections, and the other half in majority-vote constituencies?

What else does Lapid want to change? Laudably, he is the only one who has brought up the Palestinian issue, declaring that he will be no part of any government that does not resume talks with the Palestinians. This does not mean too much, since talks can go on endlessly and lead nowhere, as in the past. He did not mention the world "peace". He also promised that Jerusalem will not be divided - a promise guaranteed to make any negotiations impossible. He made his statement in Ariel, the capital of the settlers, which is boycotted by the entire peace movement.

HOWEVER, THE main enemy of "The System" is Avigdor Lieberman. In his mouth, the two words regain their original fascist undertones.

This week Binyamin Netanyahu dropped a bombshell: the Likud and Lieberman's "Israel Our Home" party will form a joint election list - thus setting in motion the creation of a joint party. The list will be called "Likud Beiteinu" ("Likud Our Home"). He easily imposed this on his reluctant party - though nobody knew the details of the agreement.

But the main provisions of the oral agreement have already seeped out: Lieberman will be No. 2 on the list and will be able to choose one of the three major ministries in the next government: Defense, Treasury or Foreign Affairs.

There can not be the slightest doubt that Lieberman will chose Defense, though he tried to reassure the public by pretending that he might prefer Foreign Affairs, his present domain, in which he is boycotted by most of the world's major leaders.

The subtext of the agreement is that the two parties will soon become one, that Lieberman will succeed Netanyahu as the leader of the entire right-wing, and that we may see him in a few weeks time as the almighty Minister of Defense, with his finger on the conventional and nuclear triggers, and, even more frightening, as the sole governor of the Palestinian occupied territories.

Many Israelis shudder.

Just a few years ago, such an idea was unthinkable. Though he came to Israel 30 long years ago, Lieberman has remained the quintessential "Russian immigrant". Actually he came from Soviet Moldavia.

There is something deeply sinister about his appearance, facial expression, shifty eyes and body language. His accent in Hebrew is heavily Russian, his language is crude. He projects an unbridled lust for power, in the most brutal sense.

His closest (and perhaps only) foreign friend is Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus and the last remaining dictator in Europe. His main object of admiration is Vladimir Putin.

Lieberman's unabashed credo is ethnic cleansing, an Araber-rein Jewish state. He has brought with him from the Soviet Union an abysmal contempt for democracy and a belief in "strong government".

Years ago I drew up the equation "Bolshevism - Marxism = Fascism".

13 TIMES In his 2-minute announcement to the nation about the fusion, Netanyahu used the words "strong" (strong government, strong Likud, strong I), mighty (mighty Israel, mighty Likud) and "governability", a new Hebrew word beloved by both Lieberman and Netanyahu. (This week several commentators used the name I coined some years ago: Bieberman.)

"Get Away Sandy - God and Obama Will Save Us" read the graffiti, scrawled man-high on a cinderblock wall in the majority Black town of Plainfield, New Jersey. It is an apt articulation of African American politics as we descend into the First Black President's second term.

Black folks may or may not have a prayer, but they certainly don't have any earthly influence on the direction of the nation or on a president for whom they gave near-unanimous support, while asking nothing in return.

Wait a minute! I'm hearing echoes of... a familiar voice:

"We have learned that Black politicians and activist-poseurs have an infinite capacity to celebrate not having engaged in struggle with Power, and that the Black masses can be made drunk by the prospect of vicariously (through Obama) coming to power." - Black Agenda Report, "The Obama '08 Phenomenon: What Have We Learned?" November 4, 2008.

As Marx said, history repeats itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce." Independent Black politics, rooted in the historical African American consensus on social justice, racial equality and peace, definitively collapsed, after a long illness, with the first Obama presidential campaign. The tragedy was compounded, exponentially, by the timing, coinciding with capitalism's greatest crisis since the Great Depression. The autumn of 2008 was an historical juncture for the nation and the world. Either the people would erect structures to protect themselves from being crushed under the dead weight of a system in terminal decay, or the Lords of Capital would swallow the State whole, and buy themselves some time.

African Americans, the most politically volatile and left-oriented U.S. constituency - a people specifically targeted by Wall Street's machinations - had an historical role to play. "The man STRUCK," said Frederick Douglass, "is the man to cry out." But Black folks had already been struck silly with Obama'Laid.

The rulers had, at long last, found our Achilles Heel, the weakest spot in African Americans' political armor. Our reflexive racial solidarity (actually, an aspect of Black nationalism), which had served us so well, for so long, short-circuited our progressive political instincts. We became fodder for Obama, the slicker-than-Slick-Willie corporate guy with the brown face.

Despite his background, Obama knew enough about African Americans to pay us no attention and less respect. There would be no penalty. Black folks had convinced themselves that Obama needed our protection; it never occurred to most of us that we needed protection from him - not during the primaries, when he praised Ronald Reagan's reaction to the "excesses" of the Sixties, or when he refused to endorse even a voluntary halt to home foreclosures (while Hillary Clinton and John Edwards endorsed "voluntary" and mandatory moratoriums, respectively); not in the last weeks before his inauguration, when Obama announced that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all "entitlements" would be "on the table" for chopping under his administration.

Instead, a million Black folks gathered on the National Mall for what we at BAR called "The Great Black Hajj of 2009," a pilgrimage, as if to Mecca, in celebration of Obama's ascension. There, he proclaimed to the multitudes: "In the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things."

Dutifully, Black folks set aside the last vestiges of their vaunted distrust of Power. Henceforth, African Americans would consider themselves as a Palace Guard - the antithesis of independent political actors. Thus was Obama empowered to become the "More Effective Evil."

With little resistance on the Left, and virtually none from organized Black America, Obama has worked miracles for the resuscitation of the Lords of Capital and their imperial apparatus - feats that only a Black corporate Democrat could accomplish. After saving George Bush's bank bailout in October of 2008 (it passed only after candidate Obama's intervention), Obama undertook the historic mission of placing the U.S. State at the total disposal of finance capital. Under Obama's watch, the Treasury Department and, especially, the Federal Reserve have funneled at least $16 trillion to Wall Street and its foreign annexes - a sum greater than the national GDP. The "free money" window at the Federal Reserve has become a permanent fixture of the global financial order, permanently blurring the lines between the U.S. state and international finance capital. Obama has embedded the state into the banks, and vice versa, in ways that cannot be undone without causing the system to collapse. In a very real sense, the "good faith and credit" of the United States has become a collective corporate asset of the Lords of Capital - an outcome that fits the classic structural description of fascism. No Republican could have delivered the state apparatus so effectively to the banks - there would have been fierce resistance from within the Democratic base, as well as libertarian Right. But Obama has proven to be the more effective facilitator of the bankers' state.

Social Security was untouchable - until Obama laid his hands on it. Beginning with his pre-inauguration pronouncements on entitlements, Obama has been the guiding hand of an austerity offensive that did not exist on Election Day, 2008. Instead, Obama made deficit reduction his own priority, at a time when pundits were saying obituaries over the GOP. (Much as they are, today.) The Black Democrat appointed the Right-weighted Deficit Reduction Commission to promulgate a $4 trillion blueprint for austerity, a formula that matched Republic proposals in 2011. The blueprint would have been the basis for Obama's cherished Grand Bargain had the GOP not balked at "modest" taxes on the rich - levies that are irrelevant to those who will lose their programs under the axe. Obama is the more effective austerity president - if the Republicans will just let him work his show.

Imperial aggression has never fared better than under the opposition-less Obama. At one point, he was bombing five countries simultaneously, pretty good work for a Nobel Peace Prize winner - or did the prize help empower him to such heights of bellicosity? His ever-evolving "Kill List" includes not only individuals of all nationalities (including our own) but also any country whose government is inconvenient to the United States. With "humanitarian" jargon as his only justification, President Obama has attempted to render international law a dead letter. No nation has any rights that he feels bound to respect. Obama, with his drone armadas and multiplying Special Forces troops, represents a far greater threat to global civilization - which must be rooted in law! - than the failed conquerer George Bush (who actually negotiated the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq). Unlike Bush, Obama has promulgated his own, novel doctrine of war, which declares that wars only exist when sufficient numbers of Americans become casualties. Under this construct, Libya was not a war, and the possibilities for U.S. non-war depredations are endless.

Preventive detention is the crown jewel of Obama's presidential exceptionalism. Statutory authority to imprison Americans without charge or trial was beyond Bush's reach, and he knew it. But Obama guided a bill through the Congress with very little Democratic opposition. He is the more effective secret police warden.

Now Obama has won another "mandate," which he will use to finish the projects he started: wider wars, a more profound government subservience to finance capital, and that "new legal architecture" on national security that he warned about on the Daily Show, a few weeks ago. He looks forward to fulfilling his austerity dreams early in his new term: "I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I've been offering to the Republicans for a very long time."

The non-resisters have won a non-victory against an unimpressive enemy, while the more effective evil plots new atrocities.

Having recently returned from Pakistan meeting with drone victims, on November 4 my partner Tighe Barry and I were having a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. The discussion turned to John Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism chief and the key person making decisions about drone strikes. We wondered if Brennan ever had a chance to meet innocent drone victims, as we did, and feel their pain.

"Maybe we should go to his house and talk to him," quipped Tighe. We laughed at the absurdity of the idea but decided to do a little bit of research. Fifteen minutes later, we were out the door, driving to a Virginia suburb an hour south of Washington DC. I had no idea if it was really John's address, but it was a lovely day for a drive-and Tighe was willing to indulge me.

Exiting the freeway, we came to an area of rolling hills, green grass and private horse farms. As we approached what we thought might be John Brennan's street, we were sure it was a mistake. How could this be? It was a nondescript upper middle class neighborhood, with children playing in the yards-no security, no government vehicles. The house was in a cul-de-sac sandwiched between two other houses, without so much as a fence surrounding it.

I decided to go knock on the door to make sure we were wrong. A middle-aged, white-haired guy in a casual sweater and jeans opened the door, accompanied by someone who l assumed was his wife.

Could this really be John Brennan? The same man who championed "enhanced interrogation techniques" under President Bush? The same man who now decides, on "terror Tuesdays", who will be on the CIA kill list? The guy who developed the Orwellian "disposition matrix"-a blueprint for disposing of terrorist suspects for at least another decade?

I hesitated. He looked much younger and thinner than I remembered, and he looked like such a nice man. And would someone who spent his career in the CIA and was the nation's counterterrorism czar be answering his own door?

"John?," I asked. "Yes," he replied tentatively. I continued, still doubting that he was really John Brennan. "I'm sorry to bother you at your home on a Sunday, but I wanted to talk to you about a recent trip."

"A trip?", he asked, squinting his eyes and cocking his head to the side. "A trip to where?" "Pakistan," I answered. "Ohhhhh," he said.

What he really meant was, "Oh shit." For it was at that moment I realized he was indeed John Brennan, and he realized that I knew exactly who he was.

"How did you know where I live?," the spy-extraordinaire asked. I was suddenly nervous, knowing this was a man who put people on kill lists. Thinking quickly, I told him I had friends in the neighborhood who gave me his address.

He asked for a business card, and I ran back to get one from the car-where Tighe was waiting. We exchange looks, OMG!

When I went back and handed the card to Brennan, he glanced at it and muttered, "Ah, CODEPINK. I thought that's who you were." The last time we met I was being dragged out of the Woodrow Wilson Center by a 300-pound security man while yelling "I love my country! You're making us less safe. Shame on you Mr. Brennan."

I knew I didn't have much time so I starting talking fast-telling him I had just returned from a delegation to Pakistan meeting with drone victims, how heartbroken I was to hear their stories, how terrible it is that these drone attacks are causing so much suffering to innocent people and turning the entire Pakistani population against us.

He insisted that it wasn't true, that we weren't harming civilians. "But we met with people who lost their children, their fathers, their loved ones-we have photos of little children...." I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to tell him about the journalist Karim Khan who lost his son and brother or about 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed when trying to document drone strikes. I wanted to talk to him about the statistics provided by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that say conservative estimates of civilian casualties add up over 1,000.

"It's just not true," he repeated, dismissively. "You are being manipulated."

By this time, the woman who joined him at the door had become very agitated. "You shouldn't be coming to our house on a Sunday. We rarely get to see him as it is. You should talk to him in an appropriate place."

I pleaded. "I've tried many times to do that, but never receive a response." I asked for a number where I could reach him to set up a meeting, but he refused. "I have your information, I can reach you," he claimed, waving my bright pink business card in the air.