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Anybody read - "Confessions Of An Economic Hitman"....the US we don't know

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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-12-05 06:46 AM
Original message
Anybody read - "Confessions Of An Economic Hitman"....the US we don't know
From Democracy Now:

We speak with John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies. ...
AMY GOODMAN: You're actually called economic hit men --e.h.m.’s?
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, it was a tongue-in-cheek term that we called ourselves. Officially, I was a chief economist. We called ourselves e.h.m.'s. It was tongue-in-cheek. It was like, nobody will believe us if we say this, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: So, where -- when did your change your heart happen?
JOHN PERKINS: I felt guilty throughout the whole time, but I was seduced. The power of these drugs, sex, power, and money, was extremely strong for me. And, of course, I was doing things I was being patted on the back for. I was chief economist. I was doing things that Robert McNamara liked and so on. ...... And if I hadn't lived this life as an economic hit man, I think I’d have a hard time believing that anybody does these things. And that's why I wrote the book, because our country really needs to understand, if people in this nation understood what our foreign policy is really about, what foreign aid is about, how our corporations work, where our tax money goes, I know we will demand change.

AMY GOODMAN: How closely did you work with the World Bank?
JOHN PERKINS: Very, very closely with the World Bank. The World Bank provides most of the money that’s used by economic hit men, it and the I.M.F. But when 9/11 struck, I had a change of heart. I knew the story had to be told because what happened at 9/11 is a direct result of what the economic hit men are doing. And the only way that we're going to feel secure in this country again and that we're going to feel good about ourselves is if we use these systems we’ve put into place to create positive change around the world. I really believe we can do that......
JUST GO TO:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251


It's an amazing book. The "very interesting part" is that here is a guy with decades of "factual stories" of US corruption...and the US MEDIA will not touch the book or try or ask for investigations ... what more do you need to know about "corporatism"?
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-12-05 06:49 AM
Response to Original message
1. I agree with this readers observations about the book....
THE LIGHT OF TRUTH, January 11, 2005
Reviewer: Nick de Saint-Germain - See all my reviews
The author was employed as an economist for an international consulting firm. But his true job was taking part in scams to enrich international banks and multinational corporations usually at the expense of poor people in emerging nations. He eventually developed a guilty conscience and quit. To expiate his sins, he has written a book exposing this sleazy business. He had difficulty finding a publisher, since those whom he approached either feared stepping on big toes or else wanted him to disguise his writing as fiction.

Perkins is at his best when he is describing what he knows well: how what he calls the corporatocracy really operates. He is less convincing when proposing leftist ideas as solutions. For example, he praises President Chavez of Venezuela as someone who has helped his people, but Perkins does not mention how Chavez has also propped up the Castro regime in Cuba.

Perkins says that the corporatocracy is not an organized conspiracy. One can argue about the conspiracy part, but he offers no insight as to why he does not consider it organized. Even primitive life forms like ants and bees exhibit a high degree of organization. The author himself says that he keeps seeing the same agencies, companies, modus operandis, and even actors involved. Yet he would have us believe that this is a random DNA match despite astronomical odds.

He also dances around the maypole as to who is behind it all. The people whom he mentions as villains--McNamara, Bush Senior, Shultz, Weinberger, Cheney, Kissinger--are all members of David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission. Yet the "T" word is never mentioned.

Perkins says that cozy ties of government, corporations, and Wall Street began in 1974 with the Arab oil embargo. Yet he fails to mention that Rockefeller created the Trilateral Commission the year before.

The author says that he refused to issue the book under the guise of fiction. But similar exposes have already been done. A made-for-television classic of the 1970's called "Brotherhood of the Bell" came very close to describing Skull and Bones, the secretive organization whose members include John Kerry and the Bush family. A more recent film called "The Skulls" was practically a documentary about it. Another film called "The Firm" told of an ambitious law student from a disadvantaged background who climbed the heights of success after joining a sinister legal outfit. It sounds like an allegory of Bill Clinton's becoming a made Trilateralist, except that the character in the story developed a conscience at the end.

Anyway, the author himself blurs the line between fact and fiction. Most of the anti-American statements that he quotes were made by people with whom he allegedly had private conversations who are now dead or anonymously identified.

Perkins says that legitimate anti-Western movements in emerging nations are being hijacked by Muslim extremists. But these anti-American despots treat their people worse than Westerners do. It was Kadafy of Libya who ordered the bombing of a Pan American passenger plane. Ayatollahs of Iran were complicit in taking American diplomats hostage. The Afghan Taliban sheltered 9/11 terrorist bin Laden and his al Qaeda operatives.

It would be nice to see Parker write more especially about what he knows. One has the feeling that he has barely touched the surface in this book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/1576753018/103-4171492-0307062?_encoding=UTF8&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=books
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-12-05 08:15 AM
Response to Reply #1
4. i don't;

"Perkins says that the corporatocracy is not an organized conspiracy. One can argue about the conspiracy part, but he offers no insight as to why he does not consider it organized."

Perkins doesn't say it is not organized. He says it is not an *organized conspiracy*. There's a big difference between "organized" and "organized conspiracy".


"...legitimate anti-Western movements in emerging nations are being hijacked by Muslim extremists. But these anti-American despots treat their people worse than Westerners do."

Is for instance Venezuela being hijacked by Muslim extremists?
Is Chavez a despot? How so? Does Chavez not share the land and the oil profits with the people of Venezuela? How's that "treating people worse then westerners do"? Was Chavez not democratically elected by a clear majority of the people?
Where's the evidence for these allegations?


It's interesting to see that finally attempts at discrediting Perkins are emerging.
How does that saying go? "First they ignore you, then they mock you..." ("...then they hurt you, then you win").
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slor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-12-05 07:54 AM
Response to Original message
2. Looks like a good read. Thanks ! n/t
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mandyky Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-12-05 07:57 AM
Response to Original message
3. Rachel and Liz had the author on a few weeks ago
Sounds like a great read, for sure!
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-12-05 08:23 AM
Response to Original message
5. Audio-
Audio-
Guest: John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
Fri., December 10, 2004
Deadline Live w/Jack Blood

mp3's-
pt1-
http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Blood/0412/20041210_Fri_JackBlood1.mp3
pt2-
http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Blood/0412/20041210_Fri_JackBlood2.mp3

Realplayer RAM-
http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Blood/0412/20041210_Fri_JackBlood.ram
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