Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2004)
Fairly recently, I started listening to books on tape while driving. I figured I needed a break from all the heavy stuff I do in my "free time," and listening to the news did not fit the bill. The process is pretty painless – I go regularly to my local library to get a stack of discs and leave them in my car so that I can listen while driving between work, carpool, and errands. I've succeeded in spending a lot of pleasant moments with my new "friends," particularly Bill Bryson, Julia Child, and Peter Mayle. This has done wonders in leavening my spirits. But lately, for some reason, I have been drawn to heavier material. It started with Blindsided by Richard Cohen, about his life with MS. Now, it's Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. This book is my every nightmare come true. When I speak about it, the first thing most people ask is, "It's fiction, right?" Wrong. And, I'm more sorry about that than I can say.
I can't wait to finish it, and yet I'm fascinated in the ghoulish way that people pick at their scabs, or slow down on the highway to gaze at an accident scene. This book exposes the underbelly of American foreign policy and makes me understand in a very visceral way why so much of the world thinks poorly of us, to put it delicately. This type of behavior did not just begin when W took office. While I wish I could blame the whole thing on him, it predates his presidency by quite a bit and did not limit itself to one party or the other.
Most of the time, the average person doesn't know much about the things I want to talk about – voting machines, supposed "glitches," HAVA, various secretaries of state, elected officials and local boards of elections doing amazingly egregious things. If anything on this topic makes its way to the mainstream media, it's generally hidden on an inner page somewhere or it's slanted in such a way that you'd swear it's not even the same story that appeared on the Web. Things have started to change of late, but it's been a long hard slog for those of us trying to break through.
This book is more bad news, big time, on an entirely different front. But to my surprise, when I've wanted to talk about it, people had either heard of the book or had no problem believing its basic premise. I find that heartening, in a way. I highly recommend that you read this book, as knowledge is the first step to action. We need to know what our government is doing in our name. And, if we object, which I suspect the majority of us do, we need to demand an accounting and a change of course. It's as simple as that.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit that I have not finished the book yet. I'm in the middle of the seventh of eight CDs. But I have a burning need to get this up and out. I already know that Perkins has left his evil ways behind and is doing what he can to atone for his past behavior. Besides, this isn't a review in the typical New York Times manner, nor has it any pretensions to be. It's more of a modest, "This is something I think is worth reading, and here's why."
John Perkins worked for private company Chas. T. Main from 1971-1981. His assignment formed a little understood, but critical, arm of the government and its foreign policy. Initially recruited by the N.S.A., "the nation's largest and least understood spy organization," his status as chief economist cloaked the project with maximum government deniability. The concept of "economic hit man" was based on the early '50s success of the C.I.A.'s Kermit Roosevelt in toppling the democratically elected leader of Iran in order to install the more amenable Shah.
So, at that point, the decision was made to use organizations like the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government...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.
That is the goal of my review as well.
Perkins outlines the American thirst for globalization, privatization and what he terms "corporatocracy" in its quest for global empire. The old adage, "What's good for GM is good for America" has become both a narrower and a broader concept. What's good for a few, very large corporations and private consulting firms – Bechtel, Halliburton, and others that are not household names – drives American foreign policy, and benefits only its ultra-rich citizens. Ethics, social conscience, and the social welfare of the countries we seek to plunder, corrupt, and ensnare play no part in the equation. The cost to them, and to the world as a whole, is as unforeseen and disregarded as it is onerous.
I'll try to concisely describe the three prongs used in implementing this policy. The first is the "chief economist" (actually, not a trained economist at all) Perkins, who was dispatched to whatever third world country had something America wanted – oil, natural resources, or strategic geographic location (like Panama). His instructions were to spend several months in the country, getting to know the lay of the land, and to then craft a proposal that included grossly inflated projections regarding the benefits of building specific infrastructure, like a power plant or oil pipelines. The multi-million or -billion dollar contract cost would be covered by loans by the ever-ready and complicit I.M.F. and World Bank. All work would be channeled through American firms, who would supply the plans and labor, thereby receiving mammoth contracts and huge profits.
The way the loan agreement was written made it impossible for the country to keep up with payments, leading to its defaulting on the loan. The American companies had already received their funds when the loan was made, putting the ensnared country in a lose-lose situation. They had saddled their population with debt for generations to come, had only further enriched a tiny crust of the local elite, and now, their sizable debt left them beholden to America. They could only repay it by becoming America's puppet, through various key U.N. votes, or allowing us to take over their coveted natural resources.
In order to achieve this domination, there were back-up plans if the economic hit man's salesmanship wasn't sufficiently persuasive. The next step involved calling in the "jackals" to foment civil unrest, either via general strikes or a coup. If these methods of "gentle persuasion" were unsuccessful, fatal accidents could always be arranged. Perkins cites Ecuador's Jaime Roldos and Panama's Omar Torrijos as paying the ultimate cost of standing up to American demands. If even the jackals couldn't bring about the desired results, it was time to bring in American troops. Does anyone remember the invasion of Panama in 1989? Understood within this context, it takes on much more ominous overtones. The world roundly condemned our actions. The American press blackout that prevented on-the-ground coverage during the invasion, not to mention outside criticism, presaged the muzzle that W has used so effectively this time around.
Perkins wants us to grasp the way this philosophy of global empire has taken over our foreign policy, and understands the war in Iraq within this context. Saddam Hussein was intended to be another example of the prototype used in Saudi Arabia, America's biggest, yet untold, success story. Building all of those cities from scratch in the desert did more than rake in billions of dollars for private contractors. It cemented a relationship between the two countries that pictures of W and Saudi leaders holding hands only hint at. It's not only oil that brought us to Iraq, according to Perkins. It's the presence of water, a big issue in the Middle East, as well as Iraq's strategic geographic location. It's been said that whoever controls Iraq controls the Middle East. Perkins buys into that theory, and in the coming months, we will see how the story plays out.
Here is Perkins explaining what happened if he failed at his job. This is from an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251 Referring to the fates of Roldos and Torrijos, Perkins says:
Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the C.I.A.-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in... Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring – to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we've been very successful. We've built the largest empire in the history of the world. It's been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It's only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.
Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.
CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation for electronic vote fraud. Within eighteen months, the project had distributed over 3200 copies across the country and beyond. CER now concentrates on group showings, OpEd pieces, articles, reviews, interviews, discussion sessions, networking, conferences, anything that promotes awareness of this critical problem. Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005.
I've believed for a long time that this was the book to give friends and relatives deceived by American-exceptionalism. The only problem is, the "America is perfect" ideology is so in-grained in this nation that true jingoists will insist Perkins is lying.
Interesting how he's stated that what eventually turned him around was becoming a father... having a young daughter.
I can only hope that this book might do for people what "The Ugly American" did for me during my very first year of college. How lucky I was to have a professor dedicated to exposing the truth who assigned that as our very first book. He probably saved me from a lifetime of ignorance. I know he helped define the activism that moves me today.
Thanks for this piece!! A fabulous job!!
by
Linda Milazzo (107 articles, 0 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 136 comments)
on Monday, January 1, 2007 at 9:18:47 PM
Wait till you hear the interview we'll have with Rep Ron Paul on 1/10 on this..
another key book is Creature from Jekyll Island ...the REAL powers that be!
Mary Ann Gould, Voice of the Voters, a one-hour radio program that centers on voting issues and democracy.
The program can be heard locally in the SE Pennsylvania and S New Jersey area via WNJC Radio 1360AM on Wednesdays or it can be heard live via the internet.
by
Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 7:53:57 AM
two entirely different books. Stiglitz gives an historical view of some of the reasons the underdeveloped countries remain undeveloped, and Perkins wrote about the activities of the US "intelligence" community uses these institutions and others to further the desires of American Corporations. There's enough crap going on in the US Regime from day one to keep everyone reading for the rest of his or her life.
tedbohne
by
tedbohne (87 articles, 103 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 119 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 8:56:14 AM
and show me some another society on Earth which never had anything like that(maybe in some another form) or does not have it now. Mr. Perkins wrote a great book but it is by no means some kind of a revelation. I am not saying there is no hope. But what I am saying is that all people who surrounded Mr. Perkins were not immune to the idea of individual success and associated power and that so far there is no alternative, unfortunately to that perspective when it comes to the choice of, say, young man in his life. I have recently seen a Twilight Zone episode in which a simple man rejected such perspective because then he would not be able to clutter his desk, play football with kids and drive a 1927 automobile. He had 'his own twilight zone' and in that zone the guardian angel still had to take care of him from time to time. But we do not have angels. We have economic hitmans. To change that we need not transformations but a different criteria system for success and that has to come from childhood. Mr. Perkins has a daughter, right? Will he bring her up differently or still adopt a very famous John O'Hara's statement from his book,'Yes, of course, you want your children to be decent human beings and also successful but if both is imposssible, success surely is preferable.'
How about them apples?
by
Mark Sashine (47 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3362 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 9:12:08 AM
It is a valuable book, but his last chapter regarding what to do next is horiffic.
He really doesn't undersatnd how the system works, or what is wrong with it. He is simply a witness/participant, which has some value, but not in terms of analysis. By his own admission, he is a guy who made up numbers as his professional career.
And making up numbers is exactly what is wrong with the system, in ways great and small 2+2=5. Liberal and conservatives alike invest in the stock market hoping to realized gains by manipulating the currency. But as Perkins shows so clearly, one mans debt is another mans profit. Debt is used as leverage to control people, and everybody is doing it. Even young children are investing in the stock market so they can pay for their college education, where they will be fed more lies regarding the structure of the economy.
As Pogo said: We have met the enemy, and he is us.
The unions and liberals and even the grandfather of the Left (Chomsky) all make their money on the military-industrial complex. Everybody is addicted to it in this country, and Perkins simply spread that addiction to other countries.
What we need is a divestiture movement from American corporations for all investments. Lending money is okay, but expecting more than the principle back just creates inflation. Also, we need to encourage people/corporations to break-even, not make huge profits. Profits and Losses are proportional to one another. One mans profit is another mans overhead. Money should not be used as a commodity or hoarded.
The so-called non-profit universities are the single biggest problem facing mankind. They cast a long economic shadow and re-teach the lies of this system from one generation to the next.
Perkins book is a small piece of evidence of what is wrong, and it really shows how culturally isolated Americans are from the rest of the world and the power structure of their own government. Pogo knew Perkins long before Perkins knew himself.
www.behappyandfree.com
by
Steve Consilvio (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 75 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 10:19:57 AM
Hello Joan, I much appreciated your article on Perkin's book. And I applaud the
work you are so deeply and passionately involved in. My only concern about
getting involved in election reform is that we are putting the cart before the
horse. If we don't clean out the people who have been running for office and
making sure that their ties to the moneyed classes are not looked at carefully,
we are only making it possible for the same sort of people to be elected. I
would love to hear your thoughts on this.
thanks,
DE
by
Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 4:23:40 PM
books to go along with "Confessions" for those interested
Joan,
I admire your ability to do books on CD. I got Jimmy Carter's latest book
on CD and find it harder to keep track compared to actual reading, even though
I have an hour of commuting each way to/from work.
Confessions is one book I went through pretty easily. I found it a great
complimentary book to "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann.
Right now I'm in the midst of reading "Infinity's Rainbow - The Politics of
Energy, Climate and Globalization" by Michael Byron and it seems to complete
this trilogy of books.
Even with the Democratic successes of 2006, I'm already getting a strong
sense that election integrity will be a back burner issue as Dems are content
just to have some return to power -- the machines must be OK! But we in the
election integrity community know better. It seems to me that corporatists
have put these machines in place and corporatism trumps everything, including
politics and democracy itself.
I don't know if you have followed the antics in Riverside County, CA, but
county supervisors have pretty much locked citizens out of the process. After
a disasterous November election that saw voters turned away from the polls
due to long lines compounded by voting machines running out of paper, they
formed a 5-member panel of former county insiders to look into election issues.
The makeup of this panel was announced during opening comments, so the public
had no say in the matter at all. The suggestion of the panel was made to a
newspaper, so this county has no interest or intention of including citizens
in their government.
I'm tired of banging my head against the wall and I seek in 2007 to look at
ways I can take steps to get the corporate monkey off my back. I will look
into alternative energy sources for our home and more efficient use of
electricity, natural gas and water.
Thanks for all you do,
PJ, Riverside County, CA
by
Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 4:30:56 PM
Don't know where you find the time to do all the writing you do!!!
This is an awesome book. We saw Perkins speak here. He said, "If they ever
report I committed suicide by shooting myself several times in the head, don't
believe it."
NT, NH
by
Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 4:33:32 PM
I did not like the style of the "Confessions" book...
joan, thanks for keeping me on your list. Mary Kiraly told me about your
work.
I must say, however, I did not like the style of the "Confessions" book,
because the approach seemed like a novel, and yet i felt that important
information was being conveyed. I am easily confused, so didn't finish the
book.
let me know what else you're reading, as we have a book club "the democratic
connection" that meets regularly and reads political books.
SD
by
Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 7:44:37 PM
Dear Joan,
I have not only read the book by John Perkins, I have purchased over a
dozen copies and given them away as presents to people I feel will be
moved by the insights and revelations expressed. Thanks for writing.
I urge others to do the same....Buy the book and give it away. Tell the
people you give it to to pass it on to others after they've read it.
Best regards,
Cliff Thaell
Leon County Commissioner at Large,
Leon County, Florida
by
Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Thursday, January 4, 2007 at 8:08:31 PM
