The Moral Transformation of an Economic Hit Man

[Time for change]

Writing this book has been deeply emotional, and often a painful and humiliating experience. It has been frightening in a way nothing I ever faced before has been frightening. But it has opened me to a sense of relief I have never known until now, a feeling I can only describe as ecstatic. – John Perkins, summarizing his experience in writing “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”


“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” is best known for its exposure or shedding of light on a corrupt system (that Perkins refers to as a “multi-trillion dollar scam”) that keeps or drives billions into poverty in order to add to the wealth and power of the already wealthy and powerful. Much of the book’s power and legitimacy comes from the fact that, while there are many books today that discuss this corrupt system, this is one of the few, if not the only book that tells the story from the point of view of an insider who spent several years working for and benefiting from that system. That story makes Perkins’ book very important reading for anyone interested in understanding why 850 million people are malnourished today, and approximately five million children die every year of hunger and its consequences, despite the fact that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone.

But there is an equally compelling story in Perkins’ book – the story of the moral transformation of a man who knowingly played a major role in this corrupt system for ten years, but who eventually developed the courage not only to quit the system but to write a book about it, in the face of substantial personal risk. I find such a story to be tremendously uplifting in a world where the moral transformation of society is greatly needed in order to improve upon or even preserve world civilization as we know it, and is even needed in order to preserve the life sustaining qualities of our planet itself. The story of that moral transformation is what I emphasize in this post.


What economic hit men do and how the system works

Here’s the way Perkins explains the system: Economic hit men (EHM) are paid by U.S. corporations to develop economic projections for major development projects in third world countries. Their projections are supposed to predict substantial economic growth and thereby justify huge loans from international lending institutions. The money from the loan then is immediately funneled into U.S. oil, engineering or construction companies (which is a precondition of the loan) to develop their projects.

The problem is that the projects often or usually benefit only the country’s wealthy and powerful elite, who are represented by the very government that arranged the loan. If all works out well for the involved corporations, the country is unable to repay the debt, which forces them to be perpetually indebted and consequently ensures their loyalty to the United States. That enforced loyalty ensures that the country’s government will perform favors for us, such as allowing our corporations access to their natural resources, allowing the construction of U.S. military bases on their soil, and the casting of crucial U.N. votes in our favor.

Thus, the huge debts incurred under the system cause great harm to the vast majority of a country’s population, not only because of increased taxes and severe cuts in health care, education and other social services, but also because the projects themselves usually deplete a country’s resources and pollute its environment, often displacing large segments of the population in the process. At the time that Perkins wrote his book, third world debt had grown to $2.5 trillion, and the annual interest on their debt was larger than annual spending on health care and education combined.

If the EHMs are unsuccessful in their efforts to convince a government to play ball, then what Perkins calls jackals are sent in to assassinate or overthrow the uncooperative government officials in question, as was done for example in Iran in 1953, in Guatemala in 1954, in Chile in 1973, or in Indonesia in 1965. If that doesn’t work either, then we send in our military, as we did in Panama in 1989 or in Iraq in 1991 and 2003.

Perkins explains that many of the lower level people involved in these efforts may not even realize that they are doing anything wrong. To many of them, the whole system is justified by its capacity to increase “economic growth”, which supposedly brings benefits to everyone. But that is a fallacy. Even when the forecasts of the EHMs are correct, in that “economic growth” actually does occur, the benefits are generally severely unequal in their distribution. Furthermore, the whole concept of “economic growth” is terribly misleading. If a country is bombed or its environment is destroyed through the depletion of its natural resources or the pollution of its air, water, or soil, the negative effects are not counted against economic growth, while the rebuilding efforts or projects that destroy the environment are counted in favor of economic growth. Thus, the Iraq War has resulted in “economic growth” in Iraq, even as the country is being destroyed, nearly a million Iraqis have been killed, and four million have been displaced from their homes.

In the words of John Perkins:

We build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors...

How John Perkins became an EHM and self-justified what he did

Perkins was not fooled into doing what he did. Rather, he was seduced by the money and the sex that his career opened for him. He embarked on his career with his eyes wide open. He explains that he was informed by Claudine, the beautiful woman who was assigned to recruit him, that:

“My assignment is to mold you into an economic hit man. No one can know about your involvement – not even your wife… I’ll be very frank with you, teach you all I can during the next weeks. Then you’ll have to choose. Your decision is final. Once you’re in you’re in for life…”

“We’re paid – well paid – to cheat countries around the globe out of billions of dollars”… My job, she said, was “to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire – to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs… “

Yet throughout the 1971 to 1980 period that he worked for MAIN, the private company that hired him to be an EHM, Perkins was besieged by periodic doubts – even from the very beginning:

Every time I walked away from Claudine’s apartment, I wondered whether I was doing the right thing. Somewhere in my heart, I suspected I was not. But the frustrations of my past haunted me. MAIN seemed to offer everything my life lacked, and yet I kept asking myself if Tom Paine would have approved. In the end, I convinced myself that by learning more, by experiencing it, I could better expose it later – the old “working from the inside” justification. When I shared this idea with Claudine, she gave me a perplexed look. “Don’t be ridiculous. Once you’re in, you can never get out…”

The ambivalence that Perkins felt about his job during this period was a recurring theme. An incident from his follow-up book, “The Secret History of the American Empire – Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption”, depicts this well. While working on a project in Egypt, Perkins was taken aback and bewildered by the utter contempt with which some Egyptian government officials treated him. Then it dawned on him:

The Egyptians knew something that only a few of my countrymen comprehended: We used data… for empire building. EHM reports were far better weapons than Crusader swords had ever been… People like me were the real danger. We were the ones who took advantage of the havoc, channeled the fear, and made sure that those who capitulated honored their articles of surrender… Ultimately we had to be pampered because we sat at the top of the heap. Men like Dr. Asim had no choice but to give in or lose their jobs. And he detested me for it.

Ecuador – an example

In his two books Perkins talks a lot about the destruction wrought by him and other EHMs to the people of several different countries, including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Panama, Columbia and Ecuador. He emphasizes Ecuador a good deal because he had a special fondness for that country originating from his Peace Corps days before he joined MAIN.

He talks about the destruction of vast areas of Ecuador’s rain forests, the transformation of rivers into cesspools, and the disappearance of several animal species in Ecuador as the result of a $1.3 billion oil pipeline constructed there. He notes that for every $100 of oil taken from the Amazon forests, $75 goes to the oil companies, $18 goes to pay off the debt, and only $3 goes to the people who need the money the most. Since 1968, the nation’s debt grew from a quarter billion dollars to $16 billion, poverty level grew from 50% to 70%, and under- or unemployment grew from 15% to 70%.

There was a brief interlude, however. In 1979 Ecuador elected its first President, after a long line of dictators. Jaime Roldos came to the Ecuadorian presidency promising to put his peoples’ interests above the interests of the oil companies, and he did in fact stand up against the oil companies. In May, 1981, shortly after warning foreign interests that they would be asked to leave his country if their plans didn’t benefit his people, he died in a helicopter crash, widely believed in Latin America to be the work of the CIA. Roldos was replaced by a man who was compliant with U.S. wishes, and it was all downhill for Ecuador from there.

In 2003, Perkins came back to Ecuador to try to prevent a war that he held himself partially responsible for provoking. This would be a war fought against indigenous Ecuadorians against the Ecuadorian Army assisted by U.S. Special Forces advisors, on behalf of oil companies who accused an indigenous community of taking its workers hostage, as an excuse for war. Lawyers who represented the indigenous community in an effort to get the oil companies off their land had recently died in a plane crash.


The Carter interlude

Perkins does note one U.S. president who served during the time period of his book, who bucked the system. Commenting upon the unfortunate failure of Jimmy Carter to win re-election in 1980:

A president whose greatest goal was world peace and who was dedicated to reducing U.S. Dependence on oil was replaced by a man who believed that the United States’ rightful place was at the top of a world pyramid held up my military muscle, and that controlling oil fields wherever they existed was part of our Manifest Destiny. A president who installed solar panels on White House roofs was replaced by one who, immediately upon occupying the Oval Office, had them removed.

Carter may have been an ineffective politician, but he had a vision for America that was consistent with the one defined in our Declaration of Independence. In retrospect, he now seems naively archaic, a throwback to the ideals that molded this nation and drew so many of our grandparents to her shores. When we compare him to his immediate predecessors and successors, he is an anomaly. His world view was inconsistent with that of the EHMs. Reagan, on the other hand, was most definitely a global empire builder; a servant of the corporatocracy…

Perkins notes that the airplane crash death of Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldos occurred shortly after Reagan took office; and the president of Panama, Omar Torrijos, who re-negotiated with President Carter the Panama Canal Treaty that the Reagan administration so despised, died in another airplane crash a few months later.


Perkins’ decision to quit being an EHM

Perkins says that it was the courageous examples set by the presidents of Ecuador and Panama, in standing up to the corporatocracy in order to better the lives of their own people, which finally made him resolve to quit being part of the system. He said, “I would try to model myself after modern heroes like Jaime Roldos and Omar Torrijos.”

His final decision came a few months later, while on vacation in the Virgin Islands. He was wondering why he should have qualms about exploiting the peoples of other lands, given that he was raised to admire Americans who had exploited other peoples. He was viewing an ancient plantation formerly worked by slaves. He notes:

The tranquility of the place masked its history of brutality, even as it masked the rage that surged within me. … I came face-to-face with the shocking fact that I too had been a slaver, that my job at MAIN had not been just about using debt to draw poor countries into the global empire. My inflated forecasts were not merely vehicles for assuring that when my country needed oil we could call in our pound of flesh… My job was also about people and their families, people akin to the ones who had died to construct the wall I sat on, people I had exploited. For ten years, I had been the heir of those slavers who had marched into African jungles and hauled men and women off to waiting ships. Mine had been a more modern approach, subtler – I never had to see the dying bodies, smell the rotting flesh, or hear the screams of agony. But what I had done was every bit as sinister…

I closed my eyes to the walls that had been built by slaves torn from their African homes. I tried to shut it all out… I leaped up, grabbed the stick, and began slamming it against the stone walls. I beat on those walls until I collapsed from exhaustion…. I knew that if I ever went back to my former life, to MAIN and all it represented, I would be lost forever… I had become a slave. I could continue to beat myself up as I had beat on those stone walls, or I could escape.

As soon as he returned from his vacation, April 1980, he walked into his boss’s office and resigned.


Perkins tries several times to write his book

Shortly after resigning from MAIN, Perkins resolved to write his book, initially planned to be titled “The Conscience of an Economic Hit Man”. Though he was careful not to tell his former employer about his plans, he nevertheless did tell several people, in an attempt to elicit ideas for the book. Word got around, and before too long he was offered a job as a consultant, which he accepted. On his first day working his new job he was asked if he was planning any books, and he was told that part of the condition of his job was that he not write any books about his previous work. He answered that he was not planning to write a book, thinking that otherwise threats would follow.

A similar pattern was repeated two more times, once following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, and once following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1991. Those two events impressed upon him the precarious state of world peace and the need to speak out against the forces that threatened it. But each time he again dropped his project, and on those occasions threats were involved.


Final decision to write the book

It was on September 11, 2001, that Perkins decided once and for all to write his book. This time he wouldn’t tell anyone about it until it was published, so there would be no more threats or bribes. Standing at Ground Zero shortly after the attacks, Perkins says “I was thinking about all the other places in the world where people hate our companies, our military, our policies, and our march toward global empire.”

Specifically, he gives two reasons for his final decision. One involved his only child, Jessica, who had just finished college. Discussing his fears with her, she said, “Don’t worry, dad. If they get you, I’ll take over where you left off. We need to do this for the grandchildren I hope to give you some day!” The other reason he gives is:

My dedication to the country where I was raised, to my love of the ideals expressed by our Founding Fathers, to my deep commitment to the American republic that today promises “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all people, everywhere, and to my determination after 9/11 not to sit idly by any longer while EHMs turn that republic into a global empire”.

Perkins ends with some final words for his readers

For me, confessing was an essential part of my personal wake-up call. Like all confessions, it is the first step toward redemption. Now it is your turn… Ask yourself these questions. What do I need to confess? How have I deceived myself and others? … Why have I allowed myself to be sucked into a system that I know is unbalanced? What will I do to make sure our children, and all children everywhere, are able to fulfill the dream of our Founding Fathers, the dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? What course will I take to end the needless starvation, and make sure there is never again a day like September 11? …

These are the essential questions of our time. Each of us needs to answer them in our own way and to express our answers clearly… Paine and Jefferson and all the other patriots are watching over our shoulders. Their words continue to inspire us today… It is now time for each and every one of us to step up to the battle line, to ask the important questions, to search our souls for our own answers, and to take action.

[Karenina]

1. Connecting the dots

to see the "big picture," are all the coloring books out of print??? :freak:

[Time for change]

7. Part of the big picture is the paucity of news we get in our country

Ecuadorians were much better informed about Bush’s reasons for the Iraq invasion than most Americans are. While in Ecuador, Perkins was frequently asked about why the United States was threatening Iraq:

The impending war was discussed on the front pages of Ecuadorian newspapers that made their way into this jungle town, and the coverage was very different from coverage in the States. It included references to the Bush family’s ownership of oil companies and United Fruit, and to Vice President Cheney’s role as former CEO of Halliburton.

These newspapers were read to men and women who had never attended school. Everyone seemed to take an interest in this issue. Here I was, in the Amazon rain forest, among illiterate people many in North America consider “backward,” even “savages,” and yet probing questions were being asked that struck at the heart of the global empire.

[yorkiemommie1]

2. one of the most important books I have ever read

if not "THE" most important.

[cascadiance]

8. Once I read it, it galvanized me!

My mom recommended it to me, and she had some in her book group who weren't staunch democrats recommend it to her.

We've both wondered about my father's role as a potential "economic hitman", when we lived overseas, and though we don't think he was in it to the extent that Perkins was, we do wonder about the nature of the work he and his colleagues were doing. Another film that hit me hard on this issue personally was "Citizen Stan", since it mentioned that Stan Sheinbaum headed up the infamous Michigan State University "Vietnam Project" back in the late 50's, where he unknowingly lead a group of undercover CIA agents that were helping train South Vietnamese forces to torture the Viet Cong, etc.

http://www.cia-on-campus.org/msu.edu/msu.html

Stan Sheinbaum left MSU in early 60's, and supposedly the CIA elements of the Vietnam project left then. But my dad joined MSU around 66 and we all lived over in Thailand during the height of the Vietnam War in another MSU project then. There were some folks mentioned in this article that worked with us there then, and I still wonder if they and others were tied to the CIA both there and subsequently when we lived in Turkey where we were there right before the 74 invasion of Cyprus that supposedly Kissinger had a hand in according to recent disclosures. One of those people he worked with is the uncle of a former Republican congressman that just got voted out in November, who I knew when I was in high school.

Now my dad is afflicted with Alzheimers so I can't really press him for more info on what was happening then, but both my Mom and I doubt that he was on the inside of any of those operations there. It still is nagging me now and has over this last year.

Still haven't got around yet to reading Perkins' newest book. Hoping to have some time soon.

[rainy]

3. This was the first book I listened to on my ipod. Now I walk and listen to

books all the time. This book is so well written it reads like a novel.

[glitch]

4. Another awesome post. K & R nt

[otherlander]

5. K&R

[bonito]

6. Kick & R

[Raksha]

9. K & R, and I'm getting the book. Right now, in fact! n/t

[shance]

10. Invaluable post TFC*** Thank you for this wonderful information.

n/t

[mmonk]

11. I have throughly enjoyed that book.

It sits on a small bookself near my bed where my favorite books reside. I found it riveting for a nonfiction book.

[welshTerrier2]

12. lots more where that came from

if you liked Perkins' "Confessions" book, you might want to check out one or more of the following (excerpted from a previous DU thread I posted):

I would also refer you to a couple of authors who have first hand knowledge on the subject of US imperialism. The best of the bunch, in my opinion, is Chalmers Johnson. His book The Sorrows of Empire provides a more than one hundred year analysis of US foreign policy and details the blatant imperialism of the US government. Here are a few links to articles he's written on the subject:

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/cj_int/cj_int1.h
http://buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/056
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IB01Aa01.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE17Ak04.html

And second is "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. In this book, Perkins provides a first-hand account of his experience as an "economic hitman." He was directly involved with exploiting governments in South America and the Middle East for purely commercial purposes. All of this was done with the assistance of the US government and the World Bank. It was no small coincidence that Paul Wolfowitz was appointed by bush to head the World Bank and to exert pressure on the puppet Iraqi government to comply with the great oil giveaway. Here's a link to a recent interview Perkins did with Amy Goodman on DemocracyNow: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251

Also, please read (or watch) the DemocracyNow interview with Greg Palast at this link: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/21/1455245

Here are the final two paragraph's from The Sorrows of Empire. The point I'm making, and others far more articulate than I am are making, is that we are rapidly running out of time and we cannot continue to play our little political games while the real crisis looms. I am no politician and have no idea what will "sell" politically to the voters; what I do know is that without educating them and gaining from them the power of their support, there will be no way to prevent what is predicted below:

There is plenty in the world to occupy our military radicals and empire enthusiasts for the time being. But there can be no doubt that the course on which we are launched will lead us into new versions of the Bay of Pigs and updated, speeded-up replays of Vietnam War scenarios. When such disasters occur, as they - or as-yet-unknown versions of them - certainly will, a world disgusted by the betrayal of the idealism associated with the United States will welcome them, just as most people did when the former USSR came apart. Like other empires of the past century, the United States has chosen to live not prudently, in peace and prosperity, but as a massive military power athwart an angry, resistant globe.

There is one development that could conceivably stop this process of overreaching: the people could retake control of the Congress, reform it along with the corrupted elections laws that have made it into a forum for special interests, turn it into a genuine assembly of democratic representatives, and cut off the supply of money to the Pentagon and the secret intelligence agencies. We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of its endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us."

[Time for change]

13. Thank you for the links

I agree that Chalmers Johnsons' books were very informative -- talk about the same subject as Perkins from another point of view. He also wrote a third book following "The Sorrows of Empire", called "Nemesis -- The Last Days of the American Republic". He says it is his last book to try to warn our country where we're heading before it's too late -- if it's not too late already. Here is an interview with Amy Goodman about it:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/27/1454229

And here's what he says about the situation in his prologue:

Unfortunately, our political system may no longer be capable of saving the United States as we know it, since it is hard to imagine any president or Congress standing up to the powerful vested interests of the Pentagon, the secret intelligence agencies, and the military-industrial complex…

If our republican form of government is to be saved, only an upsurge of direct democracy might be capable of doing so… I remain hopeful that Americans can still rouse themselves to save our democracy. But the time in which to head off financial and moral bankruptcy is growing short. The present book is my attempt to explain how we got where we are, the manifold distortions we have imposed on the system we inherited from the Founding Fathers, and our appointment with Nemesis (the goddess of retribution and vengeance, and punisher of pride and hubris), now that she is in the neighborhood.

[Selatius]

14. This is why people in Latin America have elected leaders like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.

If there are reactions to what we've done to these people, those leaders there today are it.

[Time for change]

18. I would rather see anti-American presidents elected in Latin America and throughout the world

than see our country pursue a clear path to empire.

Our current course is a formula for the end of the American republic and world wide catastrophe. Much better that leaders spring up around the world to deter us from a course like that.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to post this information.

Hope you know how helpful it is.

[Time for change]

19. It was certainly very helpful to me

in giving me greater insight into how our country and our world operates.

It would be great if this was made required reading in high schools and given big play in colleges and universities.

[madmunchie]

16. An absolutely phenomenal book and a life changing result happens

after reading it. I just wish ever body KNEW what was in this book.

[Yavin4]

17. Economic Growth is the Mondern-Day Colonialism

Instead of civilizing the "heathen" world and forcing the Christian God down their throats, we are going to bring economic growth to them and turn every nation on earth into suburban America. Because just like the colonialists who thought that every race wants to be a White and Christian, we believe that everyone wants to be suburban America.

[Time for change]

21. Yes -- Of course a good deal of hypocrisy was is was involved in both situations

Whether it be those purporting to be interested in Christianizing the "heathens" or in promoting "economic growth", most of those heavily involved in the process must have known that they were doing it for their own profit instead. And yet there also must be many who honestly believe in their Christianizing or "economic growth" mission.

And then, there are many who are somewhat ambivalent about it or who think they believe one thing but deep down in their hearts they know that what they are doing is wrong.

[porkrind]

20. K & R. This was an excellent book

Noam Chomsky's books are good after reading Perkins to fill in the why and how.

[Tsiyu]

22. Thanks for these excerpts

Reading Perkins' words about Jimmy Carter is a bittersweet experience.

I had so much hope when I cast my first ever vote for him.

[Time for change]

23. The replacement of Carter/Mondal with Reagan/Bush was a major turning point

in our nation, signalling our downfall.

It was the Iranian hostage crisis that did Carter in, and there is a good deal of evidence that the Reagan/Bush team made a deal with the Iranians to hold off on the release of the hostages -- who were all released within 5 minutes of Reagan taking office.

That would be treason.

But there seemed to be a determined plan, even on the part of many Democrats, to let sleeping dogs lie.

[BornagainDUer]

24. Fortunately I didn't have to atone for anything I did while in the

military.
I have no regrets for my service and honorable discharge.

I one time confronted some higher ups on their negligence regarding a crime being committed. I went through the chain of command process and got my ass pasted good. I saw another kid get put in jail; taking the rap for what higher ups did. Again I got charged with something I never did and even after it was proven I didn't do it the punishment was carried out. I got out of the military and kept going back to these instances in dreams, or just in remembering.

I started getting pissed about it all years later. The lies, the arrogance of "flyboy" officers in their attitude toward foreigners and "gooks". Like peeling away the layers of an onion I eventually got to the core issues then I started to write.

[Time for change]

25. What an awful experience

What did you write about?

[HamdenRice]

26. I'm really, really sorry -- but I just don't buy Perkin's account

First let me put on my flame retardent suit.

OK.

Also a proviso: I haven't read either of his books, and have heard many interviews with him that actually made me not want to spring for the books.

While the overall economic critique that Perkins lays out is pretty spot on, there is something fishy about his books. I was on the fringes of his world, from time to time -- the international bank lending system -- and I didn't ever hear of anyone who called himself or anyone else an economic hitman.

Also, he doesn't seem to make a distinction between the World Bank and the IMF. Another insider economist who lots of progressives like is Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank, who wrote a devastating critique from an insider's perspective. And from what he wrote, and from what I already knew, there's a big difference between the two. If there are economic hitmen, they would be from the IMF, and probably not from the World Bank. Believe it or not, the World Bank is pretty liberal compared to the IMF, and Stiglitz showed how it was the IMF that was much more responsible for fu**ing up poor countries than the World Bank. (Remember, it was the World Bank staff and management that righteously screwed Paul Wolfowitz, ending his catastrophic career in DC.)

Also, it seems improbable to me that Perkins would be recruited by the NSA rather than the CIA. The NSA is pretty much just signals intelligence. The cloak and dagger stuff was done by the CIA. It doesn't really make sense that the NSA would have recruited him.

Lastly, Perkins has written elsewhere some pretty unbelievable stuff. He says that he can change himself into a jaguar. He's written a bit about shapeshifting shamans, and doesn't write about it metaphorically; he actually believes you can turn yourself into a big cat.

Sorry, but he loses some credibility points on that.

[Time for change]

27. Some clarifications

I appreciate your viewpoint on this, and I'd like to clarify a few things.

First, with regard to these people referring to themselves as "economic hit men". I think that it should be obvious why these people wouldn't refer to themselves as that in public, or even very much in private. The word implies that they are doing something sinister. Perkins himself gives the following account of the actual use of the word, with respect to the woman who recruited him:

Then she informed me that her assignment was to mold me into an economic hit man... I was embarrassed by the nervous laughter I heard coming from me. She smiled and assured me that humor was one of the reasons they used the term... After that, she seldom used the full name; we were simply EHMs...

.
As far as a reader of his book can tell, the full word, or even EHM for that matter, may be only rarely used in conversation, even in private.

With respect to the NSA bit: It was Perkins' assumption that NSA was responsible for his recruitment, but he doesn't say that NSA recruited him. He was recruited by and worked for a private company, MAIN, for about ten years. He makes the assumption that NSA was responsible becuase he had recently applied for a job at NSA and taken a bunch of personality profile tests. It's all very murky from Perkins' point of view, and he never claims to know precisely how it came to be that he was recruited into his job, except that a close associate of his fiance's family, who he refers to as "Uncle Frank" was undoubtedly responsible.

With respect to the World Bank and the IMF, Perkins doesn't get much into specifics. Here's how he introduces the subject:

The 1960s also witnessed another type of revolution: the empowerment of international corporations and of multinational organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. The latter were financed primarily by the United States and our sister empire builders in Europe. A symbiotic relationship developed between governments, corporations, and multinational organzations.

With regard to the jaguar stuff, he doesn't say anything about that in either of his two books that I read, so I can't comment on that.

Anyhow, you say yourself that "While the overall economic critique that Perkins lays out is pretty spot on..."

It seems to me that that is pretty much the central issue. That's the part that gives Perkins' story imporance from the standpoint of someone trying to understand how the system works. As for the personal stuff, all I can say is that I found that to be quite convincing as well.

[HamdenRice]

28. That's more nuanced than his speeches and interviews

I'll keep an open mind and look into the books. If you want to learn about his other interests, you can google "John Perkins" shaman jaguar. He makes some pretty supernatural claims about the ability of Native American shamans to turn into animals and supernatural claims about his own experiences, including curing cancer through magic.

[onewholaughsatfools]

29. Yes, a great book indeed

thanks for posting it on DU...here's another book I found to be interesting as well "NICKEL and DIMED" by Barbara Ehrenreich...Blessings

[Time for change]

30. Thank you -- yes I read Nickel and Dimed

An excellent book for getting people to understand what the poor have to go through.

[prolesunited]

31. We heard him speak at Chicago's Greenfest

Not the most dynamic speaker, but he really opened my eyes about some stuff.

You're not a cospiracy theorist if there really is a conspiracy.

[peacetalksforall]

32. The core. The core. The hidden core. We need to go right to

the heart and not fritter away our time on the fluff of D-R-I Parties and little crimes and scandals.

Perkins, Johnson, Chomsky, others are extending their hands to take us on a guided tour of the core of our freefall that might be suspended mid-fall and reversed if we only could learn from the near-free advice and insight. Instead, we debate about whether there is a change in the coverage of Democrats on the most evil of the hitters - the imperialist and criminal supporting media. And we spend endless words on trivial stuff about candidates.

But, there are people who are worse off than we are - they think corporate tv is all fair and balanced and can't quote one event about the scam of voting or are incapable of recognizing opposing-lies and truths delivered to us in the form of press briefings and expert opinion. Even we don't know all the expert criminals they throw at us.

The believers are a long way away from recognizing the names of these people who are filling in the details of what we figured out by observing and questioning and searching for truth and the knowledge of whether we're going to make it - survive without being totally bought and paid for, including our souls.

And too many elected representatives look away while all these criminals - EHM's, imperialists, political murderers and slaughterers, thieves, deceivers, mind controllers, and data thief-assemblers come up with a new one.

[hfojvt]

33. Does the 2nd book give any more details?

I was not impressed by the first one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=209&topic_id=1504#1632

It seemed to me that he just flitted around world history, giving alot of simplistic and slanted over-views, without really giving the inside dope that he promised.

[Time for change]

34. The second book gives quite a few details, much based on his personal experience

It's hard for me to compare it with his first book with regard to the amount of detail, since it was some time ago that I read it.

In your post, you are comparing his book to what you felt he promised in the beginning of the book -- which is undoubtedly part of the reason you were disappointed in it. Perhaps some of us, me included, looked at it with a less critical attitude. Perhaps, being aware a great deal of support for his central themes, from multiple other sources, we looked at his book of an insider's confirmation of what many others, who lacked inside knowledge, were saying.

Even in the second group I agree that more detail would have been nice to have -- but I still thought it was a very informative book.