We, the People, call John Perkins to testify on “Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and The Truth About Global Corruption.”
[note: the following testimony is from Perkin’s two books: “The Secret History of the American Empire” and “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”]
Perkins: “..I was an EHM”.. “I wrote that in 1982, as the beginning of a book..”Conscience of an Economic Hit Man”..dedicated to..Jaime Roldos, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama…They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire..”…
“I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times..the next twenty years..influenced by world events…However, threats or bribes always convinced me to stop.”..
“In 2003, the president of a major publishing house..told me that since the executives at world headquarters might object, he could not afford to risk publishing [“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”}. He advised me to fictionalize it.”
Perkins:”Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, USAID, and other foreign “aid” organizations into coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex and murder.”
Perkins: “..corporations, banks, and governments [collectively the corporatocracy] use their financial and political muscle to ensure our schools, businesses, and media support both the fallacious concept [all economic growth benefits humankind] and its corollary. They have brought us to the point where our global culture is a monstrous machine that requires exponentially increasing amounts of fuel…in the end will have consumed everything..”
Perkins: “This empire is ruled by a group of people who collectively act very much like a king. They run our largest corporations and, through them, our government. They cycle through the “revolving door” back and forth between business and government. Because they fund political campaigns and the media, they control elected officials and the information we receive. These men and women [the corporatocracy] are in charge regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats control the White House or Congress.”
Perkins: “..there two primary objectives of my work. First, I was to justify huge international loans that would funnel money back to MAIN and other U.S. companies..through massive engineering and construction project…Second, I would work to bankrupt countries that received..loans..so they’d be forever beholden to their creditors..”
Perkins: “I had begun to understand..although most Americans have no idea their lifestyles are built on exploitation, millions of people in other countries are aware of it..”
Perkins: “..the extremely high price Indonesian people had paid for what economists referred to as an “economic miracle.”…benefits were restricted to those at the top…the abuse of cheap and plentiful labor, in sweatshops…with policies granting foreign corporations licenses to destroy the environment and conduct activities..outlawed in North America.”
Perkins: “Iran illustrated beyond any doubt the U.S. was a nation laboring to deny the truth of our role in the world…incomprehensible..we could have been so misinformed about the shah and the tide of hatred…”
Perkins: “The Indians and all the farmers who live along the river you’re damming hate you. Even people in the cities…sympathize with the guerillas…Your government calls these people Communists, terrorists, and narcotic traffickers, but the truth is they’re just people with families..on lands your company is destroying.”
Perkins: “A cogent example of the way natural disasters are exploited by the corporatocracy is..Aceh’s Leuser Ecosystem. For three decades, local resistance kept lumber and oil companies out of one of the world’s richest forests. Now that GAM [is] crushed, the region is open to exploitation.”
Perkins: The American republic offered hope to the world. Its foundation was moral and philosophical..based on concepts of equality and justice for all…. The global empire..is the republic’s nemesis. It is self-centered, self-serving, greedy, and materialistic, a system based on mercantilism.
“..what we’re perpetuating through this new, highly subtle form of imperialism was the financial equivalent of what we’d attempted to accomplish militarily in Vietnam..”
Perkins: “In countries on every continent, I saw how men and women working for U.S. corporations..participated in something far more pernicious…blind to the consequences of their actions, convinced the sweatshops..were helping the poor climb out of poverty, instead of simply burying them deeper in a type of slavery..”
Perkins: Ecuador, an old Amazonian Shuar man: “The world is as you dream it. Your people dreamed of huge factories, tall buildings, as many cars as there are raindrops in this river.. Now you begin to see your dream is a nightmare.”
[ STOP! TIME OUT! Reread this man’s words. WHO has seen the truth????? ]
think –
Perkins: Venezuela, 1992: “Largely as a result of Caracas’ collaboration with the corporatocracy, Venezuelan per capita income had plummeted by more than 40% and what had been previously the largest middle class in Latin America sank into the ranks of the impoverished.”
[ STOP! TIME OUT! THINK – is there ANY possibility that several millions Venezuelans have tried to immigrate to the U.S.A. – is in ANY way – related to what he corporatocracy did 30 years ago?????????? to ruin THEIR country? ]
Perkins: “Evo Morales rose out of the indigenous community..opposed privatization and..”free market” reforms – policies that would prevent Bolivia from protecting its farmers and businesses while at the same time forcing it to accept protectionist U.S. barriers…He denounced the Washington-driven Free Trade of the Americas plan as a plan to legalize the colonization of the America.” …Almost immediately, the corporatocracy labeled him as a terrorist..”
Perkins: July 31, 1981 – Torrijos dies in a plane crash. “There was a bomb in that plane. i know there was a bomb..but I can’t tell you why over the telephone.” “men with immense power..hated Torrijos..”
Perkins: “What was going on in the energy field was symbolic of a trend that was affecting the whole world. Concerns about social welfare, the environment, and other quality-of-life issues took a backseat to greed..an overwhelming emphasis was placed on promoting private businesses…something inherently better about projects owned by wealthy investors rather than governments…the World Bank bought into this notion, advocating deregulation and privatization of water and sewer systems, communications networks, utility grids…that up to then had been managed by governments.”
Perkins: secret meeting with ‘Jose’ on a Brazilian park bench: “It’s not just about bribes and the threat of coups or assassinations, not just about striking deals and falsifying economic forecasts, not just about enslaving us through debt we can never repay. It goes deeper.” He went on explaining in Brazil and other nations, the corporatocracy essentially controls all parties. “Your CIA has ‘the goods’ on him.”
Perkins: Panama’s infamous Contadora island resort: “Rumors that George W. was photographed doing coke and having kinky sex…” There was a theory in Latin America that Noriega used incriminating photos of the younger Bush…In retaliation, H.W. invaded Panama and hustled Noriega off to prison. The building housing Noriega’s confidential files had been incinerated by bombs…Jose: “those rumors ring awfully true.”
Perkins: CIA agent: “Linda Tripp was assigned to destroy a president feared as a reformer who might undermine the corporatocracy…Linda found her innocent in Monica Lewinsky.”
Perkins: Raul Zibechi “states he and other analysts have concluded Washington is creating a South American unified armed force…two army privates and a second lieutenant – substantiated Professor Zibechi’s allegations…Everything we do in Columbia just makes it more attractive for the drug business. Why do you think the situation keeps getting worse there? Because we want it to be, we’re behind the drug trafficking. the CIA is – just like it was in Asia’s Golden Triangle…Coke provides illicit money, in the billions – for clandestine activities…”
Perkins: What if the CIA hadn’t overthrown Iran’s democratically elected leader? Many scholars concluded that if America had not done it, other Middle Eastern countries might have been encouraged to follow Iran – and – might have prevented all the violence that followed.
Perkins: the 1958 U.S. invasion of Lebanon “had a profound long-term impact on Muslims”
Perkins: The U.S.-G.B plot to assassinate the popular Iraqi president included Saddam Hussein. Lter Saddam brought back from Syria and installed as had of Iraqi national security.
Perkins; A Turk in Iran speaks: “Your people haven’t a clue of the crimes the Israelis commit against Arabs…it is really an American war. Israel is just your foot soldier. It wasn’t enough you stole Palestine…You rub Muslim noses in the shit of history…You torture, lie and steal for oil…Israel is..an enemy fortress built on Arab lands. For Muslims everywhere, it is an insult, a humiliation, a reason..to hate you.”
[ Stop. Reread this. Unpack what this man said. Whether everything he said is true or not is irrelevant. Much of this is what many people in the Middle East BELIEVE to be true. And – there is some truth in it. Only a”Two State Solution” can BEGIN to “solve” parts of the problem. The world cannot ignore either the current Gaza suffering or the history of their suffering before October 7, 2023. 2.5 million people living in horrible conditions cannot be ignored. Unmitigated hate festers – it doesn’t go away, will not remained ‘covered up.” }
Perkins: “”The Iraq-Iran War; Another EHM Victory” – military suppliers and contractors profited handsomely; “the corporatocracy has managed to link the business of selling death with international diplomacy.” The Middle East as a primary testing ground and market.
Perkins: Corportocracy policies in Asia-China-Latin America often had negative consequences. Washington denied culpability for its failures..[media] reports blamed corrupt foreign government officials, religious fanaticism, and left-wing dictators…The corporatocracy and its agents were painted the good guys… Seldom was it mentioned we were the ones who corrupted these officials, that our repressive policies empowered the fanatics, or many leaders we classified as ‘dictators’ were actually democratically elected..”
Perkins: “Farm families that had lived off the land for hundreds of years, saving the seeds to replant their crops, were now becoming dependent on fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds they had to purchase from foreign companies…an anti-GMO conference…countless testimonies of disenfranchised farmers suffering the consequences of unfair trade policies…USAID and Monsanto working together to rewrite Malian legislation…the ravaging effects of U.S. cotton subsidies on Malian farmers…economic development in Mali is driven by corporate interests…the myth of development is alive and well in the U.S.A. [3rd world people as ignorant-backward-stupid-etc.]
Perkins: “The global empire had become just that..previously considered U.S. corporations..now..international..could pick and choose…Words like democracy, socialism and capitalism were becoming almost obsolete. Corporatocracy had become a fact, and increasingly exerted itself as the single major influence on world economics and politics.”
Perkins: “I did watch with great interest the way the corporatocracy went after him {President Clinton} and Hilary during his first term; it seemed like warning shots fired across the bow, and, in fact, those warning shots brought many of Clinton’s promised programs to a halt. I had to wonder what he’d done to convince them to bring Monica out into the public..”
{ notes: Stop!!! Now – consider what Perkins has said here – and – not just these words – but this: FOR. 20. YEARS – PERKINS WAS EITHER THREATENED OR PRESENTED. WITH. BRIBES. – TO NOT. WRITE THESE. BOOKS. So – what was it/ is it, that certain people and forces do NOT want YOU to know about?????
NOW – fit what Perkins has said with other materials already presented on this site:
– Sarah Chayes [& others] work on “Corruption in America”
– Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains. The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America”
– Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money. The Hidden history of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right”
– Hedrick Smith’s “Who Stole the American Dream?” – and. Barlett & Steele’s “The Betrayal of the American Dream”
–Collins & Yeskel’s “Economic Apartheid in America”
Do YOU really think ALL these people, some Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners, made up what they said – including naming names of people and companies in print ??????? We have stressed that YOU investigate for yourself – the UNSPUN statistics used by these people, and many more, to DOCUMENT. how “The Far Right IS aThreat to Democracy. How the rich and their corporations have sabotaged not only the 1789-1979 upward curve of real ‘democracy” in America, and many parts of the world, but also – for sheer GREED sabotaged the ability of millions/billions of people to live happy and prosperous lives. SHEER, AMORAL, IMMORAL GREED.
And. THE QUESTION; do YOU care? And if so, are YOU honestly, factually informed – NOT propagandized by Far Right propaganda outlets playing on your fears – but, real truths and facts??? We have to ask that, because a major FAR RIGHT goal, l933-2024, has been to twist truth, to in George Orwell”s words, engage in “blackwhite” – to say black is white in complete contradiction of reality; to lead people down into the rabbit hole of planned falsehoods.
Again – we are back to this question for YOU: WHY was Perkins subjected to threats and bribes for 20 years so that he would NOT write the two books????? What was the corporatocracy afraid that YOU might learn???? What questions were they afraid YOU might start asking??????? ]
With Justice For All 