Editor's note: right, so as I mentioned last night, ongoing Facebook f*ckery is forcing me to move my weekly film sessions posts over here, to Media Madness. Thankfully, this is the last backlogged video I have to crosspost and then going forward I'll just post new film sessions here and on Facebook simultaneously.
This post originally appeared on my Facebook Page on December 22nd, 2020.
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Okay, it seems like maybe I’m going to put things in the can for Christmas after all, despite having no plans really for this plague holiday. I’m feeling pretty run down, social media isn’t very much fun since this Dore-AOC debate broke, and my hype-man needs time off to recharge and visit loved ones. I did however promise a Sunday film study, and I’m here to deliver – albeit a day late.
Ideally, over the break I plan to finish another two film study posts and probably another Media Madness blog, if I can fit in some time after Christmas, but before the new year. Otherwise, please accept my hopes that you find a way to make a happy holiday out of these unique circumstances and I’ll be back with more formal writings sometime around January 2nd, 2021.
Earlier this week, I found myself hunting for a specific quote from New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, when I stumbled across this remarkable eighteen minute Tedx Talk he gave that I'm going to share with you today in our weekly Film Session.
First things first, I should remind you that as a Tedx Talk, and not just a regular TED Talk, this event merely copies the TED Talk format and was put together independently by people in Traverse City. Which makes a certain amount of sense, because Perkins describes precisely the kind of networks of economic power generated by corporations, the U.S. and American-aligned governments, the Pig Empire's covert agencies and yes, the U.S. military, that the truly elite Tech Bros and Davos Divas really would rather not talk about. So who is John Perkins and what is his book really about? Let’s turn to Wikipedia for a more concise answer than I would have written:
“The book heavily criticizes U.S. foreign policy and the widely accepted notion that "all economic growth benefits humankind, and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits." Perkins suggests that, in many cases, only a small portion of the population benefits at the expense of the rest, pointing to, as an example, an increase in income inequality, whereby large U.S. corporations exploit cheap labor, and oil companies destroy local environment.
Perkins describes what he calls a system of corporatocracy and greed as the driving forces behind establishing the United States as a global empire, in which he took a role as an "economic hit man" to expand its influence.
Perkins' function, according to the book, was to convince the political and financial leadership of developing countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with debts they could not hope to pay, such countries would then be forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues that these nations were effectively neutralized politically, with their wealth gaps driven wider and their long-term economies crippled. In this capacity, Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an economic hit man as follows:
Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.”
Of course, to say that given this type of backstory Perkins himself is a bit of an odd duck, would be a massive understatement, and when he first published Confessions of an Economic Hit Man back in 2004, his quirky personality and bizarre work history, were quickly weaponized by various appendages of the establishment to try and discredit the damning story his book had just told the world.
A funny thing happened when folks started to investigate into Perkins however, they discovered that on the whole, most of the claims that would be verifiable, checked out. Yes, he was in fact an economist with the then-powerful, U.S. government connected but widely anonymous firm Chas T. Main, yes he was in the developing countries he said he was, during the times he said he’d visited them, and yes, at one point Perkins’ boss at the firm said: “Basically his story is true.… What John's book says is, there was a conspiracy to put all these countries on the hook, and that happened. Whether or not it was some sinister plot or not is up to interpretation, but many of these countries are still over the barrel and have never been able to repay the loans” - although it should be noted that the executive, Einar Greve, would later walk back admitting the firm’s association with the NSA and some minor, but salacious parts of Perkins’ personal backstory.
The real eye-opener however was when the U.S. occupation and sham rebuilding of Iraq was exposed as a complicated American corporate welfare and influence trading scheme, virtually identical to the trap of debt, bombs and murder Perkins described in Confessions of an Economic Hitman. You’ll even hear him bring up a famous name from both his story, and the Iraq privatization scandals – Halliburton; remember them? Overall, there is a certain spy games, or cloak and dagger element to Perkins’ telling of his life story, but the simple truth is that this web of personal economic incentives for neocolonialist elites, trade agreements contingent on the installation and maintenance of a neofeudalist economy, or the brute force of Pig Empire missiles, taken together to form the system of control the author describes, are today well known as the tools by which America maintains global supremacy in a post-Cold War world.
Although this eighteen minute video below represents a decent enough overview of what Perkins exposed to the world, and the man is certainly no socialist, I would still encourage you to read (The New) Confessions of an Economic Hitman as a study in how the forces of debt, violence and capitalism come together to propagate Pig Empire rule over most of the planet. Furthermore, as I suggested in my original Instagram post, you could consider combining this with a review of Stanley Butler’s “War is a Racket” and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’ “Adults in the Room” for a very thorough examination of how global capitalism actually works, from a behind the scenes perspective offered by actors in multiple different parts of the filthy drama and swindle.
In the meantime, please check out this short introduction spoken (rather quickly) by John Perkins himself, and try not to get caught up in his bizarre insistence that that there’s a difference between “good capitalism” and “predatory capitalism.”
An Economic Hit Man Confesses and Calls to Action
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