John Perkins and Empire: hiding in plain sight

Some days ago, I noticed a new book was coming out, a follow-on to John Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. This new tome, A Game as Old as Empire, is likely to be as equally distressing, describing, as did Confessions, a ruthless global underworld of corruption and racketeering, all exacted in service of multinational corporate empire. In the world Perkins inhabited and described, the US government, international financial institutions (World Bank, IMF) and various selected US corporations collude to reinforce poverty on stricken nations, burden them with enormous debt and reap resource rewards and political leverage.

This is all done in plain sight, of course, which is why it is quietly tolerated here. Our faithful corporate media have, since the conception of the economic hit, always sought to portray World Bank loans as a good and necessary mechanism to bring relief to the world's poor. Even people within the World Bank and the IMF may believe that this is what they are doing. But if they do believe this, they must see themselves as abject failures. Deprivation has only increased -- markedly so -- across the world under these policies. Ultimately, though, these policies have performed exactly as intended.



Here is Perkins describing some of the consequences for leaders who failed to come in line:



You can read an excerpt from A Game As Old As Empire, first out a couple of weeks ago. I will warn you, such reading is not good for the soul. In fact, it is infuriating beyond belief. Hopefully, it spurs us all to bring an end to a system designed to extend human suffering for the sake of economic empire and in that, these books will have served a valuable role. Reading such material will also convey to the reader another salient point, one that is often heard though little regarded: there is no essential difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, at least not at the level of global policy. Both have been been willing accomplices in this destructive and ultimately futile charade.

Of equal interest will be John Perkins new book, due out in June, 2007. The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption. Sure to infuriate further.


[thanks to Cernig and Monkeyfister for reminding me of these important works.]