The Katching Factor
Book Review: "The Secret History of the American Empire," by John Perkins.
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This book is the successor to John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," which I have not read but which, I understand, explains how what he calls the "corporatocracy" operates. Since the Second World War the wealthy have worked out a methodology of controlling the American government and using it to pursue their own interests in a way that avoids the indiscretions and unpleasant publicity of an outright invasion (such as the Chinese did in Tibet), but which has the same end result: hegemony for what has become in effect the largest empire in history, the only world embracing empire ever, the American Empire. Here is how it works:
In the face of independence, the corporatocrats order their pawns, the American government, the World Bank, the CIA and NSA, to deliver a one, two, three punch to a Third World Nation. First come the nice educated guys, the EHMs, or economic hit men, of whom Perkins was one. They make use of persuasion, statistics and charts to show the right way to the ignorant. They never break a law. If that does not work, they send in the jackals, who are not as nice, not as scrupulous the law. They never use words like "please" and "thank you." Finally, if there is anything left, after threats, disruption, blackmail and extortion have all failed, in come the assassins. An assassin is very effective in refuting any residual arguments that a stiff-necked opponent may hold in his heart. This is a one-two-three punch that has kept most of the human race on its knees while a small plutocracy rakes in resources, markets and wealth that was, in the words of the House of Justice, "undreamed of by our ancestors."
The "Secret History" is, as I say, a sequel to "Confessions." It rehashes the material in the first book at great length; what is left is an extended first-person narrative of Perkins' experiences since that book was published, the conferences he attended, the people he talked with, and the narratives of those who told their own involvement in the shenanigans of the old corporate world order. Surprisingly, he found great sympathy among what we would expect to be "the enemy," that is, members of the world bank, former jackals and spies, even corporate CEO's. He weaves in detailed stories of mostly anonymous responders to the success of "Confessions" who played roles in the rape of the poor majority, and the planet we all live on.
Here is an URL pointing to an extended interview, both printed and spoken, with the author:
He covers the contents of his book almost too well in this interview; having heard it I could not help but wonder, "Why did I fork out money to get this audio book when I could have heard it all summarized so much more concisely here?" The only thing I would have missed was the part about
"Pay attention to
Perkins does not need to say that to a Baha'i, of course, in view of the Guardian's affection for
Another thing I learned from this book is what you could call the "Katching Factor." It seems that what he calls the corporatocracy (I will call them plutocrats here, for wealth is what they have, use, and what they are all about; only their proxies us power and violence) have worked out ways to make money from sowing tares of dissension, limited wars, disunity, and regional conflicts. That way, even when they lose, they win. And especially when we all lose, they win too.
For example, when the Americans brought
Anyway, here is a snippet in the author's own words, from the above cited interview, showing how this works:
JOHN PERKINS: "Yeah, well, ... we, you and I, look at them as defeats, perhaps, and certainly anybody who lost a child or a sibling or a spouse in these countries look at them as disasters, as defeats, but the corporations made a huge amount of money off Vietnam, the military industry, huge corporations, the construction companies. And, of course, they are doing it in a very, very big way in
I have learned whenever I come across a new word, a new idea, or a new book, like "Empire," to run straight to Wikipedia. What does Wiki have to say about Perkins? Read it yourself. It is mostly positive, but it points out that Perkins' thesis that the NSA is bigger than the CIA, and that he was recruited by the NSA, is unsubstantiated. Still, that made me think. What if Perkins really is a mole, as he himself claims he is? That would explain a great deal about his activism. Is it all a ploy to take the same agenda and make it seem to be coming out of "left field?" More about that idea later.
Another heads-up I got from American Empire is a famous speech, the importance of which I had underestimated; Perkins gives some background to Eisenhower's parting shot, his famous "Military-Industrial Complex" speech, and talks about its role in his own search for truth as a reluctant former Peace Corps volunteer drafted into the ranks of the economic hit men.
As the Wiki article on this speech points out, in the early drafts the retiring American President warned of the "military-industrial-congressional complex," but that was rejected for being too close to the jugular. Since then it has been credibly argued that Eisenhower should have added "Academic" as well, since universities are just as heavily involved in the cash orgy. So, calling a spade a spade, you get the Military-Industrial-Governmental-Educational Complex, or MIGEC. Maybe I will just stick with Aristotle's term, "plutocrats." Things were simpler and cheaper in Ancient Greece, but the patterns of corruption were the same. Here is some of what Eisenhower said in that speech.
"A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society." (President of the United States and former head of the Allied military in WWII, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961, cited in Wikipedia)
In other words the present nationalist order builds all on fear and intimidation, and the limited, separate peace it gives us is inherently a balance of terror. If there ever were a just peace on a world level there would no longer be anything to fear. Such an outcome is itself frightening, for the whole structure would then threaten to come crashing to the ground, leaving only anarchy. And, much worse, the plutocrats would no longer hear that beautiful song, "Katching."
This attempts to be an optimistic book. It looks at solutions. It was when he was talking about his own ideas for change that the possibility that Perkins is some kind of mole for the NSA or their plutocratic puppet masters came to me.
After all, nothing he says here is new to anybody with any familiarity with the left wing press. All through the years the events and dirty tricks that he was involved in, and worse, were all documented as they happened, in excruciating detail, by magazines such as the New Internationalist. The only person to whom anything he says may seem fresh and new would be an extreme far right reactionary head-in-the-sand fascist in any country, or, of course, an American. For Americans any dialog left of center might as well be going on in the mass media of some gaseous civilization on the planet Jupiter for all it affects them.
Anyway, consider the bright idea he has to relieve the debt problem of a South American country. Leverage the rain forest. Get the World Bank to nullify their national debt in exchange for giving up to the corporatocracy all rights in perpetuity to any future patents derived from the vast biodiversity of the rain forest. In other words, trade rotten, stolen goods gained by extortion for something infinitely delicate, unspoiled and of far greater monetary value. Sounds fair to me.
Most infuriating to me is this author’s constant invocations of the American Revolution. He talks about the early battles, how they turned the colonists around from timidity at the greatest world power at the time, the English, to seeing that they could do something about it, they had the ability to fight and win. So can we now, he cheer-leads, we can make a difference. We can stand up for our democratic rights. We can speak out. All very well, but he is forgetting the one essential thing about the whole historical analogy, an analogy that I agree is extremely important and timely. I kept wanting to reach into the book, grab him by the lapels and engage in this dialog:
JET: What was it that the colonists did in order to overcome the British?
Perkins: They beat the British.
JET: No, what I mean is how did they beat the British?
Perkins: They fought. They got confidence. They struggled together.
JET: You are getting warmer, but you are still not getting it. What came out of the Revolutionary War (by that I mean the one you Americans call the War of Independence)? What became independent?
Perkins: We did. Americans.
JET: Yes. And were there Americans before the Revolution?
Perkins: Yes, we were always Americans.
JET: For God’s sake! Think man! No, you were not always Americans! Before that war there were several entities. They were rivals. They were colonies. They thought of themselves as British. They had rivalries among themselves; collectively they were weak. They were known as the American Colonies at the time, also called “The Thirteen Colonies,” but there was no
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
The fact is that this weak-kneed caution to guard against “misplaced power” (which is the basic solution you suggest) was not enough then and it is still not enough. The weakness of national governments against these economic powerhouses is the direct result of their being disunited rivals, just like the 13 Colonies were before the revolution. We need structural change, we must unite all nations into a world government if we are ever going to have a hope to stand up to this new Evil Empire of materialism, and adequately address global warming, global anarchy, and all the other problems that its nationalist plutocracy dropped into our laps.
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