Our Environment

Shop for items to change and abolish Corporate Tyranny.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Required reading for all patriotic citizens of the USA. From $5.99.

Why is it acceptable to pollute our environment just to make a few rich people richer?

Stop and think about what you would do if you won the lottery and were suddenly financially independent. Would living your life under the thumb of corporate rule be your idea of the idyllic life? I doubt it. You probably prefer to live your life as you do while on vacation. You probably prefer to live in a less crowded, less polluted part of the world. My point is that life under corporate rule is not what dreams are made of.

Corporations run the world and ruin the world. US foreign policy is designed to help corporations own and rule as much of the world as possible.  Corporations take and take and give nothing in return.  No matter how much they want to believe that they improve life on earth, the laws that govern their decision making force them do just the opposite. To understand how the corporations rule and ruin life on planet earth we need to listen to an expert, someone who was on the front lines of corporate decision making.

In 2005 I read a book written by a man who worked to cobble together deals with foreign leaders that shaped the US’s relationship with these countries. Because it is a first hand account, or “confession”, of these events, I feel it is one of the best sources to help explain US corporate foreign policy.  His “confession” answers that nagging question of why “they” hate us. The author is John Perkins and his book is titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.  After you read this article, I urge you to go and read Mr. Perkins’ book in its entirety. This article can hardly do justice to or fully recount such an important work.  It should be required reading for all people of the USA.  As you read this, think of the corporation monopolies and how the US government serves their needs first over “the people” of the US.

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 US 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 include 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.
I should know; I was an EHM (Perkins ix). 

When John Perkins first started his career as an Economic Hit Man in 1971, he was in Indonesia.  Through candid discussions with locals he found that they were all well aware of the US corporate intent to take over the world even if the American people did not know it. Reading that made me think of what I was taught about the Soviet Union in the early 1970’s. We, on the outside of the Soviet Union, knew full well that the Soviet people were under strict control, but the people being controlled had little idea of the extent to which they were being controlled.  The Soviet people were taught to hate Westerners and that the best life to be had was in the Soviet Union. I used to wonder why the people didn’t revolt against their leaders.  It was explained to me that the people are kept ignorant so that they do not know that they are not “free”.  I used to think that the people of the Soviet Union must be stupid.  Imagine my chagrin when I learned the truth about the USA!  The “stupid” person is standing in the mirror!
In one of Perkins’ discussions with the locals of Indonesia they tried to educate him about the world situation.  This is some of what was said to him that got him thinking.

“Stop being so greedy and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores.  People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars.  Babies are dying of thirst and you search for fashion magazines for the latest styles.  Nations like ours are drowning in poverty, but your people don’t even hear our cries for help.  You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things.  You label them radicals or Communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden, instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude.  There’s not much time left.  If you don’t change you’re doomed.”
…I kept coming back to one main question: if the objective of foreign aid is imperialism, is that so wrong? I often found myself envying people…who believed so strongly in our system that they want to force it on the rest of the world.  I doubted whether limited resources would allow the whole world to live the opulent life of the United States, when even the United States had millions of citizens living in poverty.  In addition, it wasn’t very clear to me that people in other nations actually want to live like us. Our own statistics about violence, depression, drug abuse, divorce, and crime indicated that although ours was one of the wealthiest societies in history, it may also be one of the least happy societies.  Why would we want others to emulate us? (Perkins 46).

Perkins pondered the struggle between Developed Countries (DCs) and Less Developed Countries (LDCs).  The DCs are the “users” and the LDCs are the “suppliers”.  At some point the LDCs tire of watching the DCs get fat off of the LDC’s labor.  To Perkins’ mind this is like the American Revolution with England as the DC taking from the American colonies which were the LDCs. Eventually, and it is what we see today, the LDCs want less taxation and more representation. Perkins:

I wondered what sort of world we might have if the United States and its allies diverted all the monies expended in colonial wars – like the one in Vietnam – to eradicating world hunger or to making education and basic health care available to all people, including our own.  I wondered how future generations would be affected if committed to alleviating the sources of misery and to protecting watersheds, forests, and other natural resources that ensure clean water, air, and the things that feed our spirits as a well as our bodies (49-50).

What if corporations did the same with their profits? It is safe to assume that Christ would argue in favor of using money to help feed and clothe mankind as well as feeding the spirit rather than feeding a gluttonous corporatocracy.  I have no idea why people who call themselves Christians support feeding the corporatocracy and refer to people who want to feed and clothe mankind as “liberals”. 

Corporations are legally bound to put profits ahead of all else, including humanity.  If a CEO wants to help improve life for humans around the world he not only will be tossed out on his ear by the board of directors he will be breaking the law! Oil corporations are one of the biggest corporate monsters. Their destruction of planet earth knows no bounds, and well, actually they’d be breaking the law if they were not hell-bent to destroy earth and humankind in return for unimaginable profits that go to just a few already ultra-wealthy people. Imagine what those profits could be used for in the hands of the people; but that money is in the private sector so not one dollar will ever be used to improve anything in your life. It makes perfect sense that oil people head our government. They use the people of the world like toys and when they want the land that the people stand on, they get it, at any cost.  And the US citizens foot the bill. (To learn more about how this is accomplished click here.)

Ecuador, a target of big oil:
The Shuars, a native and ancient tribe of Ecuador, try to live in harmony with the land.  John Perkins, after he left the corporate world, would lead tour groups down the Amazon to meet the Shuars “who were eager to share their knowledge of environmental stewardship and indigenous healing techniques.” One time while admiring the beauty of their surroundings and their simplistic life free from stress, Perkins said to one of the Shuars, that it was good to live such a life of ease that American’s only experience while on “vacation”. The Shuars simply replied, “The world is as you dream it.”  Then the Shuars “pointed out that we in the North had dreamed of huge industries, lots of cars, and gigantic skyscrapers” (Perkins 207).  I will add here that apparently we also “dreamed” of a world of endless dissatisfaction: we constantly crave more and applaud those who acquire “more” with pollution as a “necessary” byproduct that we all must live in. What a nice dream.  The Shuars advice to Perkins is: to “change that dream."

Unfortunately for the Shuars there is oil in the ground on which they live their idyllic life.  In 2001, Shakaim, one of the Shuars, told Perkins that they would not go down without a fight to the US’s big oil companies.

“We’ve seen what they did to the Huaorani tribe. They destroyed their forests. Polluted the rivers, and killed many people, including children.  Today, the Hyaorani hardly exist as a people anymore.  We won’t let that happen to us.  We won’t allow oil companies into our territory, any more than we would the Peruvians.  We have all sworn to fight to the last man.”

Any bets on who will win this battle? In 2003 Perkins attended a meeting comprised of the Shuars and other local tribes regarding the state of affairs with the US oil companies. People stood up and told stories of how the oil companies were trying to make them look like bad people so that they could drive them off the land.  They were accused of taking some of the oil workers hostage which was not true. Three elected officials, that were due to represent the tribe people, were killed in a plane crash and replaced by three oil people. Thus the tribes lost representation.

One man held up a contract that ceded a large portion of their land to a lumber company ready to move in and clear cut for the oil companies, in exchange for $3,000.  The man explained that none of the signatures on the contract were real.  These tribe people knew that the fake contract was being used to discredit them, to make it seem like they just wanted money. 

At the time of this meeting the US was prepared to invade Iraq.  These tribe people whom American’s would call “backward” or “savages” knew about and understood the full implications of our Iraqi invasion plan and the Global Empire.  Yet, would any American understand the plight of these people fighting big oil, or even know that they existed? They’re cries for help as they are about to be crushed by our big oil companies are about as significant as the noise a lobster makes when it hits the boiling water. Did you hear something?  Nah, keep drilling. You won’t hear anything about these stories in our corporate owned media.  All we will hear is that gas prices are going down, a little, thanks to a new oil supply in Latin America. “Kick their ass and take their gas!”       

Is over-pollution that sacrifices our health for profits the best society we can dream up? If we work to change the laws that make it mandatory for corporations to place profits above our health and we move essential businesses back to the public sector, we will be able to put people ahead of profits.  We may even be able to make the environment healthy enough to sustain life for humans again. Caner could become a thing of the past. Wars that kill our young for corporate profit could become ancient history, but nah! Who’d want that?  (For more on the corporate rape of the environment click here.)

Perkins, John. Confessions of Economic Hit Man. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004

BACK to the HOME page