I ran across this very interesting interview with John Perkins, the author of the New York Times Best Seller, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, on mediachannel.org. This book has been on my “To Read” list for some time now; I’ve got a lot of books on that list (so little time to read complete books these days), and so it was great to find this interview with Mr. Perkins—and a pretty lengthy interview it is.

In his book, John Perkins details how he served at the behest of U.S. and multinational corporations, and for the United States government (he asserts that he was screened by the National Security Agency for his job as a chief economist at the consulting firm Chas. T. Main). His primary mission, he says, was to entrap Third World nations in massive foreign debt (loaned by the World Bank, IMF and other major players in international banking), and the concomitant procurement of lucrative contracts by U.S. and multinational corporations. These poor nations were targeted, he says, strictly because they possessed resources (such as petroleum) that these corporations could exploit in return for the banking cabal’s servicing (or sometimes “forgiving”) of that crippling debt.

Perkins also outlines how the U.S. government, in concert with these banks and corporations, has been building the world’s first truly global empire, with the chief armament of its imperialist aggression being not military means (although they certainly play a role), but rather global economic warfare on a scale never before seen (but certainly contemplated and planned for decades by the currently ruling elites).

Now I know that some people will be put off by or even sneer openly at the fact that this interview was done by Al Jazeera, the Middle East media network that has been the favored propagandistic whipping boy for the Bush administration and its henchmen and acolytes. But as any serious journalist should be able to tell you, Al Jazeera has a reputation for doing a lot of serious in-depth reporting, both in the Middle East and globally. (They now have a bureau in the U.S., which produced this interview.) Certainly, they report many stories that the U.S. government would much rather not see the light of day, and which the openly compliant (and dare I say lazy) U.S. corporate media won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

And so it’s left to Al Jazeera to feature an extensive televised interview with an author and former insider who lays bare the de facto program of global empire for the “New American Century,” to which the U.S. government and its partners in domestic and international corporatocracy (promoted as “globalization” by its NeoCon architects and propagandists, such as Tom Friedman, Paul Wolfowitz, et al.) are now so rabidly dedicated.

Those apologists and “Empire Deniers” will, of course, continue to publicly deny the obvious. They will carefully deny and obfuscate, and pontificate about “dee-MOCK-racy!” and “FREE-dom!” (“Freedom to do exactly what, and for whom?,” one might ask) while appearing before the corporate media machine, in their “on the record” moments. Occasionally, however, in an unguarded moment their unbridled enthusiasm for the mission will get the best of them. Sometimes, the truth will leak out just a bit (like that little bit of “seepage” that sometimes happens when you’re exercising hard).

“Oops… stained my shorts.”

To wit: As reported in the New York Times on October 17, 2004, Ron Susskind interviewed a senior White House aide and the following issued forth:

“… The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’“

Many will have already read this New York Times story, but I think it serves to illustrate the true agenda of our current ruling elite. It’s all about Empire now. The mission for the new century (and beyond, I would suppose) is global empire for the United States of America, and for its actual rulers—not “We The People,” but rather “We The Corporations.” This, my dear citizens, is our New Reality, as defined by our “leaders.”

So I fervently hope that those of you who are still sitting on the fence—maybe not yet convinced of the totality of the corruption and debasement of what was once the republic of the United States of America—will wake up and smell the stench that’s coming from the halls of power in Washington, D.C., and from corporate boardrooms across the land and around the world, and from the mouthpieces of the corporate media machine.

So much faux impassioned talk about “democracy” and “freedom,” and so much treachery in the shadows. So much flag waving, and so much demagoguery. So much “patriotism,” and so much blood spilled for Middle Eastern oil.

“Pay no attention to those men behind the curtain. Support the troops! Complete the mission! Buy a Hummer! See Paris Hilton!” Bread and circuses for the masses, while what’s left of our democracy burns to the ground.

Wonder not, my dear citizens, why so much of the world has lost respect for the United States of America. We were birthed as a nation opposed to empire, and now we have become what we once fought against. Now, we have become what our forefathers spilled their blood in overthrowing.

Wonder instead what our founders would think, if they were to see what we have become.

Relevant quotes:

“If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“I see in the future a great crisis approaching, which causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money-power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated into the hands of a few and the republic is destroyed.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776

“A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gate is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.”
- Cicero, 45 BC

“For years the freedom of our people were really never in doubt.”
– George W. Bush

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
– Edward R. Murrow

References:

Ron Susskind, “Without a Doubt,” New York Times, 10-17-2004