The legendary peace activist Frances Crowe died this week at the age of 100 in Northampton, Massachusetts. Over the past seven decades, Frances had been arrested countless times while protesting war, nuclear weapons, nuclear power and the construction of new pipelines. She is survived by her two sons, a daughter and an international community of peace activists. We revisit a 2005 interview of Francis Crowe by Amy Goodman, and recognize her lifetime of advocacy.
Apologies Of An Economic Hitman the movie by John Perkins
John Perkins was a prominent member of the top-secret team of “economic hit men”, who used fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, military coups and murder to create the global American empire after World War II. After a long internal struggle between his guilt and the fear of telling the truth, Perkins meets the daughter of an assassinated president and speaks out in front of an angry Latin-American audience.
Based on rare propagandistic material, film-noir style reconstructed sequences and exclusive filmed confessions of best selling author John Perkins (“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, “The Secret History of the American Empire”) this fascinating documentary sheds light on the unknown mechanisms used by the rulers of the modern world, the roots of Islamic terrorism, and the reason why most of the world’s population lives in poverty.
The definitive answer to President Bush’s question “why do they hate us?”..
Following weeks of anticipation, Swedish climate justice activist Greta Thunberg arrived on the shores of Lower Manhattan Wednesday afternoon after a 15-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in an emissions-free yacht. She was welcomed on land by hundreds of supporters at the North Cove Marina. As Thunberg’s yacht sailed over the horizon and past the Statue of Liberty, youth climate activists chanted “The sea levels are rising, and so are we!” and “We are unstoppable! Another world is possible!” The 16-year-old climate activist is kickstarting a months-long tour of the Americas. For her first action, she will be joining New York students climate-striking outside the U.N. Friday morning. She will then take to the streets for a massive climate march in New York City on September 20, followed by two U.N. climate summits here. In December, she will attend the COP25 climate summit in Santiago, Chile. We hear highlights of Greta’s first speech and news conference upon arriving in New York City and speak to her father Svante, as well as New York youth climate activists Alexandria Villaseñor and Xiye Bastida.
Mike Lofgren, a congressional staff member for 28 years, joins Bill Moyers to talk about what he calls Washington’s “Deep State,” in which elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. “It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war,” Lofgren tells Moyers.
www.marlboro.edu – Author John Perkins spoke at Marlboro College on 4/23/08. Drawing on experiences described in his two New York Times bestsellers, Perkins describes the post-WWII era as one that created history’s first truly global empire — mostly through economics, rather than the military. Now we find ourselves catapulted toward a future that appears catastrophic to many people; however, in Perkins’s view it offers great opportunities. Identifying corporations as “the most influential institutions on the planet,” he challenges us to transform ourselves and the companies that so deeply impact our lives. He presents a plan for creating a world “that will make our children proud of us.”
John Perkins spent three decades as an Economic Hit Man, business executive, author, and lecturer. He lived and worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America. Then he made a decision: he would use these experiences to make the planet a better place for his daughters generation. Today he teaches about the importance of rising to higher levels of consciousness, to waking up — in both spiritual and physical realms — and is a champion for environmental and social causes.
Javed Khan
Published on Nov 16, 2013
According to Perkins, he began writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man in the 1980s, but “threats or bribes always convinced [him] to stop.”
According to his book, Perkins’ function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with debts they could not hope to pay, those countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues in his book that developing nations were effectively neutralized politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an EHM as follows:
Economic Hit Man (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.
Perkins charges that the proposed conditions for this debt forgiveness require countries to privatise their health, education, electric, water and other public services. Those countries would also have to discontinue subsidies and trade restrictions that support local business, but accept the continued subsidization of certain G8 businesses by the US and other G8 countries, and the erection of trade barriers on imports that threaten G8 industries.
In the book, Perkins repeatedly denies the existence of a “conspiracy.” Instead, Perkins carefully discusses the role of corporatocracy.
John Perkins describes the methods he used to bribe and threaten the heads of state of countries on four continents in order to create a global empire and he reveals how the leaders who did not “play the game” were assassinated or overthrown. He brings us up to date about the way the economic hit man system has spread from developing countries to the US, Europe, and the rest of the world and offers a strategy for turning this around. “Each of us,” he says, “can participate in this exciting revolution. We can transform a system that is consuming itself into extinction into one that is sustainable and regenerative.”
John’s books, including The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, have sold over a million copies, spent more than 70 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists, and are published in more than 30 languages. As Chief Economist at a major consulting firm, his experiences advising the World Bank, UN, IMF, U.S. government, Fortune 500 corporations, and heads of state convinced him to devote his life to facilitating changes in social, political, and economic systems, as well as in general consciousness. He was founder and CEO of a highly successful alternative energy company and is a founder and board member of Dream Change and The Pachamama Alliance, nonprofits dedicated to creating a sustainable, just, peaceful, and thriving world.
John’s courage in writing his books and speaking out against his former bosses exemplifies the courage shown by our Founding Fathers and Mothers when they stood up to the British Empire. Like them, John defied threats and bribes and took action.
In his best-selling book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,” John Perkins detailed the seedy, corrupt and often brutally violent underbelly of US foreign policy and how he personally worked with major financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF to bribe world leaders, bankrupt third world countries and use Mafia-like tactics to force impoverished nations to do the bidding of multinational corporations and the US military. In this interview with The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur, Malcolm Fleschner and Steve Oh, Perkins explains how today economic hit men doing the US’s bidding continue to apply the same pressures to governments in places like Venezuela, Nicaragua
Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
The links are listed here to be used in whatever manner they may be helpful in public information campaigns, course preparation, teaching, letter-writing, lectures, class presentations, policy discussions, article writing, civic or Congressional hearings and citizen action campaigns, etc. For further information on this blog see: About this weblog. and How to use this weblog.
Calendar – Click on Date for links entered on that Day