Dear Friends,
First, I wanted to again thank you for all that you are doing to spread the word. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man in paperback made the New York Times Bestseller List at #10 on January 22 and is already listed at #9 for January 29. This means many people are connecting to the message. This is how the momemtum for change accelerates. Again, I thank you for all you are doing.
FOREIGN AID
I continue to get questions and comments regarding FOREIGN AID and the belief most of us have in America that it is altruistic. Here are a few thoughts:
We have been very susceptible to propaganda, perhaps more than any other population in the world today that I am aware of at least. We don’t realize that we’ve built an empire. And partly that’s because it’s been done subtle; it has been done through economic hit men. When you send your young men and women off to foreign lands, as the British did, to build their empire, or the Romans, or the Spanish or the Portuguese, everybody knows it’s happening, and in fact it’s usually applauded, like the colonial powers. But we’ve done it very differently.
We haven’t for the most part sent our young men and women off with a few exceptions like Vietnam and now Iraq, but is has been done very, very subtly, so people aren’t aware that it is happening, though we should be aware of it. People in other parts of the world are aware of it. If you go to Nigeria, or Brazil or Bolivia, or Indonesia, you find people there, they know that a huge loan has been given by the world bank or one of its sister organizations, to their country and they know, they can see the logos on the construction equipment, that they are huge US companies and they are building some sort of a project like big hydro power plant project or an industrial park which is going to serve the very wealthy in their country, ye they are not going to get electricity. They don’t even have light bulbs. They are not going to use the highways; they are not going to work in the industrial parks, because the few jobs that an industrial park has these days are high tech computerized jobs. They are not going to benefit from this at all and they know that. They also know from experience that their country is going to be left holding a huge debt, and that as a result they are going to get fewer and fewer health services and education services. Most of them don’t have them to begin with, but there certainly aren’t going to be anymore come out of this. So they know that they are being genuinely ripped off in this process.
Most Americans don’t believe this. We believe that foreign aid is altruistic, we think we are out there doing great things in the world. And so the wool has really been pulled over our eyes and now it’s coming back to haunt us at a very personal level. We are having many of the same things done to us that were done in these other countries. Of course, we are starting at a higher level on the economic scale, at least most of us. Or many of us are anyway, so we won’t feel it quite as quickly but we are feeling it.
What observations have you had from where you are? I am interested to know your thoughts.
TRAVELING TO THE BAY AREA:
I hope to meet some of you this week as I travel to the Bay Area. Here are the opportunities:
Tuesday, Jan. 24th - 7 pm. Talk and Book signing at A Clean, Well-lighted Place for Books, 601 Van Ness Avenue, SF Wednesday, Jan 25th - 7:30 pm. Talk and Book signing sponsored by KPFA, Global Exchange and Black Oak Books at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose Street, North Berkeley. Tickets: $12 in advance; $15 at door. Sold at Black Oak Books, Cody's, DIESEL, A Bookstore, Global Exchange Store, Pegasus Books, Pendragon Books, Walden Pond bookstore; phone orders: 415-255-7296 x 200 Friday, Jan. 27th - 7 pm. Talk and Book signing sponsored by School of the Americas Watch West at First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco, 1187 Franklin Street and Geary Blvd. Donation for educational projects of the SOA Watch movement $10; students $5
Visit the John Perkins Collection at the Global Dialogue Center
Confessions of Economic Hit Man with new material in paperback
Dear John Perkins,
I am exposing in Bosnia Erzegovina the 'currency board' scam.
I.e. when they print their local ccurency, the KM (Konvertible Mark) they
need to have a 100% reserve in euros.
They pay the seigniorage to the euro-area.
It is the Euro-version of dolarization.
I would like to have a comment from you on that scam, just to support our
fight, because you are the very right man to expose this scam.
Please, do send/drop just a line or two on the matter, thank you.
Marco Saba
Posted by: Marco Saba | January 25, 2006 at 07:39 AM