Many have thought about where we began our dissent into the current literal hell, and some believe that it may have begun when we split our lives into separate categories of "business" and "private" life. This separation of personal responsibility or the lack thereof seems to stem from a basic desire to have everything both ways without the human need to face the consequences.
This also makes a mockery of ethics and personal morality: but it cannot survive because all of this is based on ever-larger lies.
In business this process was greatly increased when corporations were given the right to behave as individuals might, with all the rights that people have, but with none of the responsibilities. Recently this was intensified by corporate officers who were allowed to imbed their personal actions beneath the shield of corporate activity and from this simple twist of rarified privilege, the dye was cast that created the walls that divide our two-tiered world.
From this simple equation the world has come to live under new rules; rules that favor the rise of the global corporatocracy that now rules this planet. In this new paradigm, distractions share their bed with lies and disinformation that all together have created the subversion of all that most people once held dear. Yet this is affecting not just one nation or even a region of the world, but rather this tyranny affects every nation, while 24,000 people starve to death every day. John Perkins wrote a book about his part in creating this monstrous plot and below are some of the things he says about how we came to be here and what the goals of the new corporatocracy really are.
"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 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 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."
"The real story of modern empire of the corporatocracy that exploits desperate people and is executing history's most brutal, selfish, and ultimately self-destructive resource- grab has little to do with what was exposed in newspapers that morning and has everything to do with us. And that, of course, explains why we have such difficulty listening to the real story. We prefer to believe the myth that thousands of years of human social evolution has finally perfected the ideal economic system, rather than to face the fact we have merely bought into a false concept and accepted it as gospel."
"It would be great if we could just blame it all on a conspiracy, but we cannot. The empire depends on the efficacy of big banks, corporations and governments - the corporatocracy - but it is not a conspiracy. This corporatocracy is ourselves - we make it happen - which, of course, is why most of us find it difficult to stand up and oppose it. We would rather glimpse conspirators lurking in the shadows, because most of us work for one of those banks, corporations, or governments, or in some way are dependent on them for the goods and services they produce and market. We cannot bring ourselves to bite the hand of the master who feeds us."
"We have convinced ourselves that all economic growth benefits mankind, and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. Finally we have persuaded one another that the corollary to this concept is valid and morally just: that people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation."
"This concept and its corollary are used to justify all manner of piracy - licenses are granted to rape and pillage and murder innocent people in Iran, Panama, Columbia, Iraq, and elsewhere. EHMs, jackals, and armies flourish for as long as their activities can be shown to generate economic growth and they almost always demonstrate such growth. Thanks to the biased "sciences of forecasting, econometrics, and statistics, if you bomb a city and then rebuild it, the data shows a huge spike in economic growth."
"The real story is that we are living a lie."
The world can no longer afford this outrage or the outright theft of so much of the natural resources of the planet that go into the coffers of the very few - and yet it will continue until the whole ugly tale is out there among the people of the USA, as it is already, among most of the those who live outside this country. The John Perkins book is thorough and damning, in so many ways that so many have wondered about, since the rise of Bandits came to replace what we used to think of as the USA. Anyone interested in connecting all the dots needs to read these 225 pages, that encompass so much of what has seemingly eluded so many of us for such a very long time.
kirwan
The quotations are from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, CA
In business this process was greatly increased when corporations were given the right to behave as individuals might, with all the rights that people have, but with none of the responsibilities. Recently this was intensified by corporate officers who were allowed to imbed their personal actions beneath the shield of corporate activity and from this simple twist of rarified privilege, the dye was cast that created the walls that divide our two-tiered world.
From this simple equation the world has come to live under new rules; rules that favor the rise of the global corporatocracy that now rules this planet. In this new paradigm, distractions share their bed with lies and disinformation that all together have created the subversion of all that most people once held dear. Yet this is affecting not just one nation or even a region of the world, but rather this tyranny affects every nation, while 24,000 people starve to death every day. John Perkins wrote a book about his part in creating this monstrous plot and below are some of the things he says about how we came to be here and what the goals of the new corporatocracy really are.
"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 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 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."
"The real story of modern empire of the corporatocracy that exploits desperate people and is executing history's most brutal, selfish, and ultimately self-destructive resource- grab has little to do with what was exposed in newspapers that morning and has everything to do with us. And that, of course, explains why we have such difficulty listening to the real story. We prefer to believe the myth that thousands of years of human social evolution has finally perfected the ideal economic system, rather than to face the fact we have merely bought into a false concept and accepted it as gospel."
"It would be great if we could just blame it all on a conspiracy, but we cannot. The empire depends on the efficacy of big banks, corporations and governments - the corporatocracy - but it is not a conspiracy. This corporatocracy is ourselves - we make it happen - which, of course, is why most of us find it difficult to stand up and oppose it. We would rather glimpse conspirators lurking in the shadows, because most of us work for one of those banks, corporations, or governments, or in some way are dependent on them for the goods and services they produce and market. We cannot bring ourselves to bite the hand of the master who feeds us."
"We have convinced ourselves that all economic growth benefits mankind, and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. Finally we have persuaded one another that the corollary to this concept is valid and morally just: that people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation."
"This concept and its corollary are used to justify all manner of piracy - licenses are granted to rape and pillage and murder innocent people in Iran, Panama, Columbia, Iraq, and elsewhere. EHMs, jackals, and armies flourish for as long as their activities can be shown to generate economic growth and they almost always demonstrate such growth. Thanks to the biased "sciences of forecasting, econometrics, and statistics, if you bomb a city and then rebuild it, the data shows a huge spike in economic growth."
"The real story is that we are living a lie."
The world can no longer afford this outrage or the outright theft of so much of the natural resources of the planet that go into the coffers of the very few - and yet it will continue until the whole ugly tale is out there among the people of the USA, as it is already, among most of the those who live outside this country. The John Perkins book is thorough and damning, in so many ways that so many have wondered about, since the rise of Bandits came to replace what we used to think of as the USA. Anyone interested in connecting all the dots needs to read these 225 pages, that encompass so much of what has seemingly eluded so many of us for such a very long time.
kirwan
The quotations are from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, CA
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