Guest Contributor

Howard Riell
	Howard M. Riell is a 31-year veteran journalist, author and host of the popular “Riell Truth” radio show on The American Freedom Network, station KHNC 1360 AM in Johnstown, CO. The show is streamed live at America News Net

An exclusive interview with John Perkins, the author of the New York Times best-sellers “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and “The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption”.

Background: Throughout the 1970s, John Perkins was a highly paid Economic Hit Man (EHM) working for the Corporatocracy – a conglomeration of American corporate, banking and governmental interests. Perkins’ job, as he puts it, was to cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars and 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. His tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. He was usually successful, but when he was not – as in the cases of Ecuador’s Jaime Roldos and Panama’s Omar Torrijos — his masters would send in the “jackals,” experts in destabilizing governments and, as in these two cases, assassinating uncooperative leaders. Perkins retired in 1980, published Confessions in 2004 and Secret History in 2007.

Veteran journalist and FrontPageMag contributor Howard M. Riell spoke with Perkins about how his former colleagues inside the Corporatocracy view Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In recent weeks Hugo Chavez has, among other things, seized seaports and airstrips in at least four Venezuelan states, offered Russia’s Air Force the use of an entire island to park its long-range strategic bombers, called President Barack Obama an “ignoramus” for saying he had exported terrorism and obstructed progress in Latin America. He has also severed diplomatic ties with Israel in protest of its military campaign in Gaza, and possibly arranged for the arrest and prosecution on corruption charges of his political rival Manuel Rosales.

Howard Riell: How is Hugo Chavez viewed by the Corporatocracy? When they look at him, what do they see?

John Perkins: Let’s start with the United States. We’ve made him the bad guy, basically. The press in the United States is extremely misled and misleading about Hugo Chavez. First of all, he’s often depicted in the press as ‘the dictator from Venezuela.’ He’s been democratically elected and a number of times won democratically carried out referenda, which have been overseen by international committees. And while there have been voter irregularities there are voter irregularities in every election everywhere.

Even his opponents, people who really don’t like him in Latin America – I spend a lot of time there, as you know – will tell you, ‘Yes, he’s a democratically elected president.’ In this country, though, we have tried to depict him as something other than that. The Bush Administration was particularly onerous in doing that, and I think it’s very unfortunate. I don’t particularly like Chavez’ personality, and there are many other aspects about him that I’m not very fond of. But you can talk about a politician like him in honest terms and disagree strongly with his policies, but you don’t have to misstate whether he was democratically elected or not. He was.

 

HR: Have you ever met Chavez?

JP: He waved around my book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in public. On the BBC he talked about how he’d been contacted by people like me. Twice he’s invited me to be on a television show with him, and both times I’ve declined. I don’t really think it would be to either of our advantages for that to happen. Given the fact that I really want to reach people in this country — I want to reach conservatives and Republicans as well as liberals and Democrats — for me to appear on television with Chavez wouldn’t help. And I don’t really think it would help him to endear himself to certain of his opponents in Venezuela to have me on a show, either.

 

HR: Are you still in touch with EHMs and Jackals? If so, are you privy to any inside information from them?

JP: I do get inside information. I’m writing another book now where I talk a lot about one Jackal in particular who has become a fairly good friend of mine. He is living in Dubai right now and working in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, I’m sitting here in my office with photographs that he took. He was involved in a big gun battle in the Seychelles back in 1981. He had come to assassinate the president of the Seychelles and hijacked an Air India 707. This is a real guy. His name is actually on the record. His real name has been in the New York Times, and he was put on trial in South Africa. He is one of a number of people like that who I keep in touch with.

Quite a few people have come out of the woodwork since I’ve written the book. One of the things I have to be careful of is, if I haven’t known them for a while or don’t know them through someone that I trust, are they pulling my leg? You get emails from people and you don’t really know if they’re for real or not. So you have to be a little bit careful about that, and I am careful.

HR: What are the Corporatocracy’s plans for Chavez?

JP: I think you’d have to say there is a lot of difference of opinion there. It’s a complex issue. The oil companies, oddly enough, want to keep him in power, as far as I can determine, even though that seems counter-intuitive. But they are frightened that they’re going to lose the oil fields of the Middle East. Therefore the oil in South America becomes infinitely more important, not only because there is a lot of oil in what’s called the Amazon Crescent, which stretches from Venezuela to Colombia to Ecuador through parts of Bolivia and possibly into Brazil, but also because it’s very close to us. Transportation is easy and safe. You don’t need all the protection that you need to get oil out of the Middle East, through the Hormuz Straights and around Africa.

So we’re being very, very careful with Chavez, and also with the other nine recently elected presidents who have taken stands against exploitation by foreign corporations — including (Rafael) Correa, the President of Ecuador, who wrote a beautiful endorsement for my last book, Secret History, Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, whom I spent New Years eve 2008 with, and the new presidents of El Salvador (Mauricio Funes), and Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega).

Our oil companies, particularly, are having to be very careful. Some of the other corporations are less careful, would like to see these people gotten rid of. So there is not necessarily a consistent opinion among various members of the Corporatocracy on exactly what to do about this.

HR: Like thunder up on Mt. Olympus when the gods argue amongst themselves?

JP: Absolutely. What’s happened in Latin America is completely revolutionary. Ten countries now, representing more than 80% of South America, have democratically voted in presidents who are saying ‘No – no more exploitation. Ecuador’s oil has to help Ecuador’s poor people. Bolivia’s gas has to help Bolivia’s poor people.

 There is a revolution going on, and it is not against the U.S. government. It’s not against the people of the United States. These presidents wave around our Bill of Rights and our Declaration of Independence and hold these out as great, sacred documents. And they recognize it’s not about the U.S. government, but that there are aspects of the government that get involved. That’s why people like Morales or Chavez kick some of our diplomats out periodically. But they recognize that this is really about the corporations, the Corporatocracy. They understand that it’s the corporations that dictate U.S. government policies in places like Latin America.

HR: If you were still in the business and had been given the assignment of turning Mr. Chavez around, how would you do it?

JP: I’d quit. I wouldn’t want to try and do it.

 

HR: Have they attempted to assassinate him?

JP: Yes, there have certainly been attempts to assassinate him. We attempted to overthrow him in the coup of 2002, but he’s extremely clever. He was a military man himself. (The coup attempt) was unsuccessful, but he learned a lot in the process.

You know, when the coup occurred in 2002 we took him out of power for almost 40 hours, but he was very, very smart. As he was being held captive his captors were also being held captive. He had his own private guards hidden in secret passageways at the presidential palace. Once his opponents had shuttled him out of there and taken over, his own guards came out of the secret passages and put their guns to the heads of the people who had overthrown him. At the same time, tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets, so the world saw this huge demonstration in favor of Chavez. But while that was going on, what most of the world didn’t realize was that there was also this inside counter coup executed by his own people.

Chavez is extremely clever. That’s not to say he couldn’t be assassinated, but I doubt he would ever succumb to economic hit men. I think the possibility of assassinating the man – difficult as it might be — is much more probable than the idea of bringing him around. I can’t imagine economic hit men getting through to him. I couldn’t get through to Torrijos of Panama. I couldn’t get through to Roldos of Ecuador. I was called off the case with (France-Albert) Renee in the Seychelles and the jackals were sent in because we determined that he wasn’t corruptible. When you’ve got a guy like Chavez there’s not a hell of a lot of point in continuing to try to corrupt him and bring him around in these ways.

HR: Pull out your crystal ball: what’s going to happen in Venezuela with Chavez?

JP: I don’t have that kind of crystal ball. You know, he’s just run this recent referendum. It’s the second time he went out there to try and change the law to extend the time he can be president. The first time he was voted down. He accepted it, but like any good politician he went for it a second time and this time he won. So he can run for election again.

I have no idea where he’s really coming from. I can say at this point that he is democratically elected, and he has done an amazing job for a lot of Latin America. If Chavez hadn’t been elected and hadn’t survived that coup I don’t think we’d have a lot of these other presidents in Latin America. He is also sending medical aid and money to many other countries. One of the reasons he was despised by the Bush administration was that he had ties with Cuba. Part of what he was doing was paying Cuba to send their very good medical doctors out to some extremely poor parts of places like Bolivia where they couldn’t get doctors any other way.

One reasons we hear so many bad things about him is that the majority of the Venezuelans who live in the States, speak English, and get interviewed by the press come from relatively wealthy families. For decades they did not pay taxes – or at best paid very low taxes – in Venezuela. Chavez is now forcing them to pay taxes so that the lower classes can attend schools and receive food and medicines.

And so throughout Latin America, in many, many areas he’s seen as a real hero. On the other hand, in Latin America like here people fear that he might be trying to become another Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) and create a huge dictatorship throughout Latin America. Maybe that’s his intent. Who am I to say it isn’t? I’m not his psychiatrist. But he certainly has done very little to demonstrate that that is, in fact, what he’s intending to do at this point. Who knows what comes next with him?

I think it’s fair to say that Chavez has to be a very eccentric human being, perhaps you could say bordering on some sort of unusual psychological profile. Because you don’t take on the most powerful empire in the world the way he took on the United States unless you’re a very big risk taker. He’s taken huge risks and he’s been successful so far.

What comes next? Who knows. But I will say that the continent as a whole, both Central and South America, has had tremendous, significant changes for the better for the people of all those countries. And Chavez has to get some of the credit for creating an atmosphere where that could happen.

Joseph Marohl

On the heels of the news that the loophole allowing fat AIG bonuses was deliberately written into the stimulus bill, with full support of the U.S. Department of Treasury, comes the revelation that at least 13 of the corporations receiving stimulus money courtesy of U.S. taxpayers owe back taxes—that is, they had not paid their fair share towards the public good that they are now benefiting from, not to say (more forthrightly) cynically exploiting.

Yes, I am back on my habitual rant against mammoth financial institutions and corporate capitalism, which, no, I neither trust nor believe are indispensable, despite a lifetime of hype over better tomorrows, what’s good for the country, invisible hands, and the privilege of “choice” and individual ownership of property.

And, again no, I tend not to blame the (yes, culpable) federal government for corrupting global capitalism, rather the reverse: for most of the nation’s history, big business and a wealthy elite have used the federal government to their own interests, not the common good.

“A banker,” said Mark Twain, “is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it starts to rain.” I would say “lease” instead of “lend.”  And “wants it back” with interest … and a user fee.

No expert in economics and possibly downright un-American in my distrust of profiteering, I probably have no right whatsoever to complain. OK, OK, I am part of the problem. There, I said it.

And, sure, the pure, spiritualized version of capitalism is indeed lovely, I admit it, where smiling faces exchange much needed goods and services, sprouting from perpetually fruitful cornucopia, based on individual needs—one bright face valuing more what the other bright face values a bit less, permitting a “profit” for both parties. My eyes well up with happy tears.

And it is no less (or more) a fantasy than the pure, spiritualized version of socialism—I concede that, too. Nothing is gained through idealizing or demonizing people or institutions, when the reality is fairly easy to see.

And while I am qualifying a claim that strikes me as just common sense (though it’s hardly common at all), let me also state that I think corporations and capitalism have done much good for the world and its citizens, too … though perhaps more as side effects than as their central mission.

But I would add that the most astounding of those contributions—such as computer, satellite, nuclear, and microwave technologies—have sprung from military (thus government) funding and state university research, which smart capitalists have acquired and effectively marketed back to the citizens whose tax money funded the studies and discoveries in the first place.

Having said all that, here’s my point …

… that capitalism puts power, sometimes immense power, into private hands, creating and perpetuating unnecessary inequalities in a democratic republic, such as ours,

… that power tends naturally to protect its own interests, so once centralized in family dynasties or even modern virtual individuals such as corporations, power and wealth seldom leak out (or trickle down) to the general citizenry and, even then, mainly as means of galvanizing more power to those who already hold the larger portion of it,

… that the powerful tend to exploit the unpowerful, but …

… that the exploitation is almost always couched in terms of altruism and cooperation—so that those without power regard those with power as benefactors, protectors, and, most perniciously, indispensable realities, not acknowledging …

… that wealth and power alike are symbolic—that gold would have no value if, as in Thomas More’s fantasy Utopia, people simply would stop seeing any value in it, and that great armies would have no force if underpaid, underappreciated soldiers, always asked to risk more than they have to gain, would refuse to fight for vague, inconsistent, and ultimately false value claims, masking the interests of the already powerful to retain and enhance that power.

All of this is general and abstract, but the reality is ever present with us. The physical evidence to support this claim is part of the air we breathe daily. And while I am distrustful of revolution and promises of a perfect society, I do think real change still occurs and remains strongly probable for the future—despite there being so much cynical illusion of improvement, as new bosses replace old bosses.  Real change occurs primarily through individuals’ practicing moral consciousness, consideration of the common good, as part of their own self-interest, and cooperation in taking the baby steps needed to make their world a better place for everybody in it.

And I say “their world” on purpose, not in the sense of ownership, but in the sense of responsibility and duty. We are not entirely dependent on the flagrant inequalities that we have come to accept as just the nature of things.

No doubt we do have a strong stake in some of the very institutions that sometimes oppress us (including not only AIG and the corporate structure, in general, but also an often arrogant and self-absorbed federal government), and we should not fool ourselves into thinking that the collapse of giants—even detestable, oppressive giants—does not pose considerable dangers for us little people, too.

But such giants have collapsed before, and the world kept turning.

Sherri Davis

Are we at all surprised that Illinois Governor Rod Blagoevich was arrested this morning at his home on the northside of Chicago? It happened to take place near my neighborhood. I wish I was one of the neighbors, so I could have seen it for myself.

According to today’s edition of the Chicago Tribune, Blago was arrested in, “Political Corruption Crime Spree”. It goes back to the blog I recently wrote on, “The Definition of a Politician” and how the very definition wreaks of corruption.

It has been on every news channel today. The Chicago Tribune states, “U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald says secret tape recordings show the governor was attempting “to sell the U.S. Senate seat” that President-elect Obama recently vacated. “

Are you kidding me, Rod? Do you really think that our lives are just a game…a ticket to be sold to the highest bidder? This is so disappointing and I hope it opens the eyes of the other corrupt politicians that they will, in time, “get busted out”.

Allison Bricker

NOTE: This is the third part in a 4 part series. Your questions and commentary are both welcomed and appreciated.

• Part 1 – How to Save the Republic
• Part 2 – Abolish the Income Tax
• Part 3 – Repeal the Direct Election of Senators
• Part 4 – Similarities Between the Great Depression and Our Current Crisis

We must understand that the Central Bankers who sought to regain control over our money supply and monetary policy at the beginning of the 20th century did indeed learn a precious lesson from the demise of the 2nd Central Bank of the United States…

From 1832 to 1834 the battle known as “The Bank War”¹ raged in Congress regarding whether or not to extend the charter of the 2nd Central Bank. By this time, President Andrew Jackson finally had found a Secretary of the Treasury who agreed to remove the Federal government’s deposits from the central bank and instead deposit them into various state banks.

Furious over President Jackson’s attempt at reducing the influence of the central bank, Nicolas Biddle, Bank President penned a letter to William Appleton² threatening to send the country into an economic depression by contracting the money supply. In his letter he stated:

Biddle’s plan worked, inflation soared, unemployment became rampant, an unprecedented number of businesses unable to repay loans went into bankruptcy, and President Jackson became the first President in our history to be censured by the Senate³. Unfortunately for Mr. Biddle, his arrogance regarding his ability to cause an economic collapse allowed his ego to get the best of him. He continued boasting, now publicly that relief would only come if Congress renewed the bank’s charter. When Pennsylvania Governor George Wolf, a previous supporter of the central bank was made aware of the bank President’s sentiments, he immediately came out against extension or renewal of the bank’s charter.⁴

Further, the Pennsylvania state Senate legislatively denounced the Central Bank directing both of Pennsylvania’s, Federal Senators, Samuel McKean and William Wilkins, also previous supporters of the central bank, to vote against rechartering or extension of the 2nd National Bank.

Thus since Pennsylvania demanded its Senators vote against re-authorization of the 2nd Central Bank, both Senators McKean and Wilkins had no choice but to follow their state’s mandate or risk being recalled and replaced by the Pennsylvania legislature. With Pennsylvania, the home state of the 2nd Central Bank, coming out against renewal, Biddle and his bank were lost. The bank’s charter was not renewed and it reverted to a private state bank, ultimately collapsing under its own insolvency.

While Nicholas Biddle was able to bribe many individual members of Congress into supporting the 2nd Central Bank, neither the time nor resources could be made available to bribe all of the state Governors and legislatures, which held the leash over Senators to the upper house of Congress.

Seeing this as a possible stumbling block, those involved with crafting the 3rd Central Bank or FEDERAL RESERVE, sought to wholly prevent this check and balance on Federal Authority. The opportunity finally presented itself to sever this connection of Senators to their states during what came to be known as the “Progressive Movement”⁵, 1901 to 1917. It was an era where “Direct Democracy” was touted as a way to put the average person in charge of their government. Progressive shills railed against vacancies in the Senate as proof that the system of state legislative appointments was untenable. They also decried that political party “bosses” had too much sway over the ruling faction within a state legislature.

However, a 2006 analysis of “progressive era reforms” by Raffaela Wakeman from M.I.T. contradicts this “progressive” hyperbole stating:

…supposed [progressive era] anti-party reform actually made it easier for the two major parties to control the election of U.S. Senators.⁶

Morever, prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment and unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate was not a body of career politicians, with most Senators serving anywhere from 4 to 10 years. However, after direct election, Senators began to serve almost in perpetuity; with many serving 30+ years before retiring.

Additionally, the claim that massive deadlocks permeated state legislatures, thereby preventing effective representation is factually incorrect. The historical record indicates that between 1871 to 1913 only 13 deadlocks existed, with 12 of the 13 coming in the 1890’s. Yet another accusation made by “progressives” was that the Senate was a corrupt body purchased by business tycoons, robber barons, and industrialists. This “progressive era” claim also falls flat again as data available in the historical record, shows that prior to 1913 candidates for Senate had the rare hundred thousand Dollar expenditure. However, once popular elections commenced, the cost of a Senate seat exploded to well over $5 Million Dollars by the 1990’s.⁷

Nevertheless, the greatest damage from the direct election of Senators is that in destroying the last vestige of Federalism, it allows for unchecked Federal expansion of power while simultaneously chaining Senators to popular sentiment and thus making them easily corrupted by their reliance on necessary campaign contributions. Moreover, with no threat of recall by the states, it centralizes political authority wholly in Washington, making it even easier to exact a corrupting influence over all of Congress without having to corrupt numerous state legislators and Governors.

Looking even further into the historical record we see that even with the passage of the 17th Amendment, every single legislatively appointed Senator won re-election by popular vote, seriously calling into question the necessity of this so called “progressive reform”.⁷

Thus, with the limitless spigot of revenue to Washington secured by the
16th Amendment ( February 3rd, 1913) and the subservience of Senators via the 17th Amendment (April 8th, 1913), the central bankers now had within their grasp all that was necessary to finally resurrect the Bank of the United States.

Representative Lindbergh’s mentioning of the “Money Trust” was a reference to the “Pujo Committee”, conducted from May 16, 1912 to February 26, 1913. The committee concluded that a conspiracy to control the money supply and amass wealth did in fact exist, stating:

“An established and well-defined identity and community of interest between a few leaders of finance which has been created and is held together through stock holdings, interlocking directorates, and other forms of domination over banks, trust companies, railroads, public service and industrial corporations, and which resulted in a vast and growing concentration of control of money and credit in the hands of a comparatively few men….”⁸

The entire report from the “Pujo Committee” which substantiates the existence of a conspiracy of bankers is available for download from the “FEDERAL RESERVE Archival System for Economic Research, -FRASER” in 32 separate PDF files.

Regardless of the committee’s findings, on December 23rd, 1913 “The FEDERAL RESERVE ACT” passed both the House and Senate and was thus signed into law by then President Wilson⁹. Within six years and with the Senate now subservient to contributions from lobbyists, financiers, and special interests, Congress became intoxicated with their new endless stream of “money”. The budget ballooned from $714 Million in 1913, to $5.13 Billion by 1919. Whereby the national debt during the first 124 years of the Republic, totaled $910 Million, it skyrocketed up to $24.1 Billion by 1919. An increase of $23.2 Billion in just 6 years.¹⁰

If the Republic is to be saved, the Senate must be restored to its Constitutional position and foundation upon Federalism. While it is my estimation that many “progressives” were of good and genuine intent to see government reformed and corruption eradicated, their movement was merely co-opted by those who sought a total centralization of power unto themselves for purely selfish desires, not to the benefit of “We the People”.

Source(s): ¹Jacksonian America by Edward Pessen 1920 • ²The Second Bank of the United States By Ralph Charles Henry Catterall -1902, pg 330 • ³ United States Senate, “Senate Censures President” • ⁴ The Second Bank of the United States By Ralph Charles Henry Catterall -1902, pg 339 • ⁵Progressive Era Reforms – Regents U.S. Histiory • ⁶ United States Senate Elections before 1914 by Raffaela Wakeman, M.I.T. • ⁷ “Democratizing the Constitution:The Failure of the Seventeenth Amendment” by C. H. Hoebeke* From HUMANITAS, Volume IX, No. 2, 1996 • ⁸ Report of the Committee Appointed Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the Concentration of Control of Money and Credit. February 28, 1913. Pages 1-258. • ⁹ New York Times “Affixes His Signature at 6:02P.M., Using Four Gold Pens” – December 24th, 1913 • ¹⁰ HISTORICAL TABLES – BUDGET OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT – Office of Management and Budget 2005