Cash advance

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/02/2016 (3486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An American ambassador to Canada once explained to Canadian media that, in his experience, there are two levels of politics. He called the first “retail,” meaning what voters are intended to see (campaigns, slogans, promises, etc.). He called the second “wholesale,” meaning behind closed doors, what voters don’t need to see (battles, nasty compromises, big mistakes and how they are managed).

He did not mention a third level that remains beyond the imagination of even the most sophisticated voters and well-intentioned politicians. That is the world of American writer John Perkins — the world of the EHM: economic hit man.

Perkins defines an EHM as a carefully cultivated person who travels the globe exerting a unique influence on international events. The EHM usually presents as a business consultant or academic presence, but, in reality, works for corporations who will share their astonishing profits with the U.S. government. The EHM is skilled in selected nasty arts. He knows how to fake economic data, rig elections, blackmail the sexually indiscreet, entrap developing countries in overwhelming debt, manipulate the media and, if necessary, arrange assassinations. His covert actions produce huge outcomes in the realms of finance, government and military affairs. He is handsomely rewarded for his work.

Perkins first burst upon the literary-tell-all scene in 2004 with Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, a book that sold more than a million copies in 32 languages and spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list, making Perkins the whistleblower to end all whistleblowers. According to Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister and himself the victim of an economic “hit,” Perkins made a huge contribution to the world by “opening its eyes to the true sources of political, social and economic power.”

More than a decade later, the hit man-turned-activist has followed up with an updated and expanded edition that brings his clandestine insight to many radical events of the past 12 years: the Arab Spring, the Idle No More movement and the rise to power of indigenous peoples, among others.

Perkins’ nefarious career began innocently enough — with the U.S. Peace Corps in Ecuador in 1968 — but his brilliance and charisma quickly drew the attention of the National Security Agency and, he suspects, the Central Intelligence Agency, that eased his way into international consulting. His patriotism and ego propelled him along, compelling him to cheat developing countries out of trillions of dollars and facilitate murderous acts without ever having to face them directly.

His understanding of his deadly work changed dramatically with the storming of the U.S. embassy in Iran in 1979, which he saw as the proof that U.S. policies and the tactics of economic hit men were not sustainable. That was the beginning of the end of his life as a black-ops James Bond.

As a “civilian,” Perkins was increasingly haunted by his former life, especially after the birth of his daughter, which caused him to see the future through fresh eyes. The still hotly debated catastrophe of 9/11 pushed him into exposing the underside of corporate and government corruption, which he does in a style as engaging as John le Carré.

The grotesque revelations of greed, corruption and corporate/government recklessness in New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man would be hopelessly depressing but for Perkins’ faith in the power of informed collective action to change the path the world has taken since the end of the Second World War.

He is, ultimately, an American patriot of the Jeffersonian kind: he believes when the people know the truth, they will do the right thing.

In need of personal redemption, he has told and documented the ugly truth he has lived.

The rest is up to his readers.

Lesley Hughes is a Winnipeg writer.