Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: Final Review (Questions Five and One)

The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man written by John Perkins is one of the most informative, eye opening, and enthralling books I have read in my entire life. From the beginning of the book, with “It began innocently enough.” To “…to come clean, to confess- to write the words in this book.” This gripping story will open the door to a truth you never knew. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a recount of the life of the author, John Perkins, who says that he was part of an organization (or multiple ones depending on the way you look at it) that drained nations to bankruptcy. As described by John Perkins:

           

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, 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.

     I should know; I was an EHM

           

John Perkins account of his life, packed with politics, deceit, betrayal, and much more will most certainly open your eyes to the world we Americans live in, and how the rest of the world lives.

            John Perkins stated clearly in his book that one of the key reasons he was writing this book was to spread awareness of the situation going on. He knew that most citizens of the U.S had no inkling of the devastation outside of their homes. They led a comfortable life, sheltered from all the things that many would have protested. Perkins mentions this multiple times. In his book, Perkins mentions that later on in his life, while he was an EHM, he observed something that turned his stomach:

           

            A movement up the canal caught my attention. An elderly man had descended the bank, dropped his pants, and squatted at the edge of the water to answer nature’s call. The young woman saw him but was undeterred; she continued bathing…  

This is one of many incidents that contributed to his first attempt at getting information out into the world. Perkins’s first attempt was to write a tell-all book called Conscience of an Economic Hit Man, which ultimately failed. In the near beginning of the book, when John Perkins was training to become an EHM with Claudine, his mentor told him one thing that stuck to him: Once you’re in, you can never back out. The first attempt failed because someone from MAIN, the organization he used to work at offered him a lucrative job, but he had to keep quiet and Perkins accepted the bribe. He never gave up though, and after years of mental torture, he decided that this was it and that he had to tell his story, or forever keep it quiet. Finally, everything that had piled on top of him since the start of his life as an EHM, through 9-11, to the millions of deaths and impoverished countries got to his heart and the voice inside his head that bothered him his whole life won over and the Conscience of an Economic Hit Man was published.

            Born in 1945, John Perkins was an only child of a middle class family. He Graduated prep school in 1963, enters Middlebury College, befriending Farhad, the son of an Iranian general and drops out in 1964. Marrying in 1966, Perkins’s wife’s “Uncle Frank” helped him join the Peace Corps. In 1970, John Perkins’s first contact with the consulting firm MAIN takes place in Ecuador and he joins MAIN a year later, undergoing training as an economic hit man. During his nine-year career as an EHM, John Perkins successfully negotiates plans to bankrupt several different countries, quickly rising through the ranks writing a few books along the way. Even with the success of his career and all the luxuries he could care for, John Perkins experienced the lives of the normal people of the countries he was trying to destroy with friends, or through friends. During the 1980s, he suffered from depression, guilt, and he fact that money and power have trapped him at MAIN and quits soon after. After MAIN, he starts up his own environmentally friendly electricity company. From 1983-1989, his company prospers which he suspects to be the doing of former associates and because of the things he did as an EHM. He starts to write a tell-all book of his life, but a sudden job offer stops him. After September 11, 2001, he is convinced that the truth had to come out. The attack on the twin towers sent him a message that he could delay no longer, accepting bribes and threats. It also gave him a sense of responsibility now since as he was an economic hit man, he might have had something to do with it. Sending all those countries into bankruptcy and dependence on the U.S.A might have sent some people over the edge, making enemies. The first signs of this in the book would be when John Perkins is with Paula and one of his workers receives this threat:

           We, who work every day just to survive, swear on the blood of our ancestors that we will never allow dams across out rivers. We are simple Indians and mestizos, but be would rather die than stand by as our land is flooded. We warn our Colombian brother: stop working for the construction companies.

He wanted to expose the fact that EHM are everywhere today and there are more than before. He felt he owed this to his country, to his daughter, to all the people around the world who suffer because of the work he and other EHMs have done. In the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, he describes the treacherous path his country is taking as it reaches for global domination.

Seriously the FINAL Literature Circle Letter

    

            So I’ve been reading “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” for about a month and a half. So far, I’ve really enjoyed the book. The book contains a substantial amount of gripping details of greed and deceit that’s happening in our very own country, with its ideals of freedom and a chance for a better life. In the last section of this book, my mind is just like O_o… what the hell man. I thought our country was awesome, but now I know why people hate us so much. They aren’t just haters, they have an actual reason. Things that John Perkins says like:

           

The EHMs had failed. The jackals had failed. So young men and women were sent to kill and die among the desert sands.

            This book…this book is an eye opener, difficult to read, yes. Even though it’s difficult, just have a dictionary handy or something. Seriously the last part of the book just pries your eyes open; the first two sections were like, holy shit! This can’t be true but then the last part is like when the truth dawns on you. I mean I just can’t believe this stuff. One of the most shocking things I read, though I don’t know why, was when John Perkins says this one thing which was:

            The ability to print currency gives us immense power. It means, among other things, that we can continue to make loans that will never be repaid… by 2003, the notional debt exceeded a staggering 6 trillion dollars. Much of it owed to Asian countries particularly to Japan and China…As long as the world accepts the dollar as its standard currency, this excessive debt does not pose a serious obstacle to the corporatocracy. However if another currency should come along to replace the dollar, the situation would change drastically.

            I don’t really know because I’m not that intelligent, but this has already happened and China is now dominating the global economy when the U.S just sank, and now we actually really owe those countries huge amounts of money, and now everyone is aware. This is just mind blasting and I don’t even know what to say anymore.

           

DOCTOR WHO

     I feel that this blog is long overdue. I mean I’ve been watching Doctor Who since... I don’t know, like since middle school. For those of you who have never watched or even heard of Doctor Who, you can kind of tell already that it’s a T.V show. Doctor Who, which is on BBC, is a science fiction series. Its about a man, not from our world, with technologies that humans on Earth could never dream of. (What the hell is up with me and my science/space/technology obsession?) Beginning in 1963, Doctor Who was about “The Doctor”, the main character who is a quirky individual. He is strange because, although he has the appearance of a human, he is actually a Time Lord from a planet called Gallifrey. The last of the Time Lords, the doctor travels through time and space, searching and searching. For what, I don’t know. Maybe searching for companionship since his life is a solitary one. The Doctor uses the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) On the outside, it looks like any old police box in England, but in reality it wasn't really a police box at all. In fact, once inside the box, the space expands to hold a futuristic room that couldn't possibly fit into the police box. It was in fact a ship that could travel in time and space! And so began the travels with the Doctor…
      David Tennant, Doctor Who’s tenth doctor was the first actor in the show I saw the first time I watched Doctor Who. I don’t know what was so interesting about him. Now I know. David Tennant was probably one of the greatest doctors in the series. He made the show come to life with his acting and it shows because when it was finally time for him to end his career as the tenth doctor, almost every fan of Doctor Who was saddened at the thought of losing him and protested.
     One of the things I thought was an ingenious idea was the idea that in the show, the Doctor is able to regenerate whenever he is critically injured. This gives way to many possibilities since the show is able to go on for virtually forever. What I’m saying is that if Doctor Who continues to run in the future, some of the actors might die and here is where the ability to regenerate comes in handy. If the current doctor is unable to act, there is always the possibility to regenerate the doctor into the thirteenth, or fourteenth and etc. I believe that is one of the reasons this show is so successful unlike the other shows where there is a fixed set of main characters with one person acting, but with Doctor Who, anyone could play the Doctor because he can change appearances. This show is hard to review because it’s always changing, the characters, the plot, anything can happen since it’s a science fiction show. The only way I can think of talking about it is episode by episode. I might do that…O_o

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Well this book so far has really been a great read for me. Although there are some bits and pieces throughout the book like some words or terms that I have no idea what it means. As mentioned in part one, John Perkins tells his story in a way that expresses his feelings. I found that I could experience the things he expierenced like meeting important figures situated throughout the world. Whether they were warm, friendly people, or if thhere was a sense of hatred, I would usually share the same feelings with the him in the story. Whenever something bad happened, like one of his friends dies, I felt sorrow as in this excerpt:
"He died there in a fiery airplane crash, on July 31, 1981. Latin America and the world reeled. ****** was known across the globe, respected as the man who regained control of the Panama Canal and continued to stand up to Ronald Reagan. I was personally devastated by this travesty. I spent many hours reflecting on my conversations with this man. I recalled my first sight of him, and and the thought sent a shudder through me even as it had on that stormy night."
I guess it's so simple and easy to becoome part of John Perkins is because all his experiences had emotions and thoughts that people can relate to, making everything much easier to remember and recall. As I read on, more and more subjects I've known to be true are now sent into turmoil and I'm just puzzled and whenever I read this book, I can't help but to think about all that has happened in it and what will happen. My assumptions of certain things have changed and I am not used to all of this and yet I still want to read on.

Hidden Water

It's clear, pristine and refreshing. Soothing and necessary, and it makes up almost three quarters of the Earth. It is water, and all life depends on it. Without it is without life, with it there is survival. But only a miniscule portion of that can actually sustain life. We humans alone use up so much of the Earth's resources that other life organisms can barely hang onto existence and in many cases have already died off yet everyone, including me, are still abusing what we have. I've seen some people at school who do stupid stupid things like jamming a faucet so that it runs continuously. Little things like this drains us and every other life form of potential survival. Sure there are groups of people who try and sometimes succeed to improve our way of living, but there has to be more, maybe we will not be able to stop the catastrophe waiting just over the hill. Face it, we are all greedy, inconsiderate hypocrites. We are basically killing what we need to survive. The Earth the home of the the human race will die into a lifeless drifting planet, turning into one of the other billions of uninhabited planets, all because of us.
You may never stop to think about it. Regular everyday things. Everyday items such as jeans or a cup of coffee. Oh you say, it's just a venti six pump hazelnut, ten pump vanilla extra mocha drizzle cappuccino. Nothing much. Well think about this. A cup of coffee takes thirty seven gallons of water to make. And those favorite pair of jeans? Oh nothing much, just two thousand nine hundred gallons of water to produce.
The term virtual water is the amount of water used to create a product that we the consumers don't see when we buy something. Our population is so over populated that we have started to waste water unnecessarily. That steak your eating, one thousand eight hundred fifty seven gallons of water down the drain. During class, we learned about global warming and what cows had to do with it. America in its own right is a major consumer of meat products that we probably have billions of cows to meet our " McDonalds" craving, or steak. These cows produce so much methane that it surpasses the carbon dioxide levels of emissions from cars and such. Another big issue about this is that we use up unbelievable amounts of water to jeep these animals alive before we kill and consume them. I just have one more fact to share with you. Imagine a farm of cows. If it takes eight hundred eight thousand, four hundred gallons of water for pastures, feed and hay, six thousand three hundred for drinking, and one thousand nine hundred for hygiene for stables and farmyards, add up the data. That's right it takes eight hundred sixteen thousand, six hundred gallons of water. And guess what? That eight hundred sixteen thousand, six hundred gallons of water is used for the entire life of ONE cow. Imagine that and multiply that by a billion and see how much water we use. With that thought, my blog post ends.

The Confessions of an Economic Hitman Part One LCL One

Remeber the first time that Mr. Sutherland started to introduce reading circle books? Well I had a bunch of thoughts on the books that were made available and "The Confessions of an Economic Hitman seemed a tad bit boring. First impressions are rarely good anyways. Now that I've glanced through a couple pages of the book, I find it very well written and also interesting. I commend Alvin for choosing such a difficult yet in some way addicting book. The introduction to "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" was a very intriguing excerpt from the book. It was along the lines of:
"Economic Hitmen are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars they funnel money from the World Bank and other foreign aid organizations...their tools include fradulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder."
The part that stands out the most to me is of course the murder part. U just thought that the book was something really boring, but in reality it houses all these brain squeezing information and makes me want to keep reading it. In fact I would say that Patient Zero and this book are like "brother books" or something. I say this because some paragraphs like this:
"...if we fail, an even more sinister breed steps in, ones we EHMs refer to as the jackals, men who trace their heritage directly to those earlier empires, lurking in the shadow."
To me this stlye of writing is not that different from Jonathan Maberry's stlye of writing, he has the right amount of action to captivate me, but has much more to tell.

Not so long ago, maybe a year or two ago, I fell in love with zombies (no not like that!). I was just crazy. The first real hands-on experience I had was reading a book called Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Although it was in the humor sections of the books, the content of the book was extremely detailed and I could have believed that it would help me in case of any undead surprise attacks. Over the years I've been reading many a horror stories with zombies. From World War Z by Max Brooks, to Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry, I've grown into them I guess. I remember the first time I actually saw a zombie was in the game RESIDENT EVIL I or II (I think it's Resident Evil). My cousins were playing and they told me that if I watched them play, I would get nightmares. But of course I stayed and watched them, which was not a very bright choice since I was about seven around that time. It isn't as clear to me as it was before, but I remember a train and then a man sitting in the abandoned train, and my cousin's in-game character walked over to the man, and then all of a sudden the man's neck just rips open and a stream of bugs come out of it. Ever since that day I've been sort of afraid of the dark and I hate myself for watching my cousin play that game. Even though I am pretty freaked out about all that, I still love zombie games such as Resident Evil 5 and Left 4 Dead 2 because they aren't as hardcore scary as their predecessors. Seriously, even though graphics have improved and there are more ideas, the old games were way scarier than today's modern genre of horror. Anyone who has ever played the first or second resident evil would most likely agree with what I'm saying.
Now that I've got that out of the way the rest of my blog post is devoted to a mini review of Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing which is a DLC (Download-able Content) on the Xbox360 which is already OUT. In The Passing, players will meet up with the original Left 4 Dead's survivors, Francis, Bill, Zoey and Louis, who will appear as non-playable characters and I was so bummed out about this because...I wanted to play as Bill. In the new campaign, there will be one new uncommon common infected type, which Valve is calling the Fallen Survivor. These new zombies, were formerly survivors like the main characters of Left 4 Dead 2, but were infected later on. And with fallen survivors, everyone knows that they would have had some items on them meaning that they will sometimes drop items when killed, like health kits or ammo. In addition to the fallen survivor, another witch has been added to Left 4 Dead 2. This witch, who is not different from the original witch I believe, is just a regular witch in a wedding dress. That concludes my blog and I hope I didn’t bore you too much.