I left off with what I did not like about John Perkins’ book, The Secret History of the American Empire.  Now it’s time to talk about what I did like.

Spoiler Alert: I may ruin your reading experience or I may illuminate your understanding of it.  Proceed with caution.

In Part 1 I explained that this book is a continuation of Confessions of an Economic Hit man.  As an EHM Mr. Perkins helped to create and facilitate a world in which the ‘corporatacracy’, led by the USA, convinces third world countries to accept huge development packages that are supposed to lift these countries out of poverty and onto the world stage.

But everyone seems to know that in reality this is just a ruse to allow foreign aid to be redirected into the bank accounts of American companies, like Bechtel and Haliburton, while forcing countries into an oblivion of debt and unfair trade agreements.

Confessions essentially deals with John’s work from the late 1960’s up to about the middle of the ’90’s (I don’t have the book with me right now otherwise I would reference the time line located in the Appendix, next time).  He leaves off there for the obvious reason that he was no longer involved and so no longer has first hand information on what was going on.

In American Empire John picks up where he left off through information he’s gathered through interviews, research, and fact finding trips.  The book is divided into five parts: Asia, South America, Middle East, Africa, and a section on what we can do.  The first four sections describe the outrageous atrocities that are being committed in the different regions by the corporatacracy.  The final section is a possible road map for how change can be accomplished.

I won’t get into too many specifics, that’s what the book is for, but there are a couple of issues that gave me a TTMYGHmm moment (things that make you go, hmmm).

The first issue that struck me as I read this book was just how often the US removed a democratically elected leader of a country and replaced him with a ruthless dictator.  It’s amazing how many “accidents” leaders have.  And how many times during the current war in Iraq have we heard Bush or one of his top aides talk about bringing democracy to the people of Iraq.  How do they keep from laughing or have they so thoroughly confused even themselves with all of the double-talk that they actually believe that they are saying?

Personally, it makes me nauseous.  If this is how democratically minded countries treat other democratically minded countries than I’d rather live in a dictatorship.  At least a dictator is up front about their transgressions.  You expect a dictator to break laws, or rather, invent their own.  You expect a democratically elected official to work towards upholding and fostering the same principles that founded the USA and other longstanding democratic traditions.  But maybe I’m naive.

The second issue is just how far reaching this corruption is.  Asia, South America, the Middle East, Africa, it just doesn’t seem to end.

The third issue centers on Africa.  John asserts that one of the reasons that Africa as a continent remains so unstable politically is because this is advantageous to the corporatacracy.  Wars mean weapons sales, bombs mean infrastructure needs to be rebuilt and who’s gonna build it, and unstable governments mean politicians who are looking for friends and willing to allow foreign companies in to exploit their resources for political favours and kickbacks.

While I would contend that this is all probably true, I wouldn’t necessarily credit EHMs and the corporatacracy for masterminding all of this.  I think that the aftermath of colonialism with it’s arbitrary divisions of the land and the ravages of HIV/AIDS have had a larger impact on the continent than anything a guy in a suit could come up with.

Finally, I was amazed to hear what some groups are doing to change all of this.  The most intriguing strategy was a group that buys stock in companies that have sketchy human rights or environmental policies and then to speak up at the stock owners meetings.  Brilliant.

All in all, this was definitely a worthwhile read.  I think that this is a great introduction to the topic of American foreign policy, CIA intervention abroad, international aid policies, and the workings of international consulting companies.