More confessions of an economic hit man: This time they're coming for your democracy.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

Interview with John Perkins. Revised edition of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man has come out.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/more-confessions-of-an-economic-hit-man-this-time-theyre-coming-for-your-democracy-20160318?utm_content=buffer54276&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

van Gelder: Can you talk about the violence that people are fleeing in Central America, and how that links back to the role the U.S. has had there?

Perkins: Three or four years ago the CIA orchestrated a coup against the democratically elected president of Honduras, President Zelaya, because he stood up to Dole and Chiquita and some other big, global, basically U.S.-based corporations.

He wasn’t assassinated but he was overthrown in a coup and sent to another country.

He wanted to raise the minimum wage to a reasonable level, and he wanted some land reform that would make sure that his own people were able to make money off their own land, rather than having big international corporations do it.

The big corporations couldn’t stand for this. He wasn’t assassinated but he was overthrown in a coup and sent to another country, and replaced by a terribly brutal dictator, and today Honduras is one of the most violent, homicidal countries in the hemisphere.

It’s frightening what we’ve done. And when that happens to a president, it sends a message to every other president throughout the hemisphere, and in fact throughout the world: Don’t mess with us. Don’t mess with the big corporations. Either cooperate and get rich in the process, and have all your friends and family get rich in the process, or go get overthrown or assassinated. It’s a very strong message.

Bernie talks about the overthrow of democratic governments such as Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chine, and many others, and the installation of dictators who let the U.S. loot and pillage their countries and enslave them in massive debt.

[JDPriestly]

1. And Kissinger, Hillary's good friend and adviser's ideas, philosophy or strategies

have inspired many of these misdeeds (not Mossadegh but Allende and other similar foreign policy blunders).

[billhicks76]

2. How Can Any Good Democrat Excuse Kissinger?

Last edited Mon Mar 28, 2016, 04:43 AM - Edit history (1)

[a la izquierda]

3. I can't and won't.

My area of research is Latin America, specifically indigenous peoples.
Want nightmares? Read about Guatemala in the '60s-'80s. I watched a documentary on it last week. Nightmares. And I've been studying this for over a decade.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. All it took to preform genocide of native populations was to claim they were commies.

[billhicks76]

6. How Can Hillary Supporters Excuse This?

[nxylas]

7. The same way they excuse anything

Either:

A) She's been a Democrat a lot longer than Bernie.

Or;

B) Why do you hate women? It makes me cry

I think that covers the bases.

[Betty Karlson]

10. C) if you refuse to like her, you are a racist who wants children deported and

who clears the way for back-alley abortions. Also 9/11, and if you are a woman you are probably a complacent Hell-Bound Millennial slut lusting after millennial boys.

[FlatBaroque]

13. No real and honest Democrat would

but a phony Democrat, a Goldwater Republican, certainly would take great pride in her friendship with the Dr. Death.

[Betty Karlson]

9. Interestingly, his doctoral thesis was about Metternich and Castlereagh.

And published shortly after the Mossadegh coup. Kissinger's praise for the two arch-conservative interventionists (Castlereagh's stamping on the Irish call for sovereignty, Metternich propping up the Ottomans as long as he saw no clear advantage for Austria to liberate Balkan nations from religious and political oppression - the liberation efforts could after all spread into Austria's dominions...) informs us of how Kissinger saw the Mossadegh coup.

[JDPriestly]

15. Interesting. Thanks. I'd give you a K&R, but . . . . . so I will say +1000000.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. I have been expecting a Republican President to talk infrastructure....

But to pay for it with a loan from the World Bank.

[Baobab]

17. Did you know that wont create US jobs any more?

No, I bet you don't know.

they want a Democratic president to be blamed for it.

>I have been expecting a Republican President to talk infrastructure....


No more New Deals my friend. Some huge amount of future government spending will as likely as not be going to foreign subcontracting firms.

[bjo59]

8. Fantastic post.

So many people don't take the time to read anything beyond a few sentences at a time and I wish it weren't so and that this was made available to every last person living in this country!

[mnhtnbb]

11. On the flip side of this, it's possible the corporations can actually do some good

when they inject themselves in politics.

And I'm thinking about the negative response here in NC to the bathroom bill passed last week. Many, many
big name corporations have come out against it and are emphasizing that it's important for their
employees to live/work in an environment of equality. So, I'm actually hopeful that the serious blowback
on HB 2 will result in helping to throw the Republican bums out here in NC in November. Add this
to the issues which the Moral Mondays have addressed and there are going to be a lot of people
with a lot of reasons to vote Democratic here in NC in November.

But yes, I read Perkins' book some years ago. It did not surprise me. Interesting to see it's been updated.

Thanks for the post!

[femmedem]

12. The Guardian: Who's in charge of U.S. Foreign Policy? (2009)

"...When the coup occurred on June 28, the first statement that came out of the White House was a major blunder. Although the US and international press gave Obama a pass, the international community could hardly help noticing that the White House issued the only official statement in the world that didn't have a bad word to say about the coup when it happened.

"This position shifted as events moved forward, and Obama himself even went so far as to say: "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras." But then his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, seemed to contradict him. Twice she was asked by the press whether restoring the democratic order in Honduras meant restoring the elected president, and twice she declined to answer..."

Much more at link

[FlatBaroque]

14. Sid Blumenthal was her handler on the destruction of Libya, in Honduras

I believe it was Lanny Davis.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

16. Many Many Thanks

far too many do not know there own history

worse - many do not care