A young 19 year old man, I've known since he was about 9 years old just told me that he just took the test to join the army. His mother and I were fairly close friends for a bit, having bonded as fellow single mamas and so Andrees and this boy spent quite a bit of time together. I'd only just reaquainted with him- he came up to me at the cafe and said hello and inquired about my son. I had no idea who he was, my son's been living with my sister since he was 10 and lately I've run into various young adults who remember me so well and I feel like an ass for not remembering them. So at first I'm racking my brain trying to figure out which random old school friend he might be. Then I realized it wasn't a school friend at all but this friend, who I remembered very well. We talked a bit about how my boy's been, how he's been. He talked of starting community college. I encouraged him toward welding. At one point he smiled really big and suddenly there was that 9 year old boy, I remembered, full of wonder, curiosity and potential for a bright future. So hearing his plan just yesterday, made me very sad. I sat there trying to look positive and understanding, but inside I was beseeching, "no, no, please, no!" I didn't have words to say to him to dissuade him. Partly because I'm a pussy and fear confrontation. Partly, because I can understand the urge to get the hell out when one is feeling stuck. And partly because I'm just not versed enough in my opposition- I also don't want to be yet another person just negating a young person's thoughts without info to back it up. I had my laptop in front of me and wonder why I didn't just ask him if he had time to watch a video with me. I know why, actually, it's because in the moment, I wouldn't occur to me what exactly to show him so I put this together for him and for future reference. I wish I'd done it a long time ago. I don't expect, necessarily to change his mind. Just give him and others and provide myself with some rational information that we don't normally get from society. Here is the start I will add to it as I have time and find more information.
______________________________________
PREFACE
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 (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of
huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy fami-lies 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
terrify-ing dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM,
I wrote that in 1982, as the beginning of a book with the working title, Conscience of an
Economic Hit Man. The book was dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had
been my clients, whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits — Jaime Roldos, president
of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their
deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of
corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We EHMs failed to
bring Roldos and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who
were always right behind us, stepped in.
I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times during the next twenty
years. On each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current world events:
the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, the first Gulf War, Somalia, the rise of Osama bin Laden.
However, threats or bribes always convinced me to stop.
In 2003, the president of a major publishing house that is owned by a powerful international
corporation read a draft of what had now become Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He
described it
John Perkins from Zeitgeist Addendum Part II
"Confessions of an Economic Hitman"
When you have time, I encourage you to watch the full films Zeitgeist Addendum and Zeitgeist Moving Forward. And visit www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
____________________________________________________________
"...The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament
to prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any potential foe.
There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is for all nations
to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane.
Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.
The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not
with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its
foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their
profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the
munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear
uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.
But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.
If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and
explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of
building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all
make more money out of peace than we can out of war -- even the munitions makers.
So...I say,
TO HELL WITH WAR!"From "War is a Racket" By Major General Smedley Butler [ The Smedley Butler Society ]
Read by Jules Harlick
Librivox NonFiction
Collection Volume 018
__________________________________________________
"...your actions in the military involve far more than whatever's in front of you or in your gun sights at any given moment. Our military operations around the world—and soon that will mean you—have produced all kinds of blowback. Thought about a certain way, I was being sent out in 2002 to respond to the blowback created by the first Afghan War and you're about to be sent out to deal with the blowback created by my version of the second one....
Let me start with my first day "on the job." I remember dropping my canvas duffle bag at the foot of my bunk in Charlie Company, and almost immediately being called into my platoon sergeant's office. I sprinted down a well-buffed hallway, shadowed by the platoon's "mascot": a Grim-Reaper-style figure with the battalion's red and black scroll beneath it. It hovered like something you'd see in a haunted house on the cinder block wall adjoining the sergeant's office. It seemed to be watching me as I snapped to attention in his doorway, beads of sweat on my forehead. "At ease... Why are you here, Fanning? Why do you think you should be a Ranger?" All this he said with an air of suspicion.
Shaken, after being screamed out of a bus with all my gear, across an expansive lawn in front of the company's barracks, and up three flights of stairs to my new home, I responded hesitantly, "Umm, I want to help prevent another 9/11, First Sergeant." It must have sounded almost like a question.
"There is only one answer to what I just asked you, son. That is: you want to feel the warm red blood of your enemy run down your knife blade."
Taking in his military awards, the multiple tall stacks of manila folders on his desk, and the photos of what turned out to be his platoon in Afghanistan, I said in a loud voice that rang remarkably hollowly, at least to me, "Roger, First Sergeant!"
He dropped his head and started filling out a form. "We're done here," he said without even bothering to look up again.
The platoon sergeant's answer had a distinct hint of lust in it but, surrounded by all those folders, he also looked to me like a bureaucrat. Surely such a question deserved something more than the few impersonal and sociopathic seconds I spent in that doorway." From "Letter from an Angry Ranger"http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/military-counterrecruitment-global-war-on-terror
No comments:
Post a Comment