John Perkins has made his confession. In his first book on this topic "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" he detailed his efforts as Vice President for MAIN (a competitor with Halliburton and Bechtel among others at the time) traveling around the world as an "economic hit man (EHM)" using the World Bank and the IMF to subjugate Third World countries to US interests.

More than just an expose, both "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and now "The Secret History of the American Empire" are about how to change course for a better tomorrow. How we can have a system that is not predatory and provides benefits to a few on the backs of the poor.

There are many fascinating stories in the books, the most fascinating of which are told by figures to whom he has promised anonymity. The first figure in the excerpt below, 'Jose' is a high ranking official in the Brazilian government. Though this book has been widely reviewed and widely bought, I have yet to see these stories on any media outlet. If true, they are absolutely stunning.

page 132

Jose described how students are lured in while they are naive and vulnerable. He talked about his own personal experiences as a young man and the way women, booze, and drugs were used. "So you see, even when a radical opponent of the US gets into office, and assuming that at this point in his life he sincerely wants to stand up to Washington, your CIA has what you call 'the goods' on him."

"Blackmail."

He chuckled at this. "You might call it that, or you might call it 'modern diplomacy'. It isn't just the US of course. Surely you've heard the rumors about why Noreiga was taken down and today rots in a US prison."

"I've heard that he had camera on Contadora Island." It was an infamous resort off Panama's coast, a "safe haven" where US businessmen could treat politicians to every conceivable vice. I had visited - and used - Contadora several times during my EHM days.

"You heard who got caught by those cameras?"

"Rumors that George W. was photographed doing coke and having kinky sex during the time his father was president." There was a theory in Latin America that Noriega had used incriminating photos of the younger Bush and his cronies to convince the older Bush, the president, to side with the Panamanian administration on key issues. In retaliation, H. W. invaded Panama and hustled Noriega off to a Miami prison. The building housing Noriega's confidential files had been incinerated by bombs; as a side effect, more than two thousand innocent civilians were burned to death in Panama City that day in December 1989. Many people claimed that this theory offered the only logical explanation for violently attacking a nation without an army and that posed no threat to the United States.

Jose nodded. "From where I sit, those rumors ring awfully true. I've experienced things that take them out of the realm of fantasy." He cocked his head. "So have you." He paused, looking around. "And it terrifies me."

page 133

"Everyone has - as you say - skeletons in his closet. Every politician has done things that can look bad, if brought into the light in a certain way. Clinton had Monica. She wasn't the issue, though. Clinton went too far in his efforts to revise world currencies and he posed a huge threat to future Republican campaigns - he was just too young, dynamic, and charismatic. So Monica was marched into the spotlight. Don't you believe that Bush has a few women in his background too? But who dares talk about them?

page 134

Later that day I recalled a retired CIA agent who shared with me his version of Clinton's impeachment. It was consistent with the things Jose had described. "Linda Tripp was assigned to destroy a president feared as a reformer who might undermine the corporatocracy," the CIA man said. "As you know, guys like me always look for 'innocents' to do our dirty work. Less risk, no evidence. Linda found her innocent in Monica Lewinsky. She told Monica, 'Poor Bill doesn't get any TLC at home. You could do him a favor.' The rest is history."

It's because pollsters aren't asking about them.

From Crooks and Liars:

My New Hampshire phone rings (caller ID 000-000-0000 WTF?)and I pick it up out of curiosity. "This is (talking like a magpie so I haven't got a clue what the name of the company is) Research. Would you like to be part of a poll for the Democratic presidential primary candidate?" I agree and the woman rapidly reads the list of candidates. "Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, Biden and Richardson." I say, "Kucinich." The woman on the phone says "Who?" I say, "Kucinich. Dennis Kucinich." I hear coaching in the background - apparently the call is being monitored. "I'm sorry, but Dennis Kucinich is not on our list. Is there anyone on the list I gave you who you would vote for?"

So there you have it. Kucinich is down in the polls because he isn't included in the polls . . . and you can forget about Gravel, too.

Hey all,

It's been a crazy last week and a half for this profile. I thought I might give a quick rundown of what we experienced with the removal of our profile. It certainly was unexpected and unwanted.

MySpace deleted this profile, or maybe a more accurate way to describe it is that they removed our profile on August 29th, around 1 or 2am in the morning. I was out of town that week and didn't find out until six days later on but James knew that morning. He emailed MySpace asking for the profile to be restored or at least to provide a reason for the removal of this profile. A week later on September 4th I followed up with another email to MySpace and also emailed Deborah at the official Mike Gravel MySpace page to let her know what happened.

We started this profile because we really believe in Mike Gravel's message. He's pretty much the direct opposite of this.



We haven't engaged in anything to break MySpace's Terms of Service. We haven't flamed, spammed, or been anything other than supportive of Mike Gravel on our page. Yet MySpace decided to remove our profile. There have been reports of strange happenings surrounding our page, the official Gravel site, and possibly others.

It was our feeling that we didn't have the time and energy to try to build this profile back from the ground up where we'd still be at the mercy of News Corp., the corporate parent of MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch, the notorious media mogul most famous for Fox News and his recent acquisition of The Wall Street Journal. We hoped to help in other ways.

Deborah sent back a nice message and then put out a bulletin about our profile going down. Several days later, we're back!

We're not privy to all the goings on behind the scenes, but apparently enough of you wrote to MySpace and some supporters who had friends at MySpace were able to pull some strings to get us up back and running.

If there's one thing we've learned over the past several months of running this profile is that Presidential politics is bare knuckles politics as its most brutal. And those who try to change the system are the biggest targets. It's why party "revolutionaries" like Gravel and Kucinich get constantly marginalized at the debates by being placed at ends of the stage and being given a disproportionately small amount of time to speak.

The thing is, this is not a joke. It's not a game. We're talking about the future of our country, and being the US, really, the future of the world.

You. Us. We're the ones that can make a difference. Look at the picture above and see who is in charge there and who is just happy to be there. That's our system in a nutshell. Setbacks like the removal of this profile end up stoking the fires of change.

A voice like Mike Gravel's is what this country needs. Tell everybody.

And, really... it's great to be back!

-Ben