I love the way young alternative journalists are coming into their own. And see this.
If you never read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, then at least check out this video. Along with Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, it woke me up to the bankster/corporatist/USG heist of the natural world and the indigenous peoples who inhabit it.
From my notes:
Luke: Where do you see everything going?
I see a tremendous opportunity here. We’ve created a failed global economy. Less than 5% of us live in the U.S. and yet we consume 30% of the world’s resources. China, Brazil, India, are trying to repeat that, but they can’t. It’s an failed model. The old model is a death economy. It’s based on militarism, ripping up the earth, destroying resources, plundering, ravaging, raping. We’ve got to recognize that we can’t fix the old economy, but we need to move into a new economy, a Life economy. Based on cleaning up pollution. The water is polluted, the air, the earth. There’s a tremendous opportunity here, putting people to work to clean it up.
Luke: Was there a moment of spiritual awakening for you?
A number of things. I was a peace corps volunteer in the Amazon before I became an economic hit man. It took me awhile, because it was the way I was taught, that this how we help countries, by building infrastructure. But it wasn’t working the way we said it would.
One epiphany: At sunset, sitting in front of an old sugar plantation, and realizing that it was built on the backs of thousands of slaves, and that I was one of those who enslaved people. I went back and quit.
Then, after 9/11, I went to Ground Zero and I realized that I had to write the book.
