John Perkins: Jerk, Con Man, Shill by Greg Palast

(Greg's website is down - the first link is to google's cache)
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gregpalast.com%2Fjohn-perkins-jerk-con-man-shill%2F

(edit to add coral cache link, which includes the comments on Greg's page)
http://www.gregpalast.com.nyud.net:8080/john-perkins-jerk-con-man-shill/


http://www.gregpalast.com/john-perkins-jerk-con-man-shill/

John Perkins: Jerk, Con Man, Shill
by Greg Palast
5 July 2007



I remember John Perkins. He was a real jerk. A gold-plated, super-slick lying little butthole shill for corporate gangsters; a snake-oil salesman with a movie-star grin, shiny loafers, a crooked calculator and a tooled leather briefcase full of high-blown bullshit.

This was two decades ago. The early 1980s. I wore sandals, uncombed hair down to my cheap collar and carried a busted ring-binder filled with honest calculations and sincere analysis. It was Economic Hit Man Perkins vs. Economic Long-Hair Palast. I didn’t stand a chance. The EHM was about to put a political bullet hole through me wider than a silver dollar.

Hit Men have “clients.” Perkins’ was a giant power company, Public Service of New Hampshire. PSNH was trying to sell New England lobstermen and potato farmers on the idea that they desperately needed a multi-billion dollar nuclear plant. The fact that this bloated atomic water kettle, called “Seabrook,” would produce enough electricity for everyone in the Granite State to smelt iron didn’t matter. That the beast could add a surcharge to electric bills equal to home mortgages was simply smiled over by Perkins and his team of economic con artists.

<snip>

I was an expert witness for some consumer groups, trying to explain to state officials that Perkins’ numbers were bogus as a bubble-gum bagel and his financial projections were from some New Hampshire on another planet.

<snip>

Here’s how it ended. The local Joe’s jumped head-first into the Perkins fantasy and bought his client’s power plant boondoggle. Within a couple years, the local electric companies had all gone bankrupt, the state treasury was drained, electric bills went from lowest to highest in the nation causing factories to close and dump, I figure, about 11,000 jobs.

<snip>

***********
Greg Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.

To read an except from Perkins’ latest book, The Secret History of the American Empire, go here. http://www.gregpalast.com/the-secret-history-of-the-american-empire-excerpt/

I'm very glad to have those two on our side.

I'm enjoying reading Perkins' latest, "The Secret HIstory of the American Empire." It's very enlightening.

And Palast talks about Perkins in that manner?

Near the end of the article, Palast writes:
"Today, Perkins is my confrere and colleague. He wears his hair longish and I wear mine . . . well, I’ve stopped wearing hair altogether."

the full explanation is here:
(Greg's website is down - the first link is to google's cache)
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gr...


John Perkins took great personal risk, and wrote the expose of our 'corporatocracy,' as he calls it. He initially wrote, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman." I personally really recommend his new one (which explains the old concepts, but adds much): "The Secret History of the American Empire."

His central thesis is that he was the one who essentially offered to bribe the leader-of-the-day in the country in question with money; if his efforts failed, the rich, international corporatists (who really run our countries) would attempt to assassinate an uncooperative, do-gooder leader. If they could not kill the leader, we would send the U.S. military in. Per Perkins, the only reason we are not in Venezuela is because they screwed up in Iraq.

It is an enormous environmental success. The plant is the largest single source of electricity in New Hampshire.

The silly freaks from Clamshell Alliance should be deeply ashamed of the stupidity that characterized opposition to the plant, but frankly there are very, very, very few nuclear opponents who manage much dignity these days. These people are preternaturally removed from feeling shame at participating in wanton destruction of devices that may have saved subsequent generations. But let's face it, being a baby boomer has always been about mindless self absoprtion.

As it happens I know some people who worked in this group and came very close to sleeping with one of them. The best we can say is that some of them were stoned and the rest were well...nevermind.

If Seabrooke 2 had not been forestalled by public ignorance, New Hampshire would likely be as clean as Vermont is today.

New Hampshire would not be getting 16.6% of its electricity from dangerous coal and almost 28% of its electricity from dangerous natural gas. New Hampshire would thus not be releasing as much dangerous fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere has Seabrooke 2 been built.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/new_hampshire.pdf

I can't believe that there is one person who is today proud of opposing either of the Seabrook plants.

If you go to the area by the way, it's really, really, really nice to eat local seafood just down the road in Newburyport. I had a fascinating conversation one night with a lady there whose husband worked in the plant. When she first told me about me what her husband did, she was sheepish, but I assure you she was very proud of her family after we conversed for a while.