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March 23, 2018 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
53:16
Interview with John Perkins, former Economic Hitman, about 2012, government corruption, and more
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Welcome to the Natural News Talk Hour.
I'm your host, Jonathan Lansman, and today we've got a great show.
Hoodwinked, an economic hitman, reveals why we are as close to a global financial collapse as ever before and what we can do to save ourselves.
Our guest, John Perkins, is a self-proclaimed economic hitman and the best-selling author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman and The Secret History of the American Empire.
John has lived four lives as an economic hitman, as the CEO of a successful alternative energy company, a teacher, and writer who used his expertise to promote ecology and sustainability while continuing to honor his vow of silence about his life as an economic hitman.
As a writer, John has exposed the world of international intrigue and corruption that is turning the American Republic into a global empire despised by increasing numbers of people around the world.
Please join me in welcoming John Perkins to our show.
John, welcome.
Thank you so much.
It's great to be with you today.
I'm really looking forward to this.
We're also joined by Mike Adams, editor of naturalnews.com.
Mike, welcome.
Hey, good to be here, Jonathan, and this is a really amazing show with John Perkins, just a great guest, especially for what's happening this year in 2012.
This show is for educational purposes only, and we're happy to announce that this program has not been approved by any government agency.
John, for those who may not be too familiar with what's going on in the world and what your role was in this world that we live in, What exactly is an economic hitman?
Well, first of all, Jonathan, I'm not sure I should be on this show if it hasn't been approved by any government agency.
I don't know that I can put up with this.
Obviously, it's tongue-in-cheek.
I think it's fair to say that we economic hitmen have created the world's first truly global empire.
And it's an empire that's been created for the first time in history, primarily not through the military, but through economic It's shenanigans.
The way economic hitmen work is varied.
There are many different approaches, but perhaps the most common is that we will identify a country that has resources.
Our corporations covet, like oil, for example, then arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or one of its sister organizations.
However, the money never actually goes to the country.
Instead, it goes directly to big multinational corporations To build infrastructure projects in that country, things like power plants and industrial parks that benefit a few of the very wealthy families in the country but don't help the majority of the people.
Of course, the primary beneficiaries are the multinational corporations that build the projects.
Next to that are the wealthy families in the country who benefit from using the electricity or building the industrial parks.
But the majority of the people get nothing out of it.
Most of them can't afford electricity.
They don't get jobs in industrial parks because industrial parks don't hire many people.
And yet they're left holding a huge debt.
The whole country has this huge debt that it can't repay.
And so at some point we go back to the country and say, hey, you know, since you can't pay your debt, sell us your oil or whatever the resource is real cheap without any environmental or social restrictions or limitations or demands.
Or vote with us on some critical United Nations vote, or allow us to build a military base on your soil, or send troops in support of ours to Afghanistan or Iraq or someplace.
And in the few cases where we fail, where the economic hitmen are not able to convince leaders to do this, the jackals go in.
And these are people that either overthrow governments or assassinate their leaders.
I talk in my books, Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hitman, about how I failed with the democratically elected president of Ecuador, Jaime Roldos, and the head of the state of Panama, Omar Torrijos.
I was not able to corrupt these men.
I was not able to get them to play this game, to buy into this system.
And in both of those cases, those men were assassinated by CIA-sponsored jackals.
In the few cases where the jackals also fail, like with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then and only then does the military go in.
And so this is a three-step approach, really.
And the first step usually is very successful, the economic hitman, a way of creating a truly global empire.
And it's an empire that's oriented toward big corporations.
It's the big corporations, the heads of those corporations, what I call the corporatocracy, that are really calling the shots.
John, I want to remind those who may have joined us a minute or two late that we are interviewing John Perkins here, and your website is johnperkins.org, the author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, The Secret History of the American Empire, and other books like Hoodwinked.
I've got a question for you, John.
Where do we see the economic hitmen and the jackals operating the most today?
For example, is the MF Global downfall and John Corzine, is that an example of what you're talking about, or is that something entirely different?
Well, no, I think that goes along with the whole system.
I'm not personally familiar with that, so I kind of hate to comment on it because I don't like to speculate, but it sounds like that's part of the system.
For sure, we've got a lot of economic hitmen now running around the Middle East.
We may have gotten rid of, we had no choice but to get rid of Mubarak in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya.
But, you know, now we're trying to replace those people with similar type people, new faces, new names, but people who will support corporate expansion in those countries.
We don't want, you know, we've got men and women in those countries trying to make sure that that happens and that more radicalized Muslim organizations don't take over.
We've got economic hitmen running around all of South America.
I spent a lot of time there.
South America is going through a very strong revolution, a democratic revolution.
Ten countries in the last ten years have elected presidents who are saying no in varying degrees to corporate exploitation.
And every one of these ten countries, incidentally, during most of my lifetime, was run by brutal dictators, put into power by the CIA and kept there by the CIA.
That's all changed in this decade.
But for sure we've got economic hitmen in there trying to bring back the old system.
We recently saw the overthrow of President Zelaya of Honduras because of this and an attempted coup on Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
Economic hitmen are all over Africa and much of Asia as well as the Middle East.
It's a very, very prevalent force in the world today.
So when people initially hear this kind of stuff, John, I know it can be a big shock to them, but the subprime mortgage fiascos that we hear about, rising unemployment, the dollar doesn't seem to have the same strength as it used to, plus so much more.
And you turn to those people who are not fully awake and you say, look, Stop looking at conventional news.
Stop looking at the blame that's being placed on this person and that person.
What I hear from you is, and it's very clear, this is all being done by design by a small group of people on the planet.
Is that a fair assessment?
Yes, it is a fair assessment, and I'd like to say off the bat that I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
Many of the people who are behind us don't even know each other.
They've never met.
They don't have to get together and conspire to do something illegal.
But they're all driven by one motive, one goal, and that goal is to maximize profits regardless of the social and environmental costs.
This is a goal that was defined by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics back in the 70s when I was an economic hitman.
Before that, for example, when I went to business school in the 60s, We were taught that corporations, yes, they should make a decent rate of return on their capital, but they also needed to treat their employees really well, health insurance, retirement funds.
They needed to treat their customers and their suppliers really well.
They needed to be good community citizens, pay good taxes, support the school system and the library system.
But all that changed in the 70s when this new standard was sent out.
That the only responsibility of business is to maximize profits, regardless of social and environmental costs.
That has ruled the business world ever since.
And every U.S. president, beginning with Reagan, and every Democrat and Republican since has bought into this.
It's a very terrible system.
It's greedy, it's highly materialistic, and it goes to support that famous 1%, and working to the detriment of the rest of us, the 99%, All over the globe.
And we're seeing now that it's a failed system.
It simply isn't working.
It's falling apart, and it should fall apart.
So, John, if this system fails, and I think many people listening and watching would agree that it is crumbling and the failure of it is very obvious, how does it get replaced, or how do we replace it, reform it, revolutionize it?
What's next for solutions and the consciousness that you mentioned at the top of the hour?
It's a great question, and I think the first thing we need to be clear on is that we should be thankful that it's falling apart, because it's a terrible system.
As just one example, less than 5% of us live in the United States, and we consume almost 25% of the world's resources, while roughly half the world is starving to death or on the verge of starvation.
And of course, out of that 5% of us who live in the United States, 1% of that 5% It gets most of the resources.
So this is a terrible system, and we need to replace it with something that's much more just, much more environmentally sustainable, and a system that will ensure that people and nature, in fact, sentient beings around the world thrive.
Nobody needs to be a multi-millionaire, but let's let everybody thrive.
John, this is the point, John, right?
I mean, not to be misunderstood by anyone listening to this program, is that for this system to fall apart does not mean total chaos for every single individual.
For this system to go away and to stop profiting a few people, That there are many people that can still have very profitable businesses.
People could still have a lot.
I mean, please speak to that.
This is a great world that you're describing that we're heading towards in a very accelerated way.
I totally agree, yes.
We should be moving, and we can be moving, into a position where we'll all be much better off, except maybe that 1%.
Frankly, I don't think they're not well-off.
I know a few of those people that are extremely wealthy and none of them seem to be very happy.
They don't need all those toys that they have.
You know, I think what we need to understand is that today we have an economy in the United States, and in fact, it's pretty much a global economy in the United States.
Over 60% of our official budget is spent on killing people, the military.
We're a militarized economy.
Let's take that money and instead spend it on creating situations where starving people can feed themselves.
Another huge part of our budget goes to creating trinkets that really most of us don't even need, and a lot of rich people own a lot of these trinkets, while at the same time they create a lot of pollution.
So what we need to do is move forward into a new type of economy that's focused on cleaning up The terrible pollution of this planet.
All over this planet, the earth is polluted, the water is polluted, the air is polluted.
Let's clean it up.
And we've got roughly three billion people on this planet that are on the verge of starvation or actually starving.
Let's create an economy that will help them grow food more efficiently and store it and distribute it.
Let's create new economies around sustainable energy and better transportation systems, better banking systems.
Let's get rid of the Federal Reserve and come up with a true banking system.
And more communication systems.
We are communicating for the first time in human history.
Everybody on the planet is communicating with everybody else.
But what are we communicating?
As you mentioned before, the mainstream media is not giving us news.
It's entertainment at best and pure propaganda at worst.
Let's change that.
And let's stop worrying so much about who's sleeping with who in Hollywood and who threw the most passes in the 1972 Super Bowl game.
And let's get down to creating a world that our children and grandchildren are going to be proud to inherit.
Let's have more programs like this where we're discussing real things and real solutions and inspiring people to move forward into creating a much better world for all of us.
We can do a lot better than we've done so far.
John, what's your take on, in talking about those solutions and talking about real revolution that serves the interests of the people, for example, there is an environment, a political environment now, where even talk of challenging the status quo is considered By some people, you know, conspiring with terrorists even.
We have Obama just signed the NDAA, which authorizes indefinite detention of American citizens.
Do you think there is an attempted backlash by the institutions and the status quo to try to marginalize any talk of real change?
Is that an accurate assessment?
Absolutely, and I'm so glad that it's happening, because you know what?
That tells us that we're winning.
You don't get a backlash unless you're being successful.
You're right on.
They're afraid.
Yeah, they're afraid.
The message is getting out there.
And I hate to see people, kids and people of all ages, beaten over the head by batons from policemen, as we've seen sometimes in some of the Occupy movements.
But you know what?
Although I hate to see that, it tells us that they're getting desperate.
When policemen go in and beat their own people over their head with batons, it's because they're desperate.
We saw this during the Vietnam War, and it ultimately ended to the victory of the anti-Vietnam protesters and the end of the war.
So this backlash is a really good sign, and it should strengthen all of us and make us realize that we are winning, and we're going to turn this thing around.
We have to turn this thing around, and it's global.
I was just recently in Istanbul and going back to the Middle East in a couple of months.
I was in China recently, in Iceland, and I spent a lot of time in Latin America, in Europe, in Asia.
I travel around a lot, a lot in the United States.
And I have to tell you, all over the world, there's a new consciousness that's rising up.
There's a new awareness, you know?
Astrologically, we're entering the age of Aquarius in 2012, and 2012 is also the Mayan period of the opportunity for tremendous transformation.
In fact, we're feeling it now.
We're feeling this new awareness.
I really think that we are in a time of extreme revolution, a beautiful revolution.
It's bigger than the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the American revolution.
It's a revolution of consciousness, of people waking up And it's a very exciting time.
I'm so blessed.
I feel so blessed to be part of this time.
Yeah, there's no doubt.
I mean, I agree with you.
This is nothing really that new, John.
I mean, from Eisenhower through to Kennedy, you can see how actual leaders of the United States wanted to warn us about everything that we're talking about today, that being a globalist or turning the economy into a global economy was going to be some sort of that being a globalist or turning the economy into a global economy was going to be some sort of benefit, when in truth, the leaders of the United States were saying, you know, this is not I mean, they knew this all the way back then, but now presidents of the United States, since Kennedy...
Seem to be, you know, falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
But most individuals see that as we become more centralized, that things are being controlled by just a few entities, and individuals for that matter, that the lifestyle of people is not improving at all.
And I agree with you, it's becoming less an intellectual conversation, and it's simply something that's being felt by people more and more.
Times are not going the way they want.
We've got to stop it.
And we've got to start living very differently to care for one another much more than we are right now.
Oh, that's beautifully expressed.
Yes, I totally, totally agree with that.
And, you know, I think it's really important for us to understand that for the first time in human history, every human being, every sentient being on this planet is facing the same crises.
It used to be, you know, you'd have hurricanes in Florida and tsunamis in Asia and earthquakes in San Francisco.
They didn't have a lot of impact on any other parts of the world at the time.
But today, every one of us across the planet is being faced by climate chaos.
We know that regardless of what you think is causing it, we know that the glaciers are melting.
We know that the oceans are rising.
We're all facing the crisis of overpopulation.
Of resources that are diminishing at accelerating rates and prices of food and fuel and other essentials that are increasing at accelerating rates.
Species extinction.
We're all facing these crises together for the first time in human history and for the first time we're all communicating with each other through the Internet, through cell phones, through streaming.
This program is a really good case in point.
This is a revolutionary time.
And we're also understanding that the only way my four-year-old grandson, God bless him, can possibly hope to inherit a sustainable, just, peaceful, thriving world is if every human being, every sentient being on this planet inherits that same world.
My grandson, growing up in the United States, cannot expect to have a decent, sane world unless every child growing up in Bolivia and Botswana and Indonesia and Palestine and Israel also grows up in that same world, a sustainable, just, peaceful world for everyone.
John, I wanted to ask if you would just to change the subject, would you address Your beliefs and interpretations on the Mayan calendar prophecies.
Of course, some people have run with a little bit of information and taken it to maybe something that doesn't have a basis in history.
But you've spent a lot of time with the Shuar Indians in Ecuador.
You and I talked about that in the past.
So you have some knowledge of the Inca, of the Mayans, of the Aztecs as well.
What's your take on the Mayan calendar prophecies?
Well, yes, I know the Mayans well.
I've been living and working with Mayan shaman since the 70s and continue to do so.
In fact, I'm leading a trip down there in December of 2012 during the big date, December 21st.
We'll be in sacred sites during sacred ceremonies.
I invite your listeners to join me.
It'll be up on my website in February.
It's not there yet because we're still in the process of finalizing the organization, but the trip will happen for sure.
Hey, John, that would be great if we could stream that live.
So, well, let's look into it.
I'd love to do that.
But we couldn't probably do this.
The ceremony will be a sacred ceremony and a sacred, amazing sight.
And anyway, so I invite people to go to johnperkins.org later in February and get all the details.
And it won't be a very expensive trip.
It'll be a very sacred, beautiful trip.
But in any case, the Mayan prophecies tell us that December 21st, 2012 is a marker date, and some people dispute the date, but the date's not really all that important.
The point is we're at this time in history that the Mayans for over 2,000 years have prophesied that this is a point of time for the opportunity of transformation, human transformation.
And the clear statement of that prophecy, I think, comes out of the Popol Vuhl, which is their sacred text.
And the Popol Vuhl says that there was a leader whose name was Seven Macaw, and he was characterized by greed, by brutality, by exploitation, by extreme materialism.
And he is killed.
His head is severed by the hero twins, a boy and a girl.
And replaced by Hunapu, or one Hunapu, a new ruler who's characterized by love, compassion, cooperation, spirituality.
And the prophecies say that what this is really about is the replacement of the old epoch, everything that's come up until now, which is materialistic, which is greedy, which is brutal.
And if the hero twins, men and women from around the world, must come together, it will not be the leaders.
The leaders themselves, like Seven McCall, will not replace themselves.
It has to come from the people who are represented here by these hero twins and be replaced by a new era, a new epoch, which is characterized by cooperation, love, compassion, spirituality.
And, you know, the eagle and the condor prophecy from the Andes, which says that the eagle and the condor will come together at this time, male and female, heart and mind, Passion and industry, emotion and intellect will all come together.
We have this opportunity.
Now, all of these prophecies are telling us that we've entered this time.
None of them are saying that it will actually happen.
They're only saying that we have the potential.
But we, the people, have to make it happen.
And we have to recognize that it's not going to be our leaders.
It's going to be us.
We can bring in leaders that will help support this, but we can't look to the leaders to initiate it.
We have to do it.
And we're doing it.
You know, we're seeing this in the Occupy movements.
We're seeing this in the Arab Spring.
We're seeing it in the huge revolution that swept Latin America.
We're seeing it in what's going on in China today and what's going on in the Soviet Union, even, and in the former Soviet bloc countries.
We're seeing it all over the world.
It's happening.
It is happening, and we need to keep pushing to make it happen harder and faster.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like your point is very clear and very well taken, John, that it's not about blaming these people.
You know, it seems like the Wall Street message seems to be muddled a little bit, not to offend anybody, but the reality is when you hear that there are young people so frustrated and upset, they don't feel like they have opportunity, John.
I'd like you to speak to this a little bit.
They want a higher education, like...
Somehow, again, not to disrespect anybody, but somehow like a higher education is going to guarantee you a success in life and to blame institutions, to blame governments for not giving that person the opportunity to grow and to be something.
I think that those Wall Street protesters are missing the point.
Maybe you could speak a little bit, John, to what you wish Would come out of the Wall Street protests?
If you were, for example, the spokesperson for the Wall Street protesters, what would you like to see as that message?
Is it about just dropping away the fear and getting towards helping one another and building businesses and communities that just understand those simple concepts?
Yeah, you know, first of all, and I've participated in a few of these Occupy movements, and I've been told actually that Confessions of an Economic Hitman is one of the field guides to this movement.
I'm really happy to see the way that people are speaking out and coming together and raising consciousness.
And yes, I understand.
I mean, I've been to some of these sites, and yes, there are some drug addicts there.
There are homeless people who have just wandered in because they can get a free meal.
But there's also a lot of amazing people who really are determined to turn things around, to turn the tide and create a better world for all of us.
And you know, like any movement, it has its rough spots.
If you go back to the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty, you know, who are terribly...
We're despised by many people because they threw tea into Boston Harbor.
They broke windows in the homes of Tories.
They threw stones, and they were called the rabble.
So there's always rough spots, but everything has to begin someplace.
And the beginning is often very rough and very crude, and that's what we've been seeing here.
And now it's time to really refocus.
And to move into something more positive.
You know, I'm often reminded of, I think in many respects, we're very much like the feudal system in Europe during the Middle Ages, where you had a lord in the castle, and he had a number of knights working for him, a handful of them.
And then outside the castle walls was everybody else, what we call the bourgeoisie.
And these people were told they don't own the land.
They said, you don't own the land, but you can use the land, but you can grow food on the land, but you've got to give 80% of it to the Lord and his knights, or if you don't, you'll be pillaged and raped by the knights from the next castle.
And then we had people come along as represented by Robin Hood.
Whether Robin Hood was real or not doesn't matter.
There was a tremendous uprising of people who said, we're not putting up with this any longer.
And the famous Prince John, from the Robin Hood tales, became King John.
When Richard the Lionheart had died, his brother Prince John became King John, and he actually was the one who signed the Magna Carta.
So, in fact, the people of Robin Hood, the Merry Women and Merry Men, came along and they forced the king to sign a document that said, no more arbitrary rule.
And that began a long period, which was very slow to begin with, but it led up to the American Revolution and the French Revolution.
And things were progressing, I think, along those lines up until World War II. But after World War II, things began to change again.
And by the time that detente with Russia came along, the corporatocracy had set in in a big way.
And what we're seeing today, I think, is something very similar to feudal Europe, where you've got these very few people, the 1%, living in the castle and telling the rest of us, hey, you don't own the land.
You don't own the land.
You can use it, but you owe us debt, debt, debt, and our whole Federal Reserve System is built on debt.
But now we've got these movements around the world that are equivalent to the old Robin Hood movement.
The merry men and women are coming together, and they're dancing in the streets, and they're also protesting pretty loudly.
What we need today is a new Magna Carta.
We need a new agreement that says that the big corporations that are calling the shots, controlling the world, need to be there to serve the public interest.
Serve a public interest.
Corporations, we must tell them, you're not there just to maximize profits.
You're there to create a better world, a sustainable world, a just world, a world where everyone can thrive and no one has to become a millionaire or a billionaire.
It's interesting that you mention the Magna Carta, John.
I think that's really relevant in what's happening today.
You know, the early Constitution of the state of Virginia was based in part on it, and then our Bill of Rights and Constitution was based on that document, and then now we see the executive branch of government really working diligently to nullify the Bill of Rights and nullify the Constitution,
and yet it seems like with every stroke, They are creating more backlash in people who are saying, wait a minute, that these freedoms have a sacred basis from God or nature or the divine creator, whatever their belief system is.
It seems like the harder, it's like a line from Star Wars, right?
The tighter your grip, Lord Vader, the more we rebels slip through your fingers.
Yeah, you know, I think that's exactly what's happening.
People are waking up.
Consciousness is on the rise, and there's a backlash against that because those in control, the status quo, do not want to release and relinquish their power.
And as this backlash happens, we get stronger and dig in.
And this is historical.
You can look throughout history and see how these sorts of things happen.
John, going back to what I wanted to get you to comment on, whether you're for Ron Paul or not, it seems like his message is aligned with what you talk about as far as solutions, in terms of the consciousness that we should all be sharing in one way or another.
And that is basically that government's role should be to preserve individual liberties And to get out of the face, if you will, of other people trying to control their lives and try to control the direction in which countries should go.
And, I mean, all of these messages seem to be very clear from Ron Paul.
What's your take on all this?
Well, I agree as far as, you know, we need to stay out of other people's business to a very large degree.
I do think we need more regulations on big business because we've seen that CEOs of big companies are just like any other human being.
They need to be held in check to some point.
There are rapists out there running big corporations.
There are pickpockets.
We have to have rules and regulations that people are not allowed to pickpockets.
They're not allowed to break through my window and enter my house if I don't want them in my house.
There are certain laws that we need to have, and those laws have broken down as it comes to heads of corporations.
Glass-Steagler and so many of the other laws that were put into place after the Depression.
When I went to business school in the 60s, I was told there could never be another recession like the one we're going through today, because there were rules that were preventing that, and it was true.
But those rules then were brought down, some of them under Clinton.
And we do need to have rules to govern Well, John, let me get your response on this, though, because it's interesting that you're saying that.
You actually caught me a little by surprise.
Do you feel that it's a product of us, or a problem, that we don't have enough laws passed already, and we don't have enough regulation?
Or is it a matter of, the honest truth is, it's all there, the laws are there, but they're not being enforced.
And that we need to raise their consciousness up, make people aware of the fact that, you know what?
The reality is, you can't dump toxins into the water, yet corporations may or may not be doing that.
All the laws are there.
No, John?
Or do we really need to...
Glass-Steagall is not there.
A lot of laws have been taken away that would have limited the actions of corporations.
Right?
That's true.
Like Glass-Steagall, which prevented investment banking houses from Joining forces with commercial banks, that was prevented, and that was a very important safeguard.
That was dropped, so they all merged.
In fact, we've created new breakdowns in laws by the Supreme Court passing Citizens United, where big corporations can contribute any amount of money they want to contribute to political campaigns.
That's horrible.
That's horrendous, and I'm glad to see that some states and municipalities are fighting that.
So I think we have to be careful of how we look at these things.
But I don't want to get bogged down in that.
I think Ron Paul has an incredibly important message, and I like a lot of it very much.
But I also want to say that I think we have to be very careful not to get lulled into the idea that anybody's going to save us.
Whether you're in favor of Ron Paul or Sarah Palin or Obama, it doesn't matter.
The idea being that it has to come from we, the people, because Even if Ron Paul should become elected President of the United States, he would still have to cope with the whole Congress and Senate that's totally under the control of the big corporations.
He'd still have to deal with 35,000 lobbyists in Washington, D.C. today who are hired by big corporations.
We have to recognize that whoever is in power is extremely vulnerable To the big corporations, we also have to recognize that anybody, once he gets in the Oval Office or any position of high power, senator or congressperson, can be taken out very easily by rumor and innuendo.
In Jack Kennedy's day, it was well known that he was having affairs with Marilyn Monroe and many other women, and that was okay.
They took him out with a bullet.
But by the time Clinton came along, you didn't need a bullet.
All you needed was a Monica Lewinsky.
And we've recently seen the head of the IMF, Strauss Kahn, who's no hero of mine.
I'm glad to see him go, and I don't like the IMF. But the fact of the matter is this man was taken down by an accusation from a chambermaid in a hotel.
That's a pretty dangerous situation, and that sends a very strong message to Obama or Ron Paul or anyone else that happens to get into the White House.
That by God, if you don't mind your P's and Q's, if you don't do what we expect you to do, we can take you down.
We don't need a bullet anymore.
And I think we all need to be very cognizant of that and recognize that the change has to come from us.
We the people.
We have to do it.
We can't look to any particular individual as our Savior.
It's got to be us.
I agree, John.
I think that's a really crucial point, a very sane point.
And I think this gets to the consciousness topic that's resonated throughout this talk.
I want to ask you a question on that in particular, John.
When it comes to conscious awakening and conscious connection, it's really about knowing yourself.
It's about having that connection with other living systems.
Consciousness is that thread of awareness that is woven throughout the fabric of all reality, all living systems.
And yet, in society today we see so much Effort spent by advertisers and government to try to dissociate us from who we really are.
And to dissociate us from our food, for example.
You don't know where it comes from.
It comes from a factory or it's genetically modified.
To dissociate us from real money.
Gold and silver is not passed around like coins.
It's paper.
To dissociate us from real information.
The news is fabricated instead of being based in reality and so on.
Do you also see this as one of the weapons of disinformation out there to try to prevent consciousness?
Or do you think that that's all going to change soon anyway and we're going to overcome that?
Well, it is a weapon and we are overcoming it.
This program right now, we're overcoming it as we're speaking.
The books I write overcome it.
So many books, so many documentaries, so many programs that are out there.
Not the mainstream media.
The mainstream media is part of that system, part of that weapon that tries to beat the rest of us down.
But the message is getting out there loud and clear.
People are getting it around the globe.
And it's remarkable.
It's wonderful the way this is happening.
The Internet, streaming, cell phones, and texting.
There's so much going on.
It's just phenomenal.
You know, and again, if we go back historically, we look at how the Catholic Church controlled everything, all the information that went up, because the only people who copied books were Catholic monks and priests and people who worked for the Catholic Church, so they controlled all the material until the Gutenberg press was invented.
And then suddenly, everything was freed up, and there was true freedom of expression through an amazing press.
We're experiencing a time like that now, where the corporatocracy learned to take over that old press.
You know, back in 1980, I lamented the fact that the mainstream media in the United States was owned by 50 corporations.
Today, it's five.
And they also control all the big publishing houses, all the book publishing houses.
So we kind of went back to that time like when the church controlled all the written material.
But now, we've got a new Gutenberg press, and that's you guys.
That's streaming.
That's cell phones.
That's text.
That's blogging.
That's all of what's going on today.
And the word is getting out there big time.
So I'm grateful for that.
And I think this is the most incredibly exciting time to be alive and to be participating in this.
And I just want to quickly add one thing.
I grew up in New Hampshire.
I come from over 300 years of New England Yankees.
My ancestors fought in the American Revolution.
I used to wish I was born in the 1700s so I could be part of the American Revolution.
Now I know that I'm grateful I'm here now because this is a bigger revolution.
This is global and it's an amazing revolution of consciousness.
I'm so excited to be here.
John, I'd like you to talk to us, because a lot of times when I speak to people, I'm sure you're amazed as well.
When people tune into conventional news outlets, whether it's television or the newspapers or radio, God forbid they're actually out there spending money on weekly subscriptions and getting this news brought to their homes, right to their doorsteps and being brought into their homes.
it seems so clear once you just get awoken just a little bit, you become awake.
You notice that the message, no matter what the channel is, and I'd like you to speak to this, and then we'll get into your most recent book, Hoodwanked, and some more of the solutions for the remainder of the show.
But the message is just fear-based.
You know, you've talked about love and compassion at the beginning of the program, but it just seems like to keep everybody down, locked in, and against each other, divided so that these small groups of companies can conquer or put their will on everybody else, divided so that these small groups of companies can conquer or put their will on everybody else, it seems that the only way they can do that is to put pervasively out there for everyone to People are no good.
You know, there's bad people out there that shoot and kill and stab people.
Terrorists hiding in your underwear.
There's terrorists hiding, and watch out at the major department stores.
We don't even have to name them by names.
At the airports, everywhere.
There's so much that technically, quote-unquote, there is to be afraid of, that none of this other stuff gets out in the conventional media.
I'd like you to talk a little bit about how you feel that might be trying to contain or control consciousness only in a certain direction.
Well, certainly.
It's very, very prevalent.
I fly a lot, and every time I go through the TSA security people at the airport, it just really ticks me off.
First of all, it's very ineffective.
I've known people who were former jackals and some that still are, and they tell me, you could get an AK-47 through those machines if it's made out of plastic.
Those machines can't detect it.
So they're not stopping anybody who'd really seriously want to take over an airplane.
And you can make the box cutters out of plastic, very strong plastic, those famous box cutters that were used in 9-11.
Nothing's really being stopped here, but it may stop a few crazies from ringing stuff through, like the guy who had explosives in his shoes, but he was obviously not a very high-level operative.
So you don't think we really have to watch out for the 88-year-old grandmother who wants to visit her grandkids down in Florida?
If they're in a wheelchair and they have a bag strapped to them, you don't think that that's a likely person to be a threat to society, John?
Well, I don't think she is too dangerous, and neither do I think my toothpaste is all that dangerous, whether it's three ounces or five ounces.
I think my five ounce toothpaste is no more dangerous than my three ounce toothpaste.
But anyway, so it's about fear, you know?
And incidentally, let's talk about terrorism a little bit.
There's no such thing as global terrorism.
There are global acts of terror.
But an ism is something that has a common ideology, a common principle.
Catholicism, socialism, communism, capitalism, those are true isms.
Protestantism.
But, you know, I've interviewed members of FARC in Colombia and Somali pirates and members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and they do not have anything in common with each other.
Colombian FARC people are poor peasants whose lands have been destroyed by hydroelectric plants and oil companies.
Somali pirates are former fishermen whose waters have been fished clean by huge foreign industrial vessels and have also been polluted, some of it with nuclear pollution out of our base and Diego Garcia, one of the largest U.S. military bases in the world.
And they can't feed their children, so they turn to piracy.
They create acts of terror, yes, but they're not united.
There is no such thing as global terrorism.
And the way to get rid of those acts of terror It's not by sending in the military.
It's by solving the problems that create it.
It's by giving those peasants in Colombia new farms, a way to make a living, to feed their children.
It's by giving the Somali pirates back their fishing waters and their fish, or giving them a way to grow fish, perhaps.
I don't know.
But it's not.
It's not through military means.
The terrorists that I've known and I've interviewed a lot of them do not want to be terrorists.
They'll tell you, you know, fishing is a dangerous enough venture.
Piracy is terribly dangerous.
I don't want to do that.
They're poor, desperate people.
Now, I do want to say that they're often led by people like bin Laden, who was not poor or desperate.
He came from a very wealthy family.
He was a fanatic.
He was a fanatic.
I think they'll always be fanatics in the world, just like they'll always be rapists and people with a few nuts loose in their brains.
But they won't have a following, a massive following, unless you've got desperate people.
So if we really want to do away with acts of terror around the world, let's not put our money into TSA and more security systems.
Let's not put our money into building up the bigger military.
Obama today talked about more of the Ranger-type units, the Special Forces units.
Let's instead put our money into helping starving people feed themselves, into getting rid of extreme poverty and disease around the world, providing ways for the Somali people to feed their children, and for the peasants of Colombia and everywhere else in the world to feed their children.
That's the way to do away with acts of terror.
But those acts, John, they tend to decentralize power, which is something that you and I want.
We want people to have power.
We want the individual to have power and freedom and abundance.
But that takes away power from all of these centralized control systems.
The status quo, the governments, the corporations, the military-industrial complex, right?
And the evil genius of their system is the more The more anti-terrorist police state stuff they roll out, the more it makes people afraid, the more it pushes people into desperation, and then the more violent acts they can either create or point to to justify their own existence.
How do we stop that cycle, John?
Well, we've stopped that cycle by saying, no more of that.
We're not going to support that any longer.
Hey, listen, take our tax dollars, and instead of paying general Dynamics and General Electric and General Motors and all the other generals out there to make tanks and armored plate and missiles.
Let's pay these same companies to come up with methods for cleaning up the terrible pollution of the world.
The whole world is very polluted.
We've got polluted soil all over where farmers can no longer grow things organically in many countries.
They have to be dependent on chemicals and pesticides and fertilizers.
Let's change that.
And let's pay the Monsantos and the Doles and the Chiquitas, these companies that do terrible things to farmers around the world.
Let's pay them instead to come up with means for growing food more efficiently and storing it and distributing it.
You know, pay these same corporations to do things that are good, that will create a peaceful world and a sustainable world for us.
And also, let's put a lot of money into encouraging young entrepreneurs who are coming out of college today.
I speak at universities around this country and many other countries and at MBA programs, and these kids are coming out of school with huge amounts of debt and there's no jobs.
But I tell them, hey, this is the time to create jobs.
There's a whole new economy out there that's waiting to happen.
We need to create this new economy.
Let's put our taxpayer monies to helping these people do that rather than Underpinning the kingpins of Wall Street and the big corporations that are responsible for doing so much damage.
Yeah, I think that's a great message to end as we're just getting close to the end of the show, John.
We can add just a little bit more about your book, Hoodwinked, or any kind of solutions that you'd like to add to end the show.
But I think that is the main point.
If someone feels overwhelmed by all of the stuff that's going on in the world, realize that they have tremendous individual power.
That the only way that the globalists and these people, the few that are trying to control the many, and all of these terrible things that are happening, the worst thing that the individual can do is feel afraid, feel helpless, and feel like they can't do anything.
And as soon as they've stopped themselves, the individual, John, I'd like to get your opinion and your take on this.
As soon as the individual says, look, This is the first line of defense for myself and for everybody that I care about around me is that I will not be afraid.
I will instead do the opposite.
I will reach out and try to help someone today who will so much appreciate it, turn around and help somebody else.
I could go on and on for an hour about all the times where Seemingly, somebody would tell me, oh, Jonathan, don't bother to help that person.
They're a lost cause.
They're not interested in what you have to say about natural health, natural living, or helping somebody else to turn their life around.
And I said, nonsense.
I'm not going to listen to this stuff about being afraid about what I say or how I act.
Just go out there, try to help somebody.
And it's amazing how the world can change.
And just one little quick example, John, and I'll let you take the floor.
Just about the TSA that you mentioned.
We all can remember, if we think back at the beginning of all these scanners that were put into place, it was around Thanksgiving time, and on the internet, it was so much screamed and yelled.
I believe Mike Adams on naturalnews.com, Alex Jones and the Alex Jones Show.
Everybody was saying, look, enough is enough.
We all have to band together.
We've got to boycott this thing.
And what do you think happened?
The establishment shut down the machines.
None of it was used on Thanksgiving Day.
Why?
Because they felt the presence of enough people saying enough was enough.
And you know what?
Everything you said today on this show, John, the power of the people showed up on that one day as a perfect example of everything you're saying.
John, your take, please?
Well, it's a great example.
And you know, Incidentally, I have a newsletter that goes out on my website.
If people will subscribe to it, they have to go to my website, johnperkins.org, and subscribe.
About twice a month, I put out things that talk about this and what we can do, and the things that are outlined in hoodwink, which we go into a lot of detail of what every individual can do.
But I think if we really boil it down, as you just did, Jonathan, that's a beautiful way to put it.
If everybody who's at all discouraged would just think of who's your hero?
Think of a few heroes in your life and really look at them and you'll see that those heroes were just human beings like you and they did something.
You know, Rosa Parks walked to the front of a bus and changed history.
It changed history.
Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring and started a whole environmental movement, but when she sat down at her desk in a little house in Pennsylvania and began to scribble into an old notebook, she had no idea that it was ever going to be published, much less that it would create a whole environmental movement with her book Silent Spring.
And you can go on and on.
Every great thing that's ever happened started with one individual.
So I think, you know, if all of your listeners would take heart in that and everybody has passion And everybody has talents.
So if each of your listeners will follow their passions and use their talents in whatever way they can, but let's all head for the same destination of a sustainable, just, peaceful world, a world that my grandson and every other child on this planet is going to want to inherit.
And if we all do that, we'll get there.
That's great.
Got a follow-up question for you, John.
I love what you just said.
It was right on.
And yet, it requires people to have some sense of awareness, some sense of self-worth, and some sense of how present actions and conscious decisions affect future outcomes.
And yet, across society, in too many cases today, we see a population that has been lulled into a sense of comfort or ignorance.
And you even see some people who worship the very system that is crushing them.
Do you think that those people have a role too?
Do some of them transform?
Do they change?
Do they disappear?
What's their role in this transformation?
I would say that none of the people listening to your program fall into that category.
They probably wouldn't be here.
They don't have to worry about the other people out there because the world is always changed by a critical mass.
A very small number of people have a huge influence.
And I would dare say that the people listening to this program tonight, if every one of us takes action, that follows our passions and uses our talents, that's enough.
I really believe that's enough.
It will happen, and it is happening around the world.
And we should all realize on this program that we're not alone.
You know, I'm on a lot of programs.
I speak at a lot of conventions and so forth.
There's a tremendous number of people out there that want change.
There'll always be some that'll just spend the rest of their lives Watching Monday Night Football on every night, not just Monday, and zoning out.
I'm just using that, obviously, as a humorous analogy, but people zoning out on television or whatever they zone out on.
But that doesn't matter.
What matters is that those of us who are tuned in, who are listening to this program, that we actually get up tomorrow morning and say, every single day for the rest of my life, I'm going to take some action, even if it's just sending one email.
It doesn't have to be a big thing, but every single day I'm going to take some action to making this a better world.
It will happen.
All right.
John, I just want to thank you so much again for joining us.
I know you've got to run.
The website, folks, is johnperkins.org.
Check out all his books on Amazon.com and other booksellers everywhere.
John, you're a great person, a great soul.
Thank you.
Have a wonderful evening, and we hope to talk to you again in the near future.
Thank you, guys, and keep up your good work.
You are the freedom of the press.
I'd also like to encourage people to go to, I have a Facebook fan page, and I'm on Twitter at economic underscore hitman, so I'd like to keep in touch with your listeners, and see you around.
Alright, there goes John.
Economic underscore hitman.
That's the Facebook.
Was that Twitter?
Or was that Facebook?
That was on Twitter.
God bless you, John.
And I'm sure all of you join me as well online and by telephone.
It was just an amazing show.
John's a busy guy.
He's got a lot of shows that he does literally on a daily basis, so he had to run.
But again, I want to thank all of you for joining us.
I especially want to thank Mike Adams for co-hosting this show.
Mike, thanks a lot.
Hey, happy to be here.
This was fun.
Thank you, everybody, for listening.
Check out more.
By the way, we're going to post the highlights of this interview on YouTube and naturalnews.tv, and then the complete interview will be available through the Inner Circle.
Great.
So thank you all.
Thanks very much.
I wish you all a happy and healthy new year.
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