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Post by bazbear on May 10, 2007 21:38:25 GMT -4
If you allow UC (and whatever stake Indian state and private industrial entities had in it) to place such a plant in a place like that, and THEN allow such poor work practices....disgruntled employees or not...
UC deserved what they got, it's just unfortunate that the others responsible didn't get the ax to anything approaching the same magnitude.
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Post by turbonium on May 12, 2007 1:02:26 GMT -4
It is a rather implausible book but from what I gather makes good reading if you take it as a work of fiction. It's a good read, whether one considers it wholly non-fiction or fiction, or part fact / part fiction. The author claims to have destabilized the economies of third world countries on behalf of the NSA. No, he never made that claim. If he claimed to have worked for the CIA his tall tale would have been less unbelievable as it wouldn’t surprise me if they did such things. The NSA deals exclusively with the interception and analysis of communications. I found a quote which should clarify the relevant points.... JOHN PERKINS: No, I never worked directly for the N.S.A., I worked for a company called Chas T. Main, big consulting firm out of Boston. And these days almost all of this work is done by private contractors. It’s not done directly by the C.I.A. or the N.S.A. They may recruit us, but we work for private industry.tabacco.blog-city.com/former_economic_hit_man_john_perkins_on_global_empire_nsa_wt.htmAccording to the Publisher’s blurb for his book “Shapeshifting” <snip> It's irrelevant to base the validity of one book, Confessions..., by citing another work(s) by the same author, (ie: Shapeshifting), as if the latter were some sort of litmus test to measure it against. It's well documented that many multinational corporations - such as Chas T. Main (now Parsons Main, Inc.) - commonly engage in business practices that cross legal / moral / ethical boundaries, or at least, tread a fine line between them. I have personal knowledge of one such corporation crossing those lines during the 1990's. Some of you may have had similar experiences, or know others who have. Confessions... is not "implausible", and is much more significant than a "tall tale". Knowing that the author was not acting on behalf of the NSA, but rather, as an employee of a large multinational corporation, do you now consider it somewhat less far-fetched, or possibly, could even be true?
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on May 17, 2007 9:26:41 GMT -4
The author claims to have destabilized the economies of third world countries on behalf of the NSA No, he never made that claim. Actually he did, see below If he claimed to have worked for the CIA his tall tale would have been less unbelievable as it wouldn’t surprise me if they did such things. The NSA deals exclusively with the interception and analysis of communications. I found a quote which should clarify the relevant points.... JOHN PERKINS: No, I never worked directly for the N.S.A., I worked for a company called Chas T. Main, big consulting firm out of Boston. And these days almost all of this work is done by private contractors. It’s not done directly by the C.I.A. or the N.S.A. They may recruit us, but we work for private industry. tabacco.blog-city.com/former_economic_hit_man_john_perkins_on_global_empire_nsa_wt.htm Hmmm, lets look at the FULL QUOTE (bolding mine): AMY GOODMAN: And explain who you were working for.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, I was recruited by the National Security Agency, the agency that’s getting so much attention right now because of spying on Americans, while I was still in college at Boston University; and the National Security Agency put me through a series of very extensive tests, including lie detector tests, personality tests. And I was in business school. They determined that I could be a good economic hit man.
They also discovered a lot of weaknesses in my character (I like to think of them as kind of the big -- the three big drugs of our culture: money, power, and sex) that they could use as a hook to bring me in. So, I was told from the very beginning by this amazing woman, Claudine, (who’s described in detail in the book) who is basically my trainer that, ‘Look, you're going into a dirty business. Once you’re in, you can never get out of this business; but we’re going to make it very attractive for you to go into this business.’
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you didn’t join the N.S.A.?
JOHN PERKINS: No, I never worked directly for the N.S.A., I worked for a company called Chas T. Main, big consulting firm out of Boston. And these days almost all of this work is done by private contractors. It’s not done directly by the C.I.A. or the N.S.A. They may recruit us, but we work for private industry.
The same is true of the jackals, Amy. If economic hit men fail, which we don’t usually do (but I did in Panama, for example, and I tell in detail in the book about how that ended up) – but my failure ended up in a jackal going in and assassinating Omar Torrijos, the president of Panama. When economic hit men fail, the jackals go in and either overthrow governments or assassinate leaders; and they, too, do not work directly for the government. These days, they’re private contractors. The days of the government agent, the 007, who’s licensed to kill, are long gone.
AMY GOODMAN: When you say you failed, you mean what?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, I was sent in to Panama to bring Omar Torrijos around, to bring him into our system, and he refused to do that. He said, ‘Look, I know if I play your game’ -- he told me directly -- ‘If I play your game, I'll become very rich. But that's not what interests me. I want to help my poor people.’ And, so he said, ‘You can either get out of Panama or play the game my way.’ Well, we decided to stay and try to bring him around. He never would come around. And I knew all along that if I failed to bring this man around something dire would happen to him. Torrijos died in a plane crash that many people suspect wasn’t an accident, how could an engineering firm make “something dire…happen to” a military strongman i.e. assassinate or overthrow him unless it was tied to an intelligence agency? The excerpt below from an article about a speech he gave in Berkley, CA is illuminating Perkins says this strategy was top secret, and that he was one of very few people who understood the objectives of his work. He was put in this privileged position, he says, because the NSA recruited him after college. He chose not to join up at the last minute, and spent two years in Ecuador with the Peace Corps instead. But one day, a man in a business suit arrived in the Ecuadoran village. His name was Einar Greve, and he was a vice-president with Chas T. Main. "He started talking to me about the benefits of working for a company like Main," Perkins writes. "When I mentioned that I had been accepted by the NSA before joining the Peace Corps, and that I was considering going back to them, he informed me that he sometimes acted as an NSA liaison; he gave me a look that made me suspect that part of his assignment was to evaluate my capabilities. I now believe that he was updating my profile." Hogwash, says Greve, speaking by phone from his home in Santa Barbara. "I was not working for the NSA or the CIA. I think Perkins tries to make out that I was some kind of mysterious person, and I really wasn't," he says. "It's true that I hired him, and I put him to work as an economist, and the company I worked for did make some studies for people like USAID and the World Bank. But his role as an 'economic hit man,' I think that's mostly fiction. Unless he knows something that I don't know," says Greve with a chuckle. www.mindfully.org/Reform/2006/Perkins-Economic-Hit-Man1feb06.htm So Perkins claims he was recruited, trained by and worked “indirectly” for the NSA and that the vice-president of the company he worked for was “an NSA liaison” and then insinuated that they or some other intelligence agency worked as enforcers against uncooperative leaders. My statement that he “claims to have destabilized the economies of third world countries on behalf of the NSA” stands It goes to his credibility, I imagine if one of us cited a book by an author who admits to having done copious amounts of “mind altering drugs” for several decades and believed that taking some of these drugs enabled people to transform themselves (temporarily) into animals or plants you would rightly question whether he could be taken seriously True but that’s not enough to substantiate his story. It’s been shown that Papillion and Jim Carroll made up a lot of what’s in their books, the fact that a lot of what they say was true doesn’t change that. Do you have any evidence that Chas T. Main or Parsons Main “engage(d) in business practices that cross legal / moral / ethical boundaries” or were associated with the NSA or did any of the things Perkins claimed? Presumably you don’t because from what I’ve read he didn’t produce any evidence to support his claims. The book is nothing more than the uncollaborated claims of a confessed conman written decades after the fact. Knowing that the author claimed to have been acting on behalf of the NSA do you now consider it far-fetched? As I said it wouldn’t surprise me if the CIA had done stuff like that but I don’t believe the NSA or Perkins did. Did YOU actual read the book?
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Post by feelfree222 on May 17, 2007 16:07:01 GMT -4
Feelfree said of globalisation: So the jobs aren’t disappearing – they’re going to places where the labour is cheaper. What’s the problem with that? Jobs have been going to the places with cheaper labour for centuries. Only one "little" problem if industrial nations like USA and Canada contitue losing jobs and industries in favor of the creation of jobs in third world nations." Ultimalely this globalisation will fulfill the goal of Marx and Engles' Communist Manifesto mandating the elimination of the middle class. "There will be a redistribution of wealth. They plan to eliminate class differences and reduce the standard of living to a lower level in the advanced nations, such as the united States, and to a higher standard of living in the so-called third world nations."
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Post by PeterB on May 18, 2007 2:35:09 GMT -4
Only one little problem if industrial nations like USA and Canada contitue losing jobs and industries in favor of the creation of jobs in third world nations. Ultimalely this globalisation will fulfill the goal of Marx and Engles' Communist Manifesto mandating the elimination of the middle class. Most manufacturing jobs are low paid and low skill. Their loss is hardly going to eliminate the middle class. Despite the loss of many manufacturing jobs in Australia, the result has been a booming economy and record low unemployment. At the moment, the main problem is the lack of up-skilling to fill the many vacancies employers want to fill. You have a theory, but none of the evidence seems to support it.
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Post by feelfree222 on May 18, 2007 3:03:51 GMT -4
Only one little problem if industrial nations like USA and Canada contitue losing jobs and industries in favor of the creation of jobs in third world nations. Ultimalely this globalisation will fulfill the goal of Marx and Engles' Communist Manifesto mandating the elimination of the middle class. Most manufacturing jobs are low paid and low skill. Their loss is hardly going to eliminate the middle class. All depend about the definition of middle class. see current usage. I imagine most of these workers were on unions of workers (unionized blue-collar worker.)which pay them more than non union workers. see current usage. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_classIn early industrial capitalism, the middle class was defined primarily as white-collar workers—those who worked for wages (like all workers), but did so in conditions that were comfortable and safe compared to the conditions for blue-collar workers of the "working class." The expansion of the phrase "middle class" in the United States appears to have been predicated in the 1970s by the decline of labor unions in the U.S. and the entrance of formerly domestic women into the public workforce. A great number of pink-collar jobs arose, where people could avoid the dangerous conditions of blue-collar work and therefore claim to be "middle class" even if they were making far less money than a unionized blue-collar worker.In the United States by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as lower or "working" class, with insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class Despite the loss of many manufacturing jobs in Australia, the result has been a booming economy and record low unemployment. Creation of more new cheap labors jobs and part time jobs replacing those well paid jobs (unions)which were lost. At the moment, the main problem is the lack of up-skilling to fill the many vacancies employers want to fill. Same problem here in Canada. So those who have lost their well paid job (union) are now condemned to work for low salaries. You have a theory, but none of the evidence seems to support it. This is happening you just dont want to admit it. "they plan to reduce the standard of living to a lower level in the advanced nations, such as the united States, and to a higher standard of living in the so-called third world nations"
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Post by donnieb on May 18, 2007 11:11:32 GMT -4
It seems to me that this process has been going on for decades now. The net result so far has been a vast increase in the middle class overall, with most of that increase occurring in the third world (which I see as a very good thing).
There may have been a decrease in the middle class in the developed world (proportionally; in absolute numbers it's growing), but the decrease seems relatively small. In the US, at least, the middle class is still the predominant social sector by a very wide margin.
While I see room for improvement -- especially in closing the gap between the very wealthiest and the rest of us -- I sure don't see any evidence for a sinister plot to end the middle class. Or, if there is one, it's failing miserably.
What evidence do you have that: (a) the middle class is shrinking significantly in the developed world, (b) there's a conspiracy with the goal of causing such shrinkage, and (c) that said conspiracy is Marxist inspired?
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Post by feelfree222 on May 18, 2007 23:38:07 GMT -4
It seems to me that this process has been going on for decades now. The net result so far has been a vast increase in the middle class overall, with most of that increase occurring in the third world (which I see as a very good thing). There may have been a decrease in the middle class in the developed world (proportionally; in absolute numbers it's growing), but the decrease seems relatively small. In the US, at least, the middle class is still the predominant social sector by a very wide margin. While I see room for improvement -- especially in closing the gap between the very wealthiest and the rest of us -- I sure don't see any evidence for a sinister plot to end the middle class. Or, if there is one, it's failing miserably. What evidence do you have that:
(a) the middle class is shrinking significantly in the developed world,Well actually that is the unionized blue collars workers which pay the price of the globalisation.They were a kind of middle class workers. (b) there's a conspiracy with the goal of causing such shrinkage, andThis leveling of the standard of living will be accomplished through a global economic collapse which is in its beginning stages. (c) that said conspiracy is Marxist inspired?see Marx and Engles' Communist Manifesto edited to fixx a quote read also Anatoliy Golitsyn's New Lies For Old, then The Perestroika Deception. philologos.org/guide/books/golitsyn.anatoliy.1.htm
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 19, 2007 12:35:28 GMT -4
Is restating your claims an admission that you have no actual evidence?
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Post by turbonium on May 20, 2007 4:14:26 GMT -4
My statement that he “claims to have destabilized the economies of third world countries on behalf of the NSA” stands Maybe it's mostly an issue of semantics. What does working "on behalf of " an agency, or company, etc. actually mean to you? In the specific case of Perkins, you seem to be arguing that he claims to have worked - for all intents and purposes - "on behalf on the NSA." But Perkins still only claims a basic role played by the NSA, from his own experience.... "They may recruit us, but we work for private industry."Perkins claims that he worked for Chas T. Main. Perkins claims that he was paid by Chas T. Main. Perkins claims that he was a representative of Chas T. Main. Perkins claims his job was to destabilize the economies of third world countries. Therefore, what Perkins is really claiming, first and foremost, is that he "destabilized the economies of third world countries on behalf of" Chas T. Main. Perkins is essentially claiming that the NSA act (or acted) as a go-between, or facilitator, for the multinational corporations. To wit, that the megacorps and NSA (CIA) have (or had) a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship. If he had claimed the CIA was involved, it would have been much easier to believe, right? Or at least, give his claims a much greater appearance / public perception of credibility? You've already admitted as much, and that's reasonable. Agencies such as the CIA, NSA, FBI, DEA, IRS, etc. are officially recognized to have general and specific duties, purposes. You point out the NSA isn't involved in such things. The CIA, maybe. But then, why would he claim it involved the NSA at all? That is, if he's lying, and making it all up, why wouldn't he just claim it involved the CIA instead? Even an outright moron would know enough to make up stories about the CIA, moreso if it involves covert, foreign operations. Who would make up stories about the NSA if one wanted to avoid or dampen skepticism and criticism? It goes to his credibility, I imagine if one of us cited a book by an author who admits to having done copious amounts of “mind altering drugs” for several decades and believed that taking some of these drugs enabled people to transform themselves (temporarily) into animals or plants you would rightly question whether he could be taken seriously One work doesn't automatically establish the credibility (or lack thereof) for any or all other works by the same author. Btw, do you know who wrote the following review about that book ...? "Only a handful of visionaries have recognized that indigenous wisdom can aid the transition to a sustainable world. John Perkins' wonderful story of life among the shamans brings great insight for an industrial civilization consuming and polluting itself toward catastrophe."True but that’s not enough to substantiate his story. It’s been shown that Papillion and Jim Carroll made up a lot of what’s in their books, the fact that a lot of what they say was true doesn’t change that. I agree, it doesn't mean his story is true, or even partly true. I was only pointing out that such activities have been well documented in the past, by other people and companies. Do you have any evidence that Chas T. Main or Parsons Main “engage(d) in business practices that cross legal / moral / ethical boundaries” or were associated with the NSA or did any of the things Perkins claimed? Presumably you don’t because from what I’ve read he didn’t produce any evidence to support his claims. The book is nothing more than the uncollaborated claims of a confessed conman written decades after the fact. No, I meant multinationals in general, not the specific company named by Perkins. As I said it wouldn’t surprise me if the CIA had done stuff like that but I don’t believe the NSA or Perkins did. Like I said, Perkins would have had a much easier time by making up CIA stories. Did YOU actual read the book? Yup. Have you?
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Post by gillianren on May 20, 2007 21:29:16 GMT -4
It seems to me that this process has been going on for decades now. Centuries. There has always been pressure to find the lowest-paid workers a business can. I'm rather sure the Black Death meant that one couldn't find a source to pay less; the population did decrease rather substantially, meaning higher wages for all. However, since then, the trend is quite visible.
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Post by PeterB on May 20, 2007 22:57:36 GMT -4
Feelfree said:
It seems you don't know how the Australian industrial system works. It's not legal for employees to be paid differently depending on whether they belong to a union. There have, in previous years, been workplaces which were closed shops (no union ticket, no start), but these are also illegal.
There have been cases where a unionised workforce has been sacked and replaced by non-union labour. But it's rare - these days it raises the obvious question: where are the employers going to get the non-union workers from? As mentioned before, we have a labour shortage in Australia at the moment.
No, that's not much of a problem in Australia. There are so many jobs being advertised that most people who want a job have little trouble getting one.
If that's the case with Australia, you have to explain how Australian workers have been experiencing real wage growth for the last decade or so. That is, on average, wages are increasing faster than inflation.
Once again, what is the evidence to support your claim?
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Post by feelfree222 on May 21, 2007 0:03:53 GMT -4
Is restating your claims an admission that you have no actual evidence? I restated some claims for well position the situation For a real portrait of the effect of the globalisation in the USA read this www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/article/id=786
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Post by feelfree222 on May 21, 2007 0:07:00 GMT -4
Feelfree said: It seems you don't know how the Australian industrial system works. It's not legal for employees to be paid differently depending on whether they belong to a union. There have, in previous years, been workplaces which were closed shops (no union ticket, no start), but these are also illegal. What is the average salary the workers have in Australia ?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 21, 2007 0:36:10 GMT -4
Is restating your claims an admission that you have no actual evidence? I restated some claims for well position the situation Uh, what?
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