John Perkins – Touching the Jaguar: Transforming Fear Into Action. 03 May 2023

David Lorimer led webinar discussions with John Perkins who had had wide experiences working with shamans as a Peace Corps volunteer and subsequently as an “Economic Hitman”. John saw how projects he had helped to set up essentially bankrupted the target developing countries but benefited the US. Apparently, two high integrity country leaders -the Presidents of Ecuador and Panama - decided to refuse to comply with demands but were subsequently killed in suspicious air crashes. John understood how perception creates reality and discussed how indigenous nations share their dreams; also how their destruction was a direct consequence of the US economic money driven actions. The indigenous populations are focused on the whole picture of nature rather than just the current humans, so all economies need to be turned around by prioritising eco effects and the long-term benefits for all life. John explained in this context the contrasts between what he called a Death Economy and how to move towards a Life Economy.

The important issue now is how to integrate economic systems with ecology, cleaning up pollution, regenerating ecosystems and prioritising renewables. We need to find a way to get everyone on board with this concept of not using money as a key driver. All individuals could now write to destructive companies and generate petitions to spread the word as much as possible.

Finally, also discussed was China’s impressive trade record using eco and humane policies connecting the world in a non-violent way and potential current and future powers of the US dollar compared to other currencies. However, John warned that this could be a new form of domination not, as in the US case, based on militarism.

These key questions were all generally chewed over by questions from participants at the end.

Report by Eve Hicks