Confessions of an Economic Hit Man reveals the dangerous path the United States is taking toward imperial control. As the book ends Perkins suggests that we examine how its messages affect our lives, and consider the steps we can make toward creating a more compassionate and just world. Offering study groups in your home, or in libraries, churches, bookstores, cafes or other public meeting places creates such an opportunity.
We invite you to join other people around the world. Facilitate a study group (usually 60-90 minutes). It’s easy, fun, and deeply rewarding. Below are a few tips:
Your role as facilitator is to stimulate discussion by asking questions, identifying key points, and managing the group process. Prior to your meeting select a passage from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man to use as a foundation for group discussion and processing—for example, the following passage, from the Preface on page xi: |
| |
Today we see the results of this system run amok. Executives at our most respected companies hire people at near-slave wages to toil under inhuman conditions in Asian sweatshops. Oil companies wantonly pump toxins into rain forest rivers, consciously killing people, animals, and plants, and committing genocide among ancient cultures. The pharmaceutical industry denies lifesaving medicines to millions of HIV-infected Africans. Twelve million families in our own United States worry about their next meal. The energy industry creates an Enron. The accounting industry creates an Andersen. The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995. The United States spends over $87 billion conducting a war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet. |
|
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you conduct an ongoing group, please register with Robert Levy at WakingOurWorld@aol.com or ask Robert about ongoing groups in your area. |
