میرا نقطہ نظر

[emanParticipant]

Selling My Soul
In this chapter, John Perkins told he and his team had found to live a better way of life in Jakarta. He also told about his colleague Howard and his behavior with him – who was old and had the wisest mind – warned him to make a selfish report which was in the right of the U.S due to oil but not good for Indonesia. Howard, indirectly, forced him to ponder about the mission for which they came in Indonesia: is it right or wrong. But, here, Perkins wanted to secure his future, even he wanted to make his future bright. So, he thought, his goal was to make a report, by which he had to please his boss.
John Perkins writes that he and his team member spent their six days in Jakarta at the U.S Embassy. They also met various officials, organized themselves. John Perkins was amazed to see the number of Americans who lived at the Hotel Intercontinental. He saw that there are beautiful young women — wives of U.S. oil and construction company executives.

Then, they moved toward the mountain city of Bandung. The climate was milder, the poverty less obvious, and the distractions fewer. They were given a government guesthouse known as the Wisma, complete with a manager, a cook, a gardener, and a staff of servants as well as many other facilities like vehicles, drivers, translators, and Golf clubs.

For Perkins, the first several days in Bandung involved a series of meetings with Charlie and Howard Parker. Howard was in his seventies and was the retired chief load forecaster for the New England Electric System. Now he was responsible for forecasting the amount of energy and generating capacity. Since electric demand is highly correlated with economic growth, his forecasts depended on Perkins’ economic projections. The rest of the team would develop the master plan around these forecasts, locating and designing power plants, transmission and distribution lines, and fuel transportation systems in a manner that would satisfy their projections efficiently. During our meetings, Charlie continually emphasized the importance of Perkins’ job as Claudine had been right; John Perkins was the key to the entire master plan.

Charlie, Perkins, and Howard decided that “The engineers will put together a detailed picture of the current electric system, port capacities, roads, railroads, all those sorts of things. By the end of month one, Howard will need to get a pretty good idea about the full extent of the economic miracles that’ll happen when they get the new grid online. By the end of the second month, he’ll need more details — broken down into regions. The last month will be about filling in the gaps. That’ll be critical. All of us will put our heads together then. So, before they leave, they got to be absolutely certain they have all the information they’ll need. Home for Thanksgiving, that’s Perkins’s motto. There’s no coming back.”

Telling about Howard, John Perkins writes that Howard appeared to be an amiable, grandfatherly type, but he was actually a bitter old man who felt cheated by life. He had never reached the pinnacle of the New England Electric System and he deeply resented it. Because he refused to buy the company line. He had been forced into retirement and then, unable to tolerate staying at home with his wife, had accepted a consulting job with MAIN. This was his second assignment, and he had been warned by both Einar and Charlie to watch out for him. They described him with words like stubborn, mean, and vindictive.

Howard was one of the wisest teachers of Perkins, although not one he was ready to accept at the time. Howard had never received the type of training Claudine had given to Perkins. Perkins supposed that they (Charlie and Claudine) considered him too old, or perhaps too stubborn. Or maybe they figured he was only in it for the short run until they could lure in a more pliable full-timer like me. In any case, from their standpoint, he turned out to be a problem. Howard clearly saw the situation and the role they wanted him to play, and he was determined not to be a pawn. All the adjectives Einar and Charlie had used to describe him were appropriate, but at least some of his stubbornness grew out of his personal commitment not to be their servant. He knew they (MAIN) intended to use him to promote a form of imperialism he could not accept.

John Perkins told Howard took me aside after one of our meetings with Charlie. “This is between you and me,” Howard said in a hushed voice. He said. “Charlie’s ruthless. Don’t let him get to you.” His words gave me a sinking feeling, but also a desire to convince him that Charlie was right; after all, my career depended on pleasing my MAIN bosses. And I said, surely this economy will boom.

John Perkins also replied to Howard that he has been around and has seen that things change fast when oil is discovered. Howard said to him “I don’t give a damn for your oil discoveries and all that. I forecasted electric loads all my life — during the Depression, World War II, times of bust and boom. I’ve seen what Route 128’s so-called Massachusetts Miracle did for Boston. And I can say for sure that no electric load ever grew by more than 7 to 9 percent a year for any sustained period. And that’s in the best of times. Six percent is more reasonable.”

Perkins said to Howard, this isn’t Boston. This is a country where, until now, no one could even get electricity. Things are different here. “Go ahead,” Howard snarled. “Sell out. I don’t give a damn what you come up with.” I’ll make my electricity forecast based on what I believe, not some pie-in-the-sky economic study.”

Perkins responded to him as a challenge and said to him, “You’ll look pretty stupid if I come up with what everyone expects — a boom to rival the California gold rush — and you forecast electricity growth at a rate comparable to Boston in the 1960s.” Then, Howard said “Unconscionable! That’s what it is. You — all of you have sold your souls to the devil. You’re in it for the money.

The whole conversation with Howard shook the Perkins. He was constrained to think about Howard’s words “You’re in it for the money.”

Perkins was pondering that Perhaps he could confide in Howard; maybe together they would arrive at a solution. he knew he could do no such thing. Here, Perkins was also thinking that Howard was old and bitter. He had already passed up opportunities to advance his own career. But he was young, just starting out, and certainly did not want to end up like him.

The whole night he thought Howard, Charlie, Claudine, Ann, Einar, Uncle Frank — wondering what my life would be like if I had never met them. Where would I be living? Not Indonesia, that was for sure because he wondered about his future. He pondered the decision confronting him. Charlie had made it clear that he expected Howard and me to come up with growth rates of at least 17 percent per annum. What kind of forecast would he produce?

Then, he came to the point that why had it not occurred to him before? The decision was not mine at all. Howard had said that he would do what he considered right, regardless of my conclusions. He could please his bosses with a high economic forecast and Howard would make his own decision; his work would have no effect on the master plan.

A few days later, Howard was taken ill with a severe amoebic attack. The doctors prescribed medication and strongly recommended that he return immediately to the United States. His parting words to me were a reiteration of his earlier warning. “No need to cook the numbers,” he said. ” I’ll not be part of that scam, no matter what you say about the miracles of economic growth!”

0

0

[Author]

Posts