01 - USA - soin74 - Chomikuj.pl, Strona 446

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Dan Briody - The Halliburton Agenda, The Politics of Oil and Money (2005).jpg

The author of the bestseller The Iron Triangle untangles a web of political back scratching in one of the world's most powerful companies
Halliburton-a Texas oil-field company Dick Cheney ran before he became Vice President-has courted controversy for the better part of the twentieth century, but only recently has it received intense media scrutiny. In The Halliburton Agenda, Halliburton and its subsidiaries form the foundation of a fascinating story of influence peddling and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering that has only increased in momentum over the last decade-culminating in a firestorm of problems arising as soon as Cheney took office.
This intriguing book shows readers where Halliburton has been doing business and with whom-topping the list so far are Iran, Iraq, and Libya. It also reveals how this juggernaut of a corporation has engaged in a cycle of profits that begins by selling products and services to potential terrorist states, contracting with the federal government during times of war against those states, then gaining valuable rebuilding contracts to help repair those states. It will also show how a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown

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Dan Briody - The Halliburton Agenda. The Politics of Oil and Money.pdf

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Lindsey Williams - Syndrome of Control (1986).jpeg

This is Lindsey Williams' explosive book Syndrome of Control (1986) which exposes the mental plot of the international financiers who are holding America and the rest of the world captive by falsely inflated oil prices and how such totalitarian economic control is used to forment countless wars around the globe. If you have ever wondered who really controls the oil prices and why they sometimes suddenly change although nothing seems to imply that they should then you'll be amazed on how the trick really works. The truth is that they are completely artificially fluctuated by a few powerful cartels together with international bankers in order to create the psychological environment which usually pushes the oil users (that's all of us) into war, first in line always being the Americans as the most useful idiots the bankers have. The author has seen personally what goes on behind the scenes as he was himself in executive positions in many major oil companies. You will vividly see the mechanics of creating a war by using oil monopolies as a weapon. Even more, by revealing the true nature of today's money it is shown that money itself is one giant racket in this horrific game we call war. The politicans will always comply to anything the cartels and bankers tell them as they don't want to risk any major panic since people want to continue running their cars more than they love their freedoms. This amazing book includes material exposed by US congressman George Hansen on the Iranian hostage crisis, Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, former US president Carter and the Iran banker's war. Especially noteworthy is Hansen's contribution as he for the first time in print tells the true story of the Iran crisis and who was really behind it. Also has an enlightening comparison of a republic vs. a democracy and how the first one always gives freedom to people while the second always ends in slavery although everyone blindly believes they are free. 210 pages. A must read for everyone.

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Lindsey Williams - Syndrome of Control (1986).pdf

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Russell S. Bowen - The Immaculate Deception, The B ush Crime Family Exposed (1999).jpg

There is a TON of information packed into these 200 pages. Event after event, lie after lie, flip flop after flip flop, covert actions after covert action, and lie after lie, this book weighs in on Bush's historical record.

Is Bush to blame for the escalation of the drug trade? Read this book for some info on the subject. Read how he hid deals and ownerships of companies that he knew violated Mexican laws. How he supported Saddam Hussien, how he partnered with Hussein and Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices high so his family could make more money. How he was involved with the CIA (although he denied it) back in the late 50s and early 60s. What does he know about the Kennedy assassination? He gave a briefy the day after to government officials. He denied being in the Iran-contra loop but he set up the connections for it. He continued to pay Noriega over $100,000 a year while Noriega was stealing U.S. intelligence and running drugs to the United States with CIA cover.

What was his role in the delaying of the Iran Hostages release? A national black mark that folks have not heard enough of. He gave Hussein the go-ahead to invade Kuwait and then attacked him. How he had to be ordered by the Supreme Court to stop lobbying the IRS on behalf of drug companies when he was VP.

The list goes on and on and on and one. Read this book and have your eyes opened. It will entice you to read more on the sad subject of the life or priveledge and abuse of power. And everyone thought Clinton was the worst, when the facts come out on Bush it would be hard to decide who was the worst.

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Russell S. Bowen - The Immaculate Deception, The B ush Crime Family Exposed (1999).pdf

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Francisco Parra - Oil Politics, A Modern History o f Petroleum (2004).jpg

The politics of oil revolves around its price and the reliability of its suppliers. In turn, many international conflicts in the world today are rooted in these politics. Not surprisingly: the price of oil is managed by a cartel-OPEC-some of whose member governments are deeply hostile to the United States and other major importers of oil. And OPEC controls nearly two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. Ironically, the United States and many others, especially non-OPEC producers of energy, have come to rely on OPEC to set prices that encourage the development of high-cost oil elsewhere, and thus promote some diversity of supply.Fundamental to any understanding of the politics of the contemporary world is an understanding of the politics and most recent history of petroleum. Francisco Parra, drawing on his long and varied experience in international oil, sets out the events that have shaped the industry over the past fifty years--the displacement of coal as the world's prime fuel; the tight control of international oil by the seven major oil companies (all US or British), monopolizing production in the Middle East and Venezuela; the rise of OPEC and the ousting of the companies in a bitter struggle in which the companies were abandoned by their home governments; how the world was hypnotized for more than a decade by the delusion of impending depletion; and the political turbulence that has led to wars in the Middle East, to US sanctions on Iran, Iraq, and Libya, and, most recently, to the invasion of Iraq.After a surge in non-OPEC oil production in the 1980s and 1990s, dependence on the Middle East is increasing and OPEC's control over price is volatile. Parra asks whether this enduring predicament-that holds the threat of political conditions being attached to the supply of oil-can be managed by the "West", to avert successive and deepening crises in the pricing and supply of oil and in the world at large.

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Hilary Synnott - Bad Days in Basra, My Turbulent T ime as Britain's Man in Southern Iraq (2008).jpg

This is the story of Sir Hilary Synnott’s time as Britain’s most senior representative in Southern Iraq, from 2003 to 2004, trying to keep the region together as the rest of the country descended in to murderous violence. By turns wryly comic, revealing and heart-breaking, it offers a never seen before glimpse in to the high politics of the occupation. Shuttling between the gilded palaces of the Green Zone and the Coalition HQ in Basra, Synnott had to deal with his American counterpart Paul Bremer's brash indifference to what was going on in the South, the fickleness of his London masters, who could never make up their minds, and the brutal political realities of a country under occupation. Bearing witness for first time to the chaotic fashion in which the coalition was run and the disastrous impact of its policies, Synnott's unique insider account is the most important primary source yet on how Southern Iraq spun out of control. It is also an entertaining and witty portrait of the absurdities of life inside the occupying coalition.

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Pratap Chatterjee - Halliburton's Army, How a Well -Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Wa y America Makes War (2009).jpg

01 - USA - Pratap Chatterjee - Halliburtons Army, How a Well-Conn... Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War 2009.jpg

Halliburton’s Army is the first book to show, in shocking detail, how Halliburton really does business, in Iraq, and around the world. From its vital role as the logistical backbone of the U.S. occupation in Iraq—without Halliburton there could be no war or occupation—to its role in covering up gang-rape amongst its personnel in Baghdad, Halliburton’s Army is a devastating bestiary of corporate malfeasance and political cronyism.

Pratap Chatterjee—one of the world’s leading authorities on corporate crime, fraud, and corruption—shows how Halliburton won and then lost its contracts in Iraq, what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did for it, and who the company paid off in the U.S. Congress. He brings us inside the Pentagon meetings, where Cheney and Rumsfeld made the decision to send Halliburton to Iraq—as well as many other hot-spots, including Somalia, Yugoslavia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and, most recently, New Orleans. He travels to Dubai, where Halliburton has recently moved its headquarters, and exposes the company’s freewheeling ways: executives leading the high life, bribes, graft, skimming, offshore subsidiaries, and the whole arsenal of fraud. Finally, Chatterjee reveals the human costs of the privatization of American military affairs, which is sustained almost entirely by low-paid unskilled Third World workers who work in incredibly dangerous conditions without any labor protection.

Halliburton’s Army is a hair-raising exposé of one of the world’s most lethal corporations, essential reading for anyone concerned about the nexus of private companies, government, and war.

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Roger Howard - Iran Oil, The New Middle East Chall enge to America (2007).jpg

The US sees itself as being locked into a confrontation with Iran, its number one enemy since the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But, as Roger Howard argues in this compelling and provocative new book, by attempting to isolate Iran, the US may in fact be undermining its own power. Furthermore, because of US trade embargoes on Iran, it is only the US's rivals, such as China, who are able to fully exploit Iran's natural resources...

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Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought, The Tra nsformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007).jpg

The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in What Hath God Wrought, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent.

Howe's panoramic narrative portrays revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. Railroads, canals, newspapers, and the telegraph dramatically lowered travel times and spurred the spread of information. These innovations prompted the emergence of mass political parties and stimulated America's economic development from an overwhelmingly rural country to a diversified economy in which commerce and industry took their place alongside agriculture. In his story, the author weaves together political and military events with social, economic, and cultural history. He examines the rise of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party, but contends that John Quincy Adams and other Whigs--advocates of public education and economic integration, defenders of the rights of Indians, women, and African-Americans--were the true prophets of America's future. He reveals the power of religion to shape many aspects of American life during this period, including slavery and antislavery, women's rights and other reform movements, politics, education, and literature. Howe's story of American expansion culminates in the bitterly controversial but brilliantly executed war waged against Mexico to gain California and Texas for the United States.
By 1848 America had been transformed. What Hath God Wrought provides a monumental narrative of this formative period in United States history.

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Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought, The Tra nsformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007).pdf

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David E. Sanger - The Inheritance, The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (2 009).jpg

Readers of The New York Times know David Sanger as one of the most trusted correspondents in Washington, one to whom presidents, secretaries of state, and foreign leaders talk with unusual candor. Now, with a historian’s sweep and an insider’s eye for telling detail, Sanger delivers an urgent intelligence briefing on the world America faces.

In a riveting narrative, The Inheritance describes the huge costs of distraction and lost opportunities at home and abroad as Iraq soaked up manpower, money, and intelligence capabilities. The 2008 market collapse further undermined American leadership, leaving the new president with a set of challenges unparalleled since Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the Oval Office.

Sanger takes readers into the White House Situation Room to reveal how Washington penetrated Tehran’s nuclear secrets, leading President Bush, in his last year, to secretly step up covert actions in a desperate effort to delay an Iranian bomb. Meanwhile, his intelligence chiefs made repeated secret missions to Pakistan as they tried to stem a growing insurgency and cope with an ally who was also aiding the enemy–while receiving billions in American military aid. Now the new president faces critical choices: Is it better to learn to live with a nuclear Iran or risk overt or covert confrontation? Is it worth sending U.S. forces deep into Pakistani territory at the risk of undermining an unstable Pakistani government sitting on a nuclear arsenal? It is a race against time and against a new effort by Islamic extremists—never before disclosed—to quietly infiltrate Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

“Bush wrote a lot of checks,” one senior intelligence official told Sanger, “that the next president is going to have to cash.”

The Inheritance takes readers to Afghanistan, where Bush never delivered on his promises for a Marshall Plan to rebuild the country, paving the way for the Taliban’s return. It examines the chilling calculus of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, who built actual weapons of mass destruction in the same months that the Bush administration pursued phantoms in Iraq, then sold his nuclear technology in the Middle East in an operation the American intelligence apparatus missed. And it explores how China became one of the real winners of the Iraq war, using the past eight years to expand its influence in Asia, and lock up oil supplies in Africa while Washington was bogged down in the Middle East. Yet Sanger, a former foreign correspondent in Asia, sees enormous potential for the next administration to forge a partnership with Beijing on energy and the environment.

At once a secret history of our foreign policy misadventures and a lucid explanation of the opportunities they create, The Inheritance is vital reading for anyone trying to understand the extraordinary challenges that lie ahead.

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Mary Kaldor, Terry Karl, Yahia Said (Editors) Oil Wars (2007).jpg

Are oil-rich countries prone to war? And, if so, why? There is a widely held belief that contemporary wars are motivated by the desire of great powers like the United States or Russia to control precious oil resources and to ensure energy security.This book argues that the main reason why oil-rich countries are prone to war is because of the character of their society and economy. Sectarian groups compete for access to oil resources and finance their military adventures through smuggling oil, kidnapping oil executives, or blowing up pipelines. Outside intervention only makes things worse. The use of conventional military force as in Iraq can bring neither stability nor security of supply.This book examines the relationship between oil and war in six different regions: Angola, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria and Russia. Each country has substantial oil reserves, and has a long history of conflict. The contributors assess what part oil plays in causing, aggravating or mitigating war in each region and how this relation has altered with the changing nature of war. It offers a novel conceptual approach bringing together Kaldor's work on 'new wars' and Karl's work on the petro-state.

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Mary Kaldor, Terry Karl, Yahia Said (Editors) Oil Wars (2007) [PDF].rar

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Susan Faludi - The Terror Dream, Fear and Fantasy in Post 9-11 America(2007).jpg

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash—an unflinching dissection of the mind of America after 9/11. In this most original examination of America’s post-9/11 culture, Susan Faludi shines a light on the country’s psychological response to the attacks on that terrible day. Turning her acute observational powers on the media, popular culture, and political life, Faludi unearths a barely acknowledged but bedrock societal drama shot through with baffling contradictions. Why, she asks, did our culture respond to an assault against American global dominance with a frenzied summons to restore “traditional” manhood, marriage, and maternity? Why did we react as if the hijackers had targeted not a commercial and military edifice but the family home and nursery? Why did an attack fueled by hatred of Western emancipation lead us to a regressive fixation on Doris Day womanhood and John Wayne masculinity, with trembling “security moms,” swaggering presidential gunslingers, and the “rescue” of a female soldier cast as a “helpless little girl”?

The answer, Faludi finds, lies in a historical anomaly unique to the American experience: the nation that in recent memory has been least vulnerable to domestic attack was forged in traumatizing assaults by nonwhite “barbarians” on town and village. That humiliation lies concealed under a myth of cowboy bluster and feminine frailty, which is reanimated whenever threat and shame looms.

Brilliant and important, The Terror Dream shows what 9/11 revealed about us—and offers the opportunity to look at ourselves anew.

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Thomas E. Ricks - Fiasco, The American Military Ad venture in Iraq (2006).jpg

The definitive military chronicle of the Iraq war and a searing judgment on the strategic blindness with which America has conducted it, drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondant Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco is a masterful and explosive reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on the unprecedented candor of key participants.

The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.

As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. But the officers who did raise their voices against the miscalculations, shortsightedness, and general failure of the war effort were generally crushed, their careers often ended. A willful blindness gripped political and military leaders, and dissent was not tolerated.

There are a number of heroes in Fiasco—inspiring leaders from the highest levels of the Army and Marine hierarchies to the men and women whose skill and bravery led to battlefield success in towns from Fallujah to Tall Afar—but again and again, strategic incoherence rendered tactical success meaningless. There was never any question that the U.S. military would topple Saddam Hussein, but as Fiasco shows there was also never any real thought about what would come next. This blindness has ensured the Iraq war a place in history as nothing less than a fiasco. Fair, vivid, and devastating, Fiasco is a book whose tragic verdict feels definitive.

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Thomas P. M. Barnett - Great Powers, America and t he World After Bush (2009).jpg

The author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller The Pentagon’s New Map brings us a remarkable analysis of the post-Bush world, and America’s leadership role in it.

In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping—and important—book of all.

For eight years, the current administration has done much to disconnect or alienate America from the world, but the world has certainly not been standing still. Now, with a chance to start over, what do we do? Where’s the world going now, and how do we not only rejoin it but become a leader again in what has become the most profound reordering of the globe since the end of World War II?

In Great Powers, Barnett offers a tour de force analysis of the grand realignments that are both already here and coming up fast in the spheres of economics, diplomacy, defense, technology, security, the environment, and much more. The “great powers” are no longer just the world’s major nation-states but the powerful forces, past, present, and future, moving with us and past us like a freight train. It is not a simple matter of a course correction but of a complete recalibration, and the opportunities it presents are far greater than the perils. Barnett gives us a fundamental understanding of both, showing us not only how the world is now but how it will be.

There are those writing now who say America is in decline... and we just have to deal with it. Barnett says no. Globalization as it exists today was built by America—and now it’s time for America to shape and redefine what comes next. Great Powers shows us how.

From Publishers Weekly
Barnett (The Pentagon's New Map) offers a comprehensive catalogue of the failings of the Bush administration and a strategic roadmap for American foreign policy in this sweeping text. The author takes a broad approach to the contemporary political landscape, surveying U.S. history from the Revolution through the end of the Cold War and applying lessons from that history to the present. Drawing on a variety of secondary sources and his personal and professional experiences as a national security specialist and consultant, Barnett argues in favor of cooperation with rising powers such as China and India and continued movement in the direction of globalization; he distills his central thesis down to the contention that America must dramatically realign its own post-9/11 trajectory with that of the world at large. Barnett writes in a conversational style. Despite the text's vast scope, it has a clear, straightforward structure, even featuring a glossary of key terms, and it provides an accessible and engaging foray into global grand strategy.

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Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo - The Pillars of Global Law (2008).jpg

This book deals with the transformation of the international legal system into a new world order. Looking at concepts and principles, processes and emerging problems, it examines the impact of global forces on international law. In so doing, it identifies a unified set of legal rules and processes from the great variety of state practice and jurisprudence. The work develops a new framework to examine the key elements of the global legal system, termed the 'four pillars of global law': verticalization, legality, integration and collective guarantees. The study provides a complete analysis of the differences between traditional international law and the new principles and processes along which the universal society and world power are organized and how this is related to domestic power.The book addresses important changes in key legal issues; it reconstructs a complex legal framework, and the emergence of a new international order that has still not been studied in depth, providing a compass that will prove a useful resource for students, researchers and policy makers with an interest in international relations.

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Joel Andreas - Addicted to War, Why the US Can't K ick Militarism (2002).jpg

Addicted to War, subtitled Why The US Can't Kick Militarism, is a 77 letter-sized page "illustrated exposé" by Joel Andreas published by Frank Dorrel with AK Press in 2002. Originally published in 1991, the book was out of print until Dorrel convinced Andreas to create an updated, post-9/11 version.
The book tells the history of U.S. foreign wars — from the Indian Wars to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — in a comic book format. Including 161 reference notes, the book aims to demonstrate why the U.S. has been involved in more wars in recent years than any other country, and to explain who benefits from these military adventures, who pays and who dies.

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Joel Andreas - Addicted to War, Why the US Can't K ick Militarism (2002) [JPG - komix].rar

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John Rees - Imperialism and Resistance (2006).jpg

This is a sustained critique of the new economic and military imperialism of the United States and its allies in the 21st century.
Inspired by the anti-globalization and anti-war movements, in which the author himself has played a crucial role, this is also an accessible introduction to the huge changes in global politics since the dominance of the American Empire with the end of the Cold War. It covers the key areas of:
* The nature of the new imperialism
* The economic power of the US
* Globalization and inequality
* Wars in the post Cold War era
* Oil and empire
* Resisting the new imperialism.
This lively, provocative and practical book is an essential guide to the politics of the new world order, which also offers constructive suggestions on how the global resistance movement should develop. It is important new reading for activists, students and all those wanting to understand and challenge the new imperialism.

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John Rees - Imperialism and Resistance (2006).pdf

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Joseph Gerson - Empire and the Bomb, How the U.S. Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World (2007).jpg

In recent years our daily press has again been preoccupied with dangers posed by nuclear weapons. As Cold War fears of an omnicidal US–Soviet thermonuclear exchange faded, the specters of “rogue” nuclear states and non-state terrorists with atomic bombs haunted the world. During the 2002 build-up to the US invasion of Iraq,Vice-President Dick Cheney informed the world that Baghdad had resumed its nuclear weapons program, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that it would be foolhardy to wait for a mushroom cloud to take the Iraqi nuclear threat seriously.

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Joseph Gerson - Empire and the Bomb, How the U.S. Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World (2007).pdf

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Robert P. Murphy - The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal (2009).jpg

In this timely new P.I. Guide, Murphy reveals the stark truth: free market failure didn't cause the Great Depression and the New Deal didn't cure it. Shattering myths and politically correct lies, he tells why World War II didn t help the economy or get us out of the Great Depression; why it took FDR to make the Depression Great; and why Herbert Hoover was more like Obama and less like Bush than the liberal media would have you believe. Free-market believers and capitalists everywhere should have this on their bookshelf and in their briefcase.

From the Inside Flap
Everything you know about the Great Depression and the New Deal is wrong
We all learned in school that the 1920s were a time of unregulated capitalism that led to the stock market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Herbert Hoover was a laissez-faire ideologue who did nothing to alleviate the crisis--even as citizens starved and were forced to live in "Hoovervilles." And the interventionist policies and massive spending programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal gradually lifted us out of the Depression, until World War II brought it to a definitive end.
The only trouble with this official narrative--taught in most history textbooks, and proclaimed as gospel by the media--is that every element of it is false. Worse, this unsubstantiated myth is now being used to justify a "new New Deal" in response to today's economic crisis that could lead to a Greater Depression even deeper and longer than the first. But in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, economist Robert Murphy fact-checks the myths, shows why they're wrong, and delves deep into history to set the record straight. His "politically incorrect" conclusion? It was government, not free markets, that caused the Great Depression--and the New Deal only made it worse. The real "lessons of the Great Depression" are not what you've been taught.

* The Crash of `29 was caused not by capitalism, but by the boom brought on by the newly created Federal Reserve's easy money policy (sound familiar?)
* Hoover made the Depression "Great" precisely by abandoning the laissez-faire approach that previous presidents had followed and that kept depressions short
* The bank runs of the 1930s were caused by government intervention in the banking system
* Government efforts to prop up wages and prices led to a full decade of double-digit unemployment
* FDR's arbitrary policies toward businessmen resulted in net investment of less than zero for much of the Depression

Might Barack Obama be the new FDR? You'll know, after reading The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal that if he is, that's nothing to celebrate.

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Robert P. Murphy - The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal (2009).pdf

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W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, Steven Livin gston - When the Press Fails, Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (2007).jpg

01 - USA - W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, Steven Livingston...cal Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina 2007.jpg

A sobering look at the intimate relationship between political power and the news media, When the Press Fails argues the dependence of reporters on official sources disastrously thwarts coverage of dissenting voices from outside the Beltway. The result is both an indictment of official spin and an urgent call to action that questions why the mainstream press failed to challenge the Bush administration’s arguments for an invasion of Iraq or to illuminate administration policies underlying the Abu Ghraib controversy. Drawing on revealing interviews with Washington insiders and analysis of content from major news outlets, the authors illustrate the media’s unilateral surrender to White House spin whenever oppositional voices elsewhere in government fall silent. Contrasting these grave failures with the refreshingly critical reporting on Hurricane Katrina—a rare event that caught officials off guard, enabling journalists to enter a no-spin zone—When the Press Fails concludes by proposing new practices to reduce reporters’ dependence on power.

“The hand-in-glove relationship of the U.S. media with the White House is mercilessly exposed in this determined and disheartening study that repeatedly reveals how the press has toed the official line at those moments when its independence was most needed.”—George Pendle, Financial Times

“Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston are indisputably right about the news media’s dereliction in covering the administration’s campaign to take the nation to war against Iraq.”—Don Wycliff, Chicago Tribune “[This] analysis of the weaknesses of Washington journalism deserves close attention.”—Russell Baker, New York Review of Books

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Wojtek Mackiewicz Wolfe - Winning the War of Words , Selling the War on Terror from Afghanistan to Ir aq (2008).jpg

01 - USA - Wojtek Mackiewicz Wolfe - Winning the War of Words, Se...elling the War on Terror from Afghanistan to Iraq 2008.jpg

Throughout history and especially during contemporary times, presidential rhetoric sets the foreign policy tone not only for Congress but mainly for the American public. Consequently, US foreign policy is actively marketed and spun to the American public. This book describes the marketing strategy of the War on Terror and how that strategy compelled public opinion towards supporting the spread of the War on Terror from Afghanistan to Iraq. The author investigates how President George W. Bush's initial framing of the September 11th attacks provided the platform for the creation of long term public support for the War on Terror and established early public support for U.S. action in Iraq. Mining public opinion data and nearly 1500 presidential speeches over a four year period, the book argues that presidential framing of threats and losses, not gains, contributed to public support for war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, and President Bush's successful reelection campaign. President Bush's initial framing of the terrorist threat was introduced immediately after the September 11th attacks and reinforced throughout the Afghanistan invasion. During this time period, presidential threat framing established the broad parameters for the War on Terror and enabled the president to successfully market a punitive war in Afghanistan. Second, the president marketed the strategy of preemptive war and led the country into the more costly war in Iraq by focusing on the potentially global threat of terrorism and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. President Bush's previous war rhetoric was repackaged into a leaner, more focused format in which the Iraq war became part of the War on Terror, resulting in increased support for the president and a successful reelection campaign. Finally, the author examines the withdraw vs. surge in Iraq debate bringing the book up to date. The book shows the influencing potential of presidential spin and of risky foreign policy in the Middle East, and presents a systematic analysis of how a president effectively pursued a marketing strategy that continues to show an enduring ability to influence public support. Even two years after the Iraq invasion, 52% of Americans believed that the U.S. should stay in Iraq until it is stabilized. This finding bypasses agenda setting explanations, which prescribes issue salience amongst the public for only one year. The large speech database available with the study will also be an added benefit to scholars seeking to teach undergraduate and graduate level qualitative research methods.

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Wojtek Mackiewicz Wolfe - Winning the War of Words , Selling the War on Terror from Afghanistan to Ir aq (2008).pdf

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