Where Conspiracy and Reality Collide

“BIG EYE OPENERS” 

A Peoples History of the United States– Howard Zinn

review by Eric Harrington

Everyone has a book that literally changes their perception of the world.  “Peoples History” was one of a few books that absolutely changed the way I thought about the world for the better and the worse.  It was filled with those lightbulb moments where you go “NOW I FINALLY UNDERSTAND” . 

The book is in effect the history of the United States told from the perspective of the common man.  It has been said that History is written by the winners, but winner or looser, history has never been written by the common man, the man on the street, the man in the fox hole.  It also shatters the illusions of American Exceptionalism, something that was absolutley necessary for me, looking back, to even be capable of truly understanding the United States as we know it today, and a great starting point for a search for truth in these troubled times.

A MASTERPIECE and absolutely essential reading for anyone who truly LOVES America.

Buy It

Confessions of an Economic Hitman – John Perkins

From Wikipedia–

According to his book, Perkins’ function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues in his book that developing nations were effectively neutralized politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an EHM as follows:

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

While the broad strokes can be argued as generalizations, the basic premise even Perkins ex Boss admits is true. But the most important aspect of this book is that it explains the powerful rise of Socialism and Anti-American sentiment in South AMerica and the world, and demotrates that the US cannot bring peace and prosperity to the world while allowing our corporations to pilfer the resources and welfare of the 3rd world.  A VERY IMPORTANT BOOK!!! – Eric 

BUY IT

Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress & a Civilization in Trouble – Lester Brown

by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 02.21.08

First off, a disclaimer: Lester Brown has been a hero of mine (and featured on TreeHugger TV interviews as well as posting himself on climate refugees) at least since 2003, when in front of a gathering of sustainability experts in a Portland conference room I asked him why he didn’t help us all out and run for U.S. president. Brown laughed with the rest of the crowd, then moved right on to the next question. He obviously had a much bigger agenda in mind – such as saving the entire planet.

At that time, Brown was just publishing the book Plan B, which in its first edition was subtitled “Rescuing A Planet Under Stress And A Civilization In Trouble.” In that first and subsequent two editions Brown does a commendable job of spelling out and interconnecting all the stresses on the Earth – eroding soils, falling water tables, rising temperatures, poverty and population pressures. After all, as president of the Earth Policy Institute (and founder and former leader of Worldwatch Institute) Brown has been studying the big picture for a while. By the time Brown updated Plan B to version 3.0 this year, however, the subtitle had changed to “Mobilizing to Save Civilization.” Why the change?   (Rest of Review)

This is an extremely important book and absolutely mandatory reading for the survival minded.. Eric

Friendly Fire: Secret War Between The Allies

Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince & Stephen Prior With Additional Research By Robert Brydon

A truly amazing book about the secret war that went on between the US and England druing WW2./ But more important, this book paints an extremely credible picture that suggest that Roosevelt agressively played various European countries with the express purpose of starting WW2. Why? Because the US credit that had bought us out of the great depression (ever wonder what paid for all those new deal projects) had ran out and the US was facing an even deeper collapse. The only way out was to ramp up the amazing American production machine that was suffocating due to a lack of markets, (caused mostly by Englands stranglehold on foreign trade) and sell weapons to everyone involved while cleverly staying out until the end game.  A must read!!!!  – Eric

Out of Print – BUY IT WHILE THEY ARE STILL AVAILABLE!

 The Earth Chronicles – Zacharia Sitchen

 I have a confession to make….I have read the entire Earth Chronicles Series 4 times. The information is so dense I continue to discover new insights into everything from the origin of man, to the origin of God, to the nature of civilization and it’s origins. Sitchen broke ground when after reading countless interpretations of the ancient Sumerian texts (Literally thousands exist on clay tablets, many never read) he realized that all these interpretations were using extensive mythification of the stories, ie assuming they were myths. So he undertook interpreting the texts (he is one of the few people in the world who can interpret Sumerian) LITERALLY, ie, if they say the God Enki flew across the sky, what if he actually FLEW, ie in a craft.

This book is a monumental work and a must read for anyone interested in the origins of Man, Religion, Civilization, Kingship, and WAR.

BUY IT 

Dr. Mary’s Monkey

Go to the review by Eric Harrington

“How the Unsolved Murder of a Doctor, a Secret Laboratory in New Orleans and Cancer-Causing Monkey Viruses are Linked to Lee Harvey Oswald, the JFK Assassination and Emerging Global Epidemics”  

I’m not sure this book belongs on this list, but it is a facinating read!  – Eric

Shock Doctrine – Naomi Klein

In this landmark work, Naomi Klein documents the history of  using Shock to prepare a populace for the implementation of Radical free market policies.. From Argentina to Indonesia, she tells the story of how the “Chicago Boys” a contingent of University of Chicago  economics graduates and disciples of Milton Friedman’s fundamentalist free- market theories, worked hand in hand with some of the most vicious dictators of the past half century to use their brutal totalitarian positions to perform radical changeovers of their economies to absolute free-market test cases..

Sadly, in each case the result was a few becoming rich, while the masses were driven rapidly into abject poverty. This scenario was repeated in each and every case, while the international media in true form, heralded each as “miracles”.  But as the true stories emerged once the right wing dictators were overthrown, it becomes painfully clear that the “Chicago Boys” were complicit in the atrocities and destruction of the middle class, not to mention the torture and disappearing that were rampant in each case..  Friedman miraculously managed to assume no blame throughout the catastrophic wave of  “Shock Capitalism,” even receiving a Noble Prize, with the Noble panel somehow completely unaware of the devastation that was being wreaked on the “southern cone” by these brutal dictators acting under Friedman’s ideology.

Early in the Novel Klein also describes the evolution of modern torture techniques which make Water-boarding look like a walk in the park; techniques that completely destroy a persons identity and turn them into veritable zombies. Months, even YEARS of continuous silence and darkness, only interrupted by brief moments of absolute brutality through beatings, water boarding, and electroshock’s, these techniques effectively erase a person, leaving nothing but a shell. These techniques were and presumably is still used in Guantanamo Bay and in all the CIA black op interrogation camps around the world.  The same concept of using shock to open a person to suggestion was mutated into a way of preparing a society for conversion  to fundamentalist free-market principles with disastrous humanitarian results.

A tremendous accomplishment and an absolute must read for any patriotic American.

Review by Eric Harrington

   BUY IT