The Key Books Series
(spent all that money on college and I could've just read these books...)
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Still the highest-ranking CIA case officer ever to resign and go public with his misgivings over what he calls the U.S. government's "genocidal" policies against the Third World,Stockwell's words remain as relevant as they were when he began speaking out in the Eighties. Unable to reconcile his profession with his South Texas Methodist upbringing, he tells his story with dry wit and humor. One chapter deserves its own place in foreign policy lore, "The Kissinger Grunt." A brisk and thoroughly enjoyable read which rips the lid off what really happens during a "covert operation" (wrong-size bullets, closet psychopaths...) Video of Stockwell |
Reading this book by Harper's Magazine's late Walter Karp is the first step toward understanding America today. Period.
How Bush and Tommy Franks let bin Laden get away. |
by James Ridgeway A slim, easy-to-read primer on the world natural resource/multinational corporation structure. Ever wonder where aluminum comes from? Jamaica (bauxite ore). Cinnamon? Sri Lanka. The common theme is that a remarkably small number of players own remarkably large portions of the world's key resources, and shape millions of lives almost as an afterthought. The American classic. |
by Ferdinand Lundberg Think rich people run the country? Think again; it depends on what you mean by "rich." It's not the guy with the giant liquor store chain or Ralph Lauren. It's people you never hear about (they like it that way) who only socialize with each other, go to school with each other, and marry each other. They are heirs whose balance sheets are closely-guarded secrets, and whose "gentleman's agreements" may determine who is and who is not a "viable" political candidate. Lundberg's 1969 American classic still forces you to revise what you thought you knew.  |
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The definitive study of who controls the world's food supply, essentially seven family enterprizes which own global networks of shipping containers, port facilities, land transportation networks, and massive grain elevators. Strangely enough they do not, by and large, own the land that food is farmed on, but their market-shaping power can make or break any farmer. Greed, lust, betrayal...nothing's really changed much. |
Ever wonder why the Democrats seem like the gang that couldn't shoot straight and the rich keep getting richer? Karp, one of the greatest political thinkers of the century, argues that this is deliberate. He says the two major parties need each other in order to maintain an "illusion of opposition," to preserve their own power. This book is essential to understanding how the American party system really works, outside the myths of the mainstream media. |
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And the other one... “It is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah’s repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York.” -the publisher In 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, probably without president Eisenhower's knowledge, set into motion a plan to overthrow democratically-elected Iranian president Mohammed Mossadeq and to replace him with the Shah of Iran. Mossadeq's crime was to believe that Iranian oil should belong to Iranians, rather than to the British oil companies which were exploiting it. The Shah's tyrannical rule led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which began the spread of a particularly virulent form of hard-line Islamic radicalism. My grad school essay on Kinzer's book |
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"Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II-Through 2003": Your standard desktop reference on what they didn't teach you in high school. |
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"Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" is the single best account of a modern American presidential campaign, with Thompson showing a keen political mind as well as his usual, entertaining hijinks. |
Great flicks
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During the 2006 elections a certain candidate (now a U.S. senator) wore his son's combat boots during the campaign as part of his statement that he wanted his son (and all troops) home from Iraq. These boots are swell for stomping into your congressman's office, going to protests, and in general showing your solidarity with the troops as we work to bring them home from that hell-hole. Don't let the Right own "support the troops." Good boots, too. March 17 Info |