-Caveat Lector-
from:
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<A HREF="http://www.thegrid.net/clear/overview.htm">Art of Deception:
Overview/History</A>
-----
Introduction
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and the simple, however
cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and the corrupt. - Graham
Greene
Overview:
Misinformation and DisinformationAmerican History:
The Robber Baron of 1492 to the Robber Barons of the 1800sClosing In on
the Year 2000The First Half of the 20th Century
Works cited Home
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misinformation and Disinformation
I have never met anybody who wasn't against war. Even Hitler and
Mussolini were, according to themselves. - David Low, 1946
Yellow ribbons, flag-waving, and parades down Main Street and bumper
stickers reading "I support Desert Storm" and "God bless our troops,"
are all examples of how millions of Americans were swallowed up in the
fervor of the Persian Gulf war in 1991. All are signs of an uninformed
society which is the pawn of militaristic patriotism.
Operation Desert Storm was a swift and sanitized war. None other had
been so masterfully and adroitly orchestrated by the White House and CIA
in the history of the United States. It was in this way that the
government and the media portrayed it to the American people. Had it
been a true United Nations war, it would have been carried out by the
Security Council. Consequently, there was only one participant in Desert
Storm, the United States. The impotent Iraqis sat back and took pounding
after pounding until the infrastructure of their country was reduced to
shambles.
President George Bush continually stated that "oil was not the reason"
for the American invasion; that Saddam Hussein was "worse than Hitler";
and that he would swallow up Saudi Arabia and perhaps most of the Middle
East. American generals were feeding the people daily reports on
commercial television. Americans were being told that sorties were
hitting their targets, that primarily smart laser-guided bombs were
being dropped, and that civilian areas were being avoided.
Yet the American people were not told about Iraq's military impotence as
a result of its eight- year war of attrition with Iran and that Saudi
Arabia and Israel were the pillars of strength in the Middle East. Also,
it was seldom explained that Iraq had several legitimate claims to
Kuwait, since the Iraqi government never signed a border agreement with
Kuwait; and that the emir of Kuwait had a human rights record just as
dismal as that of Hussein. In the daily Pentagon briefings, Americans
were told of the precision bombings carried out by American warplanes
and missiles.
The results were staggering. Approximately 200,000 Iraqi children died
of injuries, diseases, and malnutrition due to the decimation of the
country's infrastructure. Tens of thousands were left homeless. Later it
was revealed that 70 percent of American bombs missed their targets, and
only 7 percent were smart bombs. These "surgical bombings" incurred the
death of thousands of civilians, and tens of thousands more were
injured. In addition 20 percent of all Americans killed during Desert
Storm were hit by "friendly fire."
Americans are among the most naive people in the "civilized" world. Most
do not know -- or do not want to know --that the United States has sent
troops abroad 212 times since independence from Britain. The media
report very few facts to the American public. Consequently, very few
people know that since World War II the United States assisted in over
20 different coups throughout the world, and that the CIA was
responsible for half a dozen assassinations of political heads of state.
In addition, there have been 13 documented assassination attempts on the
life of Fidel Castro, including one on the day of President John
Kennedy's assassination.
In most cases, the "enemies" were nationalistic nations which did not
tolerate the exploitation of their people by American multinational
corporations. The White House conveniently branded these popularly
elected governments as communist in order to gain the support of the
American public. At the same time policy has been to prop up dozens of
right wing oppressive capitalistic dictatorships under the name of
"democracy."
Since the emergence of the Cold War, there has been continual
misinformation and disinformation that the goal of the Soviet Union was
world domination. On the contrary, it was the United States which not
only surrounded the Soviets with its allies, but also immensely
outdistanced the Soviets in Third World domination. The United States
exported much more capitalism throughout the world for the benefit of
multinational corporations than the Soviets exported socialism. In the
past two decades alone, the United States was involved in wars or
attacks in Nicaragua, Libya, Grenada, Lebanon, Panama, Somalia, Haiti,
and most recently in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Even though many believe that the Vietnam war was uncensored to some
extent, the United States government was still able to maintan a great
deal of secrecy. Throughout the war the public was informed that the
United States was supporting the democratic republic of South Vietnam,
while in reality it was a corrupt right wing military regime. Even
President Dwight Eisenhower admitted in his memoirs that had his
administration allowed free elections after the fall of the French, 80
percent of the Vietnamese people would have elected the communist, Ho
Chi Minh. In 1964, two American destroyers, the Turner Joy and Maddox,
mistakenly believed they were fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin by North
Vietnamese gunboats. Johnson concealed the truth, and Congress granted
him the de facto power to begin waging war against North Vietnam. The
media never reported this incident until many years after the war had
ended. A few reports of American atrocities were seen on television. For
example, the media did report the My Lai massacre -- where Americans
murdered 400 to 500 innocent civilians -- but it was not until two years
after the fact. The government was able to maintain secrecy concerning
Operation Phoenix which involved the systematic killing of more than
20,000 South Vietnamese suspected of collaborating with the Viet Cong.
This was even acknowledged years later by William Colby, director of the
CIA. It was not until the 1980s that only minimal information was
acknowledged about the arms-for-heroin operations which were carried out
by the CIA in Laos during the Vietnam War.
Then in the 1980s and 1990s the Reagan and Bush administrations adeptly
controlled the media. The White House completely squelched the truth
about American invasions in Grenada, Libya, Panama, and Iraq. After 241
American marines were killed in Beirut in 1983, President Ronald Reagan
attempted to divert the attention of the American people elsewhere. Two
days later he deployed troops to the tiny island of Grenada at the
bottom of the Caribbean. The public was told that the island of 110,000
had fallen to the communists; that the Cubans were building a 10,000
foot runway for Soviet bombers; and that American students were in
danger at the island's medical school. In reality the prime minister had
made significant social changes to benefit the island's inhabitants; the
runway was completed -- not for bombers but for commercial airlines to
land on this tourist island; and the medical students even admitted that
their lives were not in danger.
Since the 1850s, the United States invaded Nicaragua on 17 separate
occasions. After the Somoza family was overthrown in 1979, democracy was
ushered into Nicaragua for the first time in history. Under the
Reagan-Bush administrations, the contras waged a war against the
Sandinistas and the people of Nicaragua. Americans were told that it was
a ruthless communist regime controlled by Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Reagan stated that the Soviets were establishing a beachhead, from which
they could proceed up Central America into the United States. Yet facts
prove that it was a liberal democratic government which held free
elections in 1984 and established social, educational, and health care
programs for the first time. The White House repeatedly claimed that the
Sandinistas were involved in drug trafficking. However, it was the CIA,
as part of the Iran-contra scandal, which acted as a conduit for drugs
being exported to the United States.
After Manuel Noriega had been on the CIA payroll for over ten years,
President George Bush launched "Operation Just Cause" in 1989. The
administration initially reported that just a "couple of hundred"
civilians died as a result of massive air strikes. And after the
blitzkrieg, Bush stated that the economy was in an upswing, and that
drug trafficking was declining. In reality, human rights commissions
determined that nearly 5,000 innocent Panamanians died. In addition drug
trade, unemployment, homeless people, inflation, and political
corruption all increased in Panama after the invasion.
Only small portions of Africa are economically importance to the United
States. However, Somalia is significant, since four American
multinational oil companies - Conoco, Amoco, Chevron, and Phillips -
staked out claims to two-thirds of Somalia. They are "quietly sitting on
a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit
tens of millions of acres of the Somalia countryside. Yet in next door
Sudan, worse human rights violations, famine, and poverty exist, as in
much of the rest of the African continent. Perhaps Bush's "Operation
Restore Hope" should have been called "Operation Restore Oil."
Had Kuwait been a giant broccoli field instead of consisting of
thousands of oil wells, Bush would have left this relatively unknown
despotic corporate state untouched in 1991. Panama not only has a canal,
as antiquated as it may be in this modern age, but this strategically
located Central American has been used as a conduit in trafficking drugs
between South America and the United States. As economic interests and
egomania continue to dictate foreign policy, the United States continues
to be the policemen of the Middle East where oil is abundant.
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Table of Contents
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Closing In on the Year 2000
Since the crumbling of the Soviet Union in 1989, many former European
Communist countries have experimented with a free market economy.
However, they only learned that capitalism was much more of a failure
than socialism had been. As a result they went to the polls to
democratically elect communists, under the title of social democrats,
who promised to restore socialism in hopes of bolstering their economy.
A high percentage of Russians prefer the predictable communist system
where jobs, food, health care, and education are guaranteed by the
government. The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
carried out free elections. In March 1995, parliamentary elections in
Estonia gave 41 of the 101 seats to two left-leaning parties made up of
communist members. In June 1993, Latvia conducted its first post-Soviet
elections, and an alliance of communists and emigres formed a coalition
government. In Lithuania free elections were carried out in February
1993, and the communist Brazauskas was elected president. Parliamentary
elections in Hungary in May 1994 gave the Socialists, formerly the
Communist Party, a 15-seat majority, and a coalition government with F
ree Democrats was formed the following July. In Poland the Solidarity
Party under Lech Walesa had been very popular since the early 1980s. In
1991, parliamentary elections took place, and non- communists were
elected to office. However, in 1995, the voters elected the communist
Oleksky, a senior member of the Democratic Left Alliance which was a
direct descendant of the Communist Party. In the July 1997 national
elections, Albania's Socialist Party, the country's former communist
party, won over 80 seats in the 155-member legislature.
In December 1995, Russia democratic elections for parliament witnessed
43 competing parties. The Communist party, led by Gennady Zyuganov, won
slightly over 20 percent of the seats, almost doubling the number of
positions which were awarded to its closest competitor. Since the
collapse of communism, Russia's economy continued to falter as a result
of an impotent capitalist system. Since 1991, 20 million Russians were
unemployed, and 37 million could not make enough to cover their daily
expenses. The American media rarely reported the results of these
elections.
Americans are not totally to blame for this ignorance. Almost none of
these facts is taught in schools. Neither the Department of Education
nor any school district would dare to adopt textbooks which are critical
of American foreign policy. Moreover, the White House, National Security
Council, Central Intelligence Agency, right-wing think tanks, and the
corporate media, which control television and radio, newspapers, and the
motion picture industry, have suppressed much of the truth. This is
carried out as an orchestrated propaganda campaign to mislead the
American public by disseminating misinformation and disinformation to
the public.
With the demise of the Soviet Union, the New World Order may proceed
unimpeded. There is no foreign power with the capability of blocking
American economic expansionism, while within the United States, the
corporate elite continues to control the media and to dictate the
nation's policies. In December 1995, President Clinton ordered 20,000
troops to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Yet no minerals or other valuable
resources rested below its surface. Fragmented Yugoslavia had no
geopolitical importance to the United States. To the east the Soviet
Union had crumbled six years earlier, so it served no purpose as a
buffer state. Furthermore this area was comprised primarily of Muslims,
a people whom the United States has rarely defended. Perhaps the
genocide, carried out by Serb leader Slobodam Milosevic, had reached
such a magnitude that the tens of thousands who were killed and the
hundreds of thousands who were relocated, could not be ignored.
Yugoslavia was not an American problem. It was an intramural dilemma
which should have been dealt with exclusively by the European community.
Clinton's decision to deploy 20,000 American troops remains an enigma,
since it is certainly inconsistent with realpolitik.
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Table of Contents
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>From the Robber Baron of 1492 to the Robber Barons of the 1800s
Historically, we have not been told the truth of European expansionism
to the New World. Most Americans have learned only the beneficial
aspects of the nation's heritage rather than the realities. When
Cristobal Colon (Columbus) landed in the New World in 1492, he treated
the Taino natives mercilessly. Columbus demanded that every man over the
age of thirteen give the Spaniards copper bells full of gold every three
months. In addition, the newly-arrived imperialists took the Taino's
food as well as their manioc. The Spaniards also brought with them
deadly European diseases. Thousands of natives were slaughtered or made
slaves of by the European colonizers. Within five years there were two
epidemics and a famine. By 1500 most of the political structure of the
aborigines had disintegrated.
In 1492 there were approximately eight million Taino Indians. According
to Spanish records, by 1514 the number had dwindled to a mere 28,000.
And by 1550 the Tainos were extinct.
This obviously does not square with the various stories which most
Americans learn. One scenario: the white European colonizers arrived in
a fertile but empty land. Seeing nobody around, they laid claim to God's
country. After enduring countless hardships, they managed to eventually
settle down. They lived happily ever after. Another scenario: the
colonists were attacked by belligerent and ignorant savages who carried
out atrocious acts. In self-defense, the brave and outnumbered whites
were able to defeat the savages and to establish a civilized society.
For over a century, the British ruled the American colonists with an
iron hand. Most of the 13 colonies were unable to break the grip of
royal autonomy and remained subjugated to the mother country.
Politically the royal colonies were at the mercy of the crown.
Economically the philosophy of mercantilism hovered over the Americans,
as the British dictated to them what commodities they could sell and
what prices they could request.
After the French and Indian War in 1763, the British presence became
more conspicuous. The crown placed 10,000 Redcoats in New England and
required them to be quartered in the homes of the colonists. Various
taxes were levied as a source of revenue for paying for the cost of the
war. Politically, the voices of the colonists calling for "taxation with
representation" were unheard. By the mid-1770s, America found itself on
the eve of revolution.
The two centuries following American independence witnessed a large
magnitude of tortures and massacres, as well as the relocation of
hundreds of thousands of native Americans by the United States
government. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the United States
wasted no time expanding internally westward. First, the United States
acquired the Louisiana territory (1803) unconstitutionally when
President Thomas Jefferson ignored the Senate which was required to
ratify the treaty with France. With the acquisition of Louisiana came
the extermination of tens of thousands of native Americans and the
eviction of others to areas beyond the Mississippi River. Under the
Presidency of Andrew Jackson, the Cherokees were ordered to evacuate
their reservations where gold had been discovered. They were forced to
march westward in what became known as the "Trail of Tears" despite the
fact that the Supreme Court had ruled in their favor.
Spanish Florida was acquired in 1819, and six years later President
James Monroe declared the entire Western Hemisphere off limits to
European nations. In 1823, Stephen Austin led 300 families into Mexico's
Texas territory, and twenty years later it was annexed by the United
States. With the election of James Polk in 1844, American hegemony to
the Pacific was completed. Manifest destiny, the belief that it was
God's will to expand, was used to justify the Mexican War. The United
States stole over half of Mexico's territory as well as acquiring Oregon
from the British.
Two decades later the nation was swept into civil war over the economic
and moral issue of slavery. After having profited by slavery since 1619
and particularly since the invention of Eli Whitney's cotton gin in
1793, the wealthy Southern planters were forced to emancipate their
slaves. Although blacks became American citizens three years after the
Civil War ended as a result of the Fourteenth Amendment, they continued
to live under oppression.
At this time, Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto," written in 1848, became
conveniently used by the conservative American media and government. The
establishment began to speak of the dangers of anarchism, communism, and
socialism. After the Civil War newspapers hailed Ulysses S. Grant as a
foe of "communism, lawlessness, and disorder." Capitalism was referred
to as "free enterprise" and was characterized as a system espoused by
only true Americans, while communism and socialism were portrayed as an
alien virus which was infecting the United States.
After the Civil War, a revolution swept across the north. The Industrial
Revolution would soon usher in two distinct classes of people -- the
owners and the workers -- and the gulf between the two quickly widened.
The robber barons -- entrepreneurs like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D.
Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie -- quickly swallowed up
smaller capitalists. Vanderbilt exploited the small business person by
monopolizing several railroads and steamship lines. Rockefeller cornered
95 percent of the petroleum market by perfecting his system of
"horizontal integration," consolidating with competitors to monopolize
the oil industry in his Standard Oil Company. Morgan's bankers' banks
gained him the influence to be appointed to dozens of boards of direc
tors, which became known as interlocking directorates. In 1901, Morgan's
United States Steel Corporation became the nation's first billion dollar
industry. Finally, Carnegie became the kingpin among steel magnates,
monopolizing 25 percent of the steel market by the turn of the century.
Workers swiftly attempted to seek solace in labor unions, but the
National Labor Union and the Knights of Labor were torn apart by the
giant capitalists. Finally in the 1880s, the American Federation of
Labor gained a foothold, but most strikes were promptly put down by the
owners. Workers toiled six days a week at 12 to 14 hours daily for a
mere $15 per week. Children and women were frequently forced to work
along with men under deplorable conditions. Workers were forced to sign
ironclad oaths and yellow dog contracts which prevented closed shop. The
government sided with the robber barons.
The courts worked hand-in-hand with the corporations. The Fourteenth
Amendment was interpreted as to uphold monopolies, treating them as
"people" under the equal protection clause. The Sherman Antitrust Act
was used, not to break up monopolies, but to tear apart labor unions.
The purpose of the Interstate Commerce Commission was to regulate the
railroads, so they could not exploit the Western farmers, but the courts
ignored its power. Additionally, religion -- the Gospel of Wealth -- was
used to justify the exploitation of the working class. Only a small
handful became millionaires, while the vast majority of Americans lived
in poverty.
The robber barons quickly turned to foreign markets. Sanford Dole soon
made millions in Hawaiian pineapple and sugar. Vanderbilt, and the
Boston firm of Castle and Cook, moved into Central America. Despite
protests by the Chinese and the Boxer Rebellion, American businesses
entered China under Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Policy in
1899. In 1898, the United States landed troops in Hawaii and declared it
a territory. The same year American troops invaded the Spanish-dominated
Caribbean. The swift 114-day Spanish-American War netted the United
States Puerto Rico and Cuba, as well as the Philippines, Guam, and Wake
in the far Pacific. By the late 1800s American industrialists had a
solid footing in dictating foreign policy.
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The First Half of the 20th Century
With the dawn of the twentieth century, President Theodore Roosevelt's
"big stick" and President William Howard Taft's "dollar diplomacy" wove
their way through Latin America. The United States invaded Haiti, the
Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua, all in the name of humanitarianism
and freedom. In1903, Colombia rejected a treaty which would have
permitted the United States to build a canal across the isthmus of
Panama. So months later America supported a Panamanian revolution and
quickly recognized the Frenchman, Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, who allowed
the United States to lease the Canal Zone.
World War I broke out in 1914 and it was followed by the Bolshevik
Revolution and the Red Scare. Again, the media disseminated
misinformation and disinformation to the American people. 500,000 coal
miners under John L. Lewis and 350,000 steel workers went out on strike.
After the war, 14 nations led by the American landed troops in the
Soviet Union at Vladivostok. The media ignored this. Instead, newspaper
stories centered around communism and helped to whip up a sentiment of
hysteria among the public. Americans were told that there was an
imminent invasion by the Soviet Union of Europe, Asia, and the United
States. This anti-Soviet fervor led to the Palmer raids, carried out by
the attorney general. Thousands of suspected communists in 20 cities
were arrested.
During the "Golden Twenties," the disparity between the rich and poor
widened. Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon was one of the
wealthiest men in the United States. The "Mellon Plan" pushed for a
reduction of income taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Upper level
taxes were dropped from 50 percent to 25 percent, while those of the
lowest income group were cut from 4 percent to a mere 3 percent.
The "Golden Twenties" eventually faded away, and the stock market crash
in October 1929 brought on the Great Depression. Due to a lack of
economic controls, the gulf which separated the wealthy from the working
class, continued to widen. The economy was stunned and barely moving.
Small businesses were shut down, and by 1932 one in four employees was
laid off. The wages of those who remained part of the work force
tumbled. It was a time of deflation when Americans had little or no
money. There was a surplus of food, but it was not profitable to
transport or sell it. There were thousands of vacant homes available,
since many fell into foreclosure. Stores were filled with clothing, but
people could not afford to purchase anything. The inaction of the
Republican government led to the election of the Democratic candidate,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who overwhelmingly defeated Herbert Hoover.
Beginning in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt had to deal with these issues.
The New Deal reforms went far beyond any previous legislation. America's
unbridled capitalism had to be contained in order to overhaul and
stabilize the economy. Hence, the alphabet soup programs of the New Deal
were established: the NRA, AAA, TVA, CCC, SEC, HOLC, and SSA (Social
Security Act). The government slowly brought workers back into the work
force, either by direct or indirect relief programs -- by injecting
socialism into the nation's economy.
The American entrance into World War II stimulated the economy and
helped bring the nation out of the depression. By 1945, capitalism
remained firmly intact, but the middle class was hit with a high rate of
unemployment. The rich still continued to control the nation's wealth.
as well as its laws and corporations. Enough help had been given to the
workers to make Roosevelt a hero. Nevertheless, the system of inequality
remained, as the philosophy of concern for profit over human need
continued.
The United States emerged from the ashes of World War II as a
superpower. Now it was possible to carve out its own spheres of
influence. The biggest domestic gains were in corporate profits which
rose from $6.4 billion in 1940 to $10.8 billion in 1944. One corporate
windfall involved Dupont, Ford, and International Telephone and
Telegraph. These multinational corporations owned factories in Nazi
Germany during World War II and helped provide tanks, airplanes, and
synthetic fuel to the Hitler regime. After World War II, International
Telephone and Telegraph collected $27 million from the American
government for damages inflicted on its factories by Allied bombers.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, corporate profits rose at a higher rate
than did workers' wages. The transportation industry was a prime example
of prosperity. Throughout the country, National City Lines succeeded in
decimating numerous public transportation systems. In Los Angeles in
1935, construction began on the Red Line, an electric train system, and
it soon became one of the largest inter-urban rapid transit systems in
the nation. It covered 75 square miles, carried 80 million people
annually, and had 3,000 quiet, electric, non-polluting trains. Then
National City Lines, a holding company controlled by General Motors,
Firestone Tires, and Standard Oil, bought it out and began scrapping the
trains and tracks. The sale of automobiles soon increased, and more p
eople began using city busses. General Motors diesel busses with
Firestone tires and fueled with Standard Oil gasoline were used.
National City Lines went on to buy out more than 100 electric
transportation systems in 44 other cities. Finally in 1949 the holding
company was found guilty of criminal conspiracy and was fined $5,000.
With the emergence of the Cold War and McCarthyism after World War II,
the media could castigate communism as well as its strongest product:
the Soviet Union. The American public was told that the Red Army was
mobilizing for war against Iran on one day. Another day the media
reported that Turkey was about to be invaded. Still another day the
Soviet's next prize would be Western Europe; then Yugoslavia; and
finally Detroit.
Under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, millions of Americans were required
to sign anticommunist oaths. By 1950 thousands were investigated under
the Smith Act of 1940 and by 1952, 110 people were indicted or
imprisoned. In 1950, the McCarran Internal Security Act was enacted into
law. This called for the registration of the "communist-front" and
"communist-action groups." It also called for the construction of
concentration camps for the purpose of interning suspected "subversives"
with no trials. Furthermore it called upon the President or Congress to
declare a "national emergency." Of the six camps built in 1952, several
were maintained on a stand-by basis in the 1950s and 1960s. The attorney
general and legislative groups such as the Committee on Un-American A
ctivities frequently published names of groups which supported world
peace, disarmament, racial and economic equality and stated that they
were "communism's greatest weapon in the country today."
Senator Joseph McCarthy was supported by most of the American media
between 1950 and 1954. He was supported for campaigning against
"communists in government." However, his biggest mistake came in 1954
when he undertook an investigation of the Army loyalty-security program.
It also was an attack on the Eisenhower administration.
from:
http://www.thegrid.net/clear/works.htm
<A HREF="http://www.thegrid.net/clear/works.htm">Art of Deception:
References/Links</A>
-----
Works Cited
On the general treatment of imperialism:
•Parenti, Michael. Democracy for the Few.
•Parenti, Michael. The Sword and the Dollar.
•Perloff, James. The Shadows of Power.
On U.S. foreign policy and revolutionary interventionism:
•Blum, William. The CIA: A Forgotten History.
•Chomsky, Noam. The Culture of Terrorism.
•Chomsky, Noam. Deterring Democracy.
•Chomsky, Noam. Manufactured Consent.
•Chomsky, Noam. Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism in the
Real World.
•Chomsky, Noam. The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism.
•McGehee, Ralph. Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA.
•Perloff, James. The Shadows of Power.
•Stitch, Rodney. Defrauding America.
On Central America:
•Berman, Karl. Under the Big Stick: Nicaragua and the United States
since 1848.
•Berryman, Phillip. Inside Central America.
•Burns, E. Bradford. At War in Nicaragua: The Reagan Doctrine and
Politics of Nostalgia.
•Christic Institute. Inside the Shadow Government.
•Classified Information Procedures Act. The United States v.General
Manuel Noriega.
•Cockburn, Leslie. Out of Control.
•Dinges, John. Our Man in Panama.
•Eddy, John. Cocaine Wars.
•Independent Commission of Inquiry on the U.S. Invasion of Panama. The
U.S. Invasion of Panama: The Truth Behind Operation 'Just Cause'.
•Kempe, John. Divorcing the Dictator .
•Kerry Report, Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and
International Operations.
•LeFeber, Walter. The Panama Canal.
•Maquire, Andrew. Bordering on Trouble: Resources and Politics in
Central America.
•Marshall, Jonathan. Cocaine Politics.
•Marshall, Jonathan. The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert
Operation in the Reagan Era.
•Scammell, Henry. On the Inside.
•United States Senate. Iran-Contra Report.
•Stanford Central America Action Network (SCAAN). Revolution in Central
America.
On the Middle East:
•Chomsky, Noam. On the Gulf War..
•Khalidi, Walid. The Gulf Crisis: Origins and Consequences.
On domestic politics:
•Davies, Philip. Cinema, Politics, and Society in America.
•Gartner, Alan. What Reagan Is Doing to Us.
•Himmelstein, Hal. Television Myth and the American Mind.
•Lee, Martin and Sclain, Bruce. The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion.
•MacDonald, J. Fred. Television in the Red Menace.
•Mayer, Jane. Landslide, The Unmaking of the President, 1980-88.
•Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality.
•Parenti, Michael. Make-Believe Media.
•Sayre, Nora. Running Times: The Films of the Cold War.
Return to Table of Contents
About the Author:
I have taught high school and college courses which have included
political science, American history, and international relations for 25
years. It is not only an occupation, but of great interest to me. I have
traveled extensively to 40 different countries -- mainly through Central
America, China, the former Soviet Union, and most of the former Eastern
bloc countries. I studied in Italy and China, and was a member of a
human rights delegation to observe conditions in Nicaragua during the
contra war. I have had the unique opportunity to observe the various
cultures and political systems first-hand. I have seen a great disparity
between what we are taught in school and told by the media and what is
really happening in our world.
I am a great admirer of our Constitution and the principles our country
was built upon. However, over the past few decades our system has
rapidly deteriorated as our leaders and members of society have
exploited our system for their own personal gain. Our politicians are
unable to legislate due to the real pressures of large corporations and
special interest groups. Today, politicians need enormous amounts of
money to run for office, and to remain in office. This requires the
backing of rich corporations, political parties, and special interest
groups, whose endorsements carry a high price.
The information presented here is only a portion of the research I've
compiled over the years. I hope that it will help you to get a feel for
what is happening "behind the scenes." Whatever your political views, I
hope you are inspired to look more closely at events, ask what the media
are not telling you; and to voice your concerns to political leaders. We
must remind our politicians, and the corporations that pull their
strings, that this is a democracy. We, the people, have a right to the
truth, a right to participate in decisions, and a right to question our
employees. Yes, they do work for us. However, if we aren't fullfilling
our duty as employers, the empolyees will do as they please. This has
gone on too long. We must become hands-on employers and tell our
politicians what we expect of them.
Our unique and noble form of government gives the people the power to
legislate themselves. We can only blame ourselves for losing control of
that power, and it is up to us to get it back.
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Related Sites
United States Politics:
•CNN/Time All Politics
•Gallup Organization
•U.S. Census Bureau
•Government Printing Office offered by the University of California.
•U.S. Department of Justice
•Federal Election Commission
•Cornell Law School U.S. codes, campaign fundraising issues, Supreme
Court rulings.
•The Right Side of the Web
•The Democratic Party Online
•Democratic Socialists of America
•Affirmative Action and Diversity Page a research page that presents
diverse opinions regarding Affirmative Action topics.
•Disinformation
Congress:
•Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet Congressional bills and
laws.
•Internet Law Library: laws of all jurisdictions.
•The U.S. Senate
•The U.S. House of Representatives
Supreme Court:
•Cornell Law School Supreme Court decisions since May 1990.
•Cornell Law School historic Supreme Court decisions by topic.
Corruption in Government:
•The Consortium for Independent Journalism
•Corporate Watch
•The Multinationals Resource Center information on the activities of
multinational corporations, including history of multinational companies
and the environmental and safety problems associated with their products
and operations.
•Project Underground Online exposing corporate, human rights &
environmental abuses; supporting communities threatened by the mining &
oil industries.
•Newt Gingrich
•Covert Action Quarterly: The Bush Family Preys Together
Whitewater:
•A Blizzard of Lies
•Who's Who and What's What a glossary of Whitewater names and terms.
CIA / Drugs / Iran-contra:
•Independent Counsel Final Report on Iran/Contra
•Selections from the Kerry Report Senate Committee Report on Drugs, Law
Enforcement and Foreign Policy chaired by Senator John F. Kerry.
•Cocaine Import Agency (CIA) a comprehensive site regarding the CIA-drug
connection.
•CIA Publications and Handbooks
•CIA Psy-Ops on the Internet a description of the changing tactics used
by the U.S. government to suppress discussion of the real issues.
•San Jose Mercury News: Dark Alliance
•The Mena Scandal
•Eye of the Spider Politics includes articles on many people and
subjects.
•Deep Black Magic government research into ESP and mind control.
•"I saw the CIA load cocaine" - agent Wheeler
Gulf War Illness:
•Germ Warfare Special Reports
•Gulf War Syndrome
Newspapers and Magazines:
•Magellan Internet Guide: News & Reference Topics
•The Nation
•Covert Action Quarterly
•The Progressive Populist a monthly journal of the American Way.
•PoliticsNow - Scandal Sheet
•Associated Press
•Living Marxism Online
•The Village Voice
•Yahoo! Current News Search and Headlines
Return to Table of Contents
------------------------------------------------------------------------
government corruption, scandal, covert operations, Military-industrial
complex, Iran-contra, CIA drugs, FBI, Gulf War, NAFTA, Whitewater,
Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Bill Clinton,
Stealth bomber, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, EPA,
Ann Burford, Rita Lavelle, James Watt, Political action committees, HUD,
Michael Deaver, Newt Gingrich, GOPAC, Contract with America, Federal
Election Commission, FEC, Silverado Savings, George Bush, Jr., Neal
Bush, Jeb Bush, Prescott Bush, corporate welfare, Ross Perot, Dan
Quayle, Jim Baker, Harken Energy, October Surprise, OMB, Pentagon,
Bilderberg Group, Trilateral, Commission, Council on Foreign Relations,
Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Ralph Nader, Donald Regan, Zbigniew
Brezinski, CIA, Chile, Salvador Allende, School of the Americas,
Guatemala, Arbenz, Colonel Armas, Fascism, LSD, MK-Ultra, OSS, Fidel
Castro, Operation Mongoose, Richard Helms, Iran, Mossadegh, Pahlavi
family, Shah, United Fruit Company, Dwight Eisenhower, Vietnam, Lyndon
Johnson, Richard Nixon, Watergate, Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh, Tonkin
resolution, Diem, Phoenix program, William Colby, Robert McNamara,
Napalm, Agent Orange, Cambodia, GAO, Indonesia, Mayaguez, Suharto,
Sukarno, East Timor, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Harry Truman,
Nikita Khrushchev, Congo, Lumumba, Allen Dulles, Mobuto, Brazil,
Goulart, Dominican Republic, Trujillo, Bosch, Augusto Pinochet, Libya,
Qadaffi, Department of Defense, Star wars, Chemical testing, Radiation
testing, Human testing, Nevada test site, Hanford Plant, Pine Flat
Plant, Three Mile Island, Nuclear Regulatory Agency, Gulf War syndrome,
Gulf War, Norman Schwartzkopf, Chemical weapons, Biological weapons,
Nicaragua, Contras, Sandinistas, FSLN, FMLN, William Casey, Eden
Pastora, John Singlaub, John Kerry, Oliver North, Fawn Hall, Boland
Amendment, Contadora process, Arias plan, Tela accords, Violetta
Chamorro, National Security Council, Ayatollah Khomeini, John
Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, King Fahd, Saudi Arabia, Richard Secord,
Laos, Pathet Lao, World Anti-communist League, George Shultz, Ed Meese,
Albert Hakim, Casper Weinberger, Eugene Hasenfus, Barry Seal, John
Tower, National Security Act, Hughes-Ryan Amendment, Neutrality Act,
Elliot Abrams, Albert Fiers, Thomas Clines, Theodore Shackley, Golden
Triangle, Richard Jewell, Geronomo Pratt, Randy Weaver, Pine Ridge, Ruby
Ridge, Olympic Park bombing, Jim McDougal, Susan McDougal, Rose Law
Firm, Jim Guy Tucker, Vince Foster, Madison Guaranty, Richard Starr,
Webster Hubbell, Travelgate, Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Hilary
Clinton, Mena, Arkansas, Senate Whitewater Committee, Alfonso D'Amato,
Manuel Noriega, Guillermo Endara, Frank Castro, John Hull, Felix
Rodriquez, George Morales, Maurice Bushop, Grenada, Archbishop Romero,
Faribundo Marti, El Salvador, Roberto D'Aubuisson, ARENA Party, El
Chorillo, Panama, Duvalier, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti, Iraqgate,
Saddam Hussein, April Glaspie, Shah, OPEC, Kuwait, Sabah family, Ramsey
Clark, James Baker, Gulf War, Globalwarming, Acid rain, Greenhouse
effect, Christopher Columbus, Robber barons, McCarthyism, government
corruption, scandal, covert operations, Military-industrial complex,
Iran-contra, CIA drugs, FBI, Gulf War, NAFTA, Whitewater, Ronald Reagan,
Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Stealth bomber,
Leonid Brezhnev, Mikail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, EPA, Ann Burford, Rita
Lavelle, James Watt, Political action committees, HUD, Michael Deaver,
Newt Gingrich, GOPAC, Contract with America, Federal Election
Commission, FEC, Silverado Savings, George Bush, Jr., Neal Bush, Jeb
Bush, Prescott Bush, corporate welfare, Ross Perot, Dan Quayle, Jim
Baker, Harken Energy, October Surprise, OMB, Pentagon, Bilderberg Group,
Trilateral, Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, Henry Kissinger,
David Rockefeller, Ralph Nader, Donald Regan, Zbigniew Brezinski, CIA,
Chile, Salvador Allende, School of the Americas, Guatemala, Arbenz,
Colonel Armas, Fascism, LSD, MK-Ultra, OSS, Fidel Castro, Operation
Mongoose, Richard Helms, Iran, Mossadegh, Pahlavi family, Shah, United
Fruit Company, Dwight Eisenhower, Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson, Richard
Nixon, Watergate, Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh, Tonkin resolution, Diem,
Phoenix program, William Colby, Robert McNamara, Napalm, Agent Orange,
Cambodia, GAO, Indonesia, Mayaguez, Suharto, Sukarno, East Timor, Bay of
Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Harry Truman, Nikita Khrushchev, Congo,
Lumumba, Allen Dulles, Mobuto, Brazil, Goulart, Dominican Republic,
Trujillo, Bosch, Augusto Pinochet, Libya, Qadaffi, Department of
Defense, Star wars, Chemical testing, Radiation testing, Human testing,
Nevada test site, Hanford Plant, Pine Flat Plant, Three Mile Island,
Nuclear Regulatory Agency, Gulf War syndrome, Gulf War, Norman
Schwartzkopf, Chemical weapons, Biological weapons, Nicaragua, Contras,
Sandinistas, FSLN, FMLN, William Casey, Eden Pastora, John Singlaub,
John Kerry, Oliver North, Fawn Hall, Boland Amendment, Contadora
process, Arias plan, Tela accords, Violetta Chamorro, National Security
Council, Ayatollah Khomeini, John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, King
Fahd, Saudi Arabia, Richard Secord, Laos, Pathet Lao, World
Anti-communist League, George Shultz, Ed Meese, Albert Hakim, Casper
Weinberger, Eugene Hasenfus, Barry Seal, John Tower, National Security
Act, Hughes-Ryan Amendment, Neutrality Act, Elliot Abrams, Albert Fiers,
Thomas Clines, Theodore Shackley, Golden Triangle, Richard Jewell,
Geronomo Pratt, Randy Weaver, Pine Ridge, Ruby Ridge, Olympic Park
bombing, Jim McDougal, Susan McDougal, Rose Law Firm, Jim Guy Tucker,
Vince Foster, Madison Guaranty, Richard Starr, Webster Hubbell,
Travelgate, Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Hilary Clinton, Mena,
Arkansas, Senate Whitewater Committee, Alfonso D'Amato, Manuel Noriega,
Guillermo Endara, Frank Castro, John Hull, Felix Rodriquez, George
Morales, Maurice Bushop, Grenada, Archbishop Romero, Faribundo Marti,
El Salvador, Roberto D'Aubuisson, ARENA Party, El Chorillo, Panama,
Duvalier, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti, Iraqgate, Saddam Hussein, April
Glaspie, Shah, OPEC, Kuwait, Sabah family, Ramsey Clark, James Baker,
Gulf War, Global warming, Acid rain, Greenhouse effect, Christopher
Columbus, Robber barons, McCarthyism,
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CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
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spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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