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THIRD WORLD TRAVELER
is an archive of articles and book excerpts
that seek to tell the truth
about American democracy, media, and foreign policy,
and about the impact of the actions of
the United States government, global financial and trade institutions, transnational corporations, and the corporate media,
on democracy, social and economic justice, human rights, and war and peace,
in the Third World, and in the developed world.

THIRD WORLD TRAVELER also provides information and links to aid international travelers.

Visitors are encouraged to buy the books and subscribe to the magazines,
to ask their libraries to put them on the shelves and their bookstores to stock them, to visit the websites,
and to tell others about the wealth of information that these independent news sources provide.
For, without public awareness of and support for independent authors, publications, and websites,
this much-needed information may not continue to be available.

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless your own reason and your own common sense agree."

Gautama Buddha
(quotation is a paraphrase of the original)

THE MONSTROUS WORK OF MODERN-DAY BARBARIANS

Napalm-Vietnam (1960s-70s) / Agent Orange-Laos (1960s-70s) / Depleted Uranium-Fallujah, Iraq (2003) / Gaza, Palestine (2014) / Yemen (2017)

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Hermann Goering - Nazi leader - from Gustave Gilbert's Nuremberg Diary (1947)

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?... A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself."

TRUTH-TELLERS / WHISTLEBLOWERS
(A PARTIAL LIST)

Philip Agee-CIA / John Stockwell-CIA / Julian Assange-Wikileaks / Edward Snowden-CIA

"To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them."

Michael Parenti

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

George Orwell

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."

H. L. Mencken

"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth."

Sydney Schanberg

"If you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're stupid."

Arthur Sylvester, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, to American journalists, 1965

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

John Swinton, preeminent New York journalist, at a press banquet,1880

"The master planners devised the strategy of a merger - a Great Merger - among nations.
But before such a merger can be consummated, and the United States becomes just another province in a New World Order, there must at least be the semblance of parity among the senior partners in the deal. How does one make the nations of the world more nearly equal? The Insiders determined that a two-prong approach was needed; use American money and know-how to build up your competitors, while at the same time use every devious strategy you can devise to weaken and impoverish this country. The goal is not to bankrupt the United States. Rather, it is to reduce our productive might, and therefore our standard of living, to the meager subsistence level of the socialized nations of the world.
The plan is not to bring the standard of living in less developed countries up to our level, but to bring ours down to meet theirs coming up... It is your standard of living which must be sacrificed on the altar of the New World Order."

Gary Allen in his book "The Rockefeller File"

Michael Parenti Howard Zinn THIRD WORLD TRAVELER - SITE MAP

"There is a transnational ruling class, a "Superclass", that agrees on establishing a world government. The middle class is targeted for elimination, because most of the world has no middle class, and to fully integrate and internationalize a middle class, would require industrialization and development in Africa, and certain places in Asia and Latin America. The goal of the Superclass is not to lose their wealth and power to a transnational middle class, but rather to extinguish the notion of a middle class, and transnationalize a lower, uneducated, labor oriented class, through which they will secure ultimate wealth and power.
The global economic crisis serves these ends, as whatever remaining wealth the middle class holds is in the process of being eliminated, and as the crisis progresses, the middle classes of the world will suffer, while a great percentage of lower classes of the world, poverty-stricken even prior to the crisis, will suffer the greatest, most probably leading to a massive reduction in population levels, particularly in the "underdeveloped" or "Third World" states."

Andrew Gavin Marshall

WEBSITES TO VISIT

TRUTH-TELLERS

"The war against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

"As news organizations are increasingly driven by a bottom-line mentality, the news we get becomes more and more sensational. What is the difference between Time and Newsweek? Between ABC, NBC, and CBS News? Between the Washington Post and the New York Times? For all practical purposes, none. The concentration of media power means that Americans increasingly get their information from a few sources who decide what is "news."

Oliver Stone

DISINFORMATION NATION

"Because the United States does not look like a militarized country, it's hard for Americans to grasp that Washington is a war capital, that the United States is a war state, that it garrisons much of the planet, and that the norm for us is to be at war somewhere at any moment."

Tom Engelhardt

"During the past two centuries when the peoples of the world were gradually winning their political freedom from the dynastic monarchies, the major banking families of Europe and America were actually reversing the trend by setting up new dynasties of political control through the formation of international financial combines. These banking dynasties had learned that all governments must have sources of revenue from which to borrow in times of emergency. They had also learned that by providing such funds from their own private resources, they could make both kings and democratic leaders tremendously subservient to their will."

Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope"

BEYOND THE MEDIA MATRIX

"Today Americans would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."

Henry Kissinger speaking at the annual Bilderberger meeting, May 21, 1992

"Ever since the days of Henry Ford, the Economic Elite have needed a thriving US middle class to increase growth and profits, but now, in the global economy, they view the US middle class as obsolete. They increasingly look globally for profits and they would rather pay cheap labor in countries like China and India."

David DeGraw

REAL WORLD ORDER

"Some believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

David Rockefeller in his "Memoirs"

"The corporate-dominated economy and the transnational corporate state had consolidated its power over almost every aspect of public and private life, and under a formal globalization movement the transnational corporations were extending their tentacles all over the planet.
Footsoldiers like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the ever-dutiful Bush family, Helmut Kohl, and a list of Japanese leaders had diligently kept the faith. Working with the timeworn International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and ultimately with the new engine of globalization, the World Trade Organization, they ensured that the interests of capital were nowhere endangered by the needs of the world's three billion poor to eat, have shelter, clothing, sanitation, medical care, and education."

William F. Pepper in his book "An Act of State: the Execution of Martin Luther King"

EMPIRE OF CHAOS

"If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensible nation."

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (1998)

"Since World War Two the United States has attempted to overthrow more than fifty foreign governments, it has dropped bombs on the people of around thirty countries, has attempted to assassinate some sixty foreign leaders, helped to suppress dozens of populist or nationalist movements, has tortured many thousands, and seriously and illegally intervened in one way or another in virtually every country on the planet, in the process of which the U.S. has caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair."

William Blum, in a speech at the University of Vermont, 2007

"Coming to grips with U.S./CIA activities in broad numbers and figuring out how many people have been killed in the jungles of Laos or the hills of Nicaragua is very difficult. But, adding them up as best we can, we come up with a figure of six million people killed-and this is a minimum figure. Included are: one million killed in the Korean War, two million killed in the Vietnam War, 800,000 killed in Indonesia, one million in Cambodia, 20,000 killed in Angola ... and 22,000 killed in Nicaragua. These people would not have died if U.S. tax dollars had not been spent by the CIA to inflame tensions, finance covert political and military activities and destabilize societies."

John Stockwell, CIA official in the 1960s and 1970s

GLOBAL KLEPTOCRACY

"We are ruled, though it may be difficult to imagine, by a small dynastic power structure, largely consisting of powerful banking families, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and others. They emerged in controlling the financial system, extended their influence over the political system, the educational system, and, through the major foundations, have become the dominant social powers of our world, creating think tanks and other institutions which shape and change the course of society and modern human history."

Andrew Gavin Marshall

"The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd. And it's the responsible men who have to make decisions and to protect society from the trampling and rage of the bewildered herd. Now since it's a democracy they - the herd, that is - are permitted occasionally to lend their weight to one or another member of the responsible class. That's called an election."

Noam Chomsky

"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim - nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements [BIS] in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations ... Each central bank sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope"

"People, governments and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations."

Zbigniew Brzezinski

PATHOCRACY: THE GLOBAL ORDER
 

"Americans are too broadly underinformed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world. Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don't have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations... Politicians and the media have conspired to infantilize, to dumb down, the American public. At heart, politicians don't believe that Americans can handle complex truths, and the news media, especially television news, basically agrees."

Tom Fenton

"I spent thirty-three years in the Marines, most of my time being a hlgh class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1910-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
In China in 1927 l helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
I had a swell racket. l was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. l might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents."

General Smedley Butler, former US Marine Corps Commandant, 1935

INCONVENIENT TRUTHS

"Americans are wonderfully courteous to strangers, yet indiscriminately shoot kids in schools. They believe they are masters of the world, yet know nothing about what goes on outside their shores. They are people who believe the world stretches from California to Boston and everything outside is the bit they have to bomb to keep the price of oil down. Only one in five Americans hold a passport and the only foreign stories that make their news are floods, famine, and wars, because it makes them feel good to be an American. Feeling good to be American is what they live for. "

Brian Reade, London columnist

"The American government could already be described as authoritarian... Due process of law and the right of habeas corpus, which for centuries have characterized the rule of law in democratic states, have been eliminated. At the discretion of the president, non-citizens and citizens alike may be classified as enemy combatants, picked up and held for an indeterminate period of time without access to counsel. A network of secret prisons and camps is being established both inside and outside of the United States. Paramilitary forces or private mercenary armies are being developed to make up for the inadequate numbers of the existing volunteer army. This is effectively resulting in the privatization of the US military."

William F. Pepper in his book "An Act of State: the Execution of Martin Luther King"

THE PLUTOCRACY CARTEL

"Powerful private families decide who controls the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and even the European Central Bank. Money is in their hands to destroy or create. Their aim is the ultimate control over future life on this planet, a supremacy earlier dictators and despots only ever dreamt of."

"This world is not run by Presidents or Prime Ministers, it is run by the global corporations and the banks. For it is these entities that control the money supply and it is these entities that decide which country lives or falls."

The Daily Bell, 2012

BARBARIANS IN SUITS

"The war on terror as seen by Washington and a complaisant US media is the ultimate money and power machine, requiring a huge military and intelligence commitment that is endless and not confined to any part of the world. As terror has no capital city or national identity the war against it cannot end through capture and surrender. As it is a secret war, it can be waged using unconventional methods, without regard for the deaths of civilians who are seen as "sheltering" the terrorists, guaranteeing that the blood of the innocent will produce new generations raised hating America. The bleeding will continue forever and everywhere as long as there are terrorists, justifying government intrusion into the lives of the citizens at home and huge and unsustainable budgets to wage the war worldwide. It is George Orwell's dark vision of 1984 turned into reality. Tyranny and bankruptcy will be the war on terror's legacy."

Philip Giraldi, 2009

HOW THE WORLD REALLY WORKS

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. The public will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened."

Josef Stalin

"Governments don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking, That is against their interests. They want obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept it."

George Carlin

RULING ELITES

NEW WORLD ORDER

ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT

"War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder."

Alexander Berkman

MEDIA - MAIN PAGE

AUTHORS' PAGE

William Blum / John Pilger

"Most Americans have no idea that what we are fed by the news media is nothing more than a portrayal of what powerful corporations want us to believe, that what happens to pass as education is as often as not mere propaganda, that what we learn in church may have very little or nothing to do with the truth, that what our parents teach us may be nothing more than an accumulation of their own personal biases, no doubt a rather subtle modification of what they were taught by their parents. And through such a process, governments and nations around the world wield control as to what their citizens, believe, value, and do."

Doug Soderstrom

"In America, we grew up thinking that the people that we see on the nightly news are journalists. But, there is no journalism happening there, only script reading. That is understood by anyone with a sliver of common sense, and the objectivity to realize that their newsperson is basically an actor."

Charlie Robinson, in his book "The Octopus of Global Control", 2017

BOOK EXCERPTS - SORTED ALPHABETICALLY

BOOK EXCERPTS - SORTED BY SUBJECT

"The New York Times is the house organ of the Establishment. It is committed, both editorially and in its presentation of the news, to the interests of an Establishment: continuity, security and legitimacy. Therefore they generally support business and finance, the American version of empire, the government and the president, until, and unless, some excess is so egregious that it poses a threat to continuity, security or legitimacy."

Larry Beinhart

"What the press do is they tell you lies, lies they already know you want to hear. The press can figure out what its readers or viewers believe, and make a hell of a living pandering to their egos and telling them that they're smart. They lie and tell the audience they are right, and they never have to change your mind about anything. And the audience rewards them, lauding them and paying them money to keep hearing those sweet, self-serving lies."

Allan Uthman

"The major news media serve at the pleasure of a commercial oligarchy that pays them, and pays them handsomely, for their pretense of speaking truth to power... The prominent figures in our contemporary Washington press corps regard themselves as government functionaries, enabling and codependent."

Lewis H. Lapham

"Most newspapers are part of huge conglomerates, and the policy that comes down is that you don't rock any boats. You can't make the government upset because the value of the company is the broadcast licenses, and the government will not renew them, and we can't make our corporate owners mad because they will fire us, and we can't make the advertisers mad or they will pull their advertising. So the media can't say anything that will upset the power structure. And that's what has happened to the press."

Paul Craig Roberts

"The main media bias is in favor of the thieves who stole our country and economy, and own the mainstream media companies. The omnipresent mainstream media is the greatest weapon of oppression humanity has ever known."

David DeGraw

Propaganda page Public relations watch

Project Censored pageMedia Control pageBroadcast Media watch

Media watchMedia ReformThink Tank watch

Print Media pageGlobal Media page

"More than fifty years ago the J.P. Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements in the United States. This was relatively easy to do, since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both. The purpose was not to destroy ... or take over but was really threefold: (1) to keep informed about the thinking of Left-wing or liberal groups; (2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could "blow off steam," and (3) to have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went "radical".

Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope"

"Communism and socialism are themselves forms of monopoly. The only difference is that in this case, the monopoly is operated by the government. But what if an international banker, through loans to the state, manipulation of a central bank, campaign contributions, or bribes, is able to achieve dominion over a government? In that case, he would find socialism welcome, for it would serve him as an instrument to control society."

James Perloff

CORPORATE MEDIA'S THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

Thom Hartman

"The total result of the manipulation of society by the Establishment elite has been four major wars in sixty years, a crippling national debt, abandonment of the Constitution, suppression of freedom and opportunity, and creation of a vast credibility gulf between the man in the street and Washington, D.C.. While the transparent device of two major parties trumpeting artificial differences, circus-like conventions, and the cliché of "bipartisan foreign policy" no longer carries credibility, and the financial elite itself recognizes that its policies lack public acceptance, it is obviously prepared to go it alone without even nominal public support."

Antony C. Sutton in his book "Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler", 1976

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY - MAIN PAGE

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

Hermann Goering - Nazi leader

"Since the anticommunism hysteria in the years following the Second World War, a bipartisan consensus has existed on foreign policy. Meaningful political discourse has been almost absent about foreign policy issues. So many foreign policy decisions have been placed beyond public scrutiny, that almost all of what passes as official information about foreign policy is manufactured by government agencies for its propaganda effect."

Daniel Hellinger and Dennis R. Judd

"Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad."

Euripides (485-406 BC)

September 11, 2001, NYCConspiracy Theories or 'Real' World Order?

One World Governmnt pageGlobal Secrets & LiesFriendly dictators page

Pentagon watchDictators pageForeign policy watch

Middle East watchIsrael watchIraq pageAfghanistan page

"There is nothing puzzling about America's gratuitously aggressive foreign policy. What an aggressive foreign policy accomplishes by slow degrees, a state of war accomplishes in a trice. Overnight war kills reform, overnight it transforms insurgents into traitors and the Republic into an imperiled realm. Overnight it strangles free politics, distracts and overawes the citizenry. Overnight it blasts public hope."

Walter Karp

"Terrorism has become a sort of screen created since the end of the Cold War by policymakers in Washington. It is fabricated to keep the population afraid and insecure, and to justify what the United States wishes to do globally."

Edward Said

Africa watchCentral Africa page Congo watchEast Africa page

North Africa pageSouthern Africa pageWest Africa pageLatin America watch

Caribbean watchHaiti pageColombia page Cuba pageCentral America watch

"The modern pantheon of enemies are the banking consortium; the global Elite born and bred from mega-wealth; the academics and economists who disconnect ideas from reality; and the scientific and military minds who are so compartmentalized by design that they rarely know what sort of dictatorship to which they are making their contributions."

Michael Edwards

Suffer the Children - Israeli War Crimes in Lebanon and Gaza. 2006 - photos

See No Evil - Abu Graib prison and U.S. barbarism in Iraq - photos

"The Defense Authorization Act [2007] gives the Executive the power to move National Guard units anywhere in the country, without regard for the wishes of the state governors, and to declare martial law. This declaration would authorize the detention of dissenting citizens who could then be picked up and held incommunicado for an indefinite period, without access to counsel or the courts. This is nothing short of a militarization of the Republic.
Enabled by the Defense Authorization Act, the president can now declare martial law, transfer military technology to militarized domestic police forces, and detain dissenting citizens virtually at will. These detainees could be held in camps that are now being constructed and refurbished by Kellogg Brown and Root, ostensibly for illegal immigrants.
... The unitary presidency has been granted the authority to order kidnapping, detention, and torture abroad under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This act authorizes extraordinary rendition, which inevitably means foreign detention and torture of anyone the President determines to be an unlawful combatant."

William F. Pepper in his book "An Act of State: the Execution of Martin Luther King"

Venezuela pageSouth America watchMexico watch Ecuador watchBolivia watch

Canada pageEurope watchYugoslavia pageRussia watchPacific watchIslands watch

Central Asia watchAsia watchSoutheast Asia pageChina watchSouth Asia page Burma watchNepal page

"The theories offered by economists rationalize the self-interest of big business and the wealthy. Such theories claim to benefit society and the public's well-being. But they do just the opposite: they make the great mass of people poorer while making the rich fabulously richer."

Ravi Batra

"The world order doesn't allow for any frontal attack aimed at destroying narco-trafficking because that business, which moves $400 billion annually, is far too important for the leading nations of world power to eliminate. The US punishes those countries which don't do enough to fight against drugs, whereas their CIA boys have built paradises of corruption throughout the world with the drug profits."

Ecuadorian Presidential Candidate Manuel Salgado

School of the Americas watchTorture watchAmerican Empire pageNATO page

Landmine watchMilitarization of Space pageUnited States & Third World page

War on Drugs pageCoup d'etat pageSubverting Democracy page War and Peace page

"Americans don't understand that terrorists cannot take away habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution. Terrorists are not anything like the threat that we face to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from our own government in the name of fighting terrorism."

Paul Craig Roberts

Demanding Democracy pageWeapons pageForeign Policy Institutions pageAssassinations page

International War Crimes pageTerrorism watchWar on Terrorism page

War Profiteering pageMilitary-Industrial Complex pageReducing U.S. Military Budget page

Toward an Ethical Foreign Policy

"American leaders are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It's not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It's that they just don't care. The same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren't happening to them or people close to them, then they just don't care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home - the ones who make it back alive - with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. American leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things."

William Blum

FRIENDLY DICTATORS
(A PARTIAL LIST)

DICTATORS AND AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENTS THAT THE UNITED STATES HELPED PUT IN POWER OR SUPPORTED, MOST OFTEN BY OVERTHROWING DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED GOVERNMENTS OR SUPPRESSING POPULIST MOVEMENTS

Rafael Trujillo-Dominican Republic / Paul Kagame-Rwanda / Antonio Salazar-Portugal

George Papadopoulos-Greece / Sani Abacha-Nigeria / Anastasio Somoza-Nicaragua

Yoweri Moseveni-Uganda / Francisco Franco-Spain / Hugo Banzer-Bolivia

Humberto Branco-Brazil / Mobuto Sese Seko-Zaire / Jorge Videla-Argentina

Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq-Pakistan / Alfred Stroessner-Paraguay / Ferdinand Marcos-Philippines

Shah Pahlevi-Iran / General Suharto-Indonesia / "Papa Doc" Duvalier-Haiti

"The greatest myth concerning American foreign policies is the deeply-held belief that no matter what the United States does abroad, no matter how bad it may look, no matter what horror may result, the American government means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are always honorable. Of that Americans are certain. They genuinely wonder why the rest of the world can't see how kind and generous and self-sacrificing America has been."

William Blum

Henry Kissinger INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES & CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - MAIN PAGE

"I spent thirty-three years in the Marines, most of my time being a hlgh class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1910-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
In China in 1927 l helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
I had a swell racket. l was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. l might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents."

General Smedley Butler, former US Marine Corps Commandant, 1935

"After World War II, in the name of containing Communism, the United States, mostly through the actions of local allies, executed or encouraged coups in, among other places, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and patronized a brutal mercenary war in Nicaragua ... By the end of the Cold War, Latin American security forces trained, funded, equipped, and incited by Washington had executed a reign of bloody terror - hundreds of thousands killed, an equal number tortured, millions driven into exile-from which the region has yet to fully recover."

Greg Grandin in his book "Empire's Workshop"

UNITED STATES INTERVENTIONS SINCE 1945
(A PARTIAL LIST)

ASSASSINATIONS, REGIME CHANGE, MILITARY INTERVENTIONS, COVERT OPERATIONS,
COUPS AND ATTEMPTED COUPS, ELECTION INTERFERENCE, COLOR REVOLUTIONS

Philippines, South Korea, Lebanon, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Rep. Congo (Zaire), Brazil, Greece, Russia,
Poland, Turkey, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Chile, Angola, East Timor, Nicaragua,
Grenada, Panama, Kyrgyzstan, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine, Argentina, Ghana, Venezuela, Bolivia, Hondoras,
Paraguay, Mexico, El Salvador, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, Tunesia, Egypt, Libya, Syria

Jean-Bertrand Aristide-Haiti / Jacobo Arbenz-Guatemala

Kwame Nkrumah-Ghana / Fidel Castro-Cuba / Salvador Allende-Chile

General Sukarno-Indonesia / Joao Goulart-Brazil

Mohammad Mossadegh-Iran / Hugo Chavez-Venezuela / Patrice Lumumba-DRCongo (Zaire)

"American foreign-policy makers are exquisitely attuned to the rise of a government, or a movement that might take power, that will not lie down and happily become an American client state, that will not look upon the free market or the privatization of the world known as "globalization" as summum bonum [the highest good], that will not change its laws to favor foreign investment, that will not be unconcerned about the effects of foreign investment upon the welfare of its own people, that will not produce primarily for export, that will not easily tolerate the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization inflicting a scorched-earth policy upon the country's social services or standard of living, that will not allow an American or NATO military installation upon its soil. Given the proper pretext, such bad examples have to be reduced to basket cases, or, where feasible, simply overthrown."

William Blum

"The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment, under neo-colonialism, increases, rather than decreases, the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world. The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed."

Kwame Nkrumah, President of Ghana 1957-1966

International Law pageTruth Commissions page

Bush Gang pageGeorge W. Bush pageThe Carlyle Group

Ronald Reagan pageHenry Kissinger page

Human Rights watch pageSchool of the Americas page

Landmines pageGenocide watch

"We are going to have a war on terror which you can never win, and so you can always keep taking people's liberties away. The media is going to convince everybody that the war on terror is real. The ultimate goal is to get everybody in the world chipped with an RFID chip, and have all money be on the chips, and if anyone wants to protest what we do, we turn off the chip."

Nicholas Rockefeller to producer Aaron Russo - eleven months before the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks

"Condelleza Rice and Colin Powell are both dangerous people. What they did in Haiti [2004 U.S.-backed coup that ousted democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide] is a good measure of it. They destroyed a democracy. They squelched loans that had been approved by the Inter-American Development Bank. They did everything behind the scenes, including arming the thugs that came to overrun the country. They're frauds."

Randall Robinson

"Drug profits are secured through the ability of the drug cartels to launder and transfer billions of dollars through the US banking system. The scale and scope of the US banking-drug cartel alliance surpasses any other economic activity of the US private banking system."

James Petras

Conspiracy Theories or 'Real' World Order?

"We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."

David Rockefeller - statement to the United Nations Business Council, 1994

"Money laundering, according to IMF estimates for the 1990s, was between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year. The proceeds of the drug trade are deposited in the banking system. Drug money is laundered in the numerous offshore banking havens in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the British Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands and some 50 other locations around the globe. It is here that criminal syndicates involved in the drug trade and the representatives of the world's largest commercial banks interact. Dirty money is deposited in these offshore havens, which are controlled by major Western banks and financial institutions which have a vested interest in maintaining and sustaining the drug trade."

Michel Chossudovsky in his book "America's War on Terrorism"

Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

"The Bilderberg group is an organization of political leaders and international financiers that meets secretly every spring to make global policy. There are about 110 regulars - Rockefellers, Rothschilds, bankers, heads of international corporations and high government officials from Europe and North America. Each year, a few new people are invited and, if found useful, they return to future meetings. If not, they are discarded. Decisions reached at these secret meetings affect every American and much of the world."

Jim Tucker

George Orwell NEW WORLD ORDER

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supra-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."

David Rockefeller - Council on Foreign Relations, June 1991

"Some of the character traits exhibited by serial killers or criminals may be observed in many within the political arena. They share the traits of psychopaths who are not sensitive to altruistic appeals, such as sympathy for their victims or remorse or guilt over their crimes. They possess the personality traits of lying, narcissism, selfishness, and vanity. These are the people to whom we have entrusted our fate. Is it any wonder that America is failing at home and world-wide?"

Jim Kouri

"Money laundering is simply everywhere. On the grand scale, it's endemic to banking... Money laundering is not some distant fantasy. It's actually how you handle the profits of extortion, tax evasion, criminal conspiracy and huge quantities of drug money, how you get that into the white sector... We pay vast sums of money to agencies that are supposed to stop money laundering. It doesn't happen."

author John le Carre

John Perkins COVERT ACTIVITIES - MAIN PAGE

CIA watchFBI watchNational Security Agency (NSA) watchGlobal Secrets & Lies page

National Endowment for Democracy (NED) pageThe Secret Wars of the CIA - John Stockwell

CIAs Greatest Hits pageTerrorism watch

"Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser."

William Blum

"For the world as a whole, the CIA has now become the bogey that communism has been for America. Wherever there is trouble, violence, suffering, tragedy, the rest of us are now quick to suspect the CIA had a hand in it. Our phobia about the CIA is, no doubt, as fantastically excessive as America's phobia about world communism; but in this case, too, there is just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine. In fact, the roles of America and Russia have been reversed in the world's eyes. Today America has become the nightmare."

Arnold Toynbee, the British historian, quoted in the New York Times of May 7, 1971

"American policymakers, setting themselves up as guardians of the world system, are more inclined than ever to simply disregard international laws and conventions if they get in the way of unrivaled military supremacy. Every instance of U.S. armed intervention during the 1980s and 1990s represents a flagrant violation of regional treaties and laws, not to mention the UN Charter itself, which explicitly prohibits military attacks against sovereign nations - for example, Grenada, Nicaragua, Haiti, Panama, Serbia, and Iraq. In any event, the U.S. has consistently shown its contempt for international bodies, agreements, and procedures that might conflict with its hegemonic aspirations."

Carl Boggs

TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS - MAIN PAGE

NAFTA, FTAA, CAFTA pageStructural Adjustment pageOil watchWater page

World Trade Organization (WTO) pageInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank page

"In the absence of a coherent alternative, the transnational corporations carry on inexorably. Increasingly flagless and stateless, they weave global webs of production, commerce, culture and finance virtually unopposed. They expand, invest and grow, concentrating ever more wealth in a limited number of hands. They work in coalition to influence local, national and international institutions and laws. And together with the governments of their home countries in Europe, North America and Japan, as well as international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and increasingly, the United Nations, they are molding an international system in which they can trade and invest even more freely - a world where they are less and less accountable to the cultures, communities and nation-states in which they operate. Underpinning this effort is not the historical inevitability of an evolving, enlightened civilization, but rather the unavoidable reality of the overriding corporate purpose: the maximization of profits."

Sierra Club

"If you wanted a national monopoly, you must control a national socialist government. If you want a worldwide monopoly, you must control a world socialist government. That is what the game is all about. "Communism" is not a movement of the downtrodden masses but is a movement created, manipulated and used by power-seeking billionaires in order to gain control over the world, first by establishing socialist governments in the various nations and then consolidating them all through a "Great Merger," into an all-powerful world, socialist super-state."

Gary Allen

Transnational corporations & Third World pageNew Global Economy pageCorporate watch

Controlling Corporations pageGlobalization watchCorporate Welfare page

"The media are a pitiful lot. They don't give us any history, they don't give us any analysis, they don't tell us anything. They don't raise the most basic questions: Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world by far? Who has used weapons of mass destruction more than any other nation? Who has killed more people in this world with weapons of mass destruction than any other nation? The answer: the United States."

Howard Zinn

Cesar Chavez QUOTATIONS PAGE

"Since the late 1940s, the United States has been deliberately engaged in an imperial project, and anyone who would hold the office of the presidency has to be willing to serve that end. All presidents have to promote the national security state, both domestically and in American foreign policy, if they wish to attain and hold on to power."

Morris Berman

"The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities."

Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1970 book "Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era"

DEMOCRACY & SOCIETY - MAIN PAGE

Frederick Douglass / William O. Douglas / Martin Luther King. Jr

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn't have to draft me, I'd join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I'll go to jail, so what? We've been in jail for 400 years."

Muhammad Ali

"I wouldn't call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either"

columnist Edward Zehr

Democracy in America pageFascism watchPatriotism pagePolitical Pathocracy pageDissent page

Labor pageClass War watchRuling Elites pageDemocracy watchSociety watchNeoconservatives page

Civil Liberties watchMilitarization of America pageDemanding Democracy pageSocialism watch

"I never saw a foreign intervention that the New York Times did not support, never saw a fare increase or a rent increase or a utility rate increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And don't let me get started on universal health care and Social Security. So why do people think the Times is liberal?"

New York Times reporter John Hess

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. The public will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened."

Josef Stalin

Banks watchFederal Reserve pageWall Street pageEconomics watchHistory watchThink Tank watch

Nationalism pageHealth watchReligion pageReforming the Electoral Process pageWater pageFood watchEducation watch

Real Democracy pageNational Security pageAssassinations pageNeoliberal Economics pageEnvironment watch

"If Nuremberg were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."

Noam Chomsky

"The United States has entered the ranks of the failed states. One of the most remarkable manifestations of a failed state is that the criminals are all inside the government operating against the people, whereas in a normal state, the criminals are on the outside of the government, operating against it. So, we now have every manifestation of being a failed state, with the government in the hands of a few Wall Street gangsters."

Paul Craig Roberts

Politics watchPolitical Repression pageProgressive Politics watchPoliticians' page

Political Crimes and Criminals pagePolitical Corruption pagePolitical Reform page

American Fundamentalism pageRe-ordering America's Priorities

Energy watchYouth & Children watchWomen watch

Socialism watchPolice State watchMilitary-Industrial Complex page

"A global financial cabal engineered a fraudulent housing and debt bubble [2008], illegally shifted vast amounts of capital out of the US; and used 'privatization' as a form of piracy - a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder. Clearly, there was a global financial coup d'etat underway."

Catherine Austin Fitts

"The U.S. military acts in the interests of the corporate and financial elite, as those countries that do not submit to American economic hegemony are deemed enemies, and the military is ultimately sent in to implement 'regime change'. "

Andrew Gavin Marshall

Dick Cheney

FASCISM - AMERICAN-STYLE

The 14 characteristics of Fascism

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Sinclair Lewis

"When and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain... Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes."

John W. Whitehead

Hugo Chavez THIRD WORLD - DEFINITION & DESCRIPTION

"Every time weaker nations have attempted to reallocate their resources and undertake land reform to feed starving populations, powerful interests emanating from the rich world and its multilateral bodies have thwarted their efforts."

Susan George

"We first fought in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change."

Serj Tankian

Archbishop Oscar Romero HUMAN RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY DOCUMENTS

" I think this a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - about US sanctions killing more than 500,000 Iraqi children

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent."

Gore Vidal

Jean-Bertrand Aristide HAITI PAGE

"When the full and true story of Jean-Bertrand Aristide is finally told, it will portray a noble and humble man who gave of himself honorably to serve the interests of all the people of Haiti. His only failure was his inability to overcome the brutal and corrupt power of the U.S. and its determination to see him fail. "

Stephen Lendman

"Africa is extremely rich in many resources, from agriculture to oil, minerals, and a huge variety of other resources used all around the world. If African nations were able to develop their own economies, use their own resources, and create their own industries and businesses, they could become self-sufficient at first, and then may become a force of great competition for the established industries and elites around the world. After all, Europe does not have much to offer in terms of resources, as the continent's wealth has largely come from plundering the resources of regions like Africa, and in becoming captains of monetary manipulation. A revitalized, vibrant, economically independent and successful Africa could spell the end of Western financial dominance. "

Andrew Gavin Marshall

"The war against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

Nelson Mandela HUMAN RIGHTS - MAIN PAGE

"They have pillaged the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy; if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of 'empire'. They make a desert and call it 'peace'."

Publius Cornelius Tacitus - a historian of the Roman Empire

"Since the Bush-Cheney Administration took office in January 2001, controlling the major oil and natural gas fields of the world had been the primary, though undeclared, priority of US foreign policy... Not only the invasion of Iraq, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, had nothing to do with 'democracy,' and everything to do with pipeline control across Central Asia and the militarization of the Middle East."

F. William Engdahl

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."

neocon Michael Ledeen

Human Rights Documents pagePrison watch

Life & death in Third World pageHuman rights watch

Genocide watchJustice watchReforming the System page

United Nations pageThird World in United States pageWorld Federalism page

"States, most especially the large hegemonic ones, such as the United States and Great Britain, are controlled by the international central banking system, working through secret agreements at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and operating through national central banks [such as the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve]... The same international banking cartel that controls the United States today previously controlled Great Britain and held it up as the international hegemon. When the British order faded, and was replaced by the United States, the US ran the global economy. However, the same interests are served. States will be used and discarded at will by the international banking cartel; they are simply tools."

Andrew Gavin Marshall

"Somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich should plunder the poor."

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (Eisenhower Administration)

"WHY DO THEY HATE US ?"

"From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair."

William Blum

"How does continuous war act to keep the Lows "stupefied by poverty" and thereby assure the maintenance of the social structure? The goal of the wars is to enable the economy to be kept going for the benefit of the High, its military, and its bureaucracy and control personnel (the Thought Police, etc.), but at the same time to assure that any excess production capacity is prevented from producing consumer goods for the lower classes. That excess capacity is instead directed to producing excess military goods which will ' ultimately rust away or be destroyed in warfare; that is, the excess capacity is deliberately wasted in order to turn it away from the production of goods which would result in added leisure or well-being for the lower classes. Those classes are instead continually forced into group activities expressing hatred toward the current enemy (any enemy) and dependency upon and love toward their benevolent rulers for protecting them from that enemy. They are thereby led to accept the consumer shortages, the poverty, and the other privations to which they are subjected. Their economic status is kept at the subsistence level, forcing their priorities to be focused on simply acquiring basic food, clothing, and shelter. They are thus denied either the time or the inclination to question the fairness or permanence of their societal condition, or to otherwise evolve into a threat to the established hierarchy."

from George Orwell's 1949 novel "1984"

Ralph Nader WHAT YOU CAN DO - MAIN PAGE

"The question is not how to get good people to rule; the question is how to stop the powerful from doing as much damage as they can to us."

Karl Popper

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

Hermann Goering - Nazi leader

"A competent war on drugs must begin with a war against the banking institutions and bankers who 'launder' Dope, Inc.'s ill-gotten gains...Shut down the drug money-laundering by the major Anglo-American banks, and the dope cartel would choke to death on its own profits... Dope, Inc.'s vulnerable flank is the international network of banks and other financial institutions that 'launder' the cartel's $558 billion per year in gross revenue... Action by governments against the drug bankers could rapidly shut down Dope, Inc.."

DOPE, INC., Executive Intelligence Review, 1992

"Even open-minded people will often find themselves unable to take seriously the likes of Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Howard Zinn and Susan George on first encountering their work; it just does not seem possible that we could be so mistaken in what we believe. The individual may assume that these writers must be somehow joking, wildly over-stating the case, paranoid, or have some sort of axe to grind. We may actually become angry with them for telling us these terrible things about our society and insist that this simply 'can't be true'. It takes real effort to keep reading, to resist the reassuring messages of the mass media and be prepared to consider the evidence again."

David Edwards

"The Depression [1929] was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence. The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here [United States] so that they might emerge as rulers of us all."

Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Banking and Currency Committee, 1932

Become informed - authors page
Become informed - excerpted books sorted alphabetically
Become informed - excerpted books sorted by subject

PREPARE FOR A
PLUTOCRAT-CONTROLLED NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC ORDER
AND GLOBAL AUTHORITARIANISM

Things are moving rapidly. Inequality in America is extreme. Authoritarianism is increasing. Before we realize it, America's democratic experiment will have ended in failure, and possibly chaos. Societies with extreme inequality have always come to ignoble ends. The question is whether America will end with a whimper, or with a bang.

American hubris has resulted in global economic chaos and strategic confrontation. We are no longer the only superpower. Both Russia and China, once great empires, want a second chance at global prosperity and respect. As the U.S. is forced by circumstances to abandon its role as the sole global policeman and economic powerhouse, others are ready to take its place. But, dying empires are known to flail about and fight viciously to preserve their former hegemony. And, it looks like the United States will not go quietly into the night.

U. S. power was at its peak following World War II. America ruled the globe economically and militarily. It's influence was ubiquitous and its soft power seemingly unlimited. But, arrogance and greed have turned the United States into a pariah. We are feared for our power, but no longer respected for our institutions. Inequality, injustice, corruption, and our projection of violence, have turned much of the world against us.

Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, the United States rhetorically lauded the benefits of democracy, while undermining democratically-elected governments everywhere. U.S.-sponsored coups and "color revolutions" dressed-up as spontaneous popular uprisings, have shown that democratic governments are not well-suited to withstand 21st century 'realpolitik'.

Developing countries, which once looked to the United States as a model for political and economic development, are re-evaluating whether democracy is their best political choice. As the economic and political might of Russia and China grow, so does their influence. And, as the United States repeatedly demonstrates how easily it can manipulate elections and exploit popular unrest, while hypocritically preaching about democracy, developing countries may conclude that authoritarian government may be their best survival option.

The result: democracy will be left in the dustbin of history.

On the economic front, a new feudalism is emerging. As work is made contingent and part-time, employee benefits are cut, operations are moved offshore, unemployment increases, well-paying manufacturing jobs become minimum-wage service jobs, family debt grows, inequality increases and opportunities disappear, the United States is beginning to look more like a mal-developed country in the global South, than an economic giant, while American workers, once the envy of the world, struggle to compete with workers in the third world.

21st century neoliberal capitalism is producing chaos, globally. Unabashed greed, absence of effective regulation of business activity, and the growth of global casino capitalism have caused untold damage. Austerity, privatization, extreme financial risk-taking, endemic fraud and market manipulation have combined to produce a perfect economic storm.

Regulators have stopped regulating, plutocrats continue to accumulate wealth, and politicians grab what they can. Nobody trusts anybody, banks won't lend, unemployment is high and rising, personal debt is staggering, and hardship and immiseration are growing, while the .01% spends with abandon and economic inequality has achieved heights not seen since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

Business and political elites have shown a willingness to undermine and severely damage their own country's economy, in order to weaken a populist government that refuses to support neoliberal economic policies that enrich the wealthy. As the economy is covertly sabotaged, the population, unaware that the source of their misery is the business elite, blame the populist leaders, and remove them from office. The result is that neoliberal governments replace populist governments, anti-worker policies are adopted and accelerated, the elites grow richer, and the working class suffers even more.

In Asia, China's growing economic power is transforming global finance. The Chinese yuan may soon take its place as an international reserve currency, joining the dollar - or even replacing it. The global impact of the dollar's reserve currency displacement would be enormous.

Banks have started restricting cash withdrawals. It is now difficult to take out more than a few thousand dollars in cash from some banks. Soon it may be nearly impossible to withdraw cash from bank accounts.

Some countries are considering becoming cashless societies, where money will no longer be accepted and all monetary transactions will be digital. The result will be the end of financial privacy. Governments will then have total control over the economic lives of their citizens.

In the new "normal" financial environment, banks will prosper by taxing the deposits of savers (rather than paying interest on deposits) or by taking some of the savings of their customers (bail-ins) as needed to enhance their balance sheets.

As the economic noose tightens, political turmoil, popular unrest and even global conflict may result.

Kleptocratic elites in concert with corrupt political and business leaders, will not be the solution to the probem - they will be the problem.

Every person will have to fend for himself or herself, and for their loved ones, in a more chaotic, less fair, less democratic, more authoritarian world.

The time to prepare is now.

TRAVEL WEATHER

"The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) took control of the ideological foundations of the American empire, encompassing the corporate, banking, political, foreign policy, military, media, and academic elite of the nation into a generally cohesive overall world view. By altering one's ideology to that of promoting such an internationalist agenda, the big money that was behind it would ensure one's rise through government, industry, academia and media. There are divisions within the elite, predicated on the basis of how to use American imperial power, where to use it, on what basis to justify it, and other various methodological differences. The divide amongst elites was never on the questions of: should we use American imperial power, why has America become an Empire, or should there even be an empire? If one takes such considerations to heart and questions these concepts, be it within the foreign policy establishment, intelligence, military, academia, finance, corporate world, or media; chances are, such a person is not a member of the CFR."

Andrew Gavin Marshall

"The privatization of public services and functions manifests the steady evolution of corporate power into a political form, into an integral, even dominant partner with the state. It marks the transformation of American politics and its political culture from a system in which democratic practices and values were, if not defining, at least major contributing elements, to one where the remaining democratic elements of the state and its populist programs are being systematically dismantled."

Sheldon Wolin

TRAVEL HEALTH

"If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation."

Eugene Debs

"What is masquerading as government is a crime syndicate with a flag. The US Government is an instrument of organized crime, alternatively described as the Octopus, the Washington Consensus, the Shadow Government, Wall Street, the Round Table (Bilderbergs, Trilaterals, Council on Foreign Relations, Royal Institute of International Affairs), and the New World Order."

Nikki Alexander

TRAVEL LINKS

"Patriotism has got to be more than hanging out a flag and then sitting on your ass watching jets bomb Afghanistan."

Ruth Coniff

"American government is corrupt. Those who have enough money can almost get anything they want from our government, whether it is tax breaks, or subsidies, or policies and laws changed, removed, or added.
... Today CEOs and wealthy businessmen are the ruling elite in the Western world, especially the United States. Their donations finance elections and even education, which they are constantly saying has to adapt itself to the needs of the market (that is, be molded to inculcate their views). It should come as no surprise therefore that the theories offered by economists rationalize the self-interest of big business and the wealthy. Overtly, of course, such theories claim to benefit society and the public's well-being. But covertly, they do just the opposite: they make the great mass of people poorer while making the rich fabulously richer."

Ravi Batra in his book "The New Golden Age"

TRAVEL INFORMATION

"So important did military spending and the military-industrial sector become during World War II and the Cold War that they have become fundamental to the U.S. economy, U.S. economic growth and above all U.S. technological development. Despite its often almost incredible wastefulness and corruption, this military spending has also been in some ways a kind of unacknowledged but rather successful state industrial development strategy in a country whose free market ideology meant that it could not formally adopt or admit to such a strategy."

David Edwards

THIRD WORLD TRAVEL

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake, We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power... We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

from George Orwell's 1949 novel "1984"

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