Category: Politics

December 2011

Classified Woman

9 May

The Sibel Edmonds Story: A Memoir

Sibel Edmonds, 2012     Amazon.com

Book Description:

In this startling new memoir, Sibel Edmonds – the most classified woman in U.S. history – takes us on a surreal journey that begins with the secretive FBI and down the dark halls of a feckless Congress to a stonewalling judiciary and finally, to the national security whistleblowers movement she spearheaded. Having lived under Middle East dictatorships, Edmonds knows firsthand what can happen when government is allowed to operate in secret. Hers is a sobering perspective that combines painful experience with a rallying cry for the public’s right to know and to hold the lawbreakers accountable. With U.S. citizens increasingly stripped of their rights in a calibrated media blackout, Edmonds’ story is a wake-up call for all Americans who, willingly or unwillingly, traded liberty for illusive security in the wake of 9/11.

The Shocking Truth About Our Money System And How We Can Break Free

Third Millennium Press, 2010 (2007)     Amazon.com

Back Cover:

EXPLODING THE MYTHS ABOUT MONEY

Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been privatized, or taken over by a private money cartel. Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions, including the “private” Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices, and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation’s, you should read this book.

“The real truth is…that a financial element in the large centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”  President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933

“The sack of the United States by the Fed is the greatest crime in history. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers, but the truth is the Fed has usurped the government.”  Charles McFadden, Chairman, House Banking and Currency Committee, 1932

Blurbs on the Back Cover:

“Ellen Brown has applied her training as a litigating attorney, researcher and writer to the monetary field, unearthing facts that even the majority of banking and financial experts ignore: ranging from the privatization of money creation, to the Plunge Protection Team, to the Federal Reserve’s ‘Helicopter Money’. Read it; you’ll get information you need in order to understand what is going on in our financial markets today.”  Bernard Lietaer, former European central banker, author of The Future of Money and Of Human Wealth

“Literacy on the topic of money is at an all-time low. This book is tremendously important not only in its presentation, but by drawing attention to an age-old topic that should have a major presence in the public mind.”  Benjamin Gisin, senior loan officer for a top ten bank, author of Farmers and Ranchers Guide to Credit, publisher of Touch the Soil magazine

Reviews:

“Ellen Hodgson Brown may have done the impossible. She wrote a book about the most stupefying subject in the world money, where it comes from and how it is manipulated and made it readable, compelling, even suspenseful. Web of Debt is a page-turner that explains the origin of the Federal Reserve, the functioning of our money supply, currency speculation, capital flows, and the rest…Her overarching theme, that money must be made to serve the public good instead of private masters, carries the force of conviction.”  Acres USA

“Most people need backing of some sort to break through and capture a share of the public mind, but Ms. Brown has seemingly accomplished this all by herself, without funding of any kind. It almost defies comprehension. If we wore a thousand hats, they would all be doffed in respect to Ms. Brown’s courageous and apparently independent intellectual journey. We are impressed enough with Ms. Brown’s approach to award her a title all her own, in fact. There are in our opinion, in modern economic thought, now Keynesians, Austrians and Brownians.”  The Daily Bell

“It’s frankly difficult to find a good book that will help a person become literate about our modern money supply. Most that are accurate are hopelessly dense and written for graduate students in economics…Ellen Brown has translated a dense subject into a readable and fascinating story…Web of Debt by Ellen Brown not only demystifies money, but provides some thought-provoking and realistic solutions to our nation’s dangerous dependence on a for-profit banking system that is sucking the financial lifeblood out of our nation…Buy it, read it, and get active!”  Thom Hartmann’s Review of the Month for Buzzflash

“Ms. Brown has taken two subjects considered boring – history and monetary policy – and turned them into a book as thrilling as any Tom Clancy novel, except that this book is true…If you are looking to have an understanding of the monetary mess we are in, this is an excellent historical overview with some truly elegant and ingenious ideas about correcting the problems we presently face. As you read this book you may find yourself feeling like ‘Neo’ in The Matrix, newly awakened from the slumber of ignorance and deceit. Best of all, she offers viable solutions to the problems that have plagued our planet for millennia. This may well be one of the most important books you will ever read.”  American Free Press

“If there is one book, one newspaper, one blog, one article, that one should read to understand the current economic crisis, to understand the root of the problem, and to understand the solution, it is The Web of Debt…The only ideology presented is one of fairness, integrity, and common sense.”  Online Journal Reviews

About the Author:

Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and the money trust. She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Brown developed an interest in the developing world and its problems while living abroad for eleven years in Kenya, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. She returned to practicing law when she was asked to join the legal team of a popular Tijuana healer with an innovative cancer therapy, who was targeted by the chemotherapy industry in the 1990s. That experience produced her book Forbidden Medicine, which traces the suppression of natural health treatments to the same corrupting influences that have captured the money system. Brown’s eleven books include the bestselling Nature’s Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, which has sold 285,000 copies.

JOB’s Comment:

I have commented briefly on the book here (in Swedish). See also this post.

WorldNetDaily

“Why are conservatives always trying to save their enemies?

Leftists around the world are jubilant at the downfall of Sarko L’Américain, as the Socialist François Hollande decisively defeated the “center-right” Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency of the French Republic. The supposed conservatives have no one to blame but themselves. Sarkozy’s demise is the logical consequence of the forced austerity he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel shoved down their peoples’ throats in order to maintain the euro, whatever the cost.

A History of Semantics and Culture

Wiley-Blackwell, 2009     Amazon.co.uk

From the Back Cover:

Political Correctness is now an everyday phrase and part of the modern mindset. Everyone thinks they know what it means, but its own meaning constantly shifts. Its surprising origins have led to it becoming integrated into contemporary culture in ways that are both idealistic and ridiculous. Originally grounded in respect for difference and sensitivity to suffering, it has often become a distraction and even a silencer of genuine issues, provoking satire and parody. In this carefully researched, thought-provoking book, Geoffrey Hughes examines the trajectory of political correctness and its impact on public life.

Exploring the origins, progress, content, and style of PC, Hughes’ journey leads us through authors as diverse as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Swift; Philip Larkin, David Mamet, and J.M. Coetzee; from nursery rhymes to Spike Lee films. Focusing on the historical, semantic, and cultural aspects of political correctness, this outstanding and unique work will intrigue anyone interested in this ongoing debate.

Reviews:

“Prof. Hughes′ Political Correctness deals with both its history and its use at present. And he deals with both aspects in a masterly fashion. Consequently, this book is highly recommendable because of what it says as well as, what is probably more important, because of the multitude of suggestions and questions it inspires.”  Australian Journal of Linguistics

“Some books are written to be read, and other books are reference works. Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture is unusual in that it is both jam-packed with detailed information and yet makes for a good read. Everyone should read this bookand also keep it on the shelf as an excellent reference work. This informative and well writtenbook covers more than just the notion of political correctness (PC) in the narrowsense. It encompasses far more than the problem of increased, PC kinds of concerns, as discussed in Part I, Political Correctness and Its Origins.”  PsycCritiques

“Hughes ultimately comes down against artificiality, suggesting that political correctness is a form of social engineering that arises from good intentions coupled with Puritanism. A useful book for anyone interested in language and culture.”  Choice

“Hughes′ book provides a wide-ranging examination of a phenomenon that has had an immense influence on our culture, for both good and ill. Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture is an entertaining, thought-provoking foray into an interesting and important area.  Hughes focuses mainly on the effect of P.C. in contemporary Britain, America and South Africa, but he looks at earlier historical periods (such as the Reformation) too. This is the best book written on the subject, and that by some distance.  It is an essential study, rigorous and critical and absolutely indispensable.”  Compulsive Reader

“Focusing on the historical, semantic, and cultural aspects of political correctness, this brilliant and unique work will intrigue anyone interested in this ongoing debate.”  Lavoisier

“One must maintain a sense of humour when entering this arena, where voices of the global cultural elite sometimes present themselves as brave and daring for taking potshots at the sidelined or powerless. An emeritus ′historian of the English language′, Hughes knows a lot about dictionaries of every stripe, whether orthodox or slang. He can provide the history of innumerable words, enabling readers to follow semantic changes, neologisms and other evolutions in the ′word field.′”  Times Higher Education

“Geoffrey Hughes has brought together with great panache the very many manifestations of political correctness, both absurd and vicious, and shown how they express a single collective mind-set. His book establishes beyond doubt that there is such a phenomenon, that it has become dominant in our culture, and that it represents a growing tendency to censor public debate and to prevent people from questioning orthodoxies which we all know to be false.”  Roger Scruton, American Enterprise Institute

“What a joy this book is! Hughes’ study traces, with unflagging zest, the modern history of PC. Sumptuous in data, in judgment precise, this is the latest and fullest of Hughes’ series on the social history of language.”  Walter Nash, Professor Emeritus, University of Nottingham

About the Author:

Geoffrey Hughes graduated from Oxford, was an Honorary Research Associate at Harvard, and is Emeritus Professor of the History of the English Language at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is the author of An Encyclopedia of Swearing (2006), A History of English Words (Wiley–Blackwell, 2000), Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English (1998), and Words in Time (1988). He is currently Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town.

JOB’s Comment:

I have defended my occasional use of the term political correctness in this post, where I refer to Hughes’s book.

Norstedts, 1968

Baksida:

I sin 1962 utgivna bok Sancho Panzas väderkvarnar analyserade fil. dr Tage Lindbom nutidsmänniskans situation. Mot idéhistorisk bakgrund underkastade han där det moderna samhällslivet en närgången granskning utifrån helt andra utgångspunkter än de som är gängse i folkhemmet och angrep särskilt de politiska jämlikhetssträvanden som endast leder till nivellering. Många brännande samhällsfrågor kom emellertid där att blott beröras antydningsvis. Under de år som gått sedan dess har författaren i tidskriftsartiklar och radioföredrag tagit upp vissa ämnesområden till närmare granskning, och det är dessa som han här samlat i bokform.

Den fortgående centraliseringen och därmed hotet mot det medborgerliga lekmannastyret sätts under belysning liksom hotet mot den personliga mognadsprocessen. Skolreform och likriktning, jämlikhetsraseri och frihetsförlust är några andra av de ämnen som Tage Lindbom behandlar. Den röda tråd som går genom uppsatserna är författarens visshet om att frihet och trygghet i människornas liv icke står att vinna genom att förneka eller förinta varje fast ordning, varje bjudande norm.

How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom

WND Books, 2005     Amazon.com

Book Description:

Americans have come to tolerate, embrace and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents’ generation – from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion-on-demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade-schoolers. Does that mean today’s Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian. But they have fallen victim to some of the most stunningly brilliant and compelling marketing campaigns in modern history. The Marketing of Evil reveals how much of what Americans once almost universally abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to them as though it had great value. Highly skilled marketers, playing on our deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity and tolerance, have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened and noble that which all previous generations since America’s founding regarded as grossly self-destructive – in a word, evil.

About the Author:

David Kupelian is the managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com, the world’s largest independent news Web site. He is also a widely read online columnist and the driving force behind the acclaimed monthly news magazine Whistleblower. Growing up in Washington, DC, Kupelian was heavily exposed to the issues of the day by his father, one of the nation’s top missile defense scientists. After spending years immersed in the fine arts as a noted young violinist, Kupelian’s fascination with the news world led him in a different direction. After serving as managing editor of the national news analysis magazine New Dimensions (where he met WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah), Kupelian became the co-founder and creative director of TriMedia Communications, an advertising-marketing firm established to help traditional values-oriented organizations present their messages effectively. He lives in the Northwest with his wife and children.

JOB’s Comment:

The publisher now advertises this as a modern classic, in its 11th printing; and there are currently 268 customer reviews on Amazon.com. As with many analyses of American culture and society of this kind, much of it is just as relevant in a Europe that was long systematically Americanized. Not quite all. There are, naturally, some elements in his vision of the America he defends against the marketed evil that are foreign to most Europeans. I also find the unqualified, derogatory use of “elitists” in the subtitle problematic. The author should have spoken not just of “pseudo-experts” but also of “pseudo-elitists”. There are true and false elites, good and evil. But on the whole, this is probably one of the most important recent critical works in this genre, for Americans and Europeans alike, and indeed for much of the rest of the world.

Ein Staatsstreich der politischen Klasse

Kopp, 2011     Amazon.de

Kurzbeschreibung:

Milliardenschweres Unrecht! Wie die fatale Euro-Rettungspolitik gegen Verträge und Verfassung verstößt.

Die Europäische Währungsunion ist – zumindest in ihrer derzeitigen Form – gescheitert. Doch Politiker und Eurokraten schnüren weiterhin gigantische Rettungspakete, um das Siechtum des Euro zu verlängern. Dafür werden die Steuerzahler der Geberländer über Jahre hinaus mit Hunderten von Milliarden belastet. Politiker nennen die Rettung “alternativlos”. Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider nennt sie hingegen “Unrecht”. Der Autor des vorliegenden Buches gehört zu den fünf Professoren, die vor dem Bundesverfassungsgericht gegen die Griechenlandhilfe und den sogenannten Euro-Rettungsschirm klagten. Sie eint die Überzeugung: Die Fatalität des Euro-Abenteuers ließe sich rasch beenden, wenn einfach bestehendes Recht verwirklicht würde. Dann wäre Europa wirtschaftlich und politisch zu retten.

Die logische Gliederung des Buches erlaubt es dem Leser, sich abseits der Aufgeregtheiten tagespolitischer Diskussionen ein eigenes Bild von den Risiken der vermeintlichen Euro-Rettung zu machen. Im ersten Teil legt Schachtschneider präzise den Sachverhalt dar und dokumentiert die beschlossenen Hilfsprogramme. Breiten Raum nimmt dabei der umstrittene Europäische Stabilitätsmechanismus (ESM) ein, der im Jahr 2013 an die Stelle der Europäischen Finanzstabilisierungs-Faszilität (EFSF) treten soll. Für die EFSF und den ESM gebe es weder eine Vertrags- oder Verfassungsgrundlage noch eine ökonomische Begründung, kritisiert Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider.

Die Transfer-Milliarden zur angeblichen Euro-Rettung drohten, die bereits heute zu hohen Staatsschulden der Geberländer weiter eskalieren zu lassen. Die deutsche Kreditwürdigkeit werde dadurch ein leichtes Opfer unverantwortlicher Politiker, schreibt der Autor.

Im zweiten Teil des Buches listet Schachtschneider minutiös die Vertrags- und Verfassungsverletzungen im Zusammenhang mit den Griechenlandhilfen und den Euro-Rettungsprogrammen auf. Im dritten Teil stellt er den Rechtsschutz der Deutschen dar.

Wohin das Unrecht der Euro-Rettungspolitik führt, daran lässt der Autor keinen Zweifel: Der Versuch, die Lebensverhältnisse in ganz Europa mit Milliardentransfers und ohne Rücksicht auf die Leistungen der einzelnen Menschen und Völker zu vereinheitlichen, werde zu einem Europa der “sanften Despotie” und zu einer “Diktatur der Bürokraten” führen.

Ein Buch, das Hintergründe transparent macht und eine Fülle von überzeugenden und belastbaren Argumenten gegen die Euro-Rettungspolitik liefert. Nüchterne Fakten, die in dieser aufbereiteten Form bisher nirgends zu lesen waren.

Über den Autor:

Wikipedia

Denoël, 2006     Amazon.fr

Présentation de l’éditeur:

A quoi ressemble l’homme idéal? Il s’épile. Il achète des produits de beauté. Il porte des bijoux. Il rêve d’amour éternel. Il croit dur comme fer aux valeurs féminines. Il préfère le compromis à l’autorité et privilégie le dialogue, la tolérance, plutôt que la lutte. L’homme idéal est une vraie femme. Il a rendu les armes. Le poids entre ses jambes est devenu trop lourd. Certaines féministes se sont emparées de cette vacance du pouvoir, persuadées que l’égalité c’est la similitude. Aujourd’hui, les jeunes générations ont intégré cette confusion. Les fils ne rêvent que de couple et de féminisation longue durée. Ils ne veulent surtout pas être ce qu’ils sont: des garçons. Tout ce qui relève du masculin est un gros mot. Une tare. Mais la révolte gronde. Les hommes ont une identité à reprendre. Une nouvelle place à conquérir. Pour ne plus jamais dire à leurs enfants: “Tu seras une femme, mon fils.”

2e édition:

Après des décennies de féminisme forcené, que reste-t-il de l’homme? Il n’a pas disparu, non, il s’est métamorphosé. En femme. L’homme d’aujourd’hui s’épile et pouponne. Il est fidèle, sentimental, consommateur. Oublié, le macho viril, honni le Casanova à la mâle séduction, le “premier sexe” n’existe plus que de nom. Comment cela est-il arrivé? Dépoussiérant les vieux débats, pointant du doigt les faiblesses de notre société, Éric Zemmour démontre que les hommes ont une place à reconquérir.

Biographie de l’auteur:

Né en 1958, diplômé de Sciences Po, Eric Zemmour est journaliste politique et grand reporter au Figaro. Il est l’auteur de nombreux ouvrages à succès dont Petit Frère, son dernier roman, qui a déclenché une vive polémique.