Kevin Phillips and Howard Zinn rock! My eyes are opening!

[tedzbear]

I just finished AMERICAN DYNASTY, Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, by Kevin Phillips.
Thanks to Mr. Phillips, now I know what Machiavelli means.

I have just started A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, by Howard Zinn.
The poor American Indians! Even back then, the European colonists used the concept "preventive strikes" to justify their genocide.

Quote from book:
As Roger Williams, more friendly to the Indians than most, put it, "All men of conscience or prudence ply to windward, to maintain their wars to be defensive."

Over 300 years later, we are still doing the same thing: hiding behind the pretense of self-defense when we invade land that doesn't belong to us.

[peacetalksforall]

1. Whether we realize it yet - our standing in the world will never

be the same after PNAC and the cabal.

More people will have their eyes opened about the truth and hypocrisy of our preachings and demands. We ask other countries to be what we want them to be under the guise of perfection. We want them to be more than what we are. Being hypocritical and destructive is not perfection.

Now, through the improved communications everywhere, including technology that we sell, give away, bargain with, allow to be stolen, and make deals with....other countries are propelling forward in learning the truth. They may love us in a cultural way for the spinoffs of our material world, but how can they respect us politically? How can they trust our word in making treaties? How can they trust us when we say that we MUST SAVE people by destroying some of them?

[maggrwaggr]

3. in my gut, I knew that invading Iraq would be the beginning of the end for

the United States.

That's why my gut hurt so bad in the lead-up to the invasion.

My gut is never wrong.

[Make7]

8. Our standing in the world hasn't been favorable in a long time.

People in most of the world already knew how hypocritical and destructive American foreign policy has been and still is. I think it is the American public, with its desire to believe in its country, that forgets all too often what exactly their government is doing around the world. This is a wake up call for them. (And for those young people that do not know their history.)

-Make7

[Room101]

2. tedthebear- This might interest you...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=1004061

[maggrwaggr]

4. "There is no flag big enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people

A Howard Zinn quote I just read in Amy Goodman's book "The Exception to the Rulers"

[Wwagsthedog]

5. Both are great reads

After "Peoples History", take a breather then read Michael Parenti's "Democracy For The Few", Seventh Edition. Having read all three, besides others of the same theme, I really wonder if my thinking has taken me to another dimension. My middle initial in real life is C but it now stands for Cynicism.

[tedzbear]

6. Mine is C also.

"Christian" for crying out loud. The way THAT religion is acting lately, I may have to change it.

:bounce:

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

7. Kevin Phillips is pretty amazing, considering.

His first book, "The Emerging Republican Majority" was subtitled "the political bible of the Nixon era".

Yet, this book is no simplistic Hannity/Coulter tract, but a fascinating historical political geography of the USA.

I recoommend it highly to anyone interested in political history and geography...it explains alot.

[Disturbed]

9. People's History

I have read the entire book. The most interesting was the account of WW2 and it's aftermath. It does feel like I live in an Alternate reality. "Clash of Fundamentalisms" Tariq Ali realy educates about the ME.

We have been fed fairy tales about Amerika and the feeding continues. We are mushrooms.