Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Trump ran on reducing the debt -- now he's sending it through the roof
Salon | Charlie May | 02/05/18

The Treasury Department is expected to borrow $955 billion in 2018, the most in the last six years

Last year, the federal government borrowed $519 billion, while documents released on Wednesday show that the U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this year, the Washington Post reported. While the Treasury only gave a justification because of the "fiscal outlook," the Congressional Budget Office provided further insight and indicated that the reason for an increase in U.S. borrowing is because of the newly passed GOP tax plan.

The Post elaborated: The White House got a taste of just how problematic this debt situation could get this week. Investors are concerned about all the additional borrowing and the likelihood of higher inflation, which is why the interest rates on U.S. government bonds hit the highest level since 2014. That, in turn, partly drove the worst weekly sell-off in the stock market in two years. ... Read more

The Most Dangerous Man In America

The Most Dangerous Man In America, Part 1 [43:25], Part 2 [43:25]

Forever defined by a single action, Daniel Ellsberg is known as the man who blew the whistle on the Vietnam War. But neither Ellsberg's choice nor its execution was simple, as Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's Oscar-nominated documentary reveals.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers tells multiple stories, of which two are central: The former Rand Corporation analyst's shift from hawk to dove, and the process of releasing those famous Defense Department documents to congressmen, and later, to major newspapers.

The Fog of War Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara

The Fog of War Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara | 2003 | 1:23:00

Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of the Vietnam War. This Academy Award-winning documentary, augmented by archival footage, gives the conflicted McNamara a platform on which he attempts to confront his and the U.S. government's actions in Southeast Asia in light of the horrors of modern warfare, the end of ideology and the punitive judgment of history.

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. The documentary miniseries for Showtime had a working title Oliver Stone's Secret History of America. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

Why We Fight by Eugene Jarecki

Why We Fight by Eugene Jarecki | 2006 | 1:15:00

Since World War II, the United States has been almost constantly involved in combat, active participants in a string of wars fought entirely on foreign shores. Eugene Jarecki's documentary examines this phenomenon outside of partisan bickering, thoughtfully exploring what Eisenhower called "the business of war." Speaking to veterans of wars in Vietnam and Iraq, as well as military experts and journalists, the film discusses defense spending, foreign policy and the military-industrial complex.

Blowback: How a CIA-Backed Coup Led to the Rise of Iran's Ayatollahs
TheIntercept | Mehdi Hasan | 02/05/18

WHY CAN'T IRAN have a secular, democratic government? It's a question Americans often ask of their longstanding Middle East adversary -- especially when they see images of anti-regime protesters taking to the streets of major Iranian cities and towns to demand greater freedom.

Unlike citizens of the Islamic Republic, however, citizens of the United States tend to have short memories. The historical reality is that Iran did have a secular, democratic government, led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh between 1951 and 1953 -- but Mossadegh was removed from power in a coup organized and funded by the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6.

With a handful of exceptions -- Madeleine Albright in 2000, Barack Obama in 2009 and 2015 -- most mainstream U.S. politicians have little to say about any of this sordid history. In Washington, D.C., Iranian hostility toward the U.S. has long been treated as inexplicable and irrational, while the CIA's role in the 1953 coup -- which set off a chain of events that resulted in the rise of Iran's ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolution of 1979 -- has vanished into a memory hole. Read more

64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup
foreignpolicy.com | Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian | 06/20/17

eclassified documents released last week shed light on the Central Intelligence Agency's central role in the 1953 coup that brought down Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh, fueling a surge of nationalism which culminated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and poisoning U.S.-Iran relations into the 21st century. The approximately 1,000 pages of documents also reveal for the first time the details of how the CIA attempted to call off the failing coup -- only to be salvaged at the last minute by an insubordinate spy on the ground.

Known as Operation Ajax, the CIA plot was ultimately about oil. Western firms had for decades controlled the region's oil wealth, whether Arabian-American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia, or the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Iran. When the U.S. firm in Saudi Arabia bowed to pressure in late 1950 and agreed to share oil revenues evenly with Riyadh, the British concession in Iran came under intense pressure to follow suit. But London adamantly refused. ... Read more

Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, -> Fear and Loathing in Trump's America | The Agenda with Steve Paikin | older, 10/31/17 | 29:03