This article is a follow-up to Is U.S. Foreign Policy Controlled by Corporations? No matter how much evidence you present to some people, they still cannot escape their propaganda bubbles. So, this article provides years’ worth of high-quality reading material for anybody who doubts the credibility of anything in any of the articles or books at Eanfar.org.
Class Segregation Can Blind Us to Reality. In addition to all the atrocious laws and well-documented cases of secret collusion between self-serving corporations and governments, ironically, there has been a gradual decay of freedom and democracy in the Western world since the end of the Cold War. For many relatively young, upper-class Western humans born after the 1970s, this gradual slide into corporate and government tyranny can be difficult to perceive because they’ve never experienced a world that was not substantially controlled by a tiny number of gigantic corporations. Additionally, they’re often the beneficiaries of congenital privilege, which shields them from many of these realities. This has a direct impact on how they perceive the world, how they vote in political elections, and how they perceive the role of cryptocurrencies today.
The Human Brain Can’t Perceive What It Can’t See. In my previous book, Broken Capitalism: This Is How We Fix It, and in the Global Governance Scorecard and articles at Eanfar.org, I’ve tried to summarize many of these problems in simple, succinct language. However, the sinister erosion of our economic and political freedom is deeper than many people can imagine. So, they often assume these are just conspiracy theories or over-exaggerated claims. This is because the human brain cannot perceive what it cannot see; and it cannot see what it has not already seen. Some people call this ignorance, but technically, it’s simply the biological process of knowledge acquisition: When human babies are born, they have no knowledge of the world—they are a blank slate. Without years of purposeful study and real-world life experience, the brain can’t see the true extent to which giant corporations and giant governments are colluding to serve their own interests at the expense of our human rights and economic freedom. That’s why books and articles that reveal the truth are important.
Establishing a Baseline of Truth & Awareness. Bibliographies are usually banished to the end of books, but most people never read the bibliographies; and even fewer people actually read the books therein. However, in this case, it’s important for people to at least see the titles of the books listed below to develop a deeper appreciation for the true depth and scope of the systemic corruption that plagues the political and economic systems in the U.S. and many other countries today. Nobody can read the books in this list and all their scholarly third-party references and claim anything presented in the articles and books on Eanfar.org is a conspiracy theory or an over-exaggeration. Establishing a baseline of truth and awareness is important for any cohesive society to exist.
High-Quality Sources & Credible Authors. Before you read the list below, please keep the following in mind: Every one of these books and articles was written by data-focused scholars, verified Washington D.C. insiders, high-level congressional aides, highly experienced lobbyists, constitutional lawyers, or highly credible investigative journalists. (One of them was murdered while investigating corrupt CIA operations.) And virtually all these authors write from a non-partisan perspective. So, nobody can legitimately question the credibility of the following books and authors or the claims I’ve presented in my books and articles.
- Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent by Harvey Silvergate and Alan Dershowitz
- Undemocratic: How Unelected, Unaccountable Bureaucrats Are Stealing Your Liberty and Freedom by Jay Sekulow
- Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler by Anthony Sutton
- Winner-Take-All Politics by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson
- Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets
- Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History by Matt Taibbi
- All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera
- Plutocrats by Peter Schweizer
- Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist by Jack Abramoff
- The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted by Mike Lofgren
- The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government by Mike Lofgren
- Republic, Lost by Laurence Lessig
- Dark Money by Jane Mayer
- The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot
- Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb
- Business as a System of Power by Robert Brady
- Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives by Edwin Black
- All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Steven Kinzer
- Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre
- Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our Health by Denise Minger
- The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It by Marcia Angell
- A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption by John Perkins
- Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
- Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll
- Corporate Power and Expansive U.S. Military Policy by Mason Gaffney
- Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005 by Thomas Ricks
- 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity by Charles Lewis
- Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
- This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral . . . in America’s Gilded Capital by Mark Leibovich
- Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by James Lurie and Ron Suskind
- So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government by Robert Kaiser
- Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America by Robert McChesney
- Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower by William Blum
- Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
- The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by Edward Griffin
- The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System by Jim Rickards
- The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi
- The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America by David Stockman
- The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future by Joseph Stiglitz
- The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
- How Think Tanks Amplify Corporate America’s Influence by Eric Lipton and Brooke Williams[1]
- Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America by Charles Ferguson
- Progress and Poverty by Henry George
- The Hidden Costs of Tax Compliance[2] by the Mercatus Center
- The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom by James Burnham
- Through Our Enemies’ Eyes by Michael Scheuer and Bruce Hoffman
- War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier by General Smedley Butler
- Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser
- Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer[3]
- The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 by Ron Suskind
- Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy by Chris Hayes
- Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That A Core Group Of Wealthy Elitists Is Pulling The Strings[4] by Michael Snyder
- Why does financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth? By the Bank for International Settlements[5]
- Shadow Stats: Public Commentary On Unemployment Measurement by John Williams[6]
Trillion-Dollar Scandals Don’t Happen without Corporate-Government Collusion. Regulatory agencies are often under-staffed and under-funded, which makes their jobs much more difficult. So, we can’t blame them for not catching every fraud and malfeasant corporate action, but we certainly can blame the congressional and White House officials who prioritize multi-billion-dollar NSA spying programs and USD trillions of corporate welfare over essential human rights and rational regulations that would protect our wealth and liberty. They have plenty of taxpayer resources to spy and capture the most intimate details of our private lives, but somehow, they’re incapable of detecting trillion-dollar frauds in the pharmaceutical, mortgage-lending, defense-contracting, and energy industries?
No Conspiracy Theories Here. In addition to all the academic research for my books, I’ve also worked inside the U.S. Intelligence community and the Air Force as a Cryptological Linguist, as a board member of an economic policy think-tank, and in several technology and financial services companies in the real world. So, I’ve seen how powerful organizations and wealthy individuals collude to achieve their political and corporate agendas. My conclusions are similar to the conclusions that you’ll see in the books listed above. When that many people with real-world knowledge and experience are independently coming to the same conclusions, you know they’re not just conspiracy theories.
Notes:
[1] Lipton, E., & Williams, B. (2016, August 7). How Think Tanks Amplify Corporate America’s Influence. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-research-and-corporate-lobbying.html
[2] The Hidden Costs of Tax Compliance. (2013, May 20). https://www.mercatus.org/publication/hidden-costs-tax-compliance
[3] Summary: One of the biggest scandals in American politics is waiting to explode: the full story of the inside game in Washington shows how the permanent political class enriches itself at the expense of the rest of us. Insider trading is illegal on Wall Street, yet it is routine among members of Congress. Normal individuals cannot get in on IPOs at the asking price, but politicians do so routinely. The Obama administration has been able to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to its supporters, ensuring yet more campaign donations. An entire class of investors now makes all of its profits based on influence and access in Washington. Peter Schweizer has doggedly researched through mountains of financial records, tracking complicated deals and stock trades back to the timing of briefings, votes on bills, and every other point of leverage for politicians in Washington. The result is a manifesto for revolution: the Permanent Political Class must go.
[4] Snyder, M. (2013, January 29). Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That A Core Group Of Wealthy Elitists Is Pulling The Strings. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/who-runs-the-world-solid-proof-that-a-core-group-of-wealthy-elitists-is-pulling-the-strings
[5] Bank of International Settlements. (2015). Why does financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth? Retrieved from http://www.bis.org/publ/work490.htm
[6] John Williams. (2016, June 8). Shadow Stats: Public Commentary On Unemployment Measurement. http://www.shadowstats.com/article/c810x.pdf