Important Books
Creature from Jekyl Island - by Edward Griffith. The secret meeting on Jekyll Island in Georgia at which the Federal Reserve was conceived; the birth of a banking cartel to protect its members from competition; the strategy of how to convince Congress and the public that this cartel was an agency of the United States government......were seven men who represented an estimated one-forth of the total wealth of the entire world.
When Corporations Rule the World, David Korten - Considered by many to be the "bible" of the emerging global Living
Democracy Movement, When Corporations Rule the World has become a
modern
classic with a message that seems increasingly prophetic with each
passing day.
Its central message is a clear and unequivocal wake up call to humanity.
The global economy has become like a malignant cancer, advancing the
colonization of the planet's living spaces for the benefit of powerful
corporations and financial institutions. It has turned these once useful
institutions into instruments of a market tyranny that is destroying
livelihoods, displacing people, and feeding on life in an insatiable quest for
money. It forces us all to act in ways destructive of ourselves, our families,
our communities, and nature. This destructive process is driven by a combination
of institutional forces and an extremist ideology of corporate
libertarianism that invokes the theories of Adam
Smith and market economics to advance policies that systematically undermine
both the market and democracy.
Human survival depends on a community-based,
people-centered alternative beyond the failed extremist ideologies of communism
and capitalism. This alternative is already being created through the
initiatives of millions of people around the world who are taking back control
of their lives and communities to create places where people can live and grow
in balance with the living earth.
When Corporations Rule the World provides an agenda of national and
global reforms by which we may reclaim our power to localize economies while
globalizing consciousness.
Agenda for a New Economy, David Korten - There are now many
books in print delving into the arcane details of exactly how Wall
Street structured and implemented its many scams. Agenda2
is one of the few books that takes a comprehensive look at what can be
done to shut down the criminal syndicate that Wall Street has become and
put in place a life-serving New Economy able to achieve ecological
balance, an equitable distribution of Earth’s resources, and a living
democracy responsive to the needs and values of ordinary people.
The
Blue Pages, 2nd Edition: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics
and Practices (Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics
& Practices) (Paperback)
Vultures'
Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance
Carnivores by Greg
Palast - Along
the lines of Inside Job's weaving of political cronyism and greed,
Vultures' Picnic chronicles, in the style of the old fashioned
muckraker, a full picture of The Beasts that prey on humanity. The Beasts and
their trophy wives, intelligence agency go-fers, po litical concubines
and bone-breakers. Catch Greg Palast on C-span Book TV if you can.
Pity
the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right - After the crash of 2008 and all the economic problems leading up to it,
there should have been an outcry to control the size of the institutions
that had demolished the economy. It should have been an easy sell to
increase regulations so that Americans would be protected from losing
their homes and jobs because the banks made bad bets.
Instead,
the government and the homeowners are blamed for the crisis and the big
banks are even bigger and more powerful than they were--and they are
being run by the same people who ran them into the ground. Somehow, the
one institution that could help everyone, the government, is portrayed
as the villain, even when it is necessary to make up lies and
distortions to carry the argument.
Frank discusses the ability of
the Right Wing in America, using essentially limitless funds, to create
astroturf groups and fake "spokesmen" (like Beck and Limbaugh) that
sound like they are on the average person's side, while advocating
policies that could only benefit the wealthy and powerful. He also
discusses briefly the role of the Democratic Party, which continues to
adhere to a strict line of compromise. Actually, there is not much use
in discussing the Dems very much, because the agenda has been set by the
Right. In a time when we need another FDR, we get another Bill Clinton.
Frank
warns of the consequences of these ideologues being in power: "They are
the same old wrecking crew as their predecessors..but now there is a
swaggering...brazenness to their sabotage." For example, one of their
first actions when they came to power was to work to cripple the
Securities and Exchange Commission--the one agency that could be
strengthened to prevent another round of fraud.