From the Common Courage Press:
Is the U.S. a beacon of progress?
That’s how the mainstream media want you to see it. But in Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don’t Want You to See, David McGowan has compiled an index of disturbing facts that point to ominous trends.
Did you know:
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That the U.S. is selling surveillance equipment to countries with the worst human rights records — so that they can track dissidents in an international tracking system for individuals “of interest”.
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Since the early 1990s, more than sixty people in the U.S. are reported to have died in police custody after being exposed to pepper spray.
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That 133 nations — including virtually all U.S. allies — have signed a treaty banning landmines, while the U.S. insists on continued production.
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That in 1996, the list of the top ten richest people in the world contained two Americans, who held 28% of the wealth on the list; by 1999 they numbered seven out of ten, with 84% of the wealth.
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That the U.S. is one of only two countries to defy an International Court ruling (over Nicaragua 1986) — the other one is Iran.
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That the United States has the highest number of death-row inmates of any country on Earth: 3,300
From mandatory minimum sentencing laws to new, more liberal search-and-seizure rules, from “Three Strikes You’re Out” to congressional legislation for a national ID card, in Derailing Democracy, David McGowan has compiled the facts to show that the noose around democracy is tightening every day.
Reviews
“The greatest book of the year.”— William Blum
author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
“Oh yeah! This sometimes surreal armory of facts, figures and quotes is as humorous as it is useful.”
— Christian Parenti
author of
Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis
“A shocking revelation, a rich treasure of taboo information and criticism about the undemocratic repression, militarism and aggression perpetrated by U.S. elites at home and abroad. Every American should read Derailing Democracy.”
— Michael Parenti
author of
To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media
Democracy for the Few
America Besieged
History as Mystery
“This book goes a long way toward derailing duplicity. David McGowan throws the usual media doublethink into disarray by shining a bright light on inconvenient facts and extreme hypocrisies.
“If you want to stay within the delusional bubbles provided by U.S. mass media, do not — repeat, DO NOT — read Derailing Democracy.”
— Norman Solomon
author of
The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media
winner of the George Orwell Award
About the Author
Dave McGowan grew up in Southern California, where he studied sociology and psychology at UCLA, obtaining a degree in the latter. For the last ten years he has worked as a general contractor throughout the greater Los Angeles area. He currently resides in the San Fernando Valley, where he is researching yet more government malfeasance for his next book.
Dave is also an avid landscape photographer who hopes to someday publish his photographic work. The photos on his website are of places like Maui, Kauai, the Caribbean, Ireland and the California coast. They really are quite beautiful and can be found at www.davesweb.cnchost.com/DavesWeb.html
For a collection of his essays on current political events check out: www.davesweb.cnchost.com/
This page also has a very interesting bibliography with titles on U.S. history, MK Ultra, U.S. government/corporate ties to Nazi Germany, American Satanic cults, conspiracy anthologies and related subjects.
See also:
An Interview With David McGowan
by Shawn Setaro
http://www.instantmag.com/columns/polit_16.htm
Excerpts:“Looking back at my whole educational experience in high school and college, I always knew that something was wrong. I always had this nagging belief that the pieces just didn’t fit together, that I could not synthesize all this material in my mind, because it didn’t make sense. The pieces of the puzzle just didn’t fit together. Our education is based on not connecting the dots. We’re supposed to absorb these little bits and pieces of unconnected information and regurgitate them out at the proper time, but we’re not supposed to analyze it and try to draw any connections or detect any patterns.
“When you do, that’s when you start getting into trouble, because you realize that the pieces of the puzzle don’t fit together.
“Once you accept that America is indeed not what it pretends to be at all — that it’s not even close to what it pretends to be; that there’s not just a few little minor problems with the system that need tweaking, but the entire system itself is corrupt — it’s only then that things start making sense and that as you observe new events unfolding, they make sense in a way they never did before.
“Personally, I don’t think that the system can be fixed. I don’t believe that any amount of tinkering with it is going to solve the deep-rooted problems that we have in this country. The system has to be trashed. It has to be brought down.”
See also:
Solutions: American Revolution 2 and a Humane Future of International Socialist Democracy
Thomas Jefferson Calling: The Time for Revolution is NOW
by John Kaminski
Related sites
Media Beat
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/
“Media Beat is the insightful weekly syndicated column on media and politics written by FAIR associate Norman Solomon. It runs in newspapers across the country.
“Utne Reader called Solomon one of ‘the fiercest and most articulate media critics around.’ A Los Angeles Times reviewer wrote: ‘The bold, muckraking tone of these columns offers a welcome respite from the decerebrated discourse that too often passes for contemporary journalism.’”
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting — FAIR
http://www.fair.org/
“FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.
“As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.”
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