What? You haven't read Howard Zinn? Take a look for yourself and see why he is a favorite author

"Social movements may have many 'defeats'-failing to achieve objectives in the short run-but in the course of the struggle the strength of the old order begins to erode, the minds of people begin to change; the protesters are momentarily defeated but not crushed, and have been lifted, heartened, by their ability to fight back."

- Howard Zinn

CIVIL LIBERTIES Metropolitan Books / By James Peck

Posted today on AlterNet --

"Are Your Humanitarian Heartstrings Being Tugged in the Name of Empire?"

Print Version

"Author James Peck's new book 'Ideal Illusions' challenges our basic assumptions about the universal crusade for human rights..."





Kindle Version












"These stories of human rights tragedies exploit our best aspirations in the name of the American imperial project, and the US has been funding this approach since the dawn of the Cold War. The media effect of filling a newspaper with human rights atrocities from the developing world functions to distract the audience from strategic and mineral designs the US and its allies have going in those countries, and to dilute the news coverage when their true aims come to light. The takeaway is that empire is the domain of storytellers as much as it is of Air Force generals."