Books published by Clarity Press

Donald Trump's epithet describing certain countries as "Shi*thole Countries" has captured the imagination of the global community. And while there is some dispute as to whether or not the President uttered those exact words, what is not disputed is that the U.S. President derided certain countries while discussing U.S. immigration policy reform, suggesting that the U.S. should have more immigrants from countries like Norway. How the U.S. Creates Sh*thole Countries seizes this unique moment of global focus on the world's most suffering countries to address the causative factors, and the extent to which their lamentable state is not of their doing. It addresses these questions: - What is the legitimacy of US interventions in other countries' domestic affairs in pursuit of its "interests", which it then regards as matters of national security? - Why and how does a country become a US target? - What socio-economic, political and military policies--overt and covert--does the US undertake to bring the victim country into line? - What are the results for the targeted countries? - What are the results for US citizens, who have little idea what is going on, but are footing the bill? The specific "sh*tholes" addressed herein were chosen because their desperate conditions reflect a malaise that didn't have to be. They are but sample instances of American foreign policies applied across the globe to comparable destructive effect: Haiti, El Salvador, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and yes, our own Puerto Rico. How many, as a result, have fled to the United States from countries such as these, raising what the US regards as its "immigration" problem? This book presents fresh analyses of the old stereotypes and narratives that wither under scrutiny. Seasoned analysts include The Vineyard Saker, Catherine Austin Fitts, Paul Craig Roberts, Wayne Marsden, Don DeBar, Richard Falk, James Petras, Barrett Brown, Sara Flounders, Vernalia Randall, Scott Bennett, Èzili Dantò, Keith Harmon Snow, Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett, Maribel Aponte, Kevin Barrett. Christopher Black

Cynthia McKinney was the lone non-Gulf state Democratic voice on the House Committee investigating the federal government's lack of response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. This book tells the story of Cynthia McKinney. It's a story of justice pursued, a McKinney hallmark - from speaking truth to lawmakers and demanding it in return.

How and why was Canada instrumental in Israel's history? Has that distorted Canada's own development as an independent nation? Excused Israel's? The Canada Israel Nexus is a comparative political history of these two settler nations, their colonial past, their relations with the indigenous peoples on whose territories they imposed their rule, and what that tells us about where they are headed. The Zionist project dominates the news with good reason. Jews are an energetic force in western society and Jewish influence is now embodied in a Jewish state, which is both feared and respected, while headed toward becoming an international pariah. Its 'best friend' is Canada, not just in former Conservative prime minister Harper's words, but from 1948 on, when a youthful Lester Pearson, then UN ambassador and future Canadian prime minister, pushed through the plan for a separate Jewish state, leading to Israel's creation and a Nobel Peace prize for Pearson due to the ensuing Suez crisis. The battle for justice in the Middle East involves treachery, terrorism, exile, apostasy, and, yes, conspiracy. It is the stuff of legend, of which Canada, Israel, and their relationship is a crucial part. The conflict of interests and rights between the colonizer and the colonized is central, as is the relationship between Jews and the state in history, and how that relationship was transformed by the creation of a Jewish state. The history of Israel-Palestine is like an accelerated version of Canadian-US history: the 'intifadas' of the settler-dominated indigenous peoples, the duplicity of the British, the development of the same colonial perfidy by the states it spawned, the parallel techniques of dispossession, and how they became the supporters of terrorism, both state and non-state, in the 21st century. Palestinians learn from Canadians (native and colonial) and seek support there, just as native peoples in Canada find inspiration in the struggle of Palestinians, and how to deal with the colonial master. There are vilified heroes in this story, both Jewish and non-Jewish. As the anti-semitism mantra has put any honest discussion of the good and bad of Jewishness off-bounds, there is little acknowledgment of the great extent to which western popular culture is a product of east European Jewish culture-a subtle but powerful factor in the success of the Zionist agenda though Yiddishkeit itself is the antithesis of Zionism.

Raises serious questions about America's role as a leading model for development, given its harsh domestic and foreign policies.

"Many academics consider Obama to have been a master foreign policy strategist and shrewd practitioner of the art of realpolitik. This book demonstrates, however, that Obama in reality helped to institutionalize a permanent warfare state that resulted in gross human rights violations and contributed to America's strategic decline. His perpetuation of the War on Terror created more enemies and prompted the United States to lose influence in the Middle East. His Pivot to Asia policy intensified prospects for regional war while his unnecessary and willful military intervention destroyed Libya and drew the Russians in to protect Bashir al-Assad who won Syria's civil war. The Obama administration's heavy-handed interference in Ukraine led to effective Russian counter-moves, promoting a strategic alliance with China and regional integration that is moving the world towards multi-polarity. Obama's Unending Wars provides the first comprehensive critical history of the foreign policy of America's forty-fourth president - the drone king who ordered the bombing of seven Muslim countries, backtracked on a pledge to reduce America's nuclear arsenal, and helped fuel a new Cold War with Russia. Obama during his years in office provided billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia as it assisted in the crushing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain and invaded Yemen. He sanctioned a coup in Honduras which plunged that country into chaos, perpetuated a failed drug war policy and contributed to the recolonization of Africa. As many in the time of Trump now glance nostalgically back to the Obama presidency, this book will help them to see the continuity -- and continuous failure -- of American foreign policy irrespective of the party or figurehead representing it"--

"Viet Nam veteran S. Brian Willson was so shocked by the diabolical nature of the US war against Viet Nam -- irreversible knowledge, as he describes it -- and his own appalling ignorance from his cultural conditioning, that it sparked a lifetime of anti-war activism. This toxic jolt awakened him to the extent to which he and generations of American citizens had thoughtlessly succumbed to the relentless barrage of lies and propaganda that infest US American culture--from the military and political parties to religious institutions, academic and educational institutions, sports, fraternal and professional associations, the scientific community, the economic system, and all our entertainment--that seek to rationalize its otherwise inexplicable and morally repulsive behavior globally and at home. US American history reveals a unifying theme: prosperity for a few through expansion at any cost, to preserve the "exceptional" American Way of Life (AWOL). This has been structurally guided and facilitated by our nation's founding documents, including the US Constitution. From the beginning, the US was envisaged as a White male supremacist state serving to protect and advance the interests of private and commercial property, and this course has never been reversed, though the 1960s witnessed multiple aligned social movements. The US-waged war in Viet Nam was not an aberration, but one of hundreds of examples in a long pattern of brutal exploitation. A quick review of the empirical record reveals close to 600 overt military interventions by the US into dozens of countries since 1798, almost 400 since the end of World War II alone, and thousands of covert interventions since 1947"--

"Through interviews with leading participants on both sides, prominent Russian journalist Galina Sapozhnikova captures the political and human dimensions of betrayal and disillusionment that led to the collapse of the 20th century's greatest experiment in social engineering, and what happened to the men and women who struggled to destroy or save it. Termed "color" revolutions by the worldwide media, these various movements developed in several societies in the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states during the early 2000s. In reality, they were US intelligence operations which covertly instigated, supported and infiltrated protest movements with a view to triggering "regime change" under the banner of a pro-democracy uprising. The objective was to manipulate elections, initiate violence, foment social unrest and use the resulting protest movement to topple an existing government in order to install a compliant pro-US government. What were the many tactics deployed in Lithuania, only now recognized as one of the first, to galvanize the popular uprising? Was Gorbachev's role duplicitous and anti-USSR? What was the role of Eugene Sharp in this grand show of historic transformation? Is nationalism a force to be welcomed or feared? How did the political shape-shifters act - the former Komsomol and Communist Party executives, who took high posts in the new "democratic" governments? What happened to the pro-democracy forces and to those they defeated in the aftermath? How has all this worked out for Lithuania? This book not only exposes the process, but sheds light on how these events play out, post regime-change. It is key to grasping the template that today underlies similar events in Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran and likely elsewhere, going forward"--

Existential malaise comes to America - are we approaching "peak America", where the Republic has failed, and the Empire which put paid to it cannot be achieved? Seasoned political analyst James Petras addresses in broad brush the major upheavals that loom.

Richard Westra argues that changes across the capitalist world at the turn of the 21st century put into play a global financial system which operates as a reincarnation of ancient usury. The book reexamines the historical record to show how activities of antediluvian money lending brought Western civilization to the brink of collapse. Usury corrupted princes and kings by indulging their conspicuous consumption. It forced them to bleed their populations to fuel their possessive lust. And it fomented vicious cycles of indebtedness in the wars it compelled. Money lending to merchants spread the commercial economy that intervened between producers and consumers driving populations into debt and dispossessing them of their land. What saved Western civilization was the rise of capitalism. Capitalism tamed the activities of money lending, and endowed them with socially redeeming value. The cost of borrowing was rationally set in money markets. Bank credit was offered in anticipation of incomes generated by its determinate use. All in all, capitalism tethered finance to expanding production of material goods and increased social wealth. But, as the 20th century drew to a close, with capital no longer scarce as exemplified by the aimless bloating of varying categories of funds, finance again turned to its dark side. With the disarticulating of production through globalization, there existed no possibility for bloating funds to ever be converted into real capital with determinate, socially redeeming use. Instead, systemic rule changes empowered big banks, big investment firms and finance wings of giant corporations to unleash vast oceans of funds in a global orgy of money games. However, the global financial system of casino play can only operate akin to ancient usury. Wealth for the few is expanded by expropriation and Himalayan levels of debt befalling the many! Like usurers of old the new Merchants of Venice are indifferent to how lent funds are used. And loan repayment is set arbitrarily, often exacting such a high cost that the borrower is ruined or forced to strive for the ruin of others. Big government becomes the handmaiden sweeping as much debt under the public rug as it can. Yet there is only so much in pounds of flesh left on the bones of humanity. Greece is really just the hors d'oeuvre.

This collection of Paul Roberts essays explores the dangers in Washington's imposition of vassalage and Washington's resurrection of distrust among nuclear powers, the very distrust that Reagan and Gorbachev worked to eliminate. He explains how the collapse of the Soviet Union removed the only check on Washington's ability to act unilaterally.