Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971 (Envisioning Cuba)
Lillian Guerra (Author)
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Propaganda & Political Psychology
The highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is at it again. A quarter century ago, in his international bestseller Red Horizons, Pacepa exposed the massive crimes and corruption of his former boss, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, giving the dictator a nervous breakdown and inspiring him to send assassination squads to the U.S. to find his former spy chief and kill him. They failed. On Christmas Day 1989, Ceausescu was executed by his own people at the end of a trial whose accusations came almost word-for-word out of Red Horizons.
Today, still living undercover in the United States, the man credited by the CIA as the only person in the Western world who single-handedly demolished an entire enemy espionage service - the one he himself managed - takes aim at an even bigger target: the exotic, widely misunderstood but still astonishingly influential realm of the Russian-born "science" of disinformation. Indeed, within this audiobook, Pacepa, along with his co-author, historian and law professor Ronald Rychlak, expose some of the most consequential yet largely unknown disinformation campaigns of our lifetime.
"This remarkable book will change the way you look at intelligence, foreign affairs, the press, and much else besides."
-- R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
The highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is at it again. A quarter century ago, in his international bestseller Red Horizons, Pacepa exposed the massive crimes and corruption of his former boss, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, giving the dictator a nervous breakdown and inspiring him to send assassination squads to the U.S. to find his former spy chief and kill him. They failed. On Christmas Day 1989, Ceausescu was executed by his own people at the end of a trial whose accusations came almost word-for-word out of Red Horizons.
Today, still living undercover in the United States, the man credited by the CIA as the only person in the Western world who single-handedly demolished an entire enemy espionage service--the one he himself managed--takes aim at an even bigger target: the exotic, widely misunderstood but still astonishingly influential realm of the Russian-born "science" of disinformation.
Indeed, within these pages, Pacepa, along with his co-author, historian and law professor Ronald Rychlak, expose some of the most consequential yet largely unknown disinformation campaigns of our lifetime.
Here the reader will discover answers to many crucial questions of the modern era: Why, during the last two generations, has so much of the Western world turned against its founding faith, Christianity? Why have radical Islam, jihad and terrorism burst aflame after a long period of apparent quiescence? Why is naked Marxism increasingly manifesting in America and its NATO allies? What really happened to Russia after the Berlin Wall came down? Like the solution to a giant jigsaw puzzle lacking one crucial piece, Disinformation authoritatively provides the missing dimension that makes the chaos of the modern world finally understandable.
By its very nature, a disinformation campaign can work only if the seemingly independent Western press accepts intentionally fabricated lies and presents them to the public as truth. Thus, Pacepa and Rychlak also document how the U.S. "mainstream media's" enduring sympathy for all things liberal-left has made it vulnerable to--indeed, the prime carrier of--civilization-transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism that turn reality on its head.
In Disinformation, you'll discover:
* How destroying the reputation of good leaders has been developed into a high art and science.
* How Pope Pius XII --a generation ago the world's most high-profile Christian leader, who personally saved countless Jews from Hitler's Holocaust--was transformed, through the magic of disinformation, into a Nazi sympathizer.
* How Christianity and Judaism have been targeted for constant denigration and defamation through an ongoing campaign of disinformation.
* How the Soviet bloc planted 4,000 agents of influence in the Islamic world, armed with hundreds of thousands of copies of the most infamous anti-Semitic book in history, to fan the flames of ancient Arab resentments against the U.S. and Israel and sow the seeds of anti-Semitism that would later bloom in the form of violence and terror toward Jews and Christians.
* How the defamatory attacks on American soldiers John Kerry made before Congress upon his return from Vietnam--charges later discredited and repudiated--were identical to a contemporaneous KGB disinformation campaign concocted to turn Americans against their own leaders.
* How supposedly respectable institutions like the World Council of Churches have long been infiltrated and controlled by Russian intelligence.
* How much of the world came to believe that the U.S. government itself masterminded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
* How the Soviet Union has been transformed into the first intelligence dictatorship in history.
* How disinformation is still very much alive in the age of Obama, remaining a powerful engine in the ongoing socialist transformation of America.
All this and much more is meticulously documented in Disinformation, with the credibility of an eyewitness who was not only there, but actively involved as a Soviet bloc spy chief--who, thanks to a crisis of conscience, "left the dark side" and came to America to help shine a light on the greatest source of political evil of the modern age.
Few other ideologies have effected the world quite like Marxism. On the surface it is a good idea paved with good intentions--so what happened? How did Marxism turn into Communism? To understand that, you may need a little help. This book offers a look at Marxism that the average person can understand. If you are new to political history or just want a better understand, then this book will help you! The "Plain and Simple English" series is part of BookCaps™ growing library of book and history recaps. Visit www.bookcaps.com for more information.
"This remarkable book will change the way you look at intelligence, foreign affairs, the press, and much else besides."
-- R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
The highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is at it again. A quarter century ago, in his international bestseller Red Horizons, Pacepa exposed the massive crimes and corruption of his former boss, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, giving the dictator a nervous breakdown and inspiring him to send assassination squads to the U.S. to find his former spy chief and kill him. They failed. On Christmas Day 1989, Ceausescu was executed by his own people at the end of a trial whose accusations came almost word-for-word out of Red Horizons.
Today, still living undercover in the United States, the man credited by the CIA as the only person in the Western world who single-handedly demolished an entire enemy espionage service--the one he himself managed--takes aim at an even bigger target: the exotic, widely misunderstood but still astonishingly influential realm of the Russian-born "science" of disinformation.
Indeed, within these pages, Pacepa, along with his co-author, historian and law professor Ronald Rychlak, expose some of the most consequential yet largely unknown disinformation campaigns of our lifetime.
Here the reader will discover answers to many crucial questions of the modern era: Why, during the last two generations, has so much of the Western world turned against its founding faith, Christianity? Why have radical Islam, jihad and terrorism burst aflame after a long period of apparent quiescence? Why is naked Marxism increasingly manifesting in America and its NATO allies? What really happened to Russia after the Berlin Wall came down? Like the solution to a giant jigsaw puzzle lacking one crucial piece, Disinformation authoritatively provides the missing dimension that makes the chaos of the modern world finally understandable.
By its very nature, a disinformation campaign can work only if the seemingly independent Western press accepts intentionally fabricated lies and presents them to the public as truth. Thus, Pacepa and Rychlak also document how the U.S. "mainstream media's" enduring sympathy for all things liberal-left has made it vulnerable to--indeed, the prime carrier of--civilization-transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism that turn reality on its head.
In Disinformation, you'll discover:
* How destroying the reputation of good leaders has been developed into a high art and science.
* How Pope Pius XII --a generation ago the world's most high-profile Christian leader, who personally saved countless Jews from Hitler's Holocaust--was transformed, through the magic of disinformation, into a Nazi sympathizer.
* How Christianity and Judaism have been targeted for constant denigration and defamation through an ongoing campaign of disinformation.
* How the Soviet bloc planted 4,000 agents of influence in the Islamic world, armed with hundreds of thousands of copies of the most infamous anti-Semitic book in history, to fan the flames of ancient Arab resentments against the U.S. and Israel and sow the seeds of anti-Semitism that would later bloom in the form of violence and terror toward Jews and Christians.
* How the defamatory attacks on American soldiers John Kerry made before Congress upon his return from Vietnam--charges later discredited and repudiated--were identical to a contemporaneous KGB disinformation campaign concocted to turn Americans against their own leaders.
* How supposedly respectable institutions like the World Council of Churches have long been infiltrated and controlled by Russian intelligence.
* How much of the world came to believe that the U.S. government itself masterminded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
* How the Soviet Union has been transformed into the first intelligence dictatorship in history.
* How disinformation is still very much alive in the age of Obama, remaining a powerful engine in the ongoing socialist transformation of America.
All this and much more is meticulously documented in Disinformation, with the credibility of an eyewitness who was not only there, but actively involved as a Soviet bloc spy chief--who, thanks to a crisis of conscience, "left the dark side" and came to America to help shine a light on the greatest source of political evil of the modern age.
The first in-depth, authoritative discussion of the role of the press in China and the way the Chinese government uses the media to shape public opinion
China's 1.3 billion population may make the country the world's largest, but the vast majority of Chinese share remarkably similar views on these and a wide array of other issues, thanks to the unified message they get from tightly controlled state-run media. Official views are formed at the top in organizations like the Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television and allowed to trickle down to regional and local media, giving the appearance of many voices with a single message that is reinforced at every level. As a result, the Chinese are remarkably like-minded on a wide range of issues both domestic and foreign.
"Never has the world needed strong and wise American leadership more than it does now. Abramsky's eminently readable description of Obama's personal gifts makes it clear that he is remarkably suited to be the president the moment requires." -Former New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo
From the moment he burst onto the national political scene, Barack Obama has fascinated people more than any politician in decades. Many biographers have already retold his story, but no previous book truly explains how his mind works, what passions drive him, or what makes him such an effective leader.
This concise profile explores the ideas, inspirations, and experiences that have shaped the president. It quotes a wide network of sources, including many who broke long-standing vows of silence to offer their candid and surprising observations.
Award-winning journalist Sasha Abramsky interviewed close to one hundred of Obama's current and former friends, colleagues, classmates, teachers, staff, mentors, basketball buddies, fellow Chicago activists, media consultants, editors, and even his next-door neighbors from Hyde Park. These people each know a part of Obama's life and career, which the author blends the pieces into a uniquely detailed analysis.
Abramsky explains the origins of Obama's extraordinary poise, focus, and self-confidence; his powerful storytelling and speaking skills; and his empathetic listening style. He shows why Obama's experiences as a community organizer are widely misunderstood and more influential than many people realize. And he explores how Obama found a unique way to bridge America's racial divides.
No previous book has delved so deeply into the events and people that helped make Barack Obama the man he is today.
Much of the story about the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany has yet to be told. In Motherland in Danger, Karel Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to the people on the home front?
For Stalin, the obstacles were manifold. Repelling the German invasion would require a mobilization so large that it would test the limits of the Soviet state. Could the USSR marshal the manpower necessary to face the threat? How could the authorities overcome inadequate infrastructure and supplies? Might Stalin’s regime fail to survive a sustained conflict with the Germans?
Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, from up close, its propaganda machine. Using sources in many languages, including memoirs and documents of the Soviet censor, Berkhoff explores how the Soviet media reflected—and distorted—every aspect of the war, from the successes and blunders on the front lines to the institution of forced labor on farm fields and factory floors. He also details the media’s handling of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust, as well as its stinting treatment of the Allies, particularly the United States, the UK, and Poland. Berkhoff demonstrates not only that propaganda was critical to the Soviet war effort but also that it has colored perceptions of the war to the present day, both inside and outside of Russia.
Understanding North Korea through its propaganda: A newly revised and updated edition that includes a consideration of Kim Jung Il's successor, Kim Jong-Un
What do the North Koreans really believe? How do they see themselves and the world around them?
Here B.R. Myers, a North Korea analyst and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, presents the first full-length study of the North Korean worldview. Drawing on extensive research into the regime’s domestic propaganda, including films, romance novels and other artifacts of the personality cult, Myers analyzes each of the country’s official myths in turn—from the notion of Koreans’ unique moral purity, to the myth of an America quaking in terror of “the Iron General.” In a concise but groundbreaking historical section, Myers also traces the origins of this official culture back to the Japanese fascist thought in which North Korea’s first ideologues were schooled.
What emerges is a regime completely unlike the West’s perception of it. This is neither a bastion of Stalinism nor a Confucian patriarchy, but a paranoid nationalist, “military-first” state on the far right of the ideological spectrum.
Since popular support for the North Korean regime now derives almost exclusively from pride in North Korean military might, Pyongyang can neither be cajoled nor bullied into giving up its nuclear program. The implications for US foreign policy—which has hitherto treated North Korea as the last outpost of the Cold War—are as obvious as they are troubling. With North Korea now calling for a “blood reckoning” with the “Yankee jackals,” Myers’s unprecedented analysis could not be more timely.
Understanding North Korea through its propaganda: A newly revised and updated edition that includes a consideration of Kim Jung Il's successor, Kim Jong-Un
What do the North Koreans really believe? How do they see themselves and the world around them?
Here B.R. Myers, a North Korea analyst and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, presents the first full-length study of the North Korean worldview. Drawing on extensive research into the regime’s domestic propaganda, including films, romance novels and other artifacts of the personality cult, Myers analyzes each of the country’s official myths in turn—from the notion of Koreans’ unique moral purity, to the myth of an America quaking in terror of “the Iron General.” In a concise but groundbreaking historical section, Myers also traces the origins of this official culture back to the Japanese fascist thought in which North Korea’s first ideologues were schooled.
What emerges is a regime completely unlike the West’s perception of it. This is neither a bastion of Stalinism nor a Confucian patriarchy, but a paranoid nationalist, “military-first” state on the far right of the ideological spectrum.
Since popular support for the North Korean regime now derives almost exclusively from pride in North Korean military might, Pyongyang can neither be cajoled nor bullied into giving up its nuclear program. The implications for US foreign policy—which has hitherto treated North Korea as the last outpost of the Cold War—are as obvious as they are troubling. With North Korea now calling for a “blood reckoning” with the “Yankee jackals,” Myers’s unprecedented analysis could not be more timely.
Why do people become extremists? What makes people become so dismissive of opposing views? Why is political and cultural polarization so pervasive in America?
In Going to Extremes, renowned legal scholar and best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein offers startling insights into why and when people gravitate toward extremism. Sunstein marshals a wealth of evidence that shows that when like-minded people gather in groups, they tend to become more extreme in their views than they were before. Thus when liberals group get together to debate climate change, they end up more alarmed about climate change, while conservatives brought together to discuss same-sex unions become more set against same-sex unions. In courtrooms, radio stations, and chatrooms, enclaves of like-minded people are breeding ground for extreme movements. Indeed, Sunstein shows that a good way to create an extremist group, or a cult of any kind, is to separate members from the rest of society, either physically or psychologically. Sunstein's findings help to explain such diverse phenomena as political outrage on the Internet, unanticipated "blockbusters" in the film and music industry, the success of the disability rights movement, ethnic conflict in Iraq and former Yugoslavia, and Islamic terrorism.
Providing a wealth of real-world examples--sometimes entertaining, sometimes alarming--Sunstein offers a fresh explanation of why partisanship has become so bitter and debate so rancorous in America and abroad.
Praise for the hardcover:
"A path-breaking exploration of the perils and possibilities created by polarization among the like-minded."
--Kathleen Hall Jamieson, co-author of unSpun and Echo Chamber
"Poses a powerful challenge to anyone concerned with the future of our democracy. He reveals the dark side to our cherished freedoms of thought, expression and participation. Initiates an urgent dialogue which any thoughtful citizen should be interested in."
--James S. Fishkin, author of When the People Speak