Road Warrior Radio w/ Chris Hinkley

Much has happened, and much has changed since the founding of America. How many of us stop to ask ourselves what it means to be an American? What’s important to us all. What is unique to our American ‘DNA’? Do we have common interests, apart from those covertly instilled in us by our ‘invisible government’ Edward Bernays and others have revealed? Speaking of this shadow network of influencers, some like Samuel P. Huntington have expressed very particular sentiments about what beliefs they think every ‘common’ American should hold. The trouble is, the beliefs they hold for themselves are always markedly different.

Perhaps the best question is; if we’ve been largely deprived of the knowledge and deeper learning of our roots and founding, then how can we possibly answer these most pressing questions? If we believe ‘cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men,’ who at every turn have proven ruthlessly unscrupulous, will suddenly and completely relent, cease, and desist, we’re kidding ourselves.

Perhaps the primary theme of the novel is that evil can only be resisted psychically: when the rational controls that order man's existence slacken, destruction comes. Conrad said it best in "Heart of Darkness," but Mr. Doctorow has said it impressively. His book is taut and dramatic, exciting and successfully symbolic. [emphasis added]

— Wirt Williams, New York Times September 25, 1960 review of E. L. Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times (1960) which was subsequently adapted to the eponymous 1967 film starring Henry Fonda

In his book A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror,1 McCoy shows how from the start of the Cold War to the early 1960s, the C.I.A. spent billions of dollars developing psychological tools for interrogation. Early on, the emphasis was on electroshock, hypnosis, psychosurgery, and drugs, including the infamous use of LSD on unsuspecting soldiers and civilians, but these methods appeared a complete waste of time, although they were of dubious legality. Drawing on the sensory deprivation work of Canadian neurological scientist Donald O. Hebb, it was found that sensory deprivation was far more effective in brainwashing subjects than beatings or physical pain. Furthermore, "self-inflicted pain" (for example forcing an uncooperative subject to stand for many hours with arms outstretched) were more effective means of breaking prisoners. Augmented by fears of physical abuse, sexual humiliation, and other psychological attacks on personal and cultural identity, McCoy has explained how the US government produced exactly the system on display in the Abu Ghraib abuse photographs.2 [emphasis added]

— Alfred W. McCoy: Recent work - Wikipedia

If creation of the Fed was intended to break the “money trust,” then why did the new institution collaborate so closely with it?

— William Greider,