America's Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama Paperback – October 17, 2012

Enjoy reading

Parry's tenacity for following up stories - over decades - is not only awe inspiring but what is apparently needed to get to the bottom of stories the political class in D.C. wants permanently buried. The book starts with a look at some Supreme Court decisions where the conservative members of the bench (especially Scalia) use selected passages from the Federalist Papers to support their positions as "originalists." Parry skewers these arguments, many made in direct opposition to what the framers clearly intended. (This raises the larger question about the Court's decisions in recent years - is the body of common law any longer applicable to the Supremes' decisions or are they simply pulling examples of convenience out of the air to support their prejudices?) Next up is the 1968 election where Nixon allegedly killed the on going Paris Peace Conference about the Vietnam War, an "October Surprise" that gained him the election - and allowed the war to continue for four more years. The main part of the book deals with Reagan's sundry secret activities in Iran, starting with alleged meetings of his confidants (Bush, Casey among others) prior to the 1980 election that ensured the American captives would not be released prior to his gaining office, a story that had credence from the get-go as the hostages were released within minutes of Reagan's swearing in. Then we move on to Iran Contra, massive arms deals to Iran with Israel as the middle man, and then the peculiar shift of U.S. favoritism toward Saddam as the Iraq-Iran War progressed. A theme that flows though these and other nefarious acts by those in power in Washington is how successfully they manage not only to cover their tracks, but keep them covered -when Watergate first broke the FBI refused to investigate as one example. Much of the author's time (over decades on certain stories) was spent trying to pry out who was where at a critical juncture and what was said, and how planted press articles by what might loosely be called neocon operatives and their press outlets sallied forth to discredit anyone looking a bit too hard to unearth the truth. When government officials in power want a story mushroomed it stays that way, and the list of examples shown by Parry is the heart of the book - incriminating evidence is simply disregarded, requested documents slow in coming - or "lost" - and identities redacted with paint-roller enthusiasm. Parry spent years trying to track down the identity of one couple whose possible testimony might have proved lethal to Bush Sr's administration; he finally got the names from the Bush library in 2011 - years after the couple had died. The stories Parry focuses on are not trivial; if fully known at the time of occurrence charges of treason or the basis for impeachment were at hand; how these events were covered up - and how Parry tenaciously ensured these events would not go down the memory hole of history is quite a read. (Please excuse typos - I couldn't edit this thing.)

I have not yet finished this book, but so far I find two glaring errors. Incidentally, I carry no water for any political party; in a blog monograph entitled 'The Red Roots of the GOP', I expose that party as being the party of the devious 1%, and (surprisingly to most)Marxist in its origin.First, Parry refers to the constitutional convention having given the new federal government the power to "print money". This is a preposterous statement, based on the transcripts of the convention itself, as well as American monetary history. The vast majority of the convention delegates despised the idea of paper script masquerading as 'money'. The only lawful U.S. money is "coin" (Art. I, Sec. 8) and specifically, "Gold and Silver coin" (Art. I, Sec. 10). The framers voiced their complete disgust for paper being represented as 'money'. The author displays a serious ignorance of basic American history, and of the Constitutional Convention, in repeatedly using the ignorant phrase, "print money".Historian George Bancroft in 1884 penned "A PLEA FOR THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Wounded in the House of Its Guardians", demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that the framers were adamant about paper never being allowed to be called or used as 'money' in this republic. Congress nonetheless launched a counterfeiting racket in 1862, and the SCOTUS joined the crime in 1871, reiterating its support for criminal activity in 1884 (the SCOTUS ruling in Juilliard v. Greenman was the occasion for Bancroft's scathing screed against the counterfetiing scheme).The rest is history: In 1913, Congress stepped behind the curtain, granting its counterfeiting concession to a private cartel using the fraudulent label 'Federal Reserve'. Two decades later, the third criminal branch of government jumped into the fray: FDR stole the people's gold at gunpoint, forcing us to take the counterfeit paper in exchange, and the SCOTUS ruled in the Gold Clause cases that indeed, we would force all Americans to play along with organized crime -- or else.In 1944 at the Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the FED crime cartel, operating under the aegis of the federal government, held hostage the 44 Allied Nations from WWII, forcing them all to accept the fake FED paper as a "U.S. Dollar" (the most execrable fraud), and peg their currencies to it for all international trade. The world now teeters on the brink of financial ruin in the hundreds of trillions of dollars, with untold personal ruin in every country on earth, due to generations of pyramiding debt and worthless 'currency'.So you see that a book of American history that blithely, repeatedly suggests that James Madison or the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, granted Congress the power to "print money" -- is an error of incredible importance to the record, and to life today.Secondly, most James Madison biographers will agree that James Madison, 'Father of the U.S. Constitution' is often considered a waffler on the issue of the rights and powers of the sovereign States, versus the new federal servant created by the Constitution. Madison was nothing of the sort; his 40-year-long repartee with Jefferson, now bound in a two-volume set,  The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison  clearly demonstrates that Madison's deepest and longest-held allegiance, like that of Jefferson, was to the primordial sovereignty of the States, over their federal creature.Robert Parry paints Madison as a consummate Federalist, suggesting ulterior motives and mendacity to Madison's guarantees in the Federalist Papers than came from his pen. The reader can prove the falsity of such a position by simply reading his Virginia Resolution, available via any search engine -- or as noted earlier, one can read dozens of his letters to his best friend Jefferson, and certify that while he did have a deep concern about holding the new republic together, Madison was first, last, and always a proponent of the sovereignty of the States, the severely limited powers of the federal servant, and the apex sovereignty of 'The People Themselves'.D.M. ZunigaFounder, 'AmericaAgain! TrustAuthor, 'This Bloodless Liberty', 'Fear The People'

I read the book with some trepidation. I was afraid this was one of those conspiracy theory kinds of books. I also did not want to believe that President H.W. Bush and Robert Gates could and would lower themselves through personal ambition to subvert a standing Democratic president to elect a Republican one--Ronald Reagan.That Richard Nixon might do that to subvert Vietnamese peace talks to win the presidency did not surprise me, but to read and see proof that Reagan, HW Bush, and Robert Gates would do so really brought me a great deal of distress.In the end, I couldn't poke holes in his arguments and documentation. That brought me sadness and gladness.Sadness that Republican leaders who always trump patriotism would allow personal ambition to harm this nation for political gain. I felt gladness that at least now I know the truth. I also see this same attitude in the current Republican vendetta to subvert President Obama's programs for the sake of regaining power. Observing these real time events makes Parry's book seem plausible.

Assuming this guy's research is as good and honest as it appears, the way he connects the Republican interference in peace negotiations prior to the 1968 election, to Watergate, and once again the Republican undercover attempts to keep Iran from releasing our embassy hostages in the run up to Reagan's defeat of Carter, is chilling. My take, I'm afraid is cynical.Though Parry clearly favors the Democrats over Republicans (as I do), his very thorough and gripping story suggests to me that no political party nor candidate has any moral compass when it comes to gaining or holding power.

We all need to do our own history lessons, good place to start,with books like this

Robert Parry is a senior and award winning American journalist. His research is impeccable and unrelenting as his chases down his sources and sorts out truth from fiction. The book is tragic as he documents how America's ultra right, neocons and Republicans alike, have subverted American democracy and resorted to treason to have their way. It is also a condemnation of the Democratic party as it has turned a blind eye to this treachery and failed to challenge it, or enforce accountability.Parry also runs consortiumnews.com. His books his website are essential background reading to understanding the truth of what is going on in the world, and the present presidential race.America owes a profound debt to journalists like Parry who are outside the MSM and hand have the tenacious integrity to speak truth to power.While the US is cursed with endless political corruptions it is also blessed with an independent media that shames the corporate media.

It appears that from Nixon and on, the Republicans have more and more depended on lies and misinformation to politic and to govern than using facts and persuasion to pursue same.