Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Nick Mason, Alex Nicholson, and Hans Lander

Notes:

Propaganda: the message communicated to achieve a political agenda, often by misinformation and misdirection. Taught in American high schools as something the enemy does or only used during great wars of distant past – today we re-examine the extent to which propaganda permeates American society to this day, and it really means to be ruled by decree, versus by (manufactured) consent.

References:

– Democracy in America, Tocqueville (1835)
– Culture of Critique, MacDonald (1998)
– Century of the Self, Curtis (2002)
– Nudge, Sunstein and Thaler (2009)
– The Righteous Mind, Haidt (2013)
– Is It Propaganda Or Not? (2016) – http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html
– Edward Bernays – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
– Sigmund Freud – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 16: Propaganda, Myth And Mystery appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Hank Oslo, Nick Mason, Alex Nicholson, and Lawrence Glarus

Notes:

Any modern summary of the 1968-1969 student strikes at San Francisco State University will draw focus to the creation of the Ethnic Studies Department (ESD), but this outcome would have been far from obvious to a casual observer reading the paper. This is not to say that no-one could have predicted that the strike would win out, or that an ethnic studies department would be created, but that a casual observer might not even have known this was an issue or more importantly THE issue. Playing history forward, we see a sea of activist causes, power struggles, and holiness spirals ending in a negotiated surrender.

The narrative of this event plays out like much of the text of American history. The pattern plays out thusly: an issue which was extant but of questionable prominence is solved by a conflict. The conflict is then retroactively justified by the outcome. Such is the pattern. This story of conflict, indeed, like most political charged conflicts is the story of a power struggle. Behind the slogans, signs, riots and demands there was a push behind the scenes. It is difficult as with any event in history to trace a singular origin, but it’s clear there were a series of changes which enabled these eddies to form.

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 15: San Francisco State University Strike appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Alex Nicholson, Hank Olson, Nick Mason

Notes:

Like many of history’s famous dictators, Augusto Pinochet – Chile’s ruler from 1973 to 1990 – has many in the world who condemn him to this day. What some may not know, however, is that many in Chile still remember the 1973 Coup that Pinochet led with gratitude, seeing his rule as a stabilizing force that averted a communist takeover, ending his predecessor’s disastrous economic policies and making Chile today the country with the highest per-capita GDP in Latin America. Today we examine this man’s history, and his legacy.

Timeline:

1948- Augusto Pinochet appointed to run Pisagua prison camp
1953- Salvador Allende leads a public grieving session for the death of Stalin
1959- Pinochet returns to Chile from Peru
1970- Allende elected President of Chile, quickly nationalizes key industries such as mining from multinational corporations, increases social spending
1970-75- inflation in Chile, peaks at of over 800% annually
1973- Pinochet leads all branches of the military in a coup to unseat Allende, who allegedly commits suicide
1974- DINA assassinations of leftist sympathizers with likely support from the CIA
1980- Constitution of Chile approved by voters
1990- Pinochet granted Senator for Life status
1998- Pinochet visits Margaret Thatcher
1998-99- British authorities place him under house arrest after the ICC threatens to try him in Spain for human rights abuses
2000- Pinochet allowed to return to Chile on pretense of ill health
2000-06- Pinochet faces continued legal harassment until his death

References:

– Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook, Luttwak (1979)
– The Passing of a Tyrant, The Economist (2006) – http://www.economist.com/node/8413038
– Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende – US Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile, Qureshi (2009)
– A Regional Responsibility to Protect, Slaughter (2014)
– Augusto Pinochet – The Life and Legacy, Charles River Editors (2016)
– Red Ink: The high human cost of the Cuban revolution, Garvin, (2016) – http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article118282148.html
– Chile Inflation Rate – 1951-2017 – http://www.tradingeconomics.com/chile/inflation-cpi
– Economic Freedom Index, Heritage Foundation (2017) – http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
– Miracle of Chile, Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile
– Operation Condor, Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 14: Pinochet, Life And Legacy In Chile appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Hank Oslo, and Mark Brown

Notes:

Antarctica – a land of extremes. It is the coldest, driest – and loneliest continent on Earth. Bathed in darkness for 6 months of the year, and exposed to intense radiation, wind, and snow for much of the rest – Antarctica – even after its first visit in 1821 – has never attracted more than several thousand people a year to stay. It is thus a testament to the will of the few that do journey to the bottom of the world – to explore, to conduct research, or to simply put oneself to the test in one of the world’s harshest environments. Today we will pay tribute to those that did not ask why, but asked – why not?

Timeline:

1821 – American sealer John Davis first to set foot on the Antarctic Peninsula
1901 – British captain Scott leads first Antarctic expedition
1910 – Norwegian Roald Amundsen first to reach the South Pole
1911 – Captain Scott and his party die after freezing on their return trip of being the second group to visit the pole
1912 – Australian Douglas Mawson is the first to use radios in Antarctica, leads a tragic expedition where he is the sole survivor
1914-16 – Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 men become stranded and all survive after getting frozen into the ice and losing their ship
1959 – 12 countries sign the Antarctic Treaty in Washington DC
1985 – thinning of the ozone layer over the South Pole first reported
2008 – NASA reports its satellite data indicate more than 2 million tons of land ice in Alaska, Antarctica and Greenland since 2003 among the latest signs indicating global warming

References:

– The Home of the Blizzard, Mawson (1998)
– The White, Caesar (2001)
– Antarctica – A Frozen History (2002) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SxXjN7WT90
– Antarctica Timeline: http://www.timelines.ws/countries/ANTARCTICA.HTML

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 13: Antarctica, The Last Frontier appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Alex Nicholson, and Nick Mason

Notes:

Detroit – once America’s shining example of a city built on the principles of a prosperous middle class, considered the Paris of the Midwest and submitted as America’s choice in 1963 for the upcoming summer Olympics – today is America’s capital for unemployment, dropouts, and foreclosures – ranked #1 Most Miserable City by Forbes in 2013. In 1967, Detroit experienced its worst race riot in history, with the National Guard deploying tanks to stop the violence that had resulted in 43 deaths and over 2,000 buildings being burned – ultimately sparking Detroit’s white exodus to the suburbs. While many of Detroit’s underlying economic issues began surfacing in the 1950s and are inextricably linked to the automotive industry, the transition from being an 83% white to now an 83% black city has thrown a spotlight onto issues of race, crime, and poverty like no other American city.

(Special guest Jayoh de la Rey @ObjectToaster)

Timeline:

1910- Henry Ford builds the first Model T factory in Highland Park
1920s- Detroit attracts hundreds of thousands from the rural south to work in new automotive factories
1930s- The Great Depression hits Detroit particularly hard, with over 50% unemployment
1939-45- US participation in WWII creates the “Arsenal of Democracy”, creating huge wartime contracts, reviving industry in Detroit
1950s- post war prosperity leads to an unprecedented baby boom and demand for consumer goods, Detroit’s population peaks at 1.9 million
-1956- Interstate Highway System commissioned by President Eisenhower, increasing demand further for cars
1958- Packard Motor Company declares bankruptcy
1967- 43 die, 7,000 arrested, 2,000 buildings burn in Detroit’s worst race riot; National Guard troops brought in
1969- another round of race riots prompts mass white flight from Detroit and exodus to the suburbs
1972- Michigan Republican primary delivered to Governor George Wallace, segregationist from Alabama
1973-1979- Arab oil embargoes send oil prices skyrocketing, hurting demand for large American vehicles and helping more fuel-efficient foreign imports from Japan and Europe
1974- Coleman Young elected first African-American mayor of Detroit
1980s- crack epidemic sweeps Detroit
1990s- SUV boom keeps Detroit automakers afloat
1999- Detroit legalizes casino gaming
2007- Toyota surpasses General Motors as the world’s largest auto maker for the first time
2008- gasoline prices rise above $4 per gallon for the first time in the United States, crippling Detroit automakers due to their lack of competitive small cars
2008- former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick sentenced to 120 days in jail for felony assault
2009- after receiving billions in US government bailout money, GM declares bankruptcy and Chrysler merges with Italian automaker F.I.A.T.
2013- Detroit declares bankruptcy
2013- Forbes ranks Detroit #1 Most Miserable City, with a population of under 700,000
2013- a newly hired autoworker will earn $14/hour; adjusted for inflation, this is 3 cents less than what Henry Ford was paying in 1914
2014- Mike Duggan, Detroit’s first white mayor in an 83% black city since 1974, assumes office

References:

– Detroit: City on the Move (1965) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-C8DwL2ovQ
– Auto bailout, round 2: Big 3 – GM, Ford, Chrysler – keep begging for $34B government bailout, Sisk (2008) – https://www.nydailynews.com/news/money/auto-bailout-2-big-3-gm-ford-chrysler-begging-34b-government-bailout-article-1.353666
– The 15 Top-Producing American Car Plants, Holmes (2012) – http://www.automobilemag.com/news/the-15-top-producing-american-car-plants-151801/
Detroit – An American Autotopsy, Leduff (2013)
– During the ‘Lost Decade,’ Michigan Shed More Jobs Than U.S. as a Whole, Gantert (2014) – https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/20582
– Detroit – Real Time Ride Along (2015) – http://louderwithcrowder.com/detroit-real-time-ride-along/
– Ted Nugent the morning after the election (2016) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JnI1FmxemY
– Devil’s Night, Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil’s_Night

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 12: Detroit, The Shadow Of Decline appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Hank Oslo, and Alex Nicholson

Notes:

If you’re like most Americans, you’ve grown up on a combination of Hollywood movies and public education, which, to varying degrees of surreality, depict guns as either cartoonish props used by heroes and villains, or weapons of war abstracted away by the faceless masses of soldiers of allied and enemy nations. The truth – whether it be in the criminal deciding to commit armed robbery on your home – or a single mother trying to defend her home from a break-in – lies somewhere in between. To the politician, the truth does not matter – but to the average citizen – it very much does. Today we attempt to dispel some of the myth inherent in American gun culture, and ask questions about the future direction of our relationship with the 2nd amendment and each other.

Timeline:

1903- Civilian Marksmanship Program introduced
1930-39- Great Depression, rise in gangsterism and violence partly as a result of Prohibition, the Great Depression
1934- National Firearms Act passes
1941-45- World War II ~25% of US men in military at various points
1960-79- large scale civil disturbances, riots, Vietnam War, Black Nationalism, etc.
1976- Kurt Saxon, Jeff Cooper popularize “survivalism”
1977- NRA “hardliners” come to power
1980s- cocaine trade in South Florida fuels violence, rise of the action movie
1984-92- crack wars
1988-92- George HW Bush signs a series of import bans
1989- fall of Soviet Union creates large military hardware surplus
1992- LA riots, Ruby Ridge
1993- Waco, Brady Bill
1994-2004 Assault Weapons Ban
1995- Oklahoma City bombing
2008-2016- Giffords, Aurora, Sandy Hook incidents, fear of Obama gun bans sparks panic buying

References:

– The Gun Control Debate: A Culture-Theory Manifesto, Kahn (2003) – http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1224&context=wlulr
– Scots-Irish Project: The Roots of America’s Gun Culture, Wallace (2013) – http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2013/01/03/scots-irish-project-the-roots-of-americas-gun-culture/
– How Many Guns Are There in America?, Weingarten (2015) – http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/07/dean-weingarten/how-many-guns-are-there-in-america/
– Why Gun Control Can’t Be Solved in the USA, Adams (2016) – http://blog.dilbert.com/post/146307088451/why-gun-control-cant-be-solved-in-the-usa
– Gun inequality: US study charts rise of hardcore super owners, Beckett (2016) – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/us-gun-ownership-survey

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 11: American Gun Culture appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Alex Nicholson (and Ryan Landry)

Notes:

The United States dollar is undisputed as the world’s most dominant reserve currency. What is disputed, however, is to what degree this is good for the world, let alone the United States. Also disputed is how sustainable this arrangement is, given perennial trade and US government budget deficits that call into question the strength of the underlying economic system. Originally backed by the gold standard in the 1947 Bretton Woods arrangement, countries like De Gaul’s France began calling for a break from the US dollar reserve system after years of budget and trade deficits caused by social spending, wars, and an oil shock led to the drawdown of American gold reserves by nearly half until President Nixon closed the gold window in 1974. To replace this, the Petrodollar system was setup to guarantee the demand for US dollars would remain in the world markets by having Saudi Arabia, by then the world’s largest swing producer, only sell oil in American greenbacks. They also then agreed to invest their surpluses into US Treasuries, enabling the US government nominally lower yields on its deficit financing. As America’s national debt approaches $20 trillion, however, and over 40 years of trade deficits have left Middle America’s manufacturing jobs moved overseas and the traditional pathway for millions of Americans into the middle class stripped away, America and the world once again questions its ability to maintain a world reserve currency, and the costs of attempting to sustain it.

Today we’re joined by special guest Ryan Landry to discuss his recent article The Modern Economy and the Consequences of the Petrodollar.

Timeline:

1950- Saudi-ARAMCO agreement signed giving 50/50 revenue split
1960- OPEC formed
1965- France’s De Gaulle voices concern about the viability of the US-backed gold standard
1967- London Gold Pool collapses after French withdraw
1970- The United States hits peak domestic oil production and begins era of massive oil imports
1971- Nixon closes the United States gold window
1973- Yom Kippur War
1973-74- Arab Oil Embargo
1974- Kissinger arranges for Petrodollar in the Technical Cooperation Agreement
1980-1988- Iran-Iraq War
1986- Saudi Arabia increases oil production, cratering global oil prices
1990- Iraq invades Kuwait
1991- US-led coalition in Operation Desert Storm repels Iraqi forces from Kuwait
2001- Osama bin Laden claims responsibility for attacks in New York, Washington D.C. citing US military presence in Saudi Arabia
2003- US invades Iraq
2003- US Combat Air Operations moved from Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia to Al Udeid Air Base built in Qatar
2006- Israel-Lebanon War
2010- Arab Spring spreads from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain
2012-Present- Syrian Civil War
2014-Present- Libyan Civil War
2015-Present- European migrant crisis

References:

– The Kingdom of Oil, Vicker (1974)
– The Prize, Yergin (1990)
– In an Uncertain World, Rubin (2003)
– Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Perkins (2004)
– Petrodollar Warfare, Clark (2005)
– Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America (2013) – http://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/
– Kissinger, Saudis and Birthing the Petrodollar, 28Sherman (2013) – https://28sherman.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/kissinger-saudis-and-birthing.html
– The Corporate Illogic of Outsourcing and Offshoring, Smith (2014) – http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/07/corporate-illogic-outsourcing-offshoring.html
– The Structure and Genius of ISIS, Landry (2015) – http://www.socialmatter.net/2015/08/02/the-structure-and-genius-of-isis/
– Expert: Oil Price Wars Fatally Wounded the Petrodollar, Russia Insider (2015) – http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/02/04/3126
– Manufacturing Job Loss – Trade, Not Productivity, Is the Culprit, Scott (2015) – http://www.epi.org/publication/manufacturing-job-loss-trade-not-productivity-is-the-culprit/
– WikiLeaks Shows a Saudi Obsession With Iran, Hubbard and Sheikh (2015) – https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/world/middleeast/wikileaks-saudi-arabia-iran.html
– The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia’s 41-Year U.S. Debt Secret, Bloomberg (2016) – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-05-30/the-untold-story-behind-saudi-arabia-s-41-year-u-s-debt-secret
– End Of An Era: The Rise And Fall Of The Petrodollar System, Zerohedge (2016) – http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-22/end-era-rise-and-fall-petrodollar-system
– Not All Geopolitical Problems Are America’s Fault, Landry (2016) – http://www.socialmatter.net/2016/01/31/not-all-geopolitical-pro
– Dark Alliance – The CIA, Contras, and the Crack-Cocaine Epidemic, Smith (2016) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/dark-alliance-the-cia-contras-and-the-crack-cocaine-epidemic/
– The CIA – Wilderness of Mirrors, Myth of the 20th Century (2017) – http://www.socialmatter.net/2017/02/17/myth-20th-century-episode-7-cia-wilderness-mirrors/
– Here’s How The Trump Presidency Will Play Out, Escobar (2017) – http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-21/pepe-escobar-heres-how-trump-presidency-will-play-out
– The Modern Economy and the Consequences of the Petrodollar, Landry (2017) – http://www.socialmatter.net/2017/02/12/the-petrodollar-and-its-consequences/
– Petrodollar Recycling, Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_recycling
– Price to Rent Ratios in the United States, Zillow – http://zillow.com/research/data
– Petrodollar, Wikispooks – https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Petrodollar
– Oil Sankey Diagrams – http://www.sankey-diagrams.com/tag/oil/
– Triffin’s Dilemma – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma
– Yinon Plan – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 10: Petrodollar – American Political Economy appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Alex Nicholson, Hank Oslo, Mark Brown, and Nick Mason.

Notes:

Every generation has a choice – that of adopting the previous generation’s ways and customs, or to cast some or all of these away in forging a new path. Most choose the former, inheriting the structural inertia of generations past, while occasionally, a people decide the time is right to try something new. In the aftermath of WWI and the subsequent poverty, hyperinflation, or eventual depression ultimately experienced in the 1930s, Italy, Germany, and the United States each broke from prior traditions of free market liberal democracy to that of a more authoritarian, centralized command economy that, to varying degrees of success on the verge of WWII, had brought each of the nations out of the depths of the Great Depression. Today, we examine these three New Deals.

Timeline:

1922- Benito Mussolini leads 30,000 Fascist blackshirts on the March on Rome, after which he is appointed Prime Minister by King Victor Emmanuel III
1925- Italy begins the ‘Battle of the Grain’
1926- Italy begins the ‘Battle of the Lira’
1928- Italy begins the ‘Battle of the Land’, which by 1933 successfully drains and reclaims the Pontine marshes, which had lain fallow for over 2,000 years
1928- Franklin Delano Roosevelt elected governor of New York
1929-39- Italian economy grows by 16%
1932- although relatively unaffected by the Great Depression, Italian unemployment rises to 1.2 million (about 3%)
1933- The Industrial Reconstruction Institute (IRI) formed, giving Italy the largest state-owned industrial sector in Europe (excluding the USSR)
1933- FDR inaugurated, begins ‘First 100 Days’ of intensive legislative activity
1933- Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) begins paying American farmers to destroy produce and livestock
1933- Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employs young American men to perform unskilled work in rural areas
1933- Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) begins modernization of poor river valley and construction of hydroelectric dams
1933- Adolf Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany
1933- NSDAP share of the vote reaches 43.9%, making it the largest party in Germany
1933- construction begins on the Reichsautobahn, finishing roughly 2,500 miles of expressway in Germany by 1941
1933-1936- German employment in construction rises from 666,000 to over 2,000,000
1934- German Charter of Labour passed, banning worker strikes
1934- The United States passes the Communication Act, restricting radio licenses to 6 months, prompting a German PhD student to remark: “State control is a reality in America today”
1935- National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) / Wagner Act sets up National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to supervise American labor-management relations
1935- Work Progress Administration (WPA) provides work for several million in construction work, completing over 651,000 miles of roads, 125,000 buildings, and 8,000 parks by 1942
1935- Italy invades Ethiopia, League of Nations roundly condemns it
1936- military spending in Germany rose to 10% of GNP, in violation of the Versailles Treaty
1936- Italy and Germany jointly aid Franco’s Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War
1937-38- The United States experiences a recession, bringing unemployment from 14.3% to 19%
1939- German arms production accounts for 60% of government spending
1939- Germany invades Poland, France and Britain declare war on Germany, beginning World War II
1940- FDR institutes the first peacetime draft in the United States, unemployment drops to under 10%

References:

– The Doctrine of Fascism, Mussolini (1932)
– The New Dealers’ War, Fleming (2002)
– Depression, War, and Cold War, Higgs (2006)
– Three New Deals, Schivelbusch (2006)
– New Deal – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/new_deal
– The Great Depression – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
– The Great Depression 3 – New Deal, New York – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5n4u4cF4Pg
– Inside the Third Reich, Myth of the 20th Century – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/inside-the-third-reich-part-1-before-the-war/
– Germany: The Rise of Adolf Hitler, Delong – http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/TCEH/Slouch_Purge15.html
– Great Depression Statistics, http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html
– Federal Net Outlays as Percent of Gross Domestic Product, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 9: The New Deal – Reflections On Italy, Germany, And The United States appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Hank Oslo, Alex Nicholson, Nick Mason, and Mark Brown.

Notes:

Like war, few who haven’t experienced losing their job and home, let alone seeing millions of others experience the same, can fully understand the suffering and psychological horror an economic depression brings. But from 1929 to 1932, the United States experienced its worst depression in history, and the world’s deepest decline in industrial production, falling 46%, and unemployment that reached 25%. With few exceptions, the Great Depression was a global one, stretching on for nearly the entire 1930s, with most countries failing to escape its grasp – setting the stage for world war in the 1940s.

Timeline:

1920s- economic structure: after severe recession following decline in WWI arms production, manufacturing industry consolidates and shifts to consumer market, growing with help from credit, Ford Motor company being the leading company developing a model for American middle class manufacturing jobs
1920s- wealth and income: worker productivity rises by 43 percent, but gains funneled to the top; 1/2 million dollar / year income rises from 156 to 1,459 from 1920 to 1929; taxation rates decline for the rich, and 80% of all earners will be dropped form income taxation completely; minimum wage and child labor laws are struck down
1924- stock market begins stratospheric climb, disconnecting with economic growth
1928- stocks rise by 40 percent
1929- signs of a bubble: backlog of business inventories, production declines 20% by August
1929- October- stock market crash
1929- Hebert Hoover elected President
1930- Federal Reserve cuts prime interest rate from 6 to 4 percent; Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon will stand by as the market “Liquidate labor, liquidate real estate.. values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wreck from less-competent people”
1930- Smoot-Hawley tariff passed; most modern economists consider it having negligible impact on the US economy, but a major on in Europe
1930- GNP falls 9.4%, unemployment goes from 3.2% to 8.7%
1931- GNP falls 8.5%, unemployment rises to 15.9%
1931- Germany, England go off gold standard
1932- GNP falls 13.4%, unemployment rises to 23.6%
1932- industrial stocks down 80% since 1930, 10,000 banks failed, 40% of total, 13 million Americans lost their jobs since 1929
1932- top tax rate raised form 25% to 63%
1932- 17,000 WWI veterans march on Washington DC to demand cash payment redemption of their service certificates; demonstration broken up by Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, demands rejected
1933- Franklin Delano Roosevelt inaugurated, begins ‘First 100 Days’ of intensive legislative activity

References:

– America’s Great Depression, Rothbard (1972)
– Depression, War, and Cold War, Higgs (2006)
– The Great Depression 1 – A Job at Ford’s – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjH4pCatx0I
– The Great Depression 2 – The road to rock bottom – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nWJ-A54b2w
– Bernanke: Federal Reserve caused Great Depression, Kuelian (2009) – http://www.wnd.com/2008/03/59405/
– The “Second Great Wave” of Immigration: Growth of the Foreign-Born Population Since 1970 (2014) – http://blogs.census.gov/2014/02/26/the-second-great-wave-of-immigration-growth-of-the-foreign-born-population-since-1970/
– Federal Net Outlays as Percent of Gross Domestic Product, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
– Great Depression Statistics, http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html
– Homelessness in the United States, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States#20th_Century
– 1930 United States Census, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census
– The Great Depression Facts, Timeline, Causes, Pictures, http://www.stockpickssystem.com/the-great-depression/
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#/media/File:Total_government_spending_on_all_levels_(United_States).png
– http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/connections_n2/great_depression.html
– John Williams’ Shadow Government Stats – http://www.shadowstats.com/
– Bonus Army – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
– https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Depression
– “It takes a great man to be a good listener.” – Calvin Coolidge

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 8: Origins Of The Great Depression appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Nick Mason, Hank Oslo, and Alex Nicholson.

Notes:

America’s chief spy masters – the Central Intelligence Agency – came into creation during the second world war, and it received official congressional funding with the National Security Act of 1947. Ever since, the CIA has been involved in every major war the United States has engaged in – officially or not – and now finds itself on the precipice between supporting the ongoing ostensible “War on Terror”, pivoting its focus towards the rise of Red China, re-engaging its Cold War rival in Russia, or even challenging the American president himself. It would not be for the first time. As is the nature of espionage, however, what is not known is arguably much larger than what is known. Today we’ll attempt to outline what we do know, and pose questions about what we do not.

Timeline:

1942- official formation of the Office of Strategic Services
1945- OSS disbanded
1947- CIA formed
1953- Allen Dulles made Director of Central Intelligence
1961- Allen Dulles removed by Kennedy
1975- Church Committee convened
2005- Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) formed

References:

– The National Security Act of 1947, http://www.governmentsecrets.com/the-national-security-act-of-1947/#
– Steve Pieczenik – http://stevepieczenik.com/
– The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Marchetti and Marks (1974)
– CIA Diary: Inside the Company, Agee (1975)
– The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, Marks (1991)
– Compromised Campus, Diamond (1992)
– Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Scott (1996)
– The Tatum Chronicles, Tatum (1996)
– Dark Alliance, Webb (1998)
– The Power Elite, Mills (2000)
– Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, Hoffman (2001)
– Katharine Graham’s Washington, Graham (2003)
– See No Evil, Baer (2003)
– The Politics of Heroin, McCoy (2003)
– The Strength of the Wolf, Valentine (2004)
– Secret History of the CIA, Trento (2007)
– The Baader Meinhof Complex, Edel (2008)
– Legacy of Ashes – the History of the CIA, Weiner (2008)
– The Mighty Wurlitzer, Wilford (2009)
– The Strength of the Pack, Valentine (2010)
– Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Alfredson (2011)
– Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, Rothbard (2011)
– The Cultural Cold War, Saunders (2013)
– American War Machine, Scott (2014)
– Weimerica Weekly – Episode 6 – America Is A Communist Country (2015) – http://www.socialmatter.net/2015/12/30/weimerica-weekly-episode-6/
– Dark Alliance – The CIA, Contras, and the Crack-Cocaine Epidemic, Myth of the 20th Century (2016) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/dark-alliance-the-cia-contras-and-the-crack-cocaine-epidemic/
– A Very Thin Line – Iran-Contra, Myth of the 20th Century (2016) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/a-very-thin-line/
– The Phoenix Program, Valentine (2016)
– The CIA as Organized Crime, Valentine (2017)
– The Iranian Revolution, Myth of the 20th Century (2017) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/the-iranian-revolution/

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 7: The CIA, Wilderness of Mirrors appeared first on Social Matter.

Welcome to the Myth of the 20th Century. The podcast airs on Fridays.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Hank Oslo, Alex Nicholson, and Mark Brown.

Notes:

Today, we are joined by a very special guest Jayoh de la Rey to talk about Rhodesia and South Africa.  After growing up in Detroit and working as a development economist in Africa, one day his convoy came under fire traversed a country road. Demonstrating his capability with a rifle, Jayoh soon found himself working with private mercenary groups defending diamond mines in South Africa. Now back in America, Jayoh reflects on his time spent seeing firsthand the realities of a still developing African nation, and implications it has for our nation back home.

Timeline:

1922- Votes against becoming province of South Africa.
1948- Afrikaner nationalist party elected in South Africa, cuts down immigration to preserve Afrikaner character of SA. Ian Smith elected to parliament for first time.
1953- Granted essentially self-governing status, basically a Dominion akin to Canada or Australia.
1956- Suez crisis. Essentially, US disallows European countries any more imperial ambitions.
1960- Congo independence & civil war. Many refugees flee to Rhodesian federation.
1962- Rhodesian Front, pro-independence / pro-white party, elected. Smith is deputy PM.
1963- Federation w/ Northern Rhodesia & Nyasaland dissolved.
1964- Harold Wilson elected Labour UK PM. Pushes for majority rule in Rhodesia. Ian Smith elected as Rhodesian PM on a quasi WN platform. Negotiations break down, naturally. Blacks largely boycott elections. The Anglicans say “please go to war if necessary” to Wilson.
1965- Unilateral Declaration of Independence, ie, without majority rule first. Civil disobedience and minor attacks commence. UK protests, but no attempt to use force. Embargoes of various sorts at varying levels of effectiveness, but mostly unsuccessful in exerting pressure.
1972- Bush war kicks off in earnest. ZAPU, ZIRPA, etc. begin significant attacks on isolated farms, stores, etc in countryside, bomb attacks on cities.
1974-75- Mozambique becomes independent of Portugal. Rhodesia effectively cut off, leaving only South Africa as quasi-ally. Rebels strike from Mozambique regularly. SA gets squishy on helping Rhodesia, putatively on account of Rhodesian policy of pro forma colorblind (with heavy bias towards “civilized” people) majority rule is in contradiction of their policy of apartheid. In reality, seems to be attempt to sacrifice Rhodesia for detente with other African countries.
1975- ZANU & other rebel groups solicit increased help from China, Cuba.
1976- SA government cuts off Rhodesia, effectively, begins withdrawing aid & pressuring for majority rule. Ian Smith agrees in principle to majority rule within 2 years. Boer / Anglo tensions blamed in part.
1977- Peak of Bush War.
1978- Majority elections agreed to in practice & scheduled.
1979- Lancaster House Agreement ending war; majority elections; whites still control most of the actual state agencies and apparatus, and ⅓ of seats in Parliament.
1980- New elections, Mugabe elected PM. Internationally recognized as independent. Essentially game over; immediately former rebel factions begin fighting. Ian Smith stays active in politics until ~1987, “I told you so.”

References:

– Racial Concentrations and Homelands, South Africa (1979) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:South_Africa_racial_map,_1979.gif
– The Last Empire – De Beers, Diamonds, and the World, Kanfer (1993)
– The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements, MacDonald (2002)
– Bitter Harvest: The Great Betrayal and the Dreadful Aftermath, Smith (2008)
– Fireforce: One Man’s War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, Cocks (2009)
– Amerikaner Free State, Murray (2016) – http://therightstuff.biz/2016/11/23/amerikaner-free-state/
– GDP per capita (current), % of world average, 1960-2012 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GDP_per_capita_%28current%29,_%25_of_world_average,_1960-2012;_Zimbabwe,_South_Africa,_Botswana,_Zambia,_Mozambique.png
– Rebel Yell 135: Jayoh de la Rey (2016) – https://radio.therightstuff.biz/2016/09/16/rebel-yell-135-jayoh-de-la-rey/
– Rebel Yell 147: Jayoh de la Rey, Part II (2016) – https://radio.therightstuff.biz/2016/12/01/rebel-yell-147-jayoh-de-la-rey-part-ii/
– Murder on the rise as South Africa fails to stem high crime rates (2016) – https://theconversation.com/murder-on-the-rise-as-south-africa-fails-to-stem-high-crime-rates-64912
– wheniwasawhenwe – https://wheniwasawhenwe.wordpress.com/
– South Africa Crime Map – http://www.southafrica.to/people/Quotes/crime/south-africa-crime-map.jpg
– AWB – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Weerstandsbeweging
– World IQ map: https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country
– Evolution of Population by Continent – http://www.geohive.com/earth/his_history1.aspx

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 6: Rhodesia, Last Days of Empire appeared first on Social Matter.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Alex Nicholson, Hank Oslo, Mark Brown, and Nick Mason.

Notes:

The Philippines has for centuries sat at the crossroads of foreign empires, serving as the gateway to the Pacific for the Moro, Spanish, American, and Japanese empires. As President Duterte considers aligning his country with the Chinese while leaving the relationship open to the Americans in the 21st century, we look back at the forces that shaped the Philippines in the 20th, starting with America’s invasion of the islands to displace the Spanish.

Timeline:

1897- Theodore Roosevelt becomes Assistant Secretary of the Navy
1898- February- USS Maine blown up
1898- April- US declares war on Spain
1898- May- Dewey destroys Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, troops land in Cuba, Battle of San Juan Hill
1898- December- Treaty of Paris
1899- Insurgency begins in the Philippines
1901- McKinley shot by anarchist, Theodore Roosevelt assumes presidency
1902- Insurgency ends, Philippines given semi-autonomy
1899-1913- Moro Rebellion
1935- Commonwealth status granted
1941-44- Japanese occupation
1944- Battle of Leyte Gulf, Americans rout occupying Japanese forces
1946- Treaty of Manila, Philippines becomes independent of the US
1965-86 – Ferdinand Marcos rules
2016- Rodrigo Duterte wins presidency

References:

– The Battle of Leyte Gulf, Battlefield, Season 2, Episode 5 (1996), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=posrOr6jCRQ
Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879, Goodrich (2002)
– Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Perkins (2005)
– A War of Frontier and Empire – The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902, Silbey (2008)
– The American Peril, Hardcore History 49, Carlin (2013)
– How To Explain The Rise Of Rodrigo Duterte, Yuray (2016), http://www.socialmatter.net/2016/10/24/explain-rise-rodrigo-duterte/
– A Closer Look At The Rise Of Rodrigo Duterte, Montilla (2016), http://www.socialmatter.net/2016/10/28/closer-look-rise-rodrigo-duterte/

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 5: The Philippines, Crucible of Empire appeared first on Social Matter.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Alex Nicholson, Mark Brown, and Nick Mason.

Notes:

The Yugoslavic people have a history stretching back centuries to the Ottoman Empire, but the concept of a “Southern Slav” national identity was first developed in the 20th century while within Austro-Hungarian Empire. Yugoslavia came into existence in 1918 after the end of WWI as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as a reward for fighting on the side of the Entente, and following fascist invasion in WWII emerged after the war as a communist country under the leadership Josip Broz Tito until his death in 1980. Shortly thereafter, moves by the different ethnic nationalities to assert more autonomy began, and as economic troubles mounted in the ‘80s and after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and later Kosovo from the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav federal government began, kicking off the Yugoslav Wars.

After the Dayton agreement in 1995 and later NATO bombing campaigns against Serbia in 1998-99, Kosovo and later Montenegro were the last regions to declare independence. Today, the former Yugoslavic republics remain at an uneasy peace, but maintain trade relations and no longer openly engage in ethnic conflict. Their complex relationship and breakup to this day gives the rest of the world the concept of “Balkanization” when describing a process whereby a once unified country fragments along ethno-nationalist lines.

Timeline:

1914- Serbian nationalist Gavarilo Princip shoots Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary
1914-1918- WWI and the destruction of Austria-Hungary
1918- Yugoslavia formed after WWI
1941-43- WWII fascist occupation
1948- break between Tito and Stalin
1974- constitutional reform
1980- death of Tito
1981- Kosovo protests
1990- breakup of the Soviet Union
1991- Slovenia leaves (Ten-Day War)
1991-95- Croatia War of Independence
1992-95- Bosnian War
1995- Dayton accords
1998-99- Kosovo War

References:

– The Breakup of Yugoslavia, Department of State, Office of the Historian, (1990-1992)
– The Balkans – Nationalism, War and the Great Powers – 1804-2012, Misha Glenny (2012), https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/breakup-yugoslavia
– The Balkans, Slavoj Žižek (2012), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYnda5JhOMM
– A House of Cards – The Collapse of Yugoslavia, Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History (2014), http://adst.org/2014/06/a-house-of-cards-the-collapse-of-yugoslavia/
– The USA Cannot Balkanize, Mark Yuray (2016), http://www.socialmatter.net/2016/04/22/the-u-s-a-cannot-balkanize/
– The USA Cannot Balkanize, Part II, Mark Yuray (2016), http://www.socialmatter.net/2016/05/31/usa-cannot-balkanize-part-ii/
– Interview with Mark Yuray (2017), http://www.socialmatter.net/author/markyuray/
– Consultation with Anton Silensky (2017), http://www.socialmatter.net/author/anton-silensky/

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 4: Origins And Breakup Of Yugoslavia appeared first on Social Matter.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Hank Oslo, and Nick Mason.

Notes:

After nearly two years of demonstrations against the Shah and his subsequent exile, on April 1st 1979 Iran elected by referendum Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the Supreme Leader of a new Islamic republic, thus ending the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who had held power since WWII.

To Western eyes, the Iranian Revolution may appear to have come out of nowhere, considering economic progress in Iran and the good relations the Western powers had with the Shah. However, the conflict between modernism and traditionalism stretch back as far as the 12th century as Iran observed economic and scientific progress in Europe, compounded later by the military and territorial gains of European colonialism, it struggled to reconcile its own traditions dating back to Persian empire and Zoroastrianism prior to Islam’s rise in 7th century. After being exiled in 1964, Ruhollah Khomeini had become a symbol for many in Iran seeking a return to traditionalism, and a voice for many in the country as they listened to his widely distributed audio tapes who were frustrated with what they saw as corruption in the Shah’s regime and illegitimacy of authority stemming from his backing by the US and the UK after the 1953 coup of the Mossadegh government.

As the price of oil collapsed in 1976, and with the election of Jimmy Carter in the United States and liberal media and NGOs such as Amnesty International openly criticizing the Shah’s human rights record, Khomeini and his followers were able to instigate a revolution that overturned the weakened and discredited Shah. Since then, the theocratic government of Iran has in many ways become more autocratic than its predecessor, and has counterposed itself explicitly against the Unites States and Israel, most notably with the former during the 444 days of holding 52 of its citizens hostage in the American embassy in Tehran at the outbreak of the revolution. After fighting a bloody war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988, and the subsequent destruction of its Iraqi rival over the next three decades, Iran has emerged as a regional power that continues to project influence through the Shia Muslim world with sponsorship of groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and notable efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Timeline:

1901- D’arcy concession
1907- Partition between UK and USSR
1908- Oil struck in Abadan
1917- Russian Revolution
1919- Ango-Iranian takes over D’arcy concession
1921- Reza Khan operation against Qajars
1926- Reza Shah Pahlavi is anointed
1933- Shah renegotiates the D’arcy concession
1941- UK and USSR invade Iran and Reza abdicates, son Mohammad Reza assumes throne
1944- Reza dies in Johannesburg, attempt on Mohammad Reza’s life
1951- Mossadegh nationalizes oil
1952- Gamal Abdel Nasser installed as President of Egypt
1953- Mossadegh overthrown
1961- White Revolution
1963- June 5th uprising
1964- Khomeini exiled from Iran
1973-74- oil price triples
1976- Jimmy Carter elected President of the United States
1976- oil price collapses
1978-79- Islamic Revolution

References:

– The Anglo American Establishment, Quigley (1981)
– All the Shah’s Men, Kinzer (2003)
– The Shah and the Ayatollah, Hoveyda (2003)
– Devil’s Game, Dreyfuss (2006)
– Khomeini’s Ghost, Coughlin (2010)
– Why Intelligence Fails, Jervis (2010)
– The Brothers, Kinzer (2013)
– US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution, Emery (2013)
– Pepe Escobar: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html
– Iranian historian Abdollah Shahbazi

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 3: The Iranian Revolution appeared first on Social Matter.

— Brought to you by —

Adam Smith, Hank Oslo, Alex Nicholson, and Mark Brown.

Notes:

When Leonid Brezhnev became General Secretary in 1964, the Soviet Union began an era of stagnation. As economic growth slowed and military tensions with the United States were reduced during détente, the Soviet leadership pursued a policy of stabilization, demonstrating their resolve when the military dispatched Warsaw Pact tanks into Prague to stop reforms being pursued in Czechoslovakia. By the 1980s, the economic and political stagnation had worsened, however, and Mikhail Gorbachev began a series of reforms of his own in the Soviet Union under perestroika. As the 9-year war in Afghanistan began draining government coffers already run low by a substantial decline in oil prices, the USSR started to break apart as communist East Germany rejoined its capitalist brother to the west, and Warsaw Pact nations such as Poland and Lithuania began moves towards independence. On Christmas Day, 1991, Gorbachev officially announced the dissolution of the USSR, and Boris Yeltsin was declared President of Russia.

What followed was a severe economic contraction, with unemployment rising and many ordinary citizens falling into homelessness and early mortality. Large portions of strategic state assets in the heavy mining, energy, and industrial sectors were parceled off to these same citizens, who often out of desperation sold their shares and ended up handing much of the Russian economy to a new class of billionaire oligarchs. This concentration of wealth continued until 2000, when Vladimir Putin became Russian president and began a series of moves reversing much of the economic chaos and restoring some semblance of order to Russian society.

References:

– Failed Empire, Zubokov (2009)
– The Limits of Partnership (2014)
– The Colder War, Katusa (2014)
– The Oligarchs, Hoffman (2002)
– Red Plenty, Suppford (2012)
– Inside the Soviet Army, Suvorov (1983)
– Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn (1974)
– Magnetic Mountain, Kotkin (1995)
– A Failed Empire, Kubok (2007)
– National Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State, Bessinger (2002)
– The 33 Strategies of War, Greene (2007)

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 2: Collapse of the Soviet Union appeared first on Social Matter.

I’m excited to announce the addition of an excellent new podcast on Social Matter called The Myth of The 20th Century, which is run by a team of talented historical researchers.

You’ll get to know them well over the course of future episodes. They’ll air on Fridays, though likely not every week.

History is such a fruitful, yet often neglected subject in the reactosphere, partly because it takes a lot of hard work and sifting through countless archives and documents. Opinions are easy. Historical research is difficult. This podcast will definitely help to fill some of the gaps from a reactionary perspective.

On an administrative note, It’ll take one or two episodes for the transition to come in smoothly, while we iron out some of the details on format, etc. For example, the podcast says episode 11, but we’re starting out the series back at episode 1 here.

Enjoy. Leave some feedback!

Notes:

Richard Milhous Nixon became the 37th President of the United States on 1969, and in 1974 became the first president ever to resign from the White House. In what many regarded as a brilliant administration in terms foreign policy with the ending of the Vietnam War, detente with Russia, and a re-opening of diplomatic relations with China, he presided over a mixed domestic track record with economic stagnation, inflation, ending of the gold standard, price controls, and gasoline rationing. Despite what many on the left wished to portray him as, Nixon was a political moderate in many ways, borrowing much from the progressive agenda in enforcing desegregation and creating the Environmental Protection Agency. After what became synonymous for every subsequent political scandal in the United States, Nixon’s opponents brought him down after a botched break in attempt at the Watergate Hotel showed members of his re-election team were attempting to steal information from the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Facing almost certain impeachment, Nixon stepped down August 9th, 1974.

The post Myth Of The 20th Century – Episode 1: Nixon appeared first on Social Matter.