Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon : Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil

[Junkdrawer]

Santa was good to me this morning. I just got a copy of this book which shows the history of Nelson Rockefeller's use of Christian Fundamentalism in neocolonialism....


Nelson Rockefeller, who died in 1979, owned vast Latin American real estate and cattle ranching, mining, industrial and financial interests centered in Brazil. To protect his empire and secure Third World assets for exploitation by U.S. capitalism, Rockefeller-a top Latin American adviser to presidents from FDR to Nixon, and Ford's vice-president-played a dominant role in shaping the U.S.'s interventionist policy in Latin America, according to this blistering expose based on 18 years of research. Rockefeller, as President Eisenhower's special assistant for Cold War strategy, oversaw the CIA's covert operations abroad and was privy to assassination plots and mind-control experiments, the authors maintain. Colby (DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain) and his wife, Dennett, a freelance journalist, charge that Rockefeller, his banks and their allies, working with the CIA, bolstered repressive regimes in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay. Forcible dislocation of native peoples, hunger, disease, genocide and the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rain forest are the legacy of these policies, in the authors' analysis. Another key player in this massive narrative is ultraconservative William Cameron Townsend (1896-1982), founder of the Protestant missionary organization Wycliffe Bible Translators, which worked in concert with Rockefeller and which the authors accuse of destroying indigenous peoples' cultural values to abet penetration by U.S. businesses.


http://www.amazon.com/Thy-Will-Done-Rockefeller-Evangelism/dp/0060927232/sr=8-1/qid=1167051903/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-2828875-7364045?ie=UTF8&s=books

BTW: Don't look for this book at your local booksellers. It and Colby's other work are infamous in book suppression ("privishing") discussions.

Drawn from the personal experiences of many seasoned journalists who have collected just about every award the profession offers, the book is edited by Kristina Borjesson, who contributes an important chapter about her investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800 for CBS, where she "walked into the buzzsaw."

"The buzzsaw is a powerful system of censorship in this country that is revealed to those reporting on extremely sensitive stories, usually having to do with high-level government and/or corporate malfeasance," Borjesson writes. "It often has a fatal effect on one's career."

Even the book publishing business has its buzzsaw, as Gerard Colby learned. Colby is the author of "DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain." The book was "privished," as Colby learned to his regret.

"Privishing" is short for "private publishing." Perversely, it is a method used by publishers to kill off a sensitive book without the author's permission or awareness.

By reducing the initial print run of a book, refusing to do reprints, cutting the advertising budget and the promotional tour, a publisher can guarantee a book's failure. It constitutes breach of contract, and in fact Colby sued his publisher, but battling a media giant's lawyers is an expensive and difficult proposition.


http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0711-05.htm

[stansnark]

1. "into the buzzsaw" - great book

[Swagman]

2. was it his son who disappeared mysteriously in New Guniea ?

[Junkdrawer]

4. Yep...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller

BTW: I'm told that the family is full of right wing kooks and died-in-the-wool liberal Democrats.

And you think your family is dysfunctional?

[Zensea]

5. Steven Rockefeller (Nelson's grandson) is on the board of Grameen Bank

the bank whose founder just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

http://www.grameenfoundation.org/who_we_are/our_people/board_members/steven_rockefeller_jr/

He is also on the board of directors of the Soros Development Fund.

[Junkdrawer]

7. And we're all hoping Jay will do us proud on the Senate Intel. Committee...n/t

[Junkdrawer]

3. BTW: Amy Goodman & DemocracyNow interviewed the authors in 1997...

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0326259&mode=thread&tid=5

[Junkdrawer]

6. ^^^ I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS INTERVIEW...

[Jcrowley]

8. Numero Uno

This book is top notch, one of THE very best, in deeply explaining the world of real politics and to see how foreign policy is shaped from the top of the mountain.

I've read it twice and am forever looking for a copy. Difficult to come by and usually beyond my limited means. Fortunately our local library has two copies.

Amazing, amazing book. Cannot recommend it highly enough for all out there.



Colby and Dennett found the Rockefeller connection particularly intriguing, and went on to investigate the Rockefeller family's financial interests in the commercial and industrial development of the Brazilian Amazon. In 1941, Nelson Rockefeller was named by president Roosevelt to the post of coordinator of the Office of Interamerican Affairs (CIAA), which ran intelligence and propaganda operations against the Nazis in Latin America. In one of its many flagrant violations of the separation between church and state, SIL assisted the CIAA in its Intensive Language Program for American and Latin American military officers and gathered intelligence on native peoples. As coordinator of the CIAA, Nelson acquired invaluable information about Latin America's untapped natural resources, especially mineral reserves, information that ended up in his files and which he used after the war, when he formed the International Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC). This company became a key component in the post-World War Two opening of the Amazon rainforest to commercial exploitation, a process that eventually led to military dictatorships, genocide of native peoples, loss of biological diversity and unprecedented misery for the majority of Brazilians.

The Rockefeller-led effort to conquer the Amazon and exploit its natural riches had been made possible in no small measure by SIL's missionary activities. Colby and Dennett found a historic parallel in John D. Rockefeller, Sr.'s support for Christian missionaries in the American west, who were compiling extremely useful information on Native American communities, which were potential sources of opposition to the entrance of Standard Oil into their lands.' As a bonus, the evangelization process weakened the American Indians' social structure and so undermined their resolve to fight for their rights. The authors quote Baptist reverend Frederick Gates, who for many years was John D. Sr.'s right-hand man, as saying that "We are only in the very dawn of commerce, and we owe that dawn to the channels opened up by Christian missionaries.... The effect of the missionary enterprise of the English speaking peoples will be to bring them the peaceful conquest of the world."

On the other hand, it is also true that SIL's mission was greatly helped by the Rockefellers and the industrial development process that they were such an important part of. SIL's missionaries believe that when the last tribe in the jungles is evangelized, the Second Coming of the Lord will take place; so for them the race to develop the Amazon basin's natural resources is only a means to an end. In practice, this symbiotic relationship between commercial exploitation and Christian fundamentalism was a match made in hell that spelled doom for native peoples and the rainforests they inhabited.

The authors follow Nelson Rockefeller's consuming interest in Latin America: his days in Venezuela working for Standard Oil subsidiary Creole Petroleum, where he developed his concepts of corporate social responsibility; his tenure as coordinator of the CIAA; his brief stint as Assistant Secretary of State, in which he was a key behind-the-scenes player in the international negotiations that led to the founding of the United Nations and the Organization of American States; his formation of IBEC, his service to the Eisenhower administration as special assistant for cold war strategy, a position in which he was briefed on top secret CIA operations, including coup d'etats and the infamous MKULTRA mind control experiments, his membership in president Nixon's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board at a time when the CIA was destabilizing Salvador Allende's democratic socialist government in Chile, and much more.

http://www.cephas-library.com/church_n_state_rockefeller_and_evangelism.html

[Junkdrawer]

9. .

[Junkdrawer]

10. .

[Joanne98]

11. Is there anything we can do about "Privishing"

It is happening alot these days. I noticed on Amazon that Gary Webbs book "Dark Alliance" is selling for $16 used. Also Lynne Cheney seemed to have privished her own book, the one with the lesbian love scene. But some lucky person had a copy, thank god.

I think authors should have a right to publish there own work, via the internet. If they had a disk and the right to reprint themselves it would help.

[Junkdrawer]

12. I'm guessing you sign your work away when you take the advance...

I see Colby's trying to sue on the basis of "Breach of Contract" because the publisher didn't fulfill the promotion duties of the contract. But since their pockets are so much deeper, they can drag it out longer than the author's meager resources.

[Junkdrawer]

13. A kick for Jerry Ford's VP...

:kick: