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The Chris Hedges Report Pocast with Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani on his documentary Coup 53 about the CIA coup that overthrew the democratic government in Iran seventy years ago this week. Chris Hedges

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On Aug. 19, 1953, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had seized Iran’s vast oil fields from the British and put them under Iranian control, was removed from power in a coup organized and financed by the British and U.S. governments. He was replaced by the dictatorial Shah who immediately signed over forty percent of Iran’s oil fields to U.S. companies. The coup ushered in a long nightmare of repression, buttressed by Iran’s brutal secret police, Savak, trained and equipped by the CIA. The Shah not only crushed the democratic aspirations of Iranians, but enriched U.S. oil companies and purchased billions of dollars of weapons from U.S. weapons manufacturers.

The CIA and the British intelligence used bribery, libel, black propaganda that accused Mossadegh of being a communist, assassinations and orchestrated riots by paid mercenaries to overthrow the democratic government. They hired agents to pose as communists to threaten religious leaders, while the U.S. ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals. They oversaw the assassination of the chief of police, Mahmoud Afshartous, a Mossadegh loyalist, leaving his mutilated body on the street as a warning to others who might defend the democracy. At least 300 people were killed in fighting in the streets of Tehran. Mossadegh’s house was surrounded by and attacked, killing many of his security detail. Mossadegh was sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life.

The dictatorship of the Shah fueled the virulent anti-American backlash that led to the 1979 revolution and the establishment of a militant Islamic government. The Iran coup became the template used by the CIA to overthrow other governments around the globe that challenged U.S. imperialism and exploitation by global corporations. The list of CIA orchestrated coups that installed compliant right-wing dictatorships includes not only Iran but Guatemala, Indonesia, South Vietnam, the Congo, the Dominican Republic, Iraq, Indonesia, Cambodia, Chile, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Angola, East Timor, Argentina and Afghanistan. Hundreds of million people suffered because of U.S. interference the loss of their freedom, impoverishment and repression because of these interventions. They were sacrificed on the altar of U.S. power and corporate profit. Joining me to discuss his documentary, Coup 53, is the is Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani. His film uses newly discovered archival material to expose how the CIA worked clandestinely to overthrow Mossadegh, providing us as well with the blueprint for the numerous other CIA coups carried out in the last few decades.

 

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Marianne Williamson: The Democratic Elite Should Resign Marianne Williamson

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Marianne Williamson: The Democratic Elite Should Resign

Marianne Williamson. (Shuran Huang for The Free Press)

At half past eleven last night, Democratic campaigner Marianne Williamson joined us on our epic six-hour livestream. Marianne has run to be the Democratic presidential candidate twice: in 2020, when she ultimately endorsed Bernie Sanders, and in 2024, against Joe Biden. By the time she joined us, Trump’s win looked inevitable. We asked her what her initial reactions were. What follows is an edited transcript of her response.

Well, obviously I’m not happy about it. But I also feel that everything that went wrong is what I’ve been saying would go wrong for the last year and a half. I ran for president because I knew that the traditional Democratic playbook—the corporate Democrats are in charge of that playbook now—would not be enough to defeat Trump this time. I’ve said repeatedly that this election would be more like 2016 than like 2020, and it’s very clear to me that the elites of the Democratic Party and media don’t know how to read the room. The Democratic elite should resign their positions tonight. Many of those people have not sauntered out of their gated communities long enough to have made sense of what is going on out there. 

Over the last year and a half, we could have been having a robust conversation about the following facts:

  • 46 percent of Americans are regularly skipping meals in order to pay their rent.

  • 70 to 90 million people are underinsured or uninsured.

  • Over half of our bankruptcies are medical bankruptcies.

  • One in four Americans live with medical debt.

  • 1.3 million Americans are rationing their insulin.

  • Over 70 percent of Americans say that they are living with chronic economic anxiety.

People are feeling hopeless out in America now. In my opinion, Donald Trump offers false hope. He’ll name a pain, but he will not name a policy that’s going to fix it. But people will take false hope over no hope. 

And the Democratic Party offered no hope. Instead of talking about these things, what the Democratic elite did was this: They just decided on an agenda. We weren’t even supposed to discuss what an agenda might be. They suppressed a presidential primary. They felt, in their smug arrogance, such a sense of entitlement: They would choose Joe, then they would choose Kamala, and they would suppress any candidate or any conversation about the wider issues that could have provided a compelling alternative—a compelling vision—for the American people.

Watch Marianne Williamson discuss why the Democrats failed:

Where do we go now? 


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November 9, 2024 Heather Cox Richardson

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“Off the Bar” is one of my favorites of my friend Peter’s photographs, and after I fiddled around with all sorts of images and captions that hinted at the chaos of these days, I threw them all out and just came back to this image of peace and quiet for tonight.

I’m still catching up on sleep and am headed to bed early. I hope you all can do the same.

I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

[“Off the Bar,” by Peter Ralston.]

Notes:

You can find Peter and his wife Terri at the gallery in Rockport, Maine, or online at: www.ralstongallery.com.

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I Raised $50 Million for the Democrats. This Week, I Voted for Trump. Evan Barker

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I Raised $50 Million for the Democrats. This Week I Voted for Trump.

The author, Evan Barker, is a former political operative and fundraiser. (Jason Henry for The Free Press)

I was 17 when I started working in Democratic politics. While still in high school, I was an intern for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign; later, I served as a field organizer for Hillary Clinton. By the time I turned 26, I was a consultant for dozens of U.S. House and Senate campaigns, four George Soros-backed district attorney races, and a wide range of Democratic organizations. I’ve raised at least $50 million for the left. 

And yet, on Tuesday, I voted for Donald Trump. It felt like the biggest middle finger I’ve ever raised to the party I’d supported for most of my adult life. When he won, I was utterly euphoric. 

Let me tell you why. 


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