The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
by Naomi Wolf
from Chelsea Green Publishing
In a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century‚’s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.
The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties.
In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us‚–with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine‚’s revolutionary pamphlets‚–that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.
‚“Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty,‚” states Wolf.
Wolf is taking her message directly to the American people in the most accessible form and as part of a large national campaign to reach out to ordinary Americans about the dangers we face today. This includes a lecture and speaking tour, and being part of the nascent American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots efforts to ensure that presidential candidates pledge to uphold the constitution and protect our liberties from further erosion.
The End of America will shock, enrage, and motivate‚–spurring us to act, as the Founders would have counted on us to do in a time such as this, as rebels and patriots‚–to save our liberty and defend our nation.
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
by Jeremy Scahill
from Nation Books
The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom
by Robert A. Levy
from Sentinel HC
A non-lawyerÂ’s guide to the worst Supreme Court decisions of the modern era
The Dirty Dozen takes on twelve Supreme Court cases that changed American history—and yet are not well known to most Americans.
Starting in the New Deal era, the Court has allowed breathtaking expansions of government power that significantly reduced individual rights and abandoned limited federal government as envisioned by the founders.
For example:
• Helvering v. Davis (1937) allowed the government to take money from some and give it to others, without any meaningful constraints
• Wickard v. Filburn (1942) let Congress use the interstate commerce clause to regulate even the most trivial activities—neither interstate nor commerce
• Kelo v. City of New London (2005) declared that the government can seize private property and transfer it to another private owner
Levy and Mellor untangle complex Court opinions to explain how The Dirty Dozen harmed ordinary Americans. They argue for a Supreme Court that will enforce what the Constitution actually says about civil liberties, property rights, racial preferences, gun ownership, and many other controversial issues.
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
by Sam Harris
from W. W. Norton
Sam Harris cranks out blunt, hard-hitting chapters to make his case for why faith itself is the most dangerous element of modern life. And if the devil's in the details, then you'll find Satan waiting at the back of the book in the very substantial notes section where Harris saves his more esoteric discussions to avoid sidetracking the urgency of his message.
Interestingly, Harris is not just focused on debunking religious faith, though he makes his compelling arguments with verve and intellectual clarity. The End of Faith is also a bit of a philosophical Swiss Army knife. Once he has presented his arguments on why, in an age of Weapons of Mass Destruction, belief is now a hazard of great proportions, he focuses on proposing alternate approaches to the mysteries of life. Harris recognizes the truth of the human condition, that we fear death, and we often crave "something more" we cannot easily define, and which is not met by accumulating more material possessions. But by attempting to provide the cure for the ills it defines, the book bites off a bit more than it can comfortably chew in its modest page count (however the rich Bibliography provides more than enough background for an intrigued reader to follow up for months on any particular strand of the author' musings.)
Harris' heart is not as much in the latter chapters, though, but in presenting his main premise. Simply stated, any belief system that speaks with assurance about the hereafter has the potential to place far less value on the here and now. And thus the corollary -- when death is simply a door translating us from one existence to another, it loses its sting and finality. Harris pointedly asks us to consider that those who do not fear death for themselves, and who also revere ancient scriptures instructing them to mete it out generously to others, may soon have these weapons in their own hands. If thoughts along the same line haunt you, this is your book.--Ed Dobeas
An impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith.
This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes-heinous crimes. He asserts that in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another. Most controversially, he argues that we cannot afford moderate lip service to religionan accommodation that only blinds us to the real perils of fundamentalism. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris also draws on new evidence from neuroscience and insights from philosophy to explore spirituality as a biological, brain-based need. He calls on us to invoke that need in taking a secular humanistic approach to solving the problems of this world.
Natalie Angier wrote in the New York Times: "The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated
.Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."
Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe
by Arianna Huffington
from Knopf
With her trademark passion, intelligence, and devastating wit, Huffington Post editor in chief Arianna Huffington tackles the issues that are crucial to this year’s presidential election and, even more so, to the fate of the country.
Huffington makes the case that America has been hijacked from within by a radical element—the “lunatic fringe” of the Right that has taken over the Republican Party. Despite holding views at odds with the majority of Americans, these zealots have given us an endless war in Iraq, a sputtering economy, a health care system on life support, a war on science and reason, and an immoral embrace of torture.
But they haven’t done it on their own: they have been enabled by a compliant media that act as if there is no such thing as truth and are more interested in cozying up to those in power than in holding them accountable, and by feckless Democrats who have allowed themselves to be intimidated into backing down again and again.
Both a withering indictment and a hopeful call to arms, Right Is Wrong is an explosive, boldly incisive work that will help set the national agenda.
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
by Milton Friedman
from Harvest Books
The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, Revised Edition
by Fareed Zakaria
from W. W. Norton
differently."Washington Post
A modern classic that uses historical analysis to shed light on the present, The Future of Freedom is, as the Chicago Tribune put it, "essential reading for anyone worried about the promotion and preservation of liberty." Hailed by the New York Times as "brave and ambitious...updated Tocqueville," it enjoyed extended stays on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post bestseller lists and has been translated into eighteen languages. Prescient in laying out the distinction between democracy and liberty, the book now contains a new afterword on the United States's occupation of Iraq.
"Intensely provocative and valuable," according to BusinessWeek, with an easy command of history, philosophy, and current affairs, The Future of Freedom calls for a restoration of the balance between liberty and democracy and shows how politics and government can be made effective and relevant for our time. This new edition includes a new afterword on America in Iraq.
The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America
by Robert Scheer
from Twelve
In the course of his forty-year-career as one of
Scheer examines the expansion of our military presence throughout the world, our insane nuclear strategy, the immorality of corporations profiting in
The views of libertarians, liberals, and pacifists are often overlooked or ignored by America's mainstream media. The Pornography of Power is the culmination of a respected journalist's efforts to change the terms of debate
Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy
by Natan Sharansky
from PublicAffairs
Natan Sharansky, building on his personal experience as a dissident, argues that valueless cosmopolitanism, even in democracies, is dangerous. Better to have hostile identities framed by democracy than democrats indifferent to identity.
In a vigorous, insightful challenge to the left and right alike, Natan Sharansky, as he has proved repeatedly, is at the leading edge of the issues that frame our times.
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