This month's featured book:
The
Good Fight
By Ralph Nader
Declare Your
Independence & Close the Democracy Gap
Freedom is
participation in power,”
said the Roman orator Cicero. By this deep definition, freedom
is in short supply for tens of millions of Americans, a scarcity
with serious consequences.
Back in the summer,
I was having a heated discussion about the 2008 presidential
election with a friend of mine. My friend was a proud Barack
Obama supporter, apparently because he is definitely the lesser
of two evils, and I was equally proud of my choice, Ralph Nader.
He lobbed many of the usual charges thrown at Nader supporters,
like,
“A
vote for Nader is a vote for John McCain!”
Comments like that roll off my back largely because they are
undemocratic in nature. One argument that my friend uttered,
however, has lingered in my head since that day. He stated,
with a straight face,
“All
Ralph Nader does is run for president ever four years!”
I was astounded by
the lack of knowledge that my friend, a so-called progressive
American, had of one of the most progressive activist America
has ever seen. In The Good Fight, written in 2004, Ralph
Nader invites us to join him on his justice-fighting campaign by
outlining why we should, and how we can, get involved. For
anyone who has thought that their government was not working for
them; that the current system is leading to a spiraling decline
of our community, environment, and justice system; that the
priorities of our
“elected”
leaders have been outrageously misguided; that they somehow
would like to get more involved and didn’t
know where or how to begin, I encourage you to give The Good
Fight, a very readable 275 pages, a solid look.
(Read more.)
More recommended
reading
Open
Veins of Latin America
By Eduardo Galeano
Since its
U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a
new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is
also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural
narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest
description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx.
Rather than
chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano
has organized the various facets of Latin American history
according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation.
Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton,
rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron,
nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin.
These are the veins which he traces through the body of the
entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the
Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty
into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe.
Weaving
fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific
analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people.
An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous
style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers
interested in great historical, economic, political, and social
writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an
overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably.
A People’s History of the United States
By Howard
Zinn
Consistently
lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated
edition of A People's History of the United States turns
traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses
the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians,
war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this
thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher
Columbus's arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.
(Howardzinn.org)
Hegemony or Survival: America’s
Quest for Global Dominance
By Noam
Chomsky
In this richly
detailed criticism of American foreign policy, he seeks to
redefine many of the terms commonly used in the ongoing American
war on terrorism. Surveying U.S. actions in Cuba, Nicaragua,
Turkey, the Far East and elsewhere over the past half a century
along with the modern American war in Iraq, Chomsky indicates
that America is just as much a terrorist state as any other
government or rogue organization.
(chomsky.info)
Build it
Now: Socialism for the 21st Century
By Michael
A. Lebowitz
Build It Now
puts forward a clear and innovative vision of a socialist
future, and at the same time shows how concrete steps can be
taken to make that vision a reality. It shows how the
understanding of capitalism can itself become a political act—a
defense of the real needs of human beings against the ongoing
advance of capitalist profit.
(more
information)
Hugo!
The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution
By Bart
Jones
While opinions of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez vary
tremendously on a global scale, there are few defenses of him
available in the United States. This biography by Bart Jones, a
former AP correspondent from Venezuela, attempts to level the
ground. Without taking a political stance, Jones provides a
nuanced account of the Venezuelan leader's life, creating a
portrait that is, if not sympathetic, certainly more balanced
than previous ones. (From Random House-
read more)
