Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread To clarify, i'm not sure if Brzezinski worked at the AEI, but he did work closely with Wolfowitz et al (who later did). Also, there's some minor disagreements on how to proceed, but the geostrategic world view is much the same.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Brzezinski definitely disagrees with the neo con men. http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/10/brzezinski-z-10-31.html
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread The Cousins Wars by Kevin Phillips Not military history chronicle but political analysis. You won't find a bit of who hit whose left flank with cavalry in this book. Goes through the demographics of who fought on which side of the English Civil War, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War, explains how all three were overwhelmingly civil wars, explains how basically the same folks fought on the same sides in all three wars, the same side won and the same side lost all three times, and then (too briefly) explains how all that impacts contemporary American politics.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread So You Think You're Human?: A Brief History of Humankind by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Got it for Christmas, about a third of the way through it now, great read. Oh yeah, and this one: Not just the parts that have been spoon-fed to us by the mainstream media. (I haven't had a chance to read the entire 9/11 report yet myself, but I've read enough of it to know that the parts that are widely reported are not representative samples).
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread OK, that first one is supposed to be "American Soldier" by Tommy Franks. I'm on my mom's old-ass computer using AOL, which is having trouble linking pictures from Amazon for some reason, so I'm resorting to looking for pictures on Yahoo, which apparently isn't working.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dorner. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...65/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-5353835-4943145 Not a book about politics, but a book about the phsychology of human problem solving (including political issues) and how we are so bad at such. Everyone should read this book - and it is both short and entertaining to boot.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Bought it just now, thanks. It will probably help me in examining the second part of my thesis, which critically analyses the decision-making behind the IOC's willful abdication of human rights language and concerns in its bid candidature documents (at least those leading to the 21st century Olympiads).
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Its really not a politics book, but rather a book that rags on political 'pundits'..anyway.. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken is great.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread "The Constitution of The United States of America" by Gouvernor Morris and friends
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Howard Zinn's "People's History" provides a very interesting perspective.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Disclaimer: Most people only read political books that help validate their own knee jerk, emotional, partisan opinions. Just see InTheNet's list. And honestly, I'm not very different. I don't want to wast my time reading the tripe of psycho conservatives. However, while I like to read books by moderates and liberals, I don't need to have my opinions validated, and often get bored by reading someone's work who merely agrees with me. But FWIW, I have actually read, or at least skimmed, books by conservatives (being the moderate lib I am). I read Dixie Lee Ray's "Environmental Overkill", at the request of a psycho conservative I worked with at the time. I read it with an open mind and found it to be goggligook (so many statements and assumptions easily disproved). BTW, that conservative co-worker never read anything I gave him - mind closed shut .... slam!!! Anyway, here's my list: "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - A Fair and Balanced View of the Right" - Al Franken - very, very funny, and very well researched, and very pognient. Sure to tick off any right wing wacko with the truth. And unlike anything by Ann Coulter, this book actually has real facts that are thoroughly backed up. It even has a section lambasting Ann Coulter and disproving any of her "facts", and exposing her for the true nut job she is. "America - The Book" - John Stewart and the writers from the Daily Show Absolutely Hilarious satire on American politics and democracy. Dems, Repubs, the media, the founding fathers, the ancient Greeks, none are not left unscathed. "1984" - George Orwell Everyone should read this book, and see it's premonitions becoming true today with the Bush administration.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Animal Farm is a classic of human behaviour that explains so much, so simply. It fits both sides of the political spectrum at some point or the other.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread BTW - I still think everyone should see Farenheit 9/11 (or read the companion book). Sure, Michael Moore is out there, and sure, conservatives hate him. Nevertheless, not a single fact in that movie has been refuted. The opinions and conclusions Moore comes to have been debated, but none of the facts have been refuted. The movie is a real eye opener, in terms of the kind of money being funneled to the Bushies from the Bin Ladens, and exposing the Bushies profit motives.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Nobody like the Bush administration but emm that's a bit over the top
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread I agree. Go see F911. Then buy and read the ENTIRE 911 Commission Report (something Michael Moore should have done before he released the movie) and if you really want to get a full background, watch FarenHYPE 911.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Men Amongst The Ruins - Julius Evola Plain Truth - James Chalmers Decline of the West - Oswald Spengler Various Writings online by Francis Parker Yockey Reflections on the Revolution in France - Edmund Burke Natural Right and History - Leo Strauss many writings online on Third Positionism
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread A great way to waste your time, you might as well read a Sean Hannity book.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread True Lies: The GNN book Can't trust it By Anthony Lappé and Stephen Marshall with additional reporting from Ian Inaba Dangerous journalism for perilous times “Inflammatory.” – Joe Hagan, The Observer (New York) “Must read.” – Marc Maron, host, Morning Sedition, Air America Radio “An extensive contribution to ongoing critiques of the media…[Their] presentation, which allows most of the stories to speak for themselves without heightened language, does manage to lead by example.” – Publishers Weekly “Stephen Marshall and Anthony Lappé are among a dying breed of journalists who still believe that journalism is about giving a voice to the voiceless and holding people in positions of power accountable for their actions.” – Metro, Silicon Valley’s weekly newspaper ”[A] good example of alternative media at its mischievous best.” – Now (Toronto) Our media sucks. But you already knew that. In True Lies, the writers at GNN don’t offer up another cranky complaint about media and politics. They hit the road, investigating some of the biggest stories the corporate media is ignoring. True Lies traces these digital Don Quixotes’ travels around the globe, from the frontlines in Iraq to small town America. Along the way, you’ll meet heroes and geniuses, the paranoid and the plain perplexed about what’s happening in the real America behind the headlines. From the poisoning of our own soldiers, to the turning over of our democratic process to shady corporations, to the unanswered questions of 9/11, the authors examine what has become a cultural phenomenon of mass denial. As an Oxford historian explains to them, “Life is lubricated by lies.” This may be the tagline for our times. In True Lies, GNN: - Conducts our own radiation tests in the battlefields of Iraq - Finds out the real deal behind the electronic voting scandal - Uncovers the shocking history of the military’s Anthrax vaccine - Chronicles the dramatic fall and rise of Cynthia McKinney, the nation’s most controversial former congressperson And more…
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Of all the political books I've read over the past couple years this book... Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq by Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/102-0560226-2543318?v=glance&s=books ...is the one I would recommend the most. Definitely don't judge it by the cover though.
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Since all I do for a living is read political books, here are some recommendations to any liberals on the boards. You'll notice pretty fast by my choices that I'm liberal, and that I'm recommending books dealing primarily with American society/politics. Glancing through this thread I noticed conservative literature was pretty well represented. 1. John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (they write for the economist) 2. Stephen Flynn, America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism (council on foreign relations) 3. Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America 4. David Brock, The Republican Noise Machine 5. Michael Scheurer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror 6. Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties 7. John Judis/Ruy Teixiera, The Emerging Democratic Majority 8. Eric Alterman, What Liberal Media? 9. Fahreed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad 10. Paul Krugman, The Great Unraveling 11. Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization 12. Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents 13. Barbara Ehrenreich - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America 14. Dan Benjamin/Steve Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror 15. Richard Bernstein, Out of the Blue: A Narrative of September 11, 2001 (not political per se but good) 16. Barry Glassner, The Culture of Fear 17. Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda 18. Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell" : America and the Age of Genocide 19. John Miller, Michael Stone, The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, And Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It 20. Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World (far better than Huntington's Clash of Civilizations)
Re: Politics Board Book Recommendation Thread Perhaps polemical but necessary: Robert Jensen's Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity; and Hardt and Negri's much anticipated follow up to Empire: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire With Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri established themselves as visionary theoreticians of the new global order. They presented a profound new vision of a world in which the old system of nation-states has surrendered much of its hegemony to a supranational, multidimensional network of power they call empire. Empire penetrates into more aspects of life over more of the world than any traditional empire before it, and it cannot be beheaded for it is multinoded. The network is the empire and the empire is the network.