All of the books listed here may be
purchased at Barnes and Noble, a company that contributes to Democratic
causes and candidates: barnesandnoble.com
Visit this page often, as new books will be posted regularly.
Topic
Area:
Climate
Change
Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save
Civilization
by: Lester R. Brown
Reviewed
by
Mark
Boswell
The original Plan B 4.0 is written in an easy style that makes the
story clear to people without strong technical backgrounds. The
original Plan B was first published in 2003. As the climate
change situation has gotten consistently worse and more data
documenting the severity of the situation has become more voluminous,
Lester Brown has continued update the summary of the situation and
technologies and actions required to stop the degradation and to begin
reversing it.
This latest update, Plan B 4.0 provides a clear picture of the
potential of the current human systems to wipe out the human race and
much of the other life on earth by the end of our current
century. This is information developed by the World’s top
scientists documenting the acceleration of the current runaway
environmental freight train powered by fossil fuels. This book
also documents the technologies that can completely replace the current
fossil fuel energy system. These replacement technologies are
production ready today, and most of them cost less than fossil fuel
when honest assessments are done.
The challenge is to get the word out to people when the same businesses
and private central banks that control the energy monopoly also own
almost all the US Mass Media. With this lack of a ‘free press’
the truth about the situation only gets out via the Internet, books and
one-on-one human communication. These are the modes of
communication that the media monopoly and the corporations that direct
it have not been able to shut down, despite their constant efforts
(attacks on net-neutrality).
If you want to understand the full broad picture on the rate and impact
of climate change, and a high level description of what must be done to
save ourselves, read Plan B 4.0.
Topic
Area:
Climate
Change
The Climage Challenge: 101 Solutions
by: Guy Dauncey
Reviewed
by
Mark
Boswell
After you have read Plan B 4.0 your next question will be, “But what
can I do?” The Climate Challenge” is the answer to that
question. Or perhaps more accurately, it is the aggregation of
all the possible things that you could possibly do and how to tell when
you are doing enough on a personal level, and what to do when you
decide that you want to do more.
After a recent presentation that I gave on the range and maturity of
alternative energy and how easily it can support our transportation
needs, a friend complimented the presentation (most of which had been
created by an leading expert in the field), and than asked me a very
good question. It was something along the line of, “So what
should I do?” Friends are great because they can point out when
you have over-looked the obvious. After taking a moment to think,
“dah.” I went looking for a good answer. Guy Dauncey’s book is
the answer to the question.
“The Climate Challenge” is a collection of the questions and answers
related to ‘climate change’ broken down to a level where everyone of us
can be engaged in helping to deal with this crisis. Guy Dauncey
gathered examples from around the World of things that people are doing
today to begin reversing the things that are driving ‘climate
change’. These are real practical solutions at every level from
what you personally do in living each day to whatever level and mode of
engagement you might seek. The subtitle on this book is “101
solutions to Global Warming.” The author has pick many common topic
areas that get raised and then described the problem and immediate
actions that several different individuals or groups have taken to
begin dealing with it. For each of the 101 solutions he provides
names of groups that can be contacted to obtain information about what
they did, the plans for that activity, what actually occurred and where
they are today. Additionally, the author provides anywhere from a
few to several dozen websites where you can get additional practical
deployable ideas.
If you want to start becoming part of the ‘climate change’ solution and
not just part of the ‘climate change’ problem, you will want to read
this book right away. No one can or should do everything in this
book. However, everyone can find things in this book that they
can do right away that will make a difference. There are enough
ideas in the “The Climate Challenge” to keep all of us engaged in
responding to this crisis for the next several decades. If we are
successful, it will take that long. This is one of those life
opportunities where you will not want anyone to be able to say that you
were just sitting on your hands.
Topic
Area:
Party
Politics
Republican Gomorrah: Inside the
Movement that Shattered the Party
by: Max Blumenthal
Reviewed
by
MJ
McGalliard
Have
you
ever
asked
(or
been
asked), “What is wrong with
those people?”
Well
you
should
be
curious.When you look at some
of the hateful policies
and practices of the
extreme right-wing it is hard to understand how they came to believe
what they
believe and how they can believe so vehemently.
Max
Blumenthal’s
insightful
and
thorough
investigation
of
James Dobson’s Focus on the Family Empire explores not only the money
trail
starting with a deranged billionaire that used inherited money to
finance
Dobson but, also the psychological traits of his followers.The twisted logic that leads to the black or
white morality displayed by these folks flies in the face of the
secrets and
millions of dollars they process every month to further their agenda of
right
wing morals.
Learn
how
Republican
candidates
(including
John
McCain) are
forced to kowtow to Dobson and his organization.Find
out
why
this
kind
of
paternal, top-down
“church” becomes a way of life for those who are susceptible to this
kind of
brain washing.
All
in
all
it
is
a
fascinating piece of journalism that
points out how religion is political and politics can be turned into
religion.
Topic Area: Supreme Court; Separation of Church
and State
The First Liberty: America's
Foundation In Religious Freedom (revised)
by: William Lee Miller Author Info: now Scholar in Ethics
and Institutions at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the
University of Virginia; retired Commonwealth Professor and the Thomas
C. Sorensen Professor, of Political and Social Thought. He has taught
also at Yale University, Smith College, Indiana University, and other
institutions, often teaching courses in church and state and religious
liberty, subjects on which he has often written. Description: With new material on
recent Supreme Court cases involving church-state relations and a new
concluding chapter on America's religious and political landscape, this
volume is an eloquent and thorough interpretation of how religious
faith and political freedom have blended and fused to form part of our
collective history—and most importantly, how each concept must respect
the boundaries of the other. See a Baptist E-Zine's review of this
book: Baptist
Studies Bulletin
Georgetown
University
Press, publishers of The First Liberty, have
it on sale for $16.17 through 31 Jan 2006.
Topic Area: Taxes
Wealth and Our Common Wealth by: William H Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins Author Info: Successful large
Seattle law firm founder and father of Microsoft Billionaire Bill Gates
Jr. Description: Book about how wealthy
individuals denied access to the US media thus preventing presentation
of the history, relevance and truth about the need for the Inheritance
Tax
Topic Area: Taxes
The Great Tax Wars by: Steven R. Weisman Author Info: Editor and 30 year
reporter for The New York Times on politics, economics and
international affairs. Description: Provides a history of
the development of tax structure of the US and the conflict between
competing social interests that underly this contentious battle of more
than 150 years.
Don't Think Of An Elephant:
Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, The Essential Guide for
Progressives by: George Lakoff Author Info: Professor of Cognitive
Science and Linguistics, U. of California, Berkeley Description: Lakoff explains how
conservatives think, and how to counter their arguments. He outlines in
detail the traditional American values that progressives hold, but are
often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways
conservatives have framed the issues, and provides examples of how
progressives can reframe the debate." Lakoff's years of research and
work with environmental and political leaders have been distilled into
this essential guide, which shows progressives how to think in terms of
values instead of programs, and why people vote their values and
identities, often against their best interests.
Topic Area: Political Language & Framing
Moral Politics: How
Liberals and Conservatives Think by: George Lakoff Author Info: Professor of Cognitive
Science and Linguistics, U. of California, Berkeley Description: In this classic text,
the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics,
Lakoff analyzes the unconscious and rhetorical worldviews of liberals
and conservatives, discovering radically different but remarkably
consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. For this
new edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword extending his
observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original
publication, from the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the 2000
presidential election and its aftermath. This is the foundation work
undergirding Don't Think Of An Elephant.
Topic Area: Judges and Their Ideas
The People Rising: The
Campaign Against the Bork Nomination by: Michael Pertschuk and Wendy Schaetzel Author Info: former Chief of Staff
to Senator Warren Magnuson Description: On October 23, 1987,
the Senate voted not to confirm Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert
Bork to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States. Only eleven Supreme Court nominations have been rejected
by the Senate, and no nominee has ever been defeated by as large a
margin as Bork. Yet no one accused Bork of private vices, or challenged
his intellectual competence. The campaign against him attacked his
ideas about the Constitution, and his attitude toward those—judges,
academics, politicians, and citizens—who held different views from his.
The battle was fought not in the back halls of Congress but in public:
Bork's opponents conducted an elaborate and effective national campaign
in the press and television, and the televised hearings on his
confirmation concentrated national attention on the Constitution and on
constitutional theory to a degree that has seldom if ever been equaled
in our history.
ISBN:093841089X This book is not in print and not
available at Barnes and Noble. Get it from the library, or from a used
book source such as http://www.abebooks.com/
