Civil Rights & Liberties Books

The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

Naomi Wolf

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Total reviews: 174 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the 2008 NAUTILUS SILVER AWARD in the category of Social Change/Activism

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.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

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Total reviews: 296 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. When Malcolm tells coauthor Alex Haley, "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book," he voices the central belief underpinning every attempt to set down a personal story as an example for others. Although many believe his ethic was directly opposed to Martin Luther King Jr.'s during the civil rights struggle of the '60s, the two were not so different. Malcolm may have displayed a most un-Christian distaste for loving his enemies, but he understood with King that love of God and love of self are the necessary first steps on the road to freedom. --Wendy Smith

Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values

Philippe Sands

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Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition. From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, Phillipe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law.

The Torture Team delves deep into the Bush administration to reveal:

· How the policy of abuse originated with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was promoted by their most senior lawyers

· Personal accounts, through interview, of those most closely involved in the decisions

· How the Joint Chiefs and normal military decision-making processes were circumvented

· How Fox TV’s 24 contributed to torture planning

· How interrogation techniques were approved for use

· How the new techniques were used on Mohammed Al Qahtani, alleged to be “the 20th highjacker”

· How the senior lawyers who crafted the policy of abuse exposed themselves to the risk of war crimes charges

The Social Transformation of American Medicine

Paul Starr

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great history of American medicine 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 18 people found this review helpful.

For anyone interested in the healthcare as a profession or area of study, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Despite the 20 years since its publication, Paul Starr's Pulitzer prize winner is still relevant today and in retrospect his projections made of the future of healthcare in America are surpisingly prescient.

The first book describes the development of the medical profession in early America providing a fascinating look at the social evolution of American society. The second book delineates the rise of doctors, hospitals and medical schools in latter half of the 19th to the early 20th century with the rise of science and a professional authority. The third book shifts the focus from the doctors and to the industry that medicine became as well as the various attempts at healthcare reform in response to rising healthcare costs.

My only criticism is that Starr should have devoted more pages to the root causes behind the rising healthcare costs that drove the reforms of the 1960-70s described in the third book.

Editorial Review:

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries.

Rules for Radicals

Saul Alinsky

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Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Farting as social protest... 4 out of 5 stars.
18 of 25 people found this review helpful.

They don't make 'em like Saul Alinsky anymore. (The only left-wing public intellectuals alive today that could even be mentioned in the same breath are Zinn and Chomsky...and they ain't gonna be around much longer.) Saul was one of those hyper-literate, socially conscious Hebrews, coming straight out of the Jewish liberal tradition that made a unique impact on the political/class struggle of the 20th century. (Now the Jews have joined the establishment, and the historical accident of an intellectually capable oppressed minority will, in a generation or two, no longer exist.)

His treatise on pragmatic social change is a delight to read (even for a reactionary right-winger like myself), though it is somewhat dated, and the predictions oftentimes wrong. Despite his errors, and predictive ineptitude, this book is the work of a keen intellect, a man committed to what he thought was right, and an invaluable insight into the mind of a thinking leftist.

Alinsky has read his Marx, and the Hegelian/Marxist dialectic is a continuing theme in the book, as is the middle class's supposed alienation, but he is no commie. He criticizes Soviet Russia, and extols democracy as the only means by which revolution is to be achieved. He believes in probability, not causality, and is fiercely opposed to individualism. ("We are our brother's keeper," "Individuality is primitive stupidity.") I find the latter quote ironic, since, recalling Anthropology 101, the more primitive tribes display the most communitarian spirit...but Alinsky never says he is infallible.

His rules on means and ends are brilliant, as is his dissection of how protest is to be effective. He is particularly scornful of protest tactics (still used today by the anti-war movement...ineffectually) that achieve no concrete results, and only alienate the middle-class power base.

He considers that right actions are always done for wrong reasons, and adduces Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, disobeying a directive from the Supreme Court, and illegal use of military commissions to try civilians (sound familiar?), in order to win the Civil War.

He analyzes Gandhi as a pragmatist, not as some living moral saint, and provides a revisionist account of his tactics of non-violence. (He neglects to mention that Gandhi was a klismaphiliac.)

Alinsky stresses change, and dynamism, the stagnation of consistency, and how your friends today can be your enemies tomorrow. (The Left has forgotten this lesson, to their rhetorical disadvantage.)

The one place where Alinsky seriously goes off the rails is the chapter on using stock proxies to combat corporate practices. I've been to shareholders' meetings, and seen the "progressive" proposals by church groups, PETA, the Sierra Club, etc., voted on...and routinely defeated by margins of 99.7%. Alinsky lets his idealism trump his pragmatic common sense when he claims that people--middle-class people--will sacrifice dividends for "social justice."

Notwithstanding that, however, this book is still very worthwhile for all to study...partly as an historical artifact, partly for the Man to understand how to effectively stymie the lumpen-proletariat, and partly for the Left to understand why not to replicate the mistakes that Alinsky identified and warned against. (Although the Left would be advised to devise completely new tactics altogether...marching, picketing, and chanting are, as Alinsky would say, "trite.")

Editorial Review:

This primers tells the "have-nots" how they can organize to achieve real political power for the practice of true democracy.

State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind

Bryant Welch

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Finally, the answer to the many questions that have been preying on the minds of millions of Americans has arrived. Why are Americans so vulnerable to divisive political tactics? Why did Americans get dragged into such an unwise war in Iraq? Why do fundamentalist religious groups, Fox News, and right-wing radio still play such influential roles in America’s political landscape? And why are long-accepted rational scientific ideas like evolution under siege? These questions hold America’s future in the balance. Ultimately, they are questions about the American mind. Psychologist-attorney Dr. Bryant Welch has the answers.

If America is going to change the mind-set that led us to war in Iraq and left us unable to confront our serious national problems, this book is vitally important. Drawing on his unique experience both as a clinical psychologist and a Washington, D.C., political figure with the American Psychological Association, Dr. Welch shows how the long-term effects of sophisticated new forms of political manipulation have not only led to our debacle in Iraq but are also currently undercutting America’s ability to address its very serious problems. In the 1944 movie Gaslight, a husband drives his wife to the brink of insanity by playing games with her sense of reality. Just as in the movie, America’s most recent political “gaslighters,” such as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and many religious leaders, have generated and exploited confusion in the minds of countless Americans.

Gaslighters prey on their victim’s vulnerability to paranoia, sexual perplexity, and envy to undermine the mind’s ability to function rationally. Welch examines why millions of Americans, in response to such assaults, subconsciously and dangerously create their own simplistic reality, even if it is completely different from the more complex reality of the world.

Most important, State of Confusion explains how and why Americans must act now to fight back against this harmful manipulation before it’s too late. Dr. Welch’s exploration of the American mind is both fascinating and frightening, and State of Confusion is a must-read for everyone who cares about the future of this great country.

The Fire Next Time

James Baldwin

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Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It's shocking how little has changed between the races in this country since 1963, when James Baldwin published this coolly impassioned plea to "end the racial nightmare." The Fire Next Time--even the title is beautiful, resonant, and incendiary. "Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?" Baldwin demands, flicking aside the central race issue of his day and calling instead for full and shared acceptance of the fact that America is and always has been a multiracial society. Without this acceptance, he argues, the nation dooms itself to "sterility and decay" and to eventual destruction at the hands of the oppressed: "The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream."

Baldwin's seething insights and directives, so disturbing to the white liberals and black moderates of his day, have become the starting point for discussions of American race relations: that debasement and oppression of one people by another is "a recipe for murder"; that "color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality"; that whites can only truly liberate themselves when they liberate blacks, indeed when they "become black" symbolically and spiritually; that blacks and whites "deeply need each other here" in order for America to realize its identity as a nation.

Yet despite its edgy tone and the strong undercurrent of violence, The Fire Next Time is ultimately a hopeful and healing essay. Baldwin ranges far in these hundred pages--from a memoir of his abortive teenage religious awakening in Harlem (an interesting commentary on his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain) to a disturbing encounter with Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad. But what binds it all together is the eloquence, intimacy, and controlled urgency of the voice. Baldwin clearly paid in sweat and shame for every word in this text. What's incredible is that he managed to keep his cool. --David Laskin

How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition)

J.J. Luna

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Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From cyberspace to crawl spaces, new innovations in information gathering have left the private life of the average person open to scrutiny, and worse, exploitation. In this thoroughly revised update of his immensely popular guide How to Be Invisible, J.J. Luna shows you how to protect yourself from these information predators by securing your vehicle and real estate ownership, your bank accounts, your business dealings, your computer files, your home address, and more.

J.J. Luna, a highly trained and experienced security consultant, shows you how to achieve the privacy you crave and deserve, whether you just want to shield yourself from casual scrutiny or take your life savings with you and disappearing without a trace. Whatever your needs, Luna reveals the shocking secrets that private detectives and other seekers of personal information use to uncover information and then shows how to make a serious commitment to safeguarding yourself.

There is a prevailing sense in our society that true privacy is a thing of the past. Filled with vivid real life stories drawn from the headlines and from Luna's own consulting experience, How to Be Invisible, Revised Edition is a critical antidote to the privacy concerns that continue only to grow in magnitude as new and more efficient ways of undermining our personal security are made available. Privacy is a commonly-lamented casualty of the Information Age and of the world's changing climate-but that doesn't mean you have to stand for it.

A Nation of Sheep

Andrew P. Napolitano

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Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In A NATION OF SHEEP, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano frankly discusses how the federal government has circumvented the Constitution and is systematically dismantling the rights and freedoms that are the foundation of American democracy.  He challenges Americans to recognize that they are being led down a very dangerous path and that the cost of following without challenge is the loss of the basic freedoms that facilitate our pursuit of happiness and that define us as a nation.

Judge Napolitano reminds readers what America is all about, that the purpose of government is to protect freedom, and freedom is the ability to follow your own free will and not the will of government bureaucrats.  He asks the simple question, which are YOU, a sheep or a wolf?  Do you blindly follow behind where you are led, or do you challenge the government at every pass, forcing it to make decisions that will protect our freedoms?

Judge Napolitano asks the questions that no one else will, challenging readers to rethink why they are blindly following a government that has only its own interests in mind.  He asks:

• Why is the government using the war on terror as an excuse to sidestep the Constitution?
• Why are Americans not challenging and questioning the government as it continues to limit more and more of our freedoms?
• What part of "Congress shall make no law..." does the government not understand when it criminalizes speech?
• Whatever happened to our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that are proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, guaranteed by the Constitution, yet ignored by the governments elected to protect them?
• Why does every public office holder swear allegiance to the Constitution, yet very few follow it?
• Don't we have rights that are guaranteed and cannot be taken from us?

Why We Can't Wait (Signet Classics)

Jr., Dr. Martin Luther King

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An important piece of history 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his account of the Birmingham campaign, which sought to dissolve the Jim Crow status quo. From the outset of his campaign, however, tensions were present not only within the black communities, but also with whites who supported their cause. When he began to plan his strategy for nonviolent demonstrations he found that "there was tremendous resistance to [their] program from some of the Negro ministers, businessmen, and professionals in the city" (King 52). King concluded that there were several explanations for these "tensions," including that blacks "had been skillfully brainwashed to the point where he had accepted the white man's theory that he... was inferior" (King 52). Many also accused King's actions as being ill timed. The infamously racist "Bull" Conner had just lost the mayoral election and many felt that King should give the new administration a chance before demonstrating. King would pass this off as "false-optimism," and perhaps rightly so (King 53). Many also saw King as an outsider, but he combated that notion by arguing that because he was an American and there was injustice in Birmingham, there was no such thing as an outsider, and that he had descended on Birmingham with the request of an affiliated organization to help release the local black population from oppression.

King knew that if he was to succeed he would need a united community and at one point he shows true optimism at accomplishing this unity. "Somehow God gave me the power," he writes, "to transform the resentments, the suspicions, the fears and the misunderstandings I found... into faith and enthusiasm" (King 55). Nevertheless, in the midst of the movement King finds himself addressing more tensions in his response through a letter to an article printed by fellow clergymen critical of his tactics. While defending his actions, he also addresses his disappointment with many white religious organizations for not promoting desegregation on the basis of moral beliefs. More importantly, he describes "white moderates" as being more destructive than even the Ku Klux Klan. He believes that they are "more devoted to order than to justice" and though they vocally support his cause they condemn his method of direct action, and because they prefer a "negative peace" they have become a contributor to the problem (King 73).

Despite these tensions that hindered the cause, at the end of his book King seems to have a somewhat optimistic outlook on the future of the civil rights movement. The path thus far blazed had been substantial and he felt that "the upsurge of power in the civil-rights movement has given it greater maneuverability... and security" (King 138). He saw that "the Negro potential for political power is now substantial" (King 139) and "already in some states and cities in the South, a de facto alliance of Negro and sympathetic white voters has elected a new type of local official - ...[the] nonsegregationist" (King 140). Overall, King felt that "American politics needs nothing much so as an injection of the idealism, self-sacrifice and sense of public service which is the hallmark of our movement" (King 141).

King's optimism was not misplaced. He recognized both the dividing factors and the unifying factors between whites and blacks and between blacks themselves. In 1964, while he was writing his book, President Johnson was busy working on his "Great Society" legislation, which included the Civil Rights Act. This act banned Jim Crow laws, which was King's main objective in Birmingham all along. In fact, he had gained the attention of Johnson throughout his demonstrations, and even received support from the President. Johnson would also pass into effect laws for fair voting in 1965 (furthering King's idea of the black political power), and in 1969 another law involving fair housing would pass through Congress. As the government furthered its involvement into the cause of civil rights King's optimism had begun to pay off. Although the movement would be a torrid river, plagued with stones and dams, King saw the channels with which to ultimately reach the shore of equality.

As a piece of history Why We Can't Wait is certainly important, and at times, as in the letter portion of the book, the arguments are both eloquent and compelling. Unfortunately, as a book it can at times be dry and repetitive. It is worth reading, certainly, but not one to pick up again and again.

Editorial Review:

Dr. King's remarkable account of the struggle for civil rights in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, tracing the history of the movement back to its beginnings three centuries ago and looking to the future.