Rights Books

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

Naomi Wolf

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Total reviews: 173 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.

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

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Free Enterprise

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Total reviews: 78 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The principles of economic freedom are found in this book. A must read! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

The relationship between freedom and economics is undeniable. Also undeniable is the relationship between government and freedom. Milton Friedman brilliantly makes a clear persuasive case for the perpetuation of free markets and the elimination of big government, as a means of augmenting freedom worldwide and as a result expand prosperity. Although this book is over 27 years old, the economic principles of this book are as timeless as Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations".

The book covers topics, such as socialized medicine, which is even more popular today, due in large part to the propaganda promulgated by the sensationalist media circuits. Of course, Americans do not want socialized medicine so proponents are euphemistically calling it "universal healthcare". Mr. Friedman expressed that "in our opinion there is no use whatsoever for socialized medicine. On the contrary, government already plays too large a role in medical care. Any further expansion of its role would very much against the interest of patients, physicians, and health care personnel." This book was written almost 3 decades ago when the expenditure of healthcare was huge, however, not as appalling as it is now at close to 15% of the country's GDP. There are many factors involved in the rising healthcare costs, not the least of which is the government's inability to operate any activity cheaper and more efficiently than the private sector. There are no exceptions to this. None! Unfortunately, the tendency of government is to increase funding for programs that don't work. If it isn't working, then it must mean it needs more funding, is the philosophy of government. This clearly goes counter to the much more efficient private sector where costs are controlled in order to attain a dirty little concept called profits. It is in the self-interest of people and companies and not their benevolence, that most of the freedom and economic progress is dependent upon, according to Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.

Mr. Friedman was a radical free trade crusader and the evidence espoused in this book is overwhelmingly effective at convincing most open-minded individuals. Friedman goes on to write "Wherever we find any large element of individual freedom, some measure of progress in the material comforts at the disposal of ordinary citizens, and widespread hope of further progress in the future, there we also find that market activity is organized mainly through the free market." He goes on to warn us that "Wherever the state undertakes to control in detail the economic activities of its citizens, wherever, that is, detailed central economic planning reigns, there ordinary citizens are in political fetters, have a low standard of living, and have little power to control their own destiny." He further declares that under such governments impressive monuments may be produced and a certain class may enjoy a full measure of material goods, however, ordinary citizens will become merely "instruments to be used for the state's purpose" and will receive only what is "necessary to keep them docile and reasonably productive."

Friedman also covers topics on education, consumer protection, inflation, unions and what he believed, at that time, was a "turning of the tide" into a more free market based mentality by the general population. This period, however, was when Carter was still in office and Reagan was coming in with his message of small government and as a result reduction in taxes. I'm afraid that we are again seeing a turning of the tide, this time, unfortunately, we are headed into larger government and more social programs, due in large part to the short memory of the American public of what communism used to be and the continual romanticizing of socialist countries that provide its population with cradle to grave social programs, almost always at the expense of freedom and progress. We must be careful!

This book is a must-read to gain a fundamental understanding of economics, and as a reminder of the basic economic principles that have made America great. Enjoy!

Editorial Review:

The international bestseller on the extent to which personal freedom has been eroded by government regulations and agencies while personal prosperity has been undermined by government spending and economic controls. New Foreword by the Authors; Index.

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"We've got some difficult days ahead," civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., told a crowd gathered at Memphis's Clayborn Temple on April 3, 1968. "But it really doesn't matter to me now because I've been to the mountaintop. . . . And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."

These prohetic words, uttered the day before his assassination, challenged those he left behind to see that his "promised land" of racial equality became a reality; a reality to which King devoted the last twelve years of his life.

These words and other are commemorated here in the only major one-volume collection of this seminal twentieth-century American prophet's writings, speeches, interviews, and autobiographical reflections. A Testament of Hope contains Martin Luther King, Jr.'s essential thoughts on nonviolence, social policy, integration, black nationalism, the ethics of love and hope, and more.

No Pity : People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement

Joseph P. Shapiro

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Response to Cindy Heilman 4 out of 5 stars.
28 of 31 people found this review helpful.

In regards to the review by Cindy Heilman below, it is apparent that you missed a major point of this book. When you state that "Neither the disabled, homosexuals, nor adoptees are the target of lynching, Jim Crow laws, fire engine hosing, or vicious police dogs."

You must have missed the disability history about Nazi death camps, false imprisonments in institutions, forced sterilization, abuse by caregivers, death by neglect, murder of those with mental disabilities thought to be under demonic controls, murder of disabled children in underdeveloped countries, the list goes on and on. I'm not an expert on the experiences of gays and adoptees, but as far as gays...it seems they face some of the most violent crimes that helped institute hate crime statutes. The history of African-Americans has been tragic and an embarrassment for our country, but they are certainly not alone in facing hatred and violent discrimination.

As for your statement regarding the difference in abilities justifies unequal treatment, you are missing the point that we all have differing abilities and must find ways to use our assets to contribute to society and accommodate our weaknesses. This holds true for any college student who has picked a major that accommodates their strengths while downplaying their weaknesses or any member of any sports team who picks the position that will give the team the best advantage. Disabled people are not asking for unfair advantages, they are asking for equal access. A level playing field. The same opportunities to build on their strengths and contribute to the society that has blocked them out. Even under horrendous Jim Crow Laws, African-Americans were sometimes allowed to go into the back of a restuarant and be served. People with disabilities aren't even allowed to the resturant door sometimes. Although their is a uniqueness to some of the issues surrounding disability, the civil rights aspect of amicus and access are exactly the same.

Read "Make them go away" by Mary Johnson for a more straightforward, updated essay on this situation if you still don't understand.

Editorial Review:

People with disabilities forging the newest and last human rights movement of the century.

Darfur: A New History of a Long War (African Arguments)

Julie Flint, Alex de Waal

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Instructive look at Darfur 5 out of 5 stars.
22 of 32 people found this review helpful.

There are plenty of serious human rights abuses in Africa which Westerners, particularly American corporations and arms dealers have strong complicity in: the 4 million dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia under Meles Zenawi, Equatorial Guinea under Teodor Obiang, Chad under Idriss Deby, Uganda under Museveni. One can also mention the horrors of the neoliberal economic model which African governments have followed so studiously. But Sudan and Zimbabwe seem to take up 90 percent of recent Western media reporting about abuses in the region. Both governments, vile as they certainly are, have struck independent courses via US power over the years and so are demonized in the US media. Former Senator John Danforth, US ambassador to the UN in 2004, stated on British tv in 2005 that the main reason the Bush administration made noises about Darfur in the election year of 04' was to please the voting block of fundamentalist Christians who have long believed the Sudanese regime to be satanic.

There is plenty of stuff in this book about the barbaric atrocities of the Sudanese government and the Janjiweed, the paramilitary force which acts as a proxy for the Sudanese military in Darfur.. In Darfur, the driving Arab supremacist ideology was rooted in the "Arab Gathering" group which emerged under the backing of Colonel Qadaffi of Libya in the 70's and 80's. Many in Sudan's government have been influenced by this ideology. The authors provide much quotation from these brethren who stress the need to make Darfur a purely Arab homeland and to cleanse it of non-Arab elements. Qadaffi funded the Sudanese Islamist/Arab nationalist groups Ansar and Muslim Brothers against his enemy, Sudan's then dictator Jafarr Nimieri in the 70's and early 80's. Many in these groups ended up in positions of power after the Islamist regime took power in June 1989. Qadaffi also funded Arab supremacists in Chad during the 80's, many of whom found refuge in Darfur and have since made not insignificant contributions to the violence there.

It also appears from the authors' discourse that the conflict is driven by the struggle for land and water in an area which has seen much drought, and a dwindling supply of water and arable land.....
The authors point out that Arabs of the Bagarra Rizeigat--to which the majority of Arabs in Darfur belong--have kept out of the conflict.... A not insignificant number of the janjiweed are violent criminals released from Sudan's prisons to serve in that body......

Bagarra Rizeigat have protected refugees from Janjiweed terror. The Bagarra Rizeigat chief, Saeed Madibu has resisted efforts by the Khartoum government to bribe him and terrorize him into submission. The authors seem to imply that most of the Arab tribal elites in Darfur would greatly prefer peaceful social, political and commercial interaction between Arabs and African tribes instead of the apopaclyptic ideology of a Darfur cleansed of all black people that Janjiweed leaders profess. Saeed Madibu, in a contumacious act to the Khartoum government, has resurrected meetings of Darfurian tribal elders to negotiate in an equitable fashion, land and resource issues.

One of the two Darfurian opposition groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) is divided between two tribal based factions, the Fur, led by Abdel Wahid and the Zaghawa, led by Minnie Minawi. These two groups spend alot of time making war upon each other, rather than upon the Sudanese army and Janjaweed. They mention that the SLA, perhaps a joint action of the two factions, attacked Bagarra Rizeigat territory in the Summer of 2004 and burned villages, stole livestock and engaged in other such activities at which the Janjiweed are such experts but Said Madibu's forces drove them out of their land.

The JEM is much more sophisticated. Islamists disillusioned with the extreme corruption and violence of the Khartoum regime seem to make up a significant part of the JEM's leadership. In interviews with one or another of the authors, the JEM leaders disavow any association with Hassan Al-Turabi, the Islamist scholar who was Sudan's de facto ruler throughout the 90's until he lost a power struggle with the country's president General Omar Hassan Al-Bashir in 2000 and was thrown into prison. Turabi had attracted many to his cause in the 70's and 80's because he spoke of a brotherhood of Muslims regardless of race and spoke out against the extreme corruption and inequality in Sudan's society. JEM leaders, according to the authors' interview of them, think that Turabi is a disgusting fraud and don't want anything to do with him. However many of them are specifically committed to setting up an Islamic state in the Sudan, which they say will grant freedom of worship to other faiths and will fullfill the ideals of honesty and equality in government that Turabi's variety of Islamists promised back in the 80's but have made such a mockery of in practice. The leaders of the JEM are often former national and regional officials under the current regime and provide the authors with stories probably containing at least some truth, illustrating their own virtue when they were in the service of the current regime, in the midst of grotesque brutality and corruption.

The authors mention the US and UK backed Naivasha accords that ended the civil war in Southern Sudan in 2005. In that accord the oil revenues are to be evenly divided between North and South, the SPLA has become the autonomous ruler of the South and army units in the capital are divided 50/50 in membership between the SPLA and the Sudanese army. SPLA leader John Garang was made first vice president of Sudan but he died in a mysterious plane crash shortly after the Naivasha accords. However the war criminals in both the Sudan government and the SPLA were granted amnesty from prosecution.....The authors note the desire for stability in south Sudan with its strategically important oil wealth by the US and UK, the Naivasha accord backers. Darfur in contrast has no important resources.

Editorial Review:

The humanitarian tragedy in Darfur has stirred politicians, Hollywood celebrities and students to appeal for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Beyond the horrific pictures of sprawling refugee camps and lurid accounts of rape and murder lies a complex history steeped in religion, politics, and decades of internal unrest.

Darfur traces the origins, organization and ideology of the infamous Janjawiid and other rebel groups, including the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. It also analyzes the confused responses of the Sudanese government and African Union. This thoroughly updated edition also features a powerful analysis of how the conflict has been received in the international community and the varied attempts at peacekeeping.

Escape from Freedom

Erich Fromm

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Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Hobo Philosopher 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Erich Fromm was a popular author among college students in the 60's. This particular book expressed the notion that human beings did not really want freedom and were on a constant psychological journey to undermine their own personal freedom in many convoluted ways. The author gives examples of how we undermine our freedom and how we try to escape from the burden of freedom and independence.
I read this so many years ago that I can remember nothing specific. What I do remember is that I carried this book around with me for at least a year. As I read it and pondered the author's implications. At the time I thought he was the "best". I should re-read something of his today and see what I think now. This would be a good psychological experiment. But "there are so many book and so little time".

Editorial Review:

If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. Few books have thrown such light upon the forces that shape modern society or penetrated so deeply into the causes of authoritarian systems. If the rise of democracy set some people free, at the same time it gave birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Fromm’s work analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.

The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill: On Liberty, the Subjection of Women and Utilitarianism (Modern Library Classics)

John Stuart Mill

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Liberty: The Basics 4 out of 5 stars.
28 of 29 people found this review helpful.

Not that Mill was ever obscure or inaccessible, but while Prof Schneewind's Introduction adds little value, the notes and annotations by Dale E Miller certainly renders this compendium transparent, even to folks like me who have been dumbed down by years of television debates as primary intellectual nourishment. He enlightens each of Mill's chapters with a short and easily assimilated introductory overview. Complementing this with text annotations, collected at the back of the book. The annotations appear to be very well selected, as they are never too numerous to make flipping to the back of the book tedious, yet they manage to illuminate every aspect or item I might have found even remotely confusing, ambiguous or otherwise incomprehensible in the modern idiom.

This text is an excellent starting point for reading JS Mill, and is very well suited to the armchair philosopher who wishes to get into the material with ease and without encumbrance. However, there may be too little in the annotations in terms of external references, or cross references to Mill's other writings, or background information to satisfy the more academically inclined.

Of course anyone with even a nominal interest in what liberty is... NEEDS to read JS Mill. But then, you wouldn't be here if you didn't know that, right?

Editorial Review:

The writings of John Stuart Mill have become the cornerstone of political liberalism. Collected for the first time in this volume are Mill’s three seminal and most widely read works: On Liberty, The Subjection of Women, and Utilitarianism. A brilliant defense of individual rights versus the power of the state, On Liberty is essential reading for anyone interested in political thought and theory. As Bertrand Russell reflected, “On Liberty remains a classic . . . the present world would be better than it is, if [Mill’s] principles were more respected.”

This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes newly commissioned endnotes and commentary by Dale E. Miller, and an index.

International Human Rights (Dilemmas in World Politics)

Jack Donnelly

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Very Good Introduction to International Human Rights 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Jack Donnelly porvides a very good introduction to human rights as an issue in world politics. Particularly his treatment of human rights in foreign policy is excellent. Worth reading.

Human Rights 101 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I originally read this book for a class at Vassar College my freshman year. Yes, this book can be dry, and it is not a quick read by any stretch of the imagination, yet, it also clearly portrays the basic theoretical paradigms behind the contemporary study of human rights. Quite evidently, this book is meant to be a text for courses on the subject matter, and in terms of this objective it succeeds.

Editorial Review:

The question often asked is 'where is a good starting place for learning about international human rights?' The answer now is Donnelly's International Human Rights. Eminently readable, chock-full of information, Donnelly's book is a must-read. (Human Rights Quarterly) In this new edition, Jack Donnelly updates his classic text on the rise of human rights issues since World War II to reflect the new challenges posed by globalization and the war on terrorism. The third edition includes two entirely new chapters on the Universality of Human Rights and Terrorism, and focuses on the recent emergence of nonstate actors such as the UN and NGO's.

I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World, Special 75th Anniversary Edition (Martin Luther King, Jr., born January 15, 1929)

Martin Luther King

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial looking out over thousands of troubled Americans who had gathered in the name of civil rights and uttered his now famous words, "I have a dream . . ." It was a speech that changed the course of history.

This fortieth-anniversary edition honors Martin Luther King Jr.'s courageous dream and his immeasurable contribution by presenting his most memorable words in a concise and convenient edition. As Coretta Scott King says in her foreword, "This collection includes many of what I consider to be my husband's most important writings and orations." In addition to the famed keynote address of the 1963 march on Washington, the renowned civil rights leader's most influential words included here are the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," the essay "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," and his last sermon, "I See the Promised Land," preached the day before he was assassinated.

Editor James M. Washington arranged the selections chronologically, providing headnotes for each selection that give a running history of the civil rights movement and related events. In his introduction, Washington assesses King's times and significance.