January 2007

by Aleta DeBee and Dave Zink

The time to change our society is now, says David C. Korten in his newest book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.

World domination and exploitation for narrow, short-sighted purposes is failing, because it has the seeds of its own destruction built into it. This "empire" system, developed by the economic elite and amoral corporations, needs to be replaced by another system, which Korten calls "Earth Community." We need to choose to do more supporting and helping other nations, as well as making the economy within our own country more equitable. . . .

May 2006

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq

What do these 14 governments have in common?

You got it. The United States overthrew them. And in almost in every case, the overthrow can be traced to corporate interests.

March 2006

by Ron Jacobs

In a time when it seems that religious justifications for the excesses of both revolutionary and reactionary impulses are the standard, Haymarket Books' republication of Paul Siegel's The Meek and the Militant is a useful resource for the individual looking for a rational analysis of the relationship between religion and power. The book, which was originally published in 1986, provides a historical overview of the world's five great religions and takes a look at their relationship to power both inside and outside of government and capital. Although Siegel utilizes a . . .

January 2006

The Venezuela Reader: The Building Of A People’s Democracy

Edited by Olivia Burlingame Goumbri

Book review by Greg Rosenthal

Following the example of Cuba’s humanist approach to guaranteeing its people the right to quality education and health, Venezuela has embarked upon a historical mission to eliminate poverty in a country where nearly 70% of the population is poor. As Chavez consistently reiterates, the only way to end poverty is to empower the poor and marginalized.

December 2005

by Marco Rosaire Rossi

In his book Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke, the former counter terrorism chief, describes how George W. Bush sought to set a new standard for human rights after September 11. In the evening after the terrorist attacks on the world trade center, George Bush had a special meeting with Donald Rumsfeld and Clarke. The president said to the two: "I want you all to understand that we are at war . . . any barriers in your way, they're gone. Any money you need, you have it . . . I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass." Apparently, what . . .

November 2005

Review by Brian Huseby

When did the civil rights movement begin? With the Montgomery bus boycott and the lunch counter sit-ins of the 1950s?

In Emancipation Betrayed, Evergreen graduate Paul Ortiz convincingly demonstrates that the struggle for black liberation began long before the 1950s. Ortiz takes us from the fights of slaves for freedom in the antebellum U.S. to the struggle for black voting rights in Florida, culminating in the presidential election of 1920. Along the way, Ortiz gives numerous examples of blacks using armed self-defense to protect themselves from white attacks, rather than . . .

September 2003

by Ron Jacobs

One of Che Guevara's most oft-repeated quotes was "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love." Author Neil Gordon's new novel, The Company You Keep, could easily have used this quote as its subtitle. The story of a fictional former member of the Weather Underground who has been living under an assumed name since the early 1970s after a failed bank robbery where a bank guard was murdered, Gordon's novel is a thriller of a tale. The primary protagonist-one Jason Sinai who assumed the identity of a dead man named . . .