Book picks similar to
Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark: Corporate and Police Spying on Activists by Eveline Lubbers
activism
non-fiction
the-state
abuse-of-power
Once A Jolly Hangman : Singapore Justice In the Dock
Alan Shadrake - 2010
This revised and updated edition covers Shadrake’s arrest, and his ongoing campaign against the death penalty as he prepares for his appeal.Singapore has one of the highest execution rates per capita in the world. Its government claims that only the death penalty can deter drug dealers from using their country as a transport hub—but this hard-hitting investigation reveals disturbing truths about how and when the death penalty is applied.Including in-depth interviews with Darshan Singh—Singapore’s chief executioner for nearly fifty years—and chilling accounts of high-profile cases, including the execution of Australian Nguyen Van Tuong, this is an horrific exposé of the gross abuse of human rights.
Martin Luther King
Godfrey Hodgson - 2009
Martin Luther King Jr. is as relevant today as he was when he led civil rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s. He was an agent and a prophet of political change in this country, and the election of President Barack Obama is his direct legacy.Now from one of Britain's most experienced political observers comes a new, accessible biography of the man and his works. The story of King is dramatic, and Godfrey Hodgson presents it with verve, clarity, and acute insight based in part on his own reporting on-scene at the time. He interviewed King half a dozen times or more; heard his speech at the March on Washington; was in Birmingham, Selma and Chicago; and met many of the characters in King's life story. Martin Luther King combines the best of his own reporting, plus the work of other biographers and researchers, to trace the iconic civil rights leader's career from his birth in Atlanta in 1929, through the campaigns that made possible the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to his assassination in Memphis in 1968. Hodgson sheds light on every aspect of an extraordinary life: the Black Baptist culture in which King grew up, his theology and political philosophy, his physical and moral courage, his insistence on the injustice of inequality, his campaigning energy, his repeated sexual infidelities.Hodgson describes the political minefield in which King operated; follows how he gradually persuaded President Kennedy that he could not stand by and allow the civil rights movement to be frustrated; and describes how, on the verge of success, his career was threatened by President Johnson's anger at King's principled decision to come out against the Vietnam War. He also puts King's career into the context of American history in the crisis of the 1960s. In his life, King was frustrated; but in death, he has been triumphant.Martin Luther King allows the charisma and power of King's personality to shine through, showing in gripping narrative style exactly how one man helped America to progress toward its truest ideals. Hodgson's extensive research and detail help paint an accurate, complex portrait of one of America's most important leaders.Godfrey Hodgson has worked in Britain and America as a newspaper and magazine journalist; as a television reporter, documentary maker and anchor; as a university teacher and lecturer; and as the author of a dozen well-received books about U.S. politics and recent history, including America in Our Time, a history of the United States in the 1960s; More Equal than Others, on politics and society in twentieth-century America; and most recently, a biography of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Gentleman from New York. Hodgson met King on a number of occasions between 1956 and 1967. He recently retired as director of the Reuters Foundation Programme at Oxford University and is a visiting journalism professor at City University in London.PRAISE FOR America in Our Time"A critique so stimulating and compelling that I can only say read it."---Richard Lingeman, The New York Times"It simply gets right, without great fuss, the detail and proportion of things like the civil rights movement, student unrest, the stages of our Vietnam engagement."---Garry Wills, The New York Review of BooksPRAISE FOR More Equal than Others"The most thoughtful, thorough and sorrowful book imaginable on what has happened in these years."---Bernard Crick, The Independent
Anita Gets Bail: What Are Our Courts Doing? What Should We Do About Them?
Arun Shourie - 2018
But recent events remind us of the cracks that have formed: the quality of individuals apart, even the institutional arrangements that had been put in place to preserve the purity and independence of the institution—the collegium, conventions governing the way cases are to be assigned among judges—have frayed. These cracks provide a dangerous opportunity to political rulers to suborn this institution also.Through actual cases and judgments—of subordinate courts, High Courts, the Supreme Court—Arun Shourie enables us to see how frail and vulnerable this ‘last pillar standing’ has become.A judge who by a brazen manipulation of facts lets a prominent politician off … Events and a judgment that let the convicted choose the prosecutor who is to conduct the case against them … Courts that turn a blind eye to life-and-death reforms even as they preoccupy themselves with trivia … Courts that deliver ringing judgments and then do not care to look if their directions are being implemented … Courts that disregard their own judgments on penalizing persons for perjury, for dragging out cases … Courts that do not think through the consequences, even the predictable consequences of their judgments … Judges who prevaricate, who look the other way when some of their own fraternity come under a cloud … A judge who is manifestly unbalanced, judges whose knowledge of the most elementary facts of science is laughable, a judge whose prose even the Supreme Court is unable to comprehend—all of them continue to hand down rulings that affect the fortunes and lives of thousands … Judges who disregard well-settled principles to such an extent that their colleagues are compelled to make their grave misgivings public…And the non-bailable warrants that are issued for the arrest of Anita, Arun Shourie’s ailing wife, for evading summons that were never served, summons that were ostensibly issued for their having built a house that was never built, on a plot they did not own…Through the meticulous examination that is a hallmark of his writing, Arun Shourie leads us through judgments and instances-some hilarious, so many infuriating-and points to things that each of us-judges, lawyers, laypersons like us-can do to retrieve this most vital of institutions.
The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
Joel Bakan - 2003
Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends that today's corporation is a pathological institution, a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.In this revolutionary assessment of the history, character, and globalization of the modern business corporation, Bakan backs his premise with the following observations:-The corporation’s legally defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic self-interest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others. -The corporation’s unbridled self-interest victimizes individuals, society, and, when it goes awry, even shareholders and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal. -Governments have freed the corporation, despite its flawed character, from legal constraints through deregulation and granted it ever greater authority over society through privatization.But Bakan believes change is possible and he outlines a far-reaching program of achievable reforms through legal regulation and democratic control.Featuring in-depth interviews with such wide-ranging figures as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, business guru Peter Drucker, and cultural critic Noam Chomsky, The Corporation is an extraordinary work that will educate and enlighten students, CEOs, whistle-blowers, power brokers, pawns, pundits, and politicians alike.
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
Carol Anderson - 2018
With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice.Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans as the nation gears up for the 2018 midterm elections.
The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
Howard Zinn - 1997
It is rare that a historian of the Left has managed to retain as much credibility while refusing to let his academic mantle change his beautiful writing style from being anything but direct, forthright, and accessible. Whether his subject is war, race, politics, economic justice, or history itself, each of his works serves as a reminder that to embrace one's subjectivity can mean embracing one's humanity, that heart and mind can speak with one voice. Here, in six sections, is the historian's own choice of his shorter essays on some of the most critical problems facing America throughout its history, and today.
May It Please Your Lordship
Toby Potts - 2012
Stirring speeches to rapt juries, triumphant press interviews and enormous fees paid by grateful clients. He can see it all. But unfortunately, he has reckoned without Judge 'Bonkers' Clarke, The Honourable Mr 'Sourpuss' Boniface and a range of other equally terrifying, grumpy and borderline insane judges - not to mention tricky solicitors, bent coppers and dodgy defendants.
Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America
Martin Gilens - 2010
Affluence and Influence definitively explores how political inequality in the United States has evolved over the last several decades and how this growing disparity has been shaped by interest groups, parties, and elections.With sharp analysis and an impressive range of data, Martin Gilens looks at thousands of proposed policy changes, and the degree of support for each among poor, middle-class, and affluent Americans. His findings are staggering: when preferences of low- or middle-income Americans diverge from those of the affluent, there is virtually no relationship between policy outcomes and the desires of less advantaged groups. In contrast, affluent Americans' preferences exhibit a substantial relationship with policy outcomes whether their preferences are shared by lower-income groups or not. Gilens shows that representational inequality is spread widely across different policy domains and time periods. Yet Gilens also shows that under specific circumstances the preferences of the middle class and, to a lesser extent, the poor, do seem to matter. In particular, impending elections--especially presidential elections--and an even partisan division in Congress mitigate representational inequality and boost responsiveness to the preferences of the broader public.At a time when economic and political inequality in the United States only continues to rise, Affluence and Influence raises important questions about whether American democracy is truly responding to the needs of all its citizens.
What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution
Gar Alperovitz - 2013
The seeds of a new movement demanding change are forming.But just what is this thing called a new economy, and how might it take shape in America? In What Then Must We Do? Gar Alperovitz speaks directly to the reader about where we find ourselves in history, why the time is right for a new-economy movement to coalesce, what it means to build a new system to replace the crumbling one, and how we might begin. He also suggests what the next system might look like--and where we can see its outlines, like an image slowly emerging in the developing trays of a photographer's darkroom, already taking shape.He proposes a possible next system that is not corporate capitalism, not state socialism, but something else entirely--and something entirely American.Alperovitz calls for an evolution, not a revolution, out of the old system and into the new. That new system would democratize the ownership of wealth, strengthen communities in diverse ways, and be governed by policies and institutions sophisticated enough to manage a large-scale, powerful economy.For the growing group of Americans pacing at the edge of confidence in the old system, or already among its detractors, What Then Must We Do? offers an elegant solution for moving from anger to strategy.
BadMen: How Advertising Went From A Minor Annoyance To A Major Menace
Bob Hoffman - 2017
A frightening and highly entertaining look into the hidden, corrupt, and dangerous world of online advertising where billions of dollars are being stolen; personal information about us is being collected and sold 24-hours a day; and important principles of a free society are being undermined.
The Ant and the Ferrari
Kerry Spackman - 2012
this is one of those rare books that will change your beliefs - and in doing so will change your life. tHE ANt AND tHE FERRARI offers readers a clear, navigable path through the big questions that confront us all today. What is the meaning of life? Can we be ethical beings in today's world? Can we know if there is life after death? Is there such a thing as Absolute truth? What caused the Big Bang and why should you care?
Boondockbob's Guide to RV Boondocking
Bob Difley - 2015
I’ve been camping since I was a Boy Scout and RVing for more than 40 years, 17 of those years fulltiming with my wife, Lynn, in our Bounder motorhome. A good portion of the time we spent boondocking – camping off the grid – enjoying the freedom away from crowded campgrounds, exploring America’s wild lands and National Parks, camping along our scenic byways, on the shores of mountain lakes and streams, in the depths of our national and state forests, and in the wide open spaces of the Southwestern deserts. In this ebook I hope to inspire you to take the road-less-traveled and find your own private campsites – and I show you step-by-step how to do it easily and painlessly. Happy Travels.
To Be Fair: Confessions of a District Court Judge
Rosemary Riddell - 2021
From Freedom To Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America
Gerry Spence - 1993
In this underground bestseller, which has come to define Spence's political philosophy, he speaks out against the destructive forces in America today-forces of government and corporate tyranny that are robbing us of our freedom-and he warns us that time is running out.In a dramatic new chapter, presented for the first time in a trade paperback edition, Spence recounts in astonishing detail the government shoot-out at Ruby Ridge and the resulting trial of separatist Randy Weaver, revealing the important lessons we must learn from this tragic case.Finally, Spence makes the eloquent case that we, as Americans, have delivered our freedoms to new masters: corporate and governmental conglomerates, our biased court system, and the censored media. From Freedom to Slavery is an urgent work that urges us to resist this tyranny, a book that must be read and discussed by all concerned citizens of our troubled land.
The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts
Jeff Goodwin - 2002
The Social Movements Reader, Second Edition, provides the most important and readable articles and book selections on recent social movements from around the world.With selected readings and editorial material this book combines the strengths of a reader and a textbookReflects new developments in the study of social movements, both empirical and theoreticalProvides original texts, many of them classics in the field of social movements, which have been edited for the non-technical readerSidebars offer concise definitions of key terms as well as biographies of famous activists and chronologies of several key movementsRequires no prior knowledge about social movements or theories of social movements