How Powerful We Are: Behind the scenes with one of Australia's leading activists


Sally Rugg - 2019
    Sally is one of our most valiant warriors.' - Clementine Ford, author of FIGHT LIKE A GIRL and BOYS WILL BE BOYS'Proof that the personal is always political - and love really can save the world.' - Jamila Rizvi, author of NOT JUST LUCKY'Rugg's passion and insight make for a propulsive tale' - Sydney Morning Herald Even if you're not an activist (yet), at a time when the news is written for clicks and elections are fought with three-word slogans, it's crucial to preserve some record of events that isn't 'fake news' or political spin. In part, this book is my attempt to counter the re-writing of how Australia achieved one of the most significant social changes in a generation. Sally Rugg is one of Australia's most influential campaigners for social change. HOW POWERFUL WE ARE is her manifesto for championing what you believe is right.In these pages Sally will teach you some of the things she learnt on the marriage equality campaign: how to develop a strategy, how to frame your messages, how to get your campaign to the media, how to build community power. And she'll share with you the much harder lessons learnt: the consequences of campaign decisions; how to weather criticism and harassment from every angle; and how, in mass campaign movements, nothing is black and white.

Foundations of Economic Prosperity


Daniel W. Drezner - 2013
    Professor Drezner takes you behind the headlines and into the debates to dispel common myths about prosperity and get at deeper truths. By taking a broad view of economics that includes psychology, sociology, political science, and history, his lectures lead you to fundamental insights about how the modern world works and a deeper understanding of the functioning of the U.S., European, Chinese, and other major economies, as well as an appreciation for the special problems faced by underdeveloped nations. You'll examine dozens of case histories that illustrate what works and doesn't work in the drive to increase economic growth. You'll also learn about intriguing examples of prosperity won or lost, including the Dutch tulip mania in 1637, the era of globalization that started in the 1850s and lasting through World War I, and Ukraine's economic missteps after the breakup of the Soviet Union. As a start on your own road to greater prosperity, take this step to invest in an unparalleled explanation of the prerequisites to achieve it.

Growing Pains: the future of democracy (and work)


Gwynne Dyer - 2018
    But how did this come about? And what does it mean for the future?Populism and ultra-nationalism brought about the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s. Now, as Trump sits in the White House, Britain negotiates its way out of the EU, and countries across Europe see substantial gains in support for the extreme Right, award-winning journalist, author, and historian Gwynne Dyer asks how we got here, and where we go next. Dyer examines the global challenges facing us all today and explains how they have contributed to a world of inequality, poverty, and joblessness, conditions which he argues inevitably lead to the rise of populism. The greatest threat to social and political stability lies in the rise of automation, which will continue to eliminate jobs, whether politicians admit that it is happening or not. To avoid a social and political catastrophe, we will have to find ways of putting real money into the pockets of those who have no work. But this is not a book without hope. Our capacity for overcoming the worst has been tested again and again throughout history, and we have always survived. To do so now, Dyer argues, we must embrace radical solutions to the real difficulties facing individuals, or find ourselves back in the 1930s with no way out.

Coffee with Plato


Donald R. Moor - 2007
    Travel back to ancient Greece with Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Donald R. Moor and author Robert M. Pirsig ("Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") to meet this legendary thinker. In addition to expanding upon his famous allegory of the cave, Plato talks about learning through dialogue, the primacy of good and the price of wrong doing, democracy, freedom and censorship, women's equality, love, and mathematics, and the search for truth.

Murder at Camp Delta: A Staff Sergeant's Pursuit of the Truth About Guantanamo Bay


Joseph Hickman - 2013
    For twenty years, he worked as a prison guard, a private investigator, and in the military, earning more than twenty commendations and awards. When he re-enlisted after 9/11, he served as a team leader and Sergeant of the Guard in Guantánamo Naval Base. From the moment he arrived at Camp Delta, something was amiss. The prisons were chaotic, detainees were abused, and Hickman uncovered by accident a secret facility he labeled “Camp No.” On June 9, 2006, the night Hickman was on duty, three prisoners died, supposed suicides, and Hickman knew something was seriously wrong. So began his epic search for the truth, an odyssey that would lead him to conclude that the US government was using Guantánamo not just as a prison, but as a training ground for interrogators to test advanced torture techniques.For the first time, Hickman details the inner workings of Camp Delta: the events surrounding the death of three prisoners, the orchestrated the cover-up, and the secret facility at the heart of it all. From his own eyewitness account, and a careful review of thousands of documents, he deconstructs the government’s account of what happened and proves that the military not only tortured prisoners, but lied about their deaths. By revealing Guantánamo’s true nature, Sergeant Hickman shows us why the prison has been so difficult to close. This book opens an important window onto government overreach, secrecy, and one man’s principled search for the truth. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Mur...

The Passion of Ayn Rand


Barbara Branden - 1986
    This bestselling biography of one of the 20th century's most remarkable and controversial writers is now available in paperback.  Author Barbara Branden, who knew Rand for nineteen years, provides a matchless portrait of this fiercely private and complex woman.

Prison: A Survival Guide


Carl Cattermole - 2019
    The cult guide to UK prisons by Carl Cattermole – now fully updated and featuring contributions from female and LGBTQI prisoners, as well as from family on the outside.Featuring contributors Sarah Jake Baker, Jon Gulliver, Darcey Hartley, Julia Howard, Elliot Murawski and Lisa Selby.

China's Vision of Victory


Jonathan D. T. Ward - 2019
    After seventy-five years of peace in the Pacific, a new challenger to American power has emerged, on a scale not seen in generations. Working from a deep sense of national destiny, the Chinese Communist Party is guiding a country of 1.4 billion people towards what it calls "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," and, with it, the end of an American-led world. Will this generation witness the final act for America as a superpower? Can American ingenuity, confidence, and will power outcompete the long-term strategic thinking and planning of China's Communist Party? These are the challenges that will shape the next decade and more. China's Vision of Victory brings the reader to a new understanding of China's planning, strategy, and ambitions. From seabed to space, from Africa to the Arctic, from subsurface warfare to the rise of China's global corporations, this book will illuminate for the reader the new great game of our lifetimes, and how our adversary sees it all.

The Intellectuals And Socialism


Friedrich A. Hayek - 1998
    This was the warning which Friedrich Hayek, the great architect of the 20th-century revival of classical liberal ideas, issued in 1949 with this essay. Hayek described intellectuals as 'professional second-hand dealers in ideas', people who are in a position to become familiar with new ideas and to promote them through their writings and speeches.He believed the importance of this class had been ignoted by supporters of the free market, with serious consequences. For example, socialism had never, and nowhere, been at first a working-class movement. It adoption by policy makers had been preceded by a long period in which it had been of interest only to intellectuals, who had promoted it relentlessly. Hayek believe that the classical liberal ideal of liberty and free markets had lost its appeal for young, intelligent people: the challenge was to 'make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure'. Hayek ended the essay by asking: 'Will it be in time?' A foreword by Edwin J. Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation, and an introduction by John Blundell, General Director of the IEA, testify to the impact of this essay, together with Hayek's other writings, in stimulating the backlash against socialism through the many institutes founded by those who were won over to classical liberal ideas - just in time.

The Political Determinants of Health


Daniel E. Dawes - 2020
    However, in a country of more than 325 million people, addressing everyone's issues is challenging. How can we effect beneficial change for everyone so we all can thrive? What is the great equalizer?In this book, Daniel E. Dawes argues that political determinants of health create the social drivers--including poor environmental conditions, inadequate transportation, unsafe neighborhoods, and lack of healthy food options--that affect all other dynamics of health. By understanding these determinants, their origins, and their impact on the equitable distribution of opportunities and resources, we will be better equipped to develop and implement actionable solutions to close the health gap.Dawes draws on his firsthand experience helping to shape major federal policies, including the Affordable Care Act, to describe the history of efforts to address the political determinants that have resulted in health inequities. Taking us further upstream to the underlying source of the causes of inequities, Dawes examines the political decisions that lead to our social conditions, makes the social determinants of health more accessible, and provides a playbook for how we can address them effectively. A thought-provoking and evocative account that considers both the policies we think of as health policy and those that we don't, The Political Determinants of Health provides a novel, multidisciplinary framework for addressing the systemic barriers preventing the United States from becoming the healthiest nation in the world.

Christianity Is Not Great: How Faith Fails


John W. Loftus - 2014
       The contributors begin by dissecting the many problematic aspects of religious faith generally. They repeatedly demonstrate that, with faith as a foundation, almost anything can be believed or denied. And almost any horrific deed can be committed. The authors then take a good hard look at many of the most important political, institutional, scientific, social, and moral harms committed in the name of Christianity. These range from the historical persecutions of the Inquisition and witch hunts to the current health hazards of faith healing. Finally, the authors answer three common Christian retorts to criticisms from nonbelievers: (1) that atheists cannot judge a harmful action without an objective moral standard; (2) that atheists need faith to solve the world’s problems; and (3) that atheists cannot live a good life without faith. Loftus and the contributors generally conclude that, given both the well-documented historical record and ongoing problems raised by the faith, Christianity decisively fails empirical tests of its usefulness to humanity.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents: From Wilson to Obama


Steven F. Hayward - 2012
    Our greatest presidents are the ones who confronted a national crisis and mobilized the entire nation to face it. That’s the conventional wisdom. The chief executives who are celebrated in textbooks and placed in the top echelon of presidents in surveys of experts are the “bold” leaders— the Woodrow Wilsons and Franklin Roosevelts— who reshaped the United States in line with their grand “vision” for America.Unfortunately, along the way, these “great” presidents inevitably expanded government— and shrunk our liberties.As the twentieth-century presidency has grown far beyond the bounds the Founders established for the office, the idea that our chief executive is responsible to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” has become a distant memory.Historian and celebrated Reagan biographer Steven F. Hayward reminds us that the Founders had an entirely different idea of greatness in the presidential office. The personal ambitions, populist appeals, and bribes paid to the voters with their own money that most modern presidents engage in would strike them as instances of the demagoguery they most feared— one of the great dangers to the people’s liberty that they wrote the Constitution explicitly to guard against. The Founders, in contrast to today’s historians, expected great presidents to be champions of the limited government established by the Constitution.Working from that almost forgotten standard of presidential greatness, Steven Hayward offers a fascinating off–the–beaten–track tour through the modern presidency, from the Progressive Era’s Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama. Along the way, he serves up fresh historical insights, recalls forgotten anecdotes, celebrates undervalued presidents who took important stands in defense of the Constitution— and points the way to a revival of truly constitutional government in America.What you didn’t learn from your history teacher, but will find in The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Presidents:Progressive hero Woodrow Wilson aired a pro–Ku Klux Klan movie at the White HouseCalvin Coolidge, much mocked by liberal historians as a bland Babbitt, was the last president to write his own speeches, guided the country through years of prosperity and limited government, and was one of the most cultured men ever to live in the White HouseWhy Eisenhower’s two biggest mistakes as president were, in his own words “both sitting on the Supreme Court”How as president JFK took mind–altering drugs, many of them prescribed by a physician he called “Dr. Feelgood,” who later lost his medical license for malpracticeNixon’s hysterically vilified Christmas bombing of North Vietnam in 1972 caused very few civilian casualties and compelled North Vietnam to negotiate an end to the Vietnam WarThe misunderestimated George W. Bush read 186 books during his presidency, mostly non–fiction, biography, and history

Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours


Emily J. Miller - 2013
    The narrative—sometimes shocking, other times hilarious in its absurdity—gives the listener a real-life understanding of how gun-control laws only make it more difficult for honest, law-abiding people to get guns, while violent crime continues to rise. Using facts and newly uncovered research, Miller exposes the schemes politicians on Capitol Hill, in the White House, and around the country are using to deny people their Second Amendment rights. She exposes the myths that gun grabbers and liberal media use to get new laws passed that infringe on our right to keep and bear arms.

Exile on Wall Street: One Analyst's Fight to Save the Big Banks from Themselves


Mike Mayo - 2011
    capitalism, the future of banking, and the root causes of the financial meltdown.Award winning, veteran sell side Wall Street analyst Mike Mayo writes about one of the biggest financial and political issues of our time - the role of finance and banks in the US. He has worked at six Wall Street firms, analyzing banks and protesting against bad practices for two decades.In Exile on Wall Street, Mayo:Lays out practices that have diminished capitalism and the banking sector Shares his battle scars from calling truth to power at some of the largest banks in the world and how he survived challenging the status quo to be credited as one of the few who saw the crisis coming Blows the lid off the true inner workings of the big banks and shows the ways in which Wall Street is just as bad today as it was pre-crash. Analyzes the fallout stemming from the market crash, pointing out the numerous holes that still exist in the system, and offers practical solutions. While it provides an education, this is no textbook. It is also an invaluable resource for finance practitioners and citizens alike.

Why Government Doesn't Work: How Reducing Government Will Bring Us Safer Cities, Better Schools, Lower Taxes, More Freedom, and Prosperity for All


Harry Browne - 1995
    And he demonstrates how much better off we'd be by making government much smaller. Most important, he provides a realistic blueprint for getting from where we are now to a small government and a freer, more prosperous society.