Free Market Fantasies: Capitalism in the Real World


Noam Chomsky - 1997
    A refutation of the fantasies marketed as the "American Dream." The gulf between reality and a "free market" where entrepeneurs can compete on a level playing field is growing daily.There is endless talk about the free market and its virtues. Entrepreneurs compete on level playing fields and the public benefits. The chasm between such fantasies and reality is acute and growing wider. Mega-mergers and monopolies are limiting competition. Fewer than 10 corporations control most of the global media. The existing free market depends heavily on taxpayer subsidies and bailouts. Corporate welfare far exceeds that which goes to the poor.Economic policy is based on the dictum: take from the needy, and give to the greedy. The captains of industry of today make the robber barons of the 19th century look like underachievers. The gap between CEO and worker salaries has never been sharper. One union leader put it this way: "Workers are getting the absolute crap kicked out of them."This lecture focuses on these and other issues and Chomsky's compelling argument to change the power structure of America. His analysis is clear, concise, and thought provoking, and his advice is simultaneously pragmatic and radical.This CD was originally released by Allied records. It has been out of print for some time and since Allied have decided to close their operation, we have decided to keep it available to the growing amount of Noam Chomsky fans.This is a co-release with AK Press.

Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer


Peter Elkind - 2010
    By his late forties, he'd gone from Princeton to Harvard Law to dramatic success as a prosecutor and attorney general to the governorship of New York. Many thought he would become the first Jewish president of the United States. Then came the prostitution scandal that shocked and mystified the nation. Peter Elkind's definitive account gets at all sides of this complex man: the well-intentioned do-gooder, the aggressive lawyer, the hardball politician, the dutiful son, the loving husband and father, and the secretive "Client 9" of the Emperor's Club escort service. Elkind interviewed dozens of key sources ranging from Spitzer's family, friends, and closest aides, to targets of his high-profile investigations, to central players in the prostitution ring. He reveals many groundbreaking new details about Spitzer's rise, his short time as governor, and the way his enemies plotted against him. The result is a gripping, almost Shakespearean narrative-a tragedy of one man's noble intentions and fatal flaws and the powerful forces (both internal and external) that destroyed him.

Boris Johnson: The Gambler


Tom Bower - 2020
    His ruthless ambition was evident from his insistence, as a three-year-old, that he would one day be 'world king'. Eton and Oxford prepared him well for a frantic career straddling the dog-eat-dog worlds of journalism and politics. His transformation from bumbling stooge on Have I Got New for You to a triumphant Mayor of London was overshadowed only by his colourful personal life, brimming with affairs, scandals and transgressions. His ascent to Number 10 in the wake of the acrimonious, era-defining Brexit referendum would prove to be only the first act in an epic drama that saw him play both hero and villain - from proroguing parliament to his controversial leadership of the Covid-19 Crisis, all against the backdrop of divorce, marriage, the birth of his sixth child, revolts among Tory MPs and the countdown to Brexit.Yet despite his celebrity, decades of media scrutiny, the endless vitriol of his critics and the enduring adoration of his supporters, there is so much we've never understood about Boris - until now. Previous biographies have either dismissed him as a lazy, deceitful opportunist or been transfixed by his charm, wit and drive. Both approaches fall short, and so many questions about Boris remain unanswered.What seismic events of his childhood have evaded scrutiny? How has he so consistently defied the odds, proved his critics wrong, and got away with increasingly reckless gambles? What were his real achievements and failures as Mayor of London, what was really going on during his time as Foreign Secretary, and why did he write two articles for the Telegraph, one in favour of Leave and the other for Remain? How have the women in his life exerted more influence than any of us realise, and why is his story ultimately one overshadowed by family secrets?Based on a wealth of new interviews and research, this is the deepest, most rounded and most comprehensive portrait to date of the man, the mind, the politics, the affairs, the family - of a loner, a lover, a leader.Revelatory, unsettling and compulsively readable, it is the most timely and indispensable book yet from Britain's leading investigative biographer.

Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner


Nina Munk - 2004
    The news was crazy, incredible. The biggest merger ever, it was, according to the media, an "awesome megadeal" and "a fusion of guts and glory." It was "the deal of the century" and "a mega-marriage of earth and cyberspace." An Internet upstart, AOL was buying the world's most powerful media and entertainment company. "A company that isn't old enough to buy beer," marveled the Wall Street Journal, "has essentially swallowed an ancien régime media conglomerate that took most of a century to construct."Two years later, after the smoke had cleared, $200 billion of shareholder value had vanished into cyberspace. On the trail of possible fraud, the SEC and the Justice Department started investigating AOL Time Warner's accounting practices. Meanwhile, a civil war had broken out inside the company, complete with backstabbing and personal betrayals. Before long, almost every major player was out of the company, discredited, and humiliated. Jerry Levin, Time Warner's "resident genius," lost his job, lost his reputation, and, in the view of some people, simply "lost it." Steve Case, the visionary leader of AOL, was forced out of the company he had created. Gone too was the telegenic wonder-boy Bob Pittman, and his gang of fast-talking salesmen. As for Ted Turner, he resigned from his post as vice-chairman of AOL Time Warner in early 2003, bitter, wiser, and $8.5 billion poorer.Fools Rush In is the definitive account of one of the greatest fiascos in the history of corporate America. In a narrative fraught with drama, Nina Munk reveals the overweening ambition and moral posturing that brought down the Deal of the Century. With painstaking reporting and the remarkable eye for detail she's known for, Munk lays out, step by step, the anatomy of a debacle. Irreverent, witty, and iconoclastic, she sees through it all brilliantly."As in all great Greek tragedies, you knew the plot before it played out," one perceptive insider told Munk on the subject of the AOL Time Warner deal; "you knew who'd be sacrificed at the altar." Here's what we discover in Fools Rush In: In their single-minded quest for power, Steve Case and Jerry Levin were at each other's throats even before the deal was announced. Bob Pittman was regarded as a "windup CEO" by Case, and viewed as a hustler by just about everyone at Time Warner. Ted Turner underestimated Jerry Levin's ruthlessness badly. And Levin himself, convinced he was creating a great legacy comparable to that of Time Inc.'s founder, Henry Luce, refused to acknowledge the obvious: that, with a remarkable sense of timing, Steve Case had used grossly inflated Internet paper to buy Time Warner.

Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision


Thom Hartmann - 2007
    How did this happen? According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy. Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging; they learned these techniques. There is no reason why progressives can't learn them too. In Cracking the Code, Hartmann shows you how. Drawing on his background as a psychotherapist and advertising executive as well as a national radio host, he breaks down the structure for effective communication, sharing exercises and examples for practical application.

Renaissance Nation: How the Pope's Children Rewrote the Rules for Ireland


David McWilliams - 2018
    

James Connolly


Lorcan Collins - 2012
    Written in an entertaining, educational and assessible style, this biography is an accurate and well-researched portrayal of the man.

Why Marx Was Right


Terry Eagleton - 2011
    Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism—that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on—he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, Why Marx Was Right is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with Eagleton's familiar wit, humor, and clarity, it will attract an audience far beyond the confines of academia.

Ten Men Dead: The Story of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike


David Beresford - 1987
    While a stunned world watched and distraught family members kept bedside vigils, one "soldier" after another slowly went to his death in an attempt to make Margaret Thatcher's government recognize them as political prisoners rather than common criminals.Drawing extensively on secret IRA documents and letters from the prisoners smuggled out at the time, David Beresford tells the gripping story of these strikers and their devotion to the cause. An intensely human story, Ten Men Dead offers a searing portrait of strife-torn Ireland, of the IRA, and the passions -- on both sides -- that Republicanism arouses.

Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution


Jeb Bush - 2013
    But today, it divides Americans more stridently than ever, due to a chronic failure of national leadership by both parties. Here at last is an attainable resolution guided by two core principles: first, immigration is vital to America’s future; second, any enduring resolution must adhere to the rule of law. Unfortunately, current laws are so cumbersome and irrational that millions have circumvented them and entered the United States illegally, taxing our system to the breaking point. Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick contend there are other unique factors currently at play: America’s future population expansion will come solely from immigrants. And for the first time, the U.S. must compete with other countries for immigrant workers and their skills. In the first book to offer a practical, nonpartisan approach, Bush and Bolick propose a compelling six-point strategy for reworking our policies that begins with erasing all existing, outdated immigration structures and starting over. From there, Immigration Wars details their plan for advancing the national goals that immigration policy is supposed to achieve: build a demand-driven immigration system; increase states’ autonomy based on varying needs; reduce the significant physical risks and financial costs imposed by illegal immigration; unite Mexico and America in their common war against drug cartels; and educate aspiring citizens in our nation’s founding principles and why they still matter. Here too is a viable variation of the DREAM Act as a legal status for children brought here illegally, and sound strategies for the Republican Party to revitalize their ever-decreasing core constituency. With Immigration Wars as a beacon of hope, Americans can finally solidify a national identity that is based on a set of ideals enriched and reinvigorated by immigrants, most of whom fervently embrace our core values—family, faith, hard work, education, and patriotism.

Candace Owens: An Unauthorized Biography of the Conservative Thinker and Founder of Blexit


Richard West - 2020
    Owens launched the Blexit movement to encourage black voters to leave the Democrat plantation.Today, the mainstream media calls her a white nationalist, even though she is the black granddaughter of a Southern sharecropper. Some conservatives, on the other hand, believe she will one day be President.In this biography, Richard West provides Candace Owens’ life story, showing how she evolved from a victim-mentality liberal to a victor-mentality conservative. She went from being “a girl who started with nothing” to a true American success.

The Insurrection in Dublin


James Stephens - 1913
    It is filled with scenes of ribaldry and revelry and acts as a prelude to Maeve’s war with the men of Ulster.Stephens's two novellas, Deirdre (1923) and In the Land of Youth (1924), are drawn from the Ulster cycle of Irish mythology. They were intended to be part of a five-volume work, recounting the great Irish epic: An Táin Bó Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), but Stephens abandoned the idea, discouraged by critical reaction.

I Do Not Consent: My Fight Against Medical Cancel Culture


Simone Gold - 2020
    

Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance


Mark Howard - 2012
    Its Internet community web site, Fox Nation, serves as the online gathering place for Fox viewers to absorb and spread the aggregated disinformation and conspiracy theories hatched by Fox News.Two years ago the first volume of Fox Nation vs. Reality was published revealing an Internet operation that was dedicated to fiercely partisan, right-wing distortions of the truth. Its mission was, and remains, to construct a safe haven for the broader Fox News community to reinforce their preferred fantasies and unfounded preconceptions. Since then Fox Nation has evolved into an even more sheltered environment that has taken on many characteristics of culthood. It is a pattern they adopted from their parent, Fox News, where the slogan “fair and balanced” was an implicit condemnation of all other news sources as being neither. Recognizing that the prime directive of a cult is to convince your followers that your version of reality is the only true version and that all others are agents of deception, Fox segregated their disciples to prevent them from being contaminated by impure thoughts, otherwise known as facts.In Fox Nation vs. Reality you will find a compilation of articles originally published on the media analysis web site News Corpse. They provide an eye-opening look into the lengths that committed propagandists will go in order to fabricate an alternative political reality. And remember that Fox Nation is not some remote outpost on the Internet Superhighway. It is an integral part of Fox News whose executives are wholly responsible for the stain it produces on journalism.

My Rise and Fall


Benito Mussolini - 1998
    The first volume (published in English in 1928 as My Autobiography) describes Mussolini's youth, years as an agitator and journalist, experiences in World War I, the formation and revolutionary struggles of the Fascist Party, the March on Rome, and his early years in power. The second volume (published in English in 1948 as The Fall of Mussolini) was written during the brief period between his rescue by the Germans in September 1943 and his execution by Italian partisans in April 1945. Here the Duce recounts his last year in power and the coup d'état that deposed him. My Rise and Fall allows readers to view the dictator from two unique vantage points: Il Duce, eyes on the horizon, chin thrust forward, as he nears his political zenith; and Mussolini at his nadir, a desperate, powerless, sawdust Caesar, soon to be shot and hanged, head down, for all to scorn.