Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World

Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World
Noam Chomsky (Author)
(12)

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Human Rights

The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI (Vintage)

The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI (Vintage)
Betty L. Medsger (Author)
(160)

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Human Rights

The never-before-told full story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists—quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans—that made clear the shocking truth and confirmed what some had long suspected, that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation.

It begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists—eight men and women—the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, inspired by Daniel Berrigan’s rebellious Catholic peace movement, set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land.
           
The would-be burglars—nonpro’s—were ordinary people leading lives of purpose: a professor of religion and former freedom rider; a day-care director; a physicist; a cab driver; an antiwar activist, a lock picker; a graduate student haunted by members of her family lost to the Holocaust and the passivity of German civilians under Nazi rule.

Betty Medsger's extraordinary book re-creates in resonant detail how this group of unknowing thieves, in their meticulous planning of the burglary, scouted out the low-security FBI building in a small town just west of Philadelphia, taking into consideration every possible factor, and how they planned the break-in for the night of the long-anticipated boxing match between Joe Frazier (war supporter and friend to President Nixon) and Muhammad Ali (convicted for refusing to serve in the military), knowing that all would be fixated on their televisions and radios.

Medsger writes that the burglars removed all of the FBI files and, with the utmost deliberation, released them to various journalists and members of Congress, soon upending the public’s perception of the inviolate head of the Bureau and paving the way for the first overhaul of the FBI since Hoover became its director in 1924.  And we see how the release of the FBI files to the press set the stage for the sensational release three months later, by Daniel Ellsberg, of the top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study on U.S. decision-making regarding the Vietnam War, which became known as the Pentagon Papers.
           
At the heart of the heist—and the book—the contents of the FBI files revealing J. Edgar Hoover’s “secret counterintelligence program” COINTELPRO, set up in 1956 to investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States in order “to enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles,” to make clear to all Americans that an FBI agent was “behind every mailbox,” a plan that would discredit, destabilize, and demoralize groups, many of them legal civil rights organizations and antiwar groups that Hoover found offensive—as well as black power groups, student activists, antidraft protestors, conscientious objectors.

The author, the first reporter to receive the FBI files, began to cover this story during the three years she worked for The Washington Post and continued her investigation long after she'd left the paper, figuring out who the burglars were, and convincing them, after decades of silence, to come forward and tell their extraordinary story. 

The Burglary is an important and riveting book, a portrait of the potential power of non­violent resistance and the destructive power of excessive government secrecy and spying.

• Rank: #124585 in Books
• Published on: 2014-11-04
• Released on: 2014-11-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .81 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights Open Media)

Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights Open Media)
Todd Miller (Author)

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Human Rights

"[Miller] offers a vision of what the military-industrial complex looks like once it's transported, jobs and all, to the US–Mexican border and turned into a consumer mall for the post-9/11 era . . . [it's] a striking and original picture."--Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch

"What Jeremy Scahill was to Blackwater, Todd Miller is to the U.S. Border Patrol!"--Tom Miller, author, On the Border: Portraits of America's Southwestern Frontier

"Todd Miller has entered a secret world, and he has gone deep. If you want to learn about the Border Patrol's world, you will find this book informative and startling. I'm not sure the Border Patrol will like all that he has to say. But his is a moral work that wrestles with a huge story. Powerful."--Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway: A True Story, among other books

Armed authorities watch from a military-grade surveillance tower as lines of people stream toward the security checkpoint, tickets in hand, anxious and excited to get through the gate. Few seem to notice or care that the US Border Patrol is monitoring the Super Bowl, as they have for years, one of the many ways that forces created to police the borders are now being used, in an increasingly militarized fashion, to survey and monitor the whole of American society.

In fast-paced prose, Todd Miller sounds an alarm as he chronicles the changing landscape. Traveling the country—and beyond—to speak with the people most involved with and impacted by the Border Patrol, he combines these first-hand encounters with careful research to expose a vast and booming industry for high-end technology, weapons, surveillance, and prisons. While politicians and corporations reap substantial profits, the experiences of millions of men, women, and children point to staggering humanitarian consequences. Border Patrol Nation shows us in stark relief how the entire country has become a militarized border zone, with consequences that affect us all.

Todd Miller has worked on US border issues for over fifteen years. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Mother Jones, the Nation, TomDispatch, the Huffington Post, Al-Jazeera English, Common Dreams, and many others.

• Rank: #200593 in Books
• Published on: 2014-03-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.99" h x 5.24" w x .0" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Romeo Dallaire (Author), Samantha Power (Foreword)
(101)

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Human Rights

For the first time in the United States comes the tragic and profoundly important story of the legendary Canadian general who "watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect." When Roméo Dallaire was called on to serve as force commander of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda, he believed that his assignment was to help two warring parties achieve the peace they both wanted. Instead, he was exposed to the most barbarous and chaotic display of civil war and genocide in the past decade, observing in just one hundred days the killings of more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans. With only a few troops, his own ingenuity and courage to direct his efforts, Dallaire rescued thousands, but his call for more support from the world body fell on deaf ears. In Shake Hands with the Devil, General Dallaire recreates the awful history the world community chose to ignore. He also chronicles his own progression from confident Cold Warrior to devastated UN commander, and finally to retired general struggling painfully, and publicly, to overcome posttraumatic stress disorder—the highest-ranking officer ever to share such experiences with readers.

• Rank: #11562 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.02" h x 1.65" w x 6.02" l, 1.54 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

• Biography Current Affairs Rwanda

Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives

Buy on the merchant's online looking and read reviews. If you're making an attempt to search out Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives with special deal. This is the most effective deal for you. Where you'll realize these item is by on-line searching stores? Read the review on Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives Now, it's special deal. So do not lose it.


Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives
by George Lakoff, Howard Dean, Don Hazen
(214)

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Human Rights

Don't Think of an Elephant! is the definitive handbook for understanding what happened in the 2004 election and communicating effectively about key issues facing America today. Author George Lakoff has become a key advisor to the Democratic party, helping them develop their message and frame the political debate.
In this book Lakoff explains how conservatives think, and how to counter their arguments. He outlines in detail the traditional American values that progressives hold, but are often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways in which conservatives have framed the issues, and provides examples of how progressives can reframe the debate.
Lakoff's years of research and work with environmental and political leaders have been distilled into this essential guide, which shows progressives how to think in terms of values instead of programs, and why people vote their values and identities, often against their best interests.
Don't Think of An Elephant! is the antidote to the last forty years of conservative strategizing and the right wing's stranglehold on political dialogue in the United States.
Read it, take action-and help take America back.

• Rank: #29129 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09
• Released on: 2004-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .38" h x 5.58" w x 8.24" l, 1.60 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages