Excerpts

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How Free-Market Delusions Destroyed the Economy

By Raj Patel, Picador Press. November 30, 2009.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: The worship of free markets set off the economic meltdown.

American Youth in the 21st Century: Pathologized, Criminalized and Disposable

By Henry A. Giroux, AlterNet. November 16, 2009.
Rights and Liberties: Young people today face imprisonment, the prescription of psychotropic drugs, psychiatric confinement, and zero tolerance policies that model schools after prisons.

Wall Street Lies Blame Victims to Avoid Responsibility for Financial Meltdown

By Nomi Prins, Wiley Press. September 29, 2009.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: To hear it from the big financial companies, the big crash started when poor people bought homes they couldn't afford. But that was at most 1% of the problem.

Campus Hypocrisy: Marijuana Is Safer, But Students Are Pushed to More Dangerous Booze

By Paul Armentano, Steve Fox, Mason Tvert, Chelsea Green Publishing. August 20, 2009.
DrugReporter: The stats for death and injury tied to alcohol on campus are staggering, yet students are more harshly punished for pot -- which is far more benign.

How Outlet Malls Have Convinced Shoppers into Thinking They're Getting a Sweet Deal

By Ellen Rupel Shell, The Penguin Press. August 8, 2009.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Are America's 55 million outlet shoppers scoring great deals on expensive brandname products, or getting less than they're bargaining for?

Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

By Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, Mason Tvert, Chelsea Green Publishing. August 6, 2009.
Rights and Liberties: A new book explains how we're steering people away from cannabis and toward the use of a very harmful and deadly substance: alcohol.

The Rise of Gonzo Porn Is the Latest Sign of America's Cultural Apocalypse

By Chris Hedges, Nation Books. July 31, 2009.
Media and Technology: A culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies. A visit to a Las Vegas porn convention reveals we are dying now.

Did Anti-Drug Propaganda Help Bring About a Psychedelic Renaissance?

By Ryan Grim, Wiley Press. July 20, 2009.
DrugReporter: As the anti-drug program spread into 3/4 of all school districts by the '90s, America's youth enjoyed a psychedelic renaissance.

This Is Your Country on Drugs: How the DARE Generation Got High

By Ryan Grim, Wiley Press. July 6, 2009.
Rights and Liberties: Exclusive from new book shares the '80s generation's encounter with illicit drugs, and how they really caught on.

The Case of the Missing H-Bomb: The Pentagon Has Lost the Mother of All Weapons

By Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch. May 16, 2009.
Environment: 60 years have passed since a damaged jet dropped a hydrogen bomb near Savanah, Ga. -- and the Pentagon still can't find it.

Plunder and Blunder; How the 'Financial Experts' Keep Screwing You

By Dean Baker, PoliPoint Press. February 7, 2009.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Anyone with common sense, a grasp of simple arithmetic and a desire to go against the consensus should have seen the financial crisis coming.

I Killed My Parents -- They Asked Me to Do It

By John West, Counterpoint Press. February 5, 2009.
Rights and Liberties: The author explains why, after his parents made their wishes clear, he didn't argue.

Tear Down This Myth: How Reagan's Legacy Haunts Our Future

By Will Bunch, Free Press. February 4, 2009.
Media and Technology: The Great Communicator still speaks from the Great Beyond. But he leaves out some very important details about his time in office.

How Obama Won: The Rise of Web 2.0

By Greg Mitchell, Sinclair Books. February 3, 2009.
Media and Technology: In election '08, the ascendance of new media changed the rules of the game and smoothed Obama's path to victory.

In Some States, Fetuses Are Deemed More Important Than Women

By Jeanne Flavin, NYU Press. January 31, 2009.
Reproductive Justice and Gender: "Fetal rights" turn women into little more than baby carriers rather than human beings.

The Sensational World of Drug Paperbacks

By Stephen J. Gertz, Feral House. December 27, 2008.
DrugReporter: Famed for their campy kitsch, gloriously bad writing and outlandish misinformation, drug paperback books embodied seductive cultural taboos.

How the Rise of the Speculation Economy Shaped U.S. Corporate Culture

By Lawrence E. Mitchell, AlterNet. December 22, 2008.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: American capitalism is such that a speculative stock market dominates the policies of businesses.

Why Iranians Love and Loathe Ahmadinejad and Think Nuclear Technology's Their Right

By Hooman Majd, AlterNet. December 18, 2008.
ForeignPolicy: An Iranian-American author explains why their president elicits such passionate emotions from both supporters and opponents.

Why the Democrats Are Winning Back the South

By Bob Moser, Texas Observer. November 5, 2008.
Election 2008: The more Democrats focus on economic fairness in the South, the better their chance to shut down the right's culture wars.

The Plot Against Liberal America

By Thomas Frank, The New Statesman. August 18, 2008.
Politics: Conservatives don't want to debate, they want to destroy their opposition.

How Washington's Right-Wing Wrecking Crew Robbed Us Blind

By Thomas Frank, Tomdispatch.com. August 6, 2008.
Politics: Conservatives have turned a vast government built for our protection into a device for exploiting us.

Let's Call 'Sex Tourism' What It Really Is: Slavery

By Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, Rodale Inc. August 1, 2008.
Reproductive Justice and Gender: The new book Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated exposes the gravity of sexual slavery -- evil in its extreme.

Scary Politics in Alabama: How the GOP Framed Gov. Don Siegelman

By Larisa Alexandrovna, Ig Publishing. July 21, 2008.
Politics: Once a popular governor of Alabama, Siegelman was framed in a crooked trial and sent to prison by the corrupt Bush administration.

It's About Time for Online Voting

By Allison H. Fine, Personal Democracy Forum. July 3, 2008.
Media and Technology: Historians will undoubtedly consider our current era of voting machines the technological equivalent of the 8-track tape machine.

Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?

By Rick Shenkman, Tomdispatch.com. July 2, 2008.
Politics: Millions of Americans are embarrassingly ill-informed and they do not care that they are.

The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America

By Robert Scheer, Twelve. June 27, 2008.
Politics: The huge "defense" spending going on in our name is irrational and costly, but there are powerful vested interests that want to keep it that way.

Laura Ingraham: Right-Wing Radio's High Priestess of Hate

By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet Books. June 7, 2008.
Media and Technology: Shock radio host Ingraham is a master of sounding funny and appealing while dishing out the same hate speech as Sean Hannity.

How Scarce Energy Resources Can Quickly Lead to Deadly Wars

By Michael T. Klare, Metropolitan Books. May 31, 2008.
ForeignPolicy: Shows of force by nations competing to control dwindling energy supplies could trigger conflict in hot spots across the globe.

(Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents: Just Being Middle Class Is Becoming out of Reach

By Nan Mooney, Beacon Press. May 20, 2008.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Why does it take two incomes to support a middle-class lifestyle that used to require one?

If Cheney & Co. Had Really Plotted the 9/11 Attacks ...

By Matt Taibbi, Spiegel & Grau. May 19, 2008.
Media and Technology: Matt Taibbi's hilarious re-enactment of the secret govt. conspiracy (that never happened) to conduct the attacks.

Moyers: 'Democracy in America Is a Series of Narrow Escapes, and We May Be Running Out of Luck'

By Bill Moyers, Doubleday. May 17, 2008.
Politics: For all of America's shortcomings, we keep telling ourselves, "The system works." Now all bets are off.

How Pot Became Demonized: the Fine Line Between Good Medicine and 'Dangerous Drugs'

By Wendy Chapkis, Richard J. Webb, NYU Press. May 13, 2008.
Health and Wellness: A history of the battle between politics and science over the use of marijuana as a medicine.

The Military's Pricey Restaurant Tastes: Gone Are the Days of Grunts Peeling Potatoes

By Nick Turse, Metropolitan Books. May 8, 2008.
ForeignPolicy: Judging by the Pentagon's own accounting, the army, navy, air force and marines have been very hungry -- and they've been chowing down.

The Violent Language of Right-Wing Pundits Poisons Our Democracy

By Jeffrey Feldman, Ig Publishing. May 6, 2008.
Media and Technology: On TV and the radio, conservative pundits infuse violence into their arguments, destroying our precious culture of civil debate.

An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. May 5, 2008.
Rights and Liberties: In this excerpt from his new book, Matt Taibbi shares his experiences at a Hagee's boot camp for new converts.

The Marriage Revolution

By Nancy D. Polikoff, Beacon Press. April 25, 2008.
Sex and Relationships: How the law changed to accommodate evolving sexual practices and gender roles.

How Republicans Quietly Hijacked the Justice Department to Swing Elections

By Steven Rosenfeld, Ig Publishing. April 15, 2008.
Election 2008: The GOP may have committed massive vote fraud in plain sight by encouraging widespread voter purges and restricting registration campaigns.

The Military-Leisure Golf Complex

By Nick Turse, Metropolitan Books. April 12, 2008.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Pentagon elites and high government officials are tee-ing off at taxpayer expense at hundreds of courses all over the planet.

Did McCain Avoid Voting on a Key 9/11 Bill Because He's Afraid of the Neocons?

By Cliff Schecter, PoliPoint Press. April 10, 2008.
Election 2008: McCain's official calendar says he was in California on the day of a key security vote, but he was actually in the Senate, voting on 15 other bills.

The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor

By Les Leopold, AlterNet. April 9, 2008.
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: Long after the Democratic Party abandoned labor interests, Tony Mazzocchi continued to fight for the working class.

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