Foreword by Hillary Rodham Clinton
From the email marketing director of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the co-founder of Run for Something comes an essential and inspiring guide that encourages and educates young progressives to run for local office, complete with contributions from elected officials and political operatives.
You've been depressed since the night of November 8, 2016. You wore black to work the next morning. You berated yourself for your complacency during the Obama years. You ranted on Twitter. You deleted Twitter. You sent emails to your friends saying, "How can we get more involved?" You listened to Pod Save America. You knitted a pussyhat. You showed up to the Women's March on Washington. You protested Donald Trump's executive orders. You called your congressman. You called other people's congressmen. You set up monthly donations to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. You reactivated Twitter (begrudgingly).
Here's what you do next: Run for something.
To be specific: Run for local office and become the change you want to see in the world. Forget about Congress. Forget about the Senate. Focus on the offices that get the real sh*t done: state legislatures, city councils, school boards, and mayors.
It doesn't matter if you're not a white man over sixty with an Ivy League law degree. (In fact, it's better if you're not!)
It doesn't matter if you don't understand the first thing about running for office, or never even imagined you would. That's what this book is for.
Amanda Litman, experienced in hard-fought state and national election campaigns, is here to give you guidance as well as wisdom and insight from elected officials and political operatives she interviewed for this book.
There are half a million elected officials in the United States. Why can't you be one of them?
In his work as a speechwriter to senior politicians and business leaders around the world, Philip Collins has become well versed in understanding what it is that makes a speech great. explores the ways in which the most notable speeches in history have worked, analysing the rhetorical tricks to uncover how the right speech at the right time can profoundly shape the world.Travelling across continents and centuries, Collins reveals what Thomas Jefferson owes to Cicero and Pericles, who really gave the Gettysburg Address and what Elizabeth I shares with Winston Churchill.And in telling the story of the great speeches he tells the story of democracy. For it is in the finest public speeches that progress unfolds, and we need those speeches now more than ever.While we are bombarded by sound bites and social media, fake news and sloganeering, and while populists are winning support, democratic politicians need to find words that inspire and give us hope. Because disenchantment with politics fosters the dangerous illusion that there is an alternative.Informed by Collins's own experiences as a speech writer, is a passionate defence of the power of good public speaking to propagate and protect democracy and an urgent reminder of how words can change the world.
'We are driving across Oklahoma in early June when we first hear about the waves of children arriving, alone and undocumented, from Mexico and Central America. Tens of thousands have been detained at the border. What will happen to them? Where are the parents? And why have they undertaken a terrifying, life-threatening journey to enter the United States?' Valeria Luiselli works as a volunteer at the federal immigration court in New York City, translating for unaccompanied migrant children. Out of her work has come this book - a search for answers and an urgent appeal for humanity and compassion in response to mass migration, the most significant global phenomenon of our time.'The ' 'Angry and affecting. ' 'There are many books addressing the plight of refugees. - - is one of the most powerful'
As featured on Democracy Now! A groundbreaking, haunting, and profoundly moving history of modernity's greatest tragedy: concentration camps
For over 100 years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on Earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even in the twenty-first century, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our own solemn promise of "never again."
In this harrowing work based on archival records and interviews during travel to four continents, Andrea Pitzer reveals for the first time the chronological and geopolitical history of concentration camps. Beginning with 1890s Cuba, she pinpoints concentration camps around the world and across decades. From the Philippines and Southern Africa in the early twentieth century to the Soviet Gulag and detention camps in China and North Korea during the Cold War, camp systems have been used as tools for civilian relocation and political repression. Often justified as a measure to protect a nation, or even the interned groups themselves, camps have instead served as brutal and dehumanizing sites that have claimed the lives of millions.
Drawing from exclusive testimony, landmark historical scholarship, and stunning research, Andrea Pitzer unearths the roots of this appalling phenomenon, exploring and exposing the staggering toll of the camps: our greatest atrocities, the extraordinary survivors, and even the intimate, quiet moments that have also been part of camp life during the past century.
Global refugee numbers are at their highest levels since the end of World War II, but the system in place to deal with them, based upon a humanitarian list of imagined "basic needs," has changed little. In Refuge, Paul Collier and Alexander Betts argue that the system fails to provide a comprehensive solution to the fundamental problem, which is how to reintegrate displaced people into society. Western countries deliver food, clothing, and shelter to refugee camps, but these sites, usually located in remote border locations, can make things worse. The numbers are stark: the average length of stay in a refugee camp worldwide is seventeen years. Into this situation comes the Syria crisis, which has dislocated countless families, bringing them to face an impossible choice: huddle in dangerous urban desolation, rot in dilapidated camps, or flee across the Mediterranean to increasingly unwelcoming governments. Refuge seeks to restore moral purpose and clarity to refugee policy. Rather than assuming indefinite dependency, Collier-author of The Bottom Billion-and his Oxford colleague Betts propose a humanitarian approach integrated with a new economic agenda that begins with jobs, restores autonomy, and rebuilds people's ability to help themselves and their societies.
The American way-independence, entrepreneurialism, liberty-has been under assault for decades. The cultural foundations of the United States and its institutions are devolving along the line of some futuristic apocalyptic novel and producing social, moral, and economic dry rot that can lead only to chaos and ruin. Attacks on individuality, freedom, and personal responsibility for most of the last century have resulted, as Alexis de Tocqueville once predicted, in a gradual degradation of the people and the descent into slavery of once-free people. Crushing the Collective illuminates the very real dangers of the socialistic mind-set that is currently threatening Americans' freedoms and the very existence of our great nation. As Benjamin Franklin said, "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." Therefore, we must know the destructive history of nations drawn into the collectivist deceit, or we will be doomed to follow their same paths.
Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Choice by Edith Eger, read by Tovah Feldshuh with an introduction by the author.
'The Choice is a gift to humanity. One of those rare and eternal stories that you don't want to end and that leaves you forever changed' DESMOND TUTU, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Edith Eger was a gymnast and ballerina when she was sent to Auschwitz at the age of sixteen. There, she was made to dance for the infamous Josef Mengele. Her heroic actions helped her sister to survive, and her bunkmates to save her life, during a death march, after which she was found in a pile of bodies, barely alive. She recovered and moved to America, going on to become an eminent psychologist, and giving the keynote address at Viktor Frankl's 90th birthday party.
Like Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Dr Edith Eger's important book, The Choice, could change your life. Eger shares stories of the Holocaust and the experiences of her clients , who range from survivors of abuse to soldiers suffering from PTSD. She explains how many of us live within a mind that has become a prison and shows how freedom becomes possible once we confront our suffering. Warm, wise and compassionate, The Choice offers profound insights into the nature of human suffering, and our capacity to heal.
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Riot Days by Maria Alyokhina, read by Kate Lock.
From activist, Pussy Riot member and freedom fighter Maria Alyokhina, a raw, hallucinatory, passionate account of her arrest, trial and imprisonment in a penal colony in the Urals for standing up for what she believed in.
One of the most brilliant and inspiring things Ive read in years. Couldnt put it down. This book is freedom Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick
People who believe in freedom and democracy think it will exist forever.
That is a mistake. What happened in Russia - what happened to me - could happen anywhere.
When I was jailed for political protest, I learned that prison doesnt just teach you to follow the rules. It teaches you to think that you can never break them.
Its inevitable that the prison gates will open at some point. But this doesnt mean that you leave the prisoner category and go straight into the category of the free.
Freedom does not exist unless you fight for it every day.
This is the story about how I made a choice.
We are all Pussy Riot.
And actions break fear.
To Back Down an Inch is to Give Up a Mile.
An optimistic book for Americans who are asking, in the wake of Trump's victory, What do we do now? The answer: We need to organize and fight to protect and expand our democracy.
Americans are distraught as tightly held economic and political power drowns out their voices and values. Legendary Diet for a Small Planet author Frances Moore Lappe and organizer-scholar Adam Eichen offer a fresh, surprising response to this core crisis. This intergenerational duo opens with an essential truth: It's not the magnitude of a challenge that crushes the human spirit. It's feeling powerless-in this case, fearing that to stand up for democracy is futile. It's not, Lappe and Eichen argue.
With riveting stories and little-known evidence, they demystify how we got here, exposing the well-orchestrated effort that has robbed Americans of their rightful power. But at the heart of this unique book are solutions. Even in this divisive time, Americans are uniting across causes and ideologies to create a "canopy of hope" the authors call the Democracy Movement. In this invigorating "movement of movements," millions of Americans are leaving despair behind as they push for and achieve historic change.
The movement and democracy itself are vital to us as citizens and fulfill human needs-for power, meaning, and connection-essential to our thriving. In this timely and necessary book, Lappe and Eichen offer proof that courage is contagious in the daring fight for democracy.
Why is an unarmed young black woman who knocks on a stranger's front door to ask for help after her car breaks down perceived to be so threatening that he shoots her dead? Why do we fear infrequent acts of terrorism more far more common acts of violence? Why does a disease like Ebola, which killed only a handful of Americans, provoke panic, whereas the flu--which kills tens of thousands each year--is dismissed with a yawn?
Jumping at Shadows is Sasha Abramsky's searing account of America's most dangerous epidemic: irrational fear. Taking readers on a dramatic journey through a divided nation, where everything from immigration to disease, gun control to health care has become fodder for fearmongers and conspiracists, he delivers an eye-popping analysis of our misconceptions about risk and threats. What emerges is a shocking portrait of a political and cultural landscape that is, increasingly, defined by our worst fears and rampant anxieties.
Ultimately, Abramsky shows that how we calculate risk and deal with fear can teach us a great deal about ourselves, exposing deeply ingrained strains of racism, classism, and xenophobia within our culture, as well as our growing susceptibility to the toxic messages of demagogues.
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In early 2013 same-sex marriage was legal in only ten states and the District of Columbia. That year the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Windsor appeared to open the door to marriage equality. In Texas, Mark Phariss and Vic Holmes, together for sixteen years and deeply in love, wondered why no one had stepped across the threshold to challenge their state's 2005 constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. They agreed to join a lawsuit being put together by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLD. Two years later-after tense battles in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas and in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, after sitting through oral arguments at the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell v. Hodges-they won the right to marry deep in the heart of Texas. But the road they traveled was never easy. Accidental Activists is the deeply moving story of two men who struggled to achieve the dignity of which Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke in a series of Supreme Court decisions that recognized the "personhood," the essential humanity of gays and lesbians. Author David Collins tells Mark and Vic's story in the context of legal and social history and explains the complex legal issues and developments surrounding same-sex marriage in layman's terms.
Sixteen-year-old climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and his group the Earth Guardians believe that choices made now will have a lasting impact on the world of tomorrow, and they want to ensure a positive, just, and sustainable future.
Beginning with their empowering story, We Rise explores many aspects of effective activism and provides step-by-step information on how to start and join solution-oriented movements. With conversations between Xiuhtezcatl and well-known activists, revolutionaries, and celebrities, practical advice for living a more sustainable lifestyle, and ideas and tools for building resilient communities, We Rise is an action guide for how to face the biggest problems of today.
If you are interested in creating real and tangible change, We Rise will give you the inspiration and information you need to do your part in making the world a better place.
