Social Civics

Was kostet mich ein Schritt zurück und was bekomme ich dafür? Ist mein verklärter Blick auf das einfache Leben meiner Kindheit nur ein Trugbild, oder ist der Schritt zurück der erste Schritt nach vorn, um Anlauf zu nehmen und den großen Graben der Verheißungen zu überspringen? Roland Düringer erzählt im Gespräch mit Clemens G. Arvay von seinem Selbstversuch, ein Leben wie früher zu führen und dabei die Zukunft zu gewinnen.

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.

Willing to Engage is a prequel to A Diamond on the Wall, the memoir of my experiences in Vietnam. It is my fervent hope, that by telling the remainder of my story, I might somehow stop someone from pulling the trigger of a gun, or swallowing pills, in their desire to end their life, or the lives of others. Too many people are surrendering all hope, because they see no future. I also hope to motivate today's youth to become involved; to labor with all who are willing to put forth an effort to stop the insanity that is causing such dismay.

Americans of all political stripes are heading into the 2008 election with the sense that something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. But what exactly? The only thing everyone seems to agree on, in fact, is that the American people are entirely blameless. InJust How Stupid Are We?, best-selling historian and renowned myth-buster Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people.

Why I Run: 35 Progressive Candidates Who Are Changing Politics is a collection of original essays from women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and progressive allies who have recently run for office. Contributors like Stacey Abrams, Deb Haaland, Jason Kander, Andrea Jenkins, and Michelle Lujan Grisham share what inspired them to run, what it takes to win, and what lessons can be learned in the face of a loss.

Meade survived a tough childhood only to find himself with a felony conviction. Finding the strength to pull his life together, he graduated summa cum laude from college, graduated from law school, and married. But because of his conviction, he was not even allowed to sit for the bar exam in Florida. And when his wife ran for state office, he was filled with pride - but not permitted to vote for her.

The idea and practice of civility has always been wielded to silence dissent, repress political participation, and justify violence upon people of color. Although many progressives today are told that we need to be more polite and thoughtful, less rancorous and angry when we talk about race in America, civility maintains rather than disrupts racial injustice.

When those we elect descend into criminal malfeasance and emulation of foreign autocracies and oligarchies, Cedric Alexander says it is the unelected apolitical "fourth branch" of government - our nation's public servants, civil servants, and first responders - who must save the nation. Alexander, a former deputy mayor, police chief, and CNN commentator, argues that these people do not constitute a nefarious "deep state" pursuing a hidden agenda. They keep the country running and its people safe....

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 Lappé 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, Lappé and Eichen argue.

A declaration of independence, and a call for systemic change, from the generation that will be most impacted by climate change. If anyone doubted the potential political power of the Millennial generation, Bernie Sanders' campaign put it in the spotlight. Are We Screwed? makes clear that the ardour for change defines this generation, especially when it comes to climate change, and they are willing to consider options that their elders might think naïve and impractical....

Legal luminary Burt Neuborne argues that the structure of the First Amendment as well as of the entire Bill of Rights was more intentional than most people realize, beginning with the internal freedom of conscience and working outward to freedom of expression and finally freedom of public association. This design, Neuborne argues, was not to protect discrete individual rights - such as the rights of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

Offering a “CliffsNotes guide” to some of the most important literary works of our time, Benjamin Wiker, author of 10 Books That Screwed Up the World, turns his discerning eye from the great texts that have done damage to Western civilization to the great texts that could help rebuild it.

Government intrusion into our private lives is at an all-time high: unfettered surveillance, massive entitlement programs to redistribute wealth, unelected activist judges trampling religious freedom. The Founding Fathers said our nation demanded a moral, educated, and principled populace to keep elected officials in check, to keep our government and culture clean and free of degrading forces, and to maintain its foundational core values.

Research polls, media interviews, and everyday conversations reveal an unsettling truth: citizens, while well-meaning and even passionate about current affairs, appear to know very little about politics. Hundreds of surveys document vast numbers of citizens answering even basic questions about government incorrectly. Given this unfortunate state of affairs, it is not surprising that more knowledgeable people often deride the public for its ignorance.

In 1987, E. L. Doctorow celebrated the Constitution's bicentennial by reading it. "It is five thousand words long but reads like fifty thousand," he said. Distinguished legal scholar Garrett Epps disagrees. It's about 7,500 words. In American Epic, Epps takes us through a complete reading of the Constitution to achieve an appreciation of its power and a holistic understanding of what it says. In this book he seeks not to provide a definitive interpretation, but to listen to the language and ponder its meaning.

The Fight for China’s Future throws light on the quintessence of 21st century Chinese politics through the prism of the struggle between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s vibrant intelligentsia and civil society. This book examines Xi Jinping’s 24-hour, multi-dimensional, AI-enabled police-state apparatus and explores the CCP’s policy towards civil society.

In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images. Not a traditional political science work concerned with office-seeking, voting, or ideology, Sister Citizen is an examination of how African American women understand themselves as citizens and what they expect from political organizing.

CIA case officer, Kent Clizbe, analyzes counter-intelligence details to demonstrate that KGB covert influence agents in American education and academia, Hollywood, and the media inserted the anti-American payload that became Political Correctness (PC). The KGB officers suffered death in Stalin's purges. Their American accomplices, not needing guidance, built the elite mindset of "reflexive loathing of the United States and its people," that defines PC.

Whether sitting down with a militia member seeking to protect his rural Utah town from Antifa or talking with grassroots organizers working across ideological divides, Gaines Quammen brings to life connections and contradictions that shape our politics and our lives far beyond the West.

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver's license, verifying information for employers, or claiming state and federal benefits. Yet as Donald Trump and his fellow "birthers" reminded us when they claimed that Barack Obama wasn't an American citizen, it plays a central role in determining identity and citizenship. The Birth Certificate: An American History traces the document's two-hundred-year history to explain when, how, and why birth certificates came to matter so much in the United States.