Social Democracy

Progressive activism today is increasingly spearheaded by the nation's youngest voters. Gen Z—those born between 1997 and 2012—has come of age in a decade of upheavals. They have witnessed the election of Donald Trump, the murder of George Floyd, and the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, and they have lived under the constant threats of mass shootings and climate change. In response, left-leaning Zoomers, particularly women and LGBTQ people, have banded together to take action.

As AI and robotics eliminate jobs across the spectrum, governmental revenues will plummet while the debt increases dramatically. This crisis of limited resources on all levels - underfunded or nonexistent pensions, health problems, lack of savings, and job destruction without comparable job creation - will drive many into homelessness and produce a dramatic rise in violence as we fight over shrinking resources.

In Democracy Lives in Darkness, Emily Van Duyn discovers and follows a secret political organization of progressive women in a conservative community in rural Texas. Its members met in secret to protect themselves from retaliation by their conservative neighbors, friends, and family. They discussed immigrant rights, women's reproductive rights, racism, and intolerance of those of different racial/ethnic and cultural backgrounds in their community. Democracy Lives in Darkness is about this group: their daily lives, their choices, and ultimately, their incubation.

The war on American democracy is at a fever pitch. Such a corrosive state of affairs did not arise spontaneously but instead was pushed, top-down, by six private sector special interest groups. In American Apocalypse Rena Steinzor argues that these groups are nothing more than well-financed armies fighting a battle of attrition against the national government. The book begins at the end of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, when the modern regulatory state was born.

The United States, through its local, state, and national contests, holds more elections, more often, than any democracy in the world. But in recent years, there have been troubling signs that our system of campaigns and elections has become much more fragile and vulnerable. This new edition of Campaigns, Elections, and the Threat to Democracy: What Everyone Needs to Know® offers the most up-to-date examination of campaigns, elections, and future threats to voting and democracy.

In David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy, Nir Kedar offers a poignant study of the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Kedar provides an explication of the making of Israeli democracy in terms of its institutional-legal structures and social-cultural underpinnings. David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy connects the formal structures of democracy to the fundamental principles that they were constructed to serve—human freedom and dignity.

Our American democracy is not broken. Our two-party political system and constitutional government are working, though perhaps not at their best. In recent years, we have experienced the storming of the Capitol, the rise of demagogues (such as Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and the polarization into Red and Blue States. Unfortunately, we seem to be at a low point, a possible breaking point.

What if the American experiment is twofold, encompassing both democracy and tyranny? That is the question at the core of this book, which traces some of ways that Americans across the nineteenth century understood the perversions tyranny introduced into both their polity and society.

Die Risiken und Gefahren der militärischen und ökologischen Zerstörung sind heute so groß, dass sie die menschliche Zivilisation schlechthin bedrohen. Die Herausforderung eine gute, lebenswerte und wohlgeordnete Weltgemeinschaft herzustellen, stellt sich heute drängender denn je. Doch das einzige Mittel, auf das sich eine Hoffnung gründen lässt, steht uns heute de facto nicht mehr zur Verfügung: die Demokratie.

The myths about Franklin Delano Roosevelt live on. For the left, FDR was a champion of the working class and the oppressed, suffering abuse as a “traitor to his class.” He gave up the lifestyle of the Hudson River gentry to lead his country out of the Depression and to victory against fascism. For many on the right, FDR was out of his depth on economics but provided Americans with the optimism and confidence necessary to prevail during the Depression and gain victory in World War II.

For more than 15 years, award-winning journalist Sophie McNeill has reported on some of the most war-ravaged and oppressive places on earth, including Syria, Gaza, Yemen, West Bank and Iraq. In We Can't Say We Didn't Know, Sophie tells the human stories of devastation and hope behind the headlines—of children, families and refugees, of valiant doctors, steadfast dissidents and Saudi women seeking asylum. These innocent civilians bear the brunt of the lawlessness of the current age of impunity, where war crimes go unpunished and human rights are abused.

A exploration of prominent US Supreme Court cases from recent history (2010-2021) concerning elections and voting rights. Cases discussed include the relevant landmark cases namely: Citizens United, Rucho, Brnovich, Shelby County, and others. Full audio of oral arguments and opinions are included together with analysis of the relevant cases. Hear from the United States Supreme Court in their own words on topics that continue to be debated and shape the American political landscape today. Legal scholar Matt Bewig provides insightful commentary to frame the court's positions.

In Last Chance to Save American Democracy, political strategist Haven Scott McVarish takes us through the intentional dismantling of democracy begun by Republican party funders after Obama's landslide in 2008. These funders and their willing Republican servants weaponized unlimited dark money, extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, and diversionary propaganda to make it impossible for Democrats to effectively govern or win a majority. Only Trump’s massive unpopularity allowed Democrats to barely win the trifecta in the 2020 elections.

Since the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that the rights of things—money and corporations—matter more than the rights of people, America has faced a crisis of democracy. In this timely and thoroughly updated second edition, Jeff Clements describes the strange history of this bizarre ruling, its ongoing destructive effects, and the growing movement to reverse it.

2003 prägte Wolin in einem Zeitungsartikel den Begriff Inverted Totalitarianism (deutsch: Umgekehrter Totalitarismus). Mit dem Buch "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism" baute er 2008 seine Argumentation zum Inverted Totalitarianism aus. Die These dieses Werkes ist, dass am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts mit dem Streben nach Superpower und dem Management von Demokratie in den USA eine postdemokratische Regierungstechnik entstanden sei, die Elemente der liberalen Demokratie mit denen totalitärer politischer Systeme verbinde.

For the last 60 years, fear has seeped into every area of American life: Americans own more guns than citizens of any other country, sequester themselves in gated communities, and retreat from public spaces. And yet, crime rates have plummeted, making life in America safer than ever. Why, then, are Americans so afraid - and where does this fear lead to? In this remarkable work of social history, May demonstrates how our obsession with security has made citizens fear each other and distrust the government, making America less safe and less democratic.

In this powerful, sweeping history and analysis of American democracy, Thom Hartmann shows how democracy is the one form of governance most likely to produce peace and happiness among people. With the violent exception of the Civil War, American democracy resisted the pressure to disintegrate into factionalism for nearly two centuries, and now our very system of democratic elections is at stake. So how do we save our democracy?

In clear and simple language, Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, explains what justice is and what it takes to achieve it for even the youngest readers. Drawing on examples of historic justice seekers whose deeds best demonstrate those attributes by asking hard questions, keeping an open mind, defending the truth, and using their voices and their bodies to fight injustice—such as Ida B. Wells, John Lewis, Malala Yousafzai, and many others, this timely book is perfect for exploring the concept of justice.

The electronic age compels us to confront the delicate balance between the convenience of constant connectivity and the protection of personal privacy, security, and democracy itself. Presented as a two-fold concern of digital and civic literacy, surveillance and privacy expert Heidi Boghosian argues that our fight to uphold democracy must extend to the online world. As “smart” citizens, our best chance of thriving in the digital era lies in taking care of our “smart” selves as diligently as we maintain our smart devices.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was a Scottish philosopher, social commentator, satirical writer, essayist, mathematician, and historian. Latter-Day Pamphlets is a series of essays published in 1850, in which he harshly denounces the political, social, and religious injustices and stupidities of the period. The target of many of the essays is the effect of greed on the culture. Carlyle also attacked the British parliament, democracy and the prison system.