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The Republic of Men: Gender and the Political Parties in Interwar France
by Geoff ReadIn The Republic of Men, Geoff Read explores the intersection of gender bias and the eight most important political parties in interwar France, breaking new scholarly ground in profound ways. The first to compare gender discourse across the political spectrum in a national context and trace the origins of the fascist "new man" in other political traditions, Read evaluates the impact of gender discourse upon policy during a pivotal period in French history.Skillfully exploring how differing political traditions -- from left to right -- influenced and reacted to each other, Read shows that regardless of the party, predominant notions of gender manifested themselves in misogyny and double standards when it came to women's emancipation. Despite the hostility of male politicians and party members, and despite women's exclusion from both parliament and the vote, Read argues that women were nonetheless crucial to politics and visibly prominent within almost every political party in interwar France. Read explains this seeming contradiction by demonstrating the existence of a conservative trend in gender politics that by the mid-1930s had enveloped even the Communist Party. Through his masterful analysis, Read closes significant gaps in the existing historiography and presents a truly revisionist assessment of early-twentieth-century French politics.
Republic of Moldova: Poverty Reduction Strategy Annual Evaluation Report 2005
by International Monetary FundA report from the International Monetary Fund.
Republic of Mozambique: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Progress Report (Review of the Economic and Social Plan for #2003)
by International Monetary FundA report from the International Monetary Fund.
Republic of Outsiders: The Power of Amateurs, Dreamers, and Rebels
by Alissa Quart&“Vivid portraits&” of individuals and subcultures by a writer who &“unmasks the assumptions we make about what counts as normal&” (The New York Times). They are outsiders who seek to redefine fields from mental health to diplomacy to music. They push boundaries and transform ideas. They include filmmakers crowdsourcing their work, transgender and autistic activists, and Occupy Wall Street&’s &“alternative bankers.&” These people create and package themselves in a practice cultural critic Alissa Quart dubs &“identity innovation.&” In this &“fascinating&” book, Quart introduces us to individuals who have created new structures to keep themselves sane, fulfilled, and, on occasion, paid. This deeply reported book shows how these groups now gather, organize, and create new communities and economies. Without a middleman, freed of established media, and highly mobile, unusual ideas and cultures are able to spread more quickly and find audiences and allies. Republic of Outsiders is a critical examination of those for whom being rebellious, marginal, or amateur is a source of strength (Barbara Ehrenreich). &“Even if you don&’t consider yourself an outsider or a rebel, Quart&’s book has several lessons for creative work, particularly when it comes to making art outside a heavily commercial system.&” —Fast Company &“One of the smartest cultural interpreters of her generation. In Republic of Outsiders, she mixes sharp-eyed analysis with an empathetic heart. The result is a great read, and a brand-new lens through which to view outsiders, insiders—and ourselves.&” —Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can&’t Stop Talking
Republic of Shame: Stories from Ireland's Institutions for 'Fallen Women'
by Caelainn Hogan'At least in The Handmaid's Tale they value babies, mostly. Not so in the true stories here' Margaret Atwood '[A] furious, necessary book' Sinéad GleesonUntil alarmingly recently, the Catholic Church, acting in concert with the Irish state, operated a network of institutions for the concealment, punishment and exploitation of 'fallen women'. In the Magdalene laundries, girls and women were incarcerated and condemned to servitude. And in the mother-and-baby homes, women who had become pregnant out of wedlock were hidden from view, and in most cases their babies were adopted - sometimes illegally. Mortality rates in these institutions were shockingly high, and the discovery of a mass infant grave at the mother-and-baby home in Tuam made news all over the world. The Irish state has commissioned investigations. But the workings of the institutions and of the culture that underpinned it - a shame-industrial complex - have long been cloaked in secrecy and silence. For countless people, a search for answers continues. Caelainn Hogan - a brilliant young journalist, born in an Ireland that was only just starting to free itself from the worst excesses of Catholic morality - has been talking to the survivors of the institutions, to members of the religious orders that ran them, and to priests and bishops. She has visited the sites of the institutions, and studied Church and state documents that have much to reveal about how they operated. Reporting and writing with great curiosity, tenacity and insight, she has produced a startling and often moving account of how an entire society colluded in this repressive system, and of the damage done to survivors and their families. In the great tradition of Anna Funder's Stasiland and Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea - both winners of the Samuel Johnson Prize - Republic of Shame is an astounding portrait of a deeply bizarre culture of control.'Achingly powerful ... There will be many people who don't want to read Republic of Shame, for fear it will be too much, too dark, too heavy. Please don't be afraid. Read it. Look it in the eye' Irish Times'A must read for everyone' Lynn Ruane'Republic of Shame is a careful, sensitive and extremely well-written book - but it is harrowing. It would break your heart in two' Ailbhe Smyth'Hogan's captivatingly written stories of people who were consigned to what she calls the "shame-industrial complex" puts faces - many old now, and lined with pain - to the clinical data ... Brilliant' Sunday Times'Utterly brilliant. Please read it' Marian Keyes'Riveting, immensely insightful and horrifically recognisable' Emma Dabiri'[A] sensitive, can't-look-away book ... Through moving stories, Hogan shows how the past is still present' NPR
Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency
by David Greenberg<P>In Republic of Spin—a vibrant history covering more than one hundred years of politics—presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the rise of the White House spin machine, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping, startling narrative takes us behind the scenes to see how the tools and techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Woodrow Wilson convening the first White House press conference, Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. We meet, too, the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media—figures like George Cortelyou, TR’s brilliantly efficient press manager; 1920s ad whiz Bruce Barton; Robert Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower’s canny TV coach; and of course the key spinmeisters of our own times, from Roger Ailes to David Axelrod. <P>Greenberg also examines the profound debates Americans have waged over the effect of spin on our politics. Does spin help our leaders manipulate the citizenry? Or does it allow them to engage us more fully in the democratic project? Exploring the ideas of the century’s most incisive political critics, from Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken to Hannah Arendt and Stephen Colbert, Republic of Spin illuminates both the power of spin and its limitations—its capacity not only to mislead but also to lead.
The Republic of Therapy: Triage and Sovereignty in West Africa's Time of AIDS
by Vinh-Kim NguyenThe Republic of Therapy tells the story of the global response to the HIV epidemic from the perspective of community organizers, activists, and people living with HIV in West Africa. Drawing on his experiences as a physician and anthropologist in Burkina Faso and Cte d'Ivoire, Vinh-Kim Nguyen focuses on the period between 1994, when effective antiretroviral treatments for HIV were discovered, and 2000, when the global health community acknowledged a right to treatment, making the drugs more available. During the intervening years, when antiretrovirals were scarce in Africa, triage decisions were made determining who would receive lifesaving treatment. Nguyen explains how those decisions altered social relations in West Africa. In 1994, anxious to "break the silence" and "put a face to the epidemic," international agencies unwittingly created a market in which stories about being HIV positive could be bartered for access to limited medical resources. Being able to talk about oneself became a matter of life or death. Tracing the cultural and political logic of triage back to colonial classification systems, Nguyen shows how it persists in contemporary attempts to design, fund, and implement mass treatment programs in the developing world. He argues that as an enactment of decisions about who may live, triage constitutes a partial, mobile form of sovereignty: what might be called therapeutic sovereignty.
The Republic Unsettled: Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism
by Mayanthi L. FernandoIn 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls from a Paris suburb refused to remove their Islamic headscarves in class. The headscarf crisis signaled an Islamic revival among the children of North African immigrants; it also ignited an ongoing debate about the place of Muslims within the secular nation-state. Based on ten years of ethnographic research, The Republic Unsettled alternates between an analysis of Muslim French religiosity and the contradictions of French secularism that this emergent religiosity precipitated. Mayanthi L. Fernando explores how Muslim French draw on both Islamic and secular-republican traditions to create novel modes of ethical and political life, reconfiguring those traditions to imagine a new future for France. She also examines how the political discourses, institutions, and laws that constitute French secularism regulate Islam, transforming the Islamic tradition and what it means to be Muslim. Fernando traces how long-standing tensions within secularism and republican citizenship are displaced onto France's Muslims, who, as a result, are rendered illegitimate as political citizens and moral subjects. She argues, ultimately, that the Muslim question is as much about secularism as it is about Islam.
The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order
by Lisa MignoneThe Aventine--one of Rome's canonical seven hills--has long been identified as the city's plebeian district, which housed the lower orders of society and served as the political headquarters, religious citadel, and social bastion of those seeking radical reform of the Republican constitution. Lisa Marie Mignone challenges the plebeian-Aventine paradigm through a multidisciplinary review of the ancient evidence, demonstrating that this construct proves to be a modern creation. Mignone uses ancient literary accounts, material evidence, and legal and semantic developments to reconstruct and reexamine the history of the Aventine Hill. Through comparative studies of premodern urban planning and development, combined with an assessment of gang violence and ancient neighborhood practices in the latter half of the first century BCE, she argues that there was no concentration of the disadvantaged in a "plebeian ghetto." Thus residency patterns everywhere in the caput mundi, including the Aventine Hill, likely incorporated the full spectrum of Roman society. The myth of the "plebeian Aventine" became embedded not only in classical scholarship, but also in modern political and cultural consciousness; it has even been used by modern figures to support their political agenda. Yet The Republican Aventine and Rome's Social Order makes bold new claims regarding the urban design and social history of ancient Rome and raises a significant question about ancient urbanism and social stability more generally: Did social integration reduce violence in premodern cities and promote urban concord?
Republican Party Animal
by David Cole"David Stein brought right-wing congressmen, celebrities, writers and entertainment industry figures together for shindigs, closed to outsiders. . . . There was just one problem. Stein was not who he claimed."-The GuardianIn 2013, Republican "hero" David Stein made international headlines when he was unmasked as David Cole, the notorious Jewish Holocaust denier who made an entirely different set of headlines in the 1990s with his videos from within the gates of Auschwitz and his appearances on shows like 60 Minutes and Donahue.After a $25,000 bounty was put on his head by a violent extremist group, Cole left behind the bizarre world of Holocaust denial, a landscape populated by Hitler fetishists who Cole himself detested. Then, David Stein the Republican organizer was born.Stein soon became a major force in the closed-door world of Hollywood right-wingers-people who felt as alienated from the mainstream of their profession as Cole had felt as the lone Jewish Holocaust revisionist. Soon enough, Stein was working with major GOP power players and far-right Hollywood A-listers, creating huge private events for the West Coast GOP elite . . . until it all came crashing down when a vengeful former girlfriend outed him publicly.Condemned by those who had previously lauded him, Cole was left with nothing but his story. And here he tells it, warts and all, including the first-ever exposé of the secretive Hollywood far-right underground, "Friends of Abe."
A Republican Theory of Free Speech: Critical Civility
by Suzanne WhittenThis book offers the first comprehensive philosophical examination of the free speech ‘battles’ of the last decade, arguing for a critical republican conception of civility as an explanatory and prescriptive solution. Issues such as no-platforming and safe spaces, the increasing influence of Far-Right rhetoric on internet forums, the role of Twitter as a site of activist struggles, and the moral panics that surround ill-judged comments made by public figures, all provide a new set of challenges for society which demand a careful critical analysis. The author proposes a 'republican theory' of free speech, demonstrating how a conception of ‘critical’ civility, one which combines the importance of expressive respect with the responsibilities of contestation and vigilance, is required if we are to combat some of the most contentious speech-related conflicts facing contemporary society today.
Republicanism and Democracy: Close Friends? (Contributions to Political Science)
by Skadi Siiri Krause Dirk JörkeThis book discusses whether democracy and republicanism are identical, complementary, or contradicting ideas. The rediscovery of classic republicanism a few decades ago made it clear how profoundly modern notions of democracy had been shaped by the republican tradition. But defining these two concepts remains difficult, and the views diverge widely. The overarching aim of this book is to discuss the extent to which democracy and republicanism are identical, complementary or mutually contradicting ideals / ideas. Pursuing this open approach to the subject means calling into question a widely used formula according to which modern democracy is composed of liberal principles such as individualism, the rule of law and human rights, on the one hand, and of republican principles such as focusing on the common good and popular sovereignty, on the other. This book will appeal to students, researches, and scholars of political science interested in a better understanding of political theory and political history.
Republicanism in Northeast Asia (Political Theories in East Asian Context)
by Jun-Hyeok Kwak Leigh JencoAs rapid economic development brings increasing uncertainty in East Asia, interest in a new version of republicanism, termed iscalled neo-Roman republicanism, is growing across the region. Conceptualized as liberty as non-domination, this new form of republicanism has inspired not only Western but also East Asian political theorists. However, neo-Roman republican ideas in Northeast Asian countries continue to face serious conceptual and political challenges, which scholarly literature on both republicanism and on East Asian politics has largely failed to confront. This book addresses these challenges by surveying the latest theoretical contributions to the studies of republicanism in Western countries and the latest interpretations of how republicanism, including both communitarian republicanism and neo-Roman republicanism, has been appropriated in countries in East Asia. In particular, it deals with the key question of whether liberty as non-domination can work in non-Western contexts where the fundamental tenets of liberal democracy, such as moral individualism and value pluralism, do not predominate. Across three sections, the chapters first provide a conceptual overview of republicanism as a global political theory, they then consider how republicanism has historically been received, resisted, and translated into East Asia., and Ffinally, they examine how historically informed possibilities fit with the emergent needs of contemporary Northeast Asian societies. Overall, the contributors show that republicanism is an always-ongoing project, whose terms must be interpreted and translated into the various communities they inform. Normative considerations about whether or how republicanism applies in East Asia cannot be divorced from historical and empirical approaches which consider the various ways in which republican ideals reflect the realities of life there. Dealing with the issue of republicanism from a new, comparative perspective, this book will have broad appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, comparative political theory, political philosophy, sociology, and history.
Republics of Knowledge: Nations of the Future in Latin America
by Nicola MillerAn enlightening account of the entwined histories of knowledge and nationhood in Latin America—and beyondThe rise of nation-states is a hallmark of the modern age, yet we are still untangling how the phenomenon unfolded across the globe. Here, Nicola Miller offers new insights into the process of nation-making through an account of nineteenth-century Latin America, where, she argues, the identity of nascent republics was molded through previously underappreciated means: the creation and sharing of knowledge.Drawing evidence from Argentina, Chile, and Peru, Republics of Knowledge traces the histories of these countries from the early 1800s, as they gained independence, to their centennial celebrations in the twentieth century. Miller identifies how public exchange of ideas affected policymaking, the emergence of a collective identity, and more. She finds that instead of defining themselves through language or culture, these new nations united citizens under the promise of widespread access to modern information. Miller challenges the narrative that modernization was a strictly North Atlantic affair, demonstrating that knowledge traveled both ways between Latin America and Europe. And she looks at how certain forms of knowledge came to be seen as more legitimate and valuable than others, both locally and globally. Miller ultimately suggests that all modern nations can be viewed as communities of shared knowledge, a perspective with the power to reshape our conception of the very basis of nationhood.With its transnational framework and cross-disciplinary approach, Republics of Knowledge opens new avenues for understanding the histories of modern nations—and the foundations of modernity—the world over.
Repudiating Feminism: Young Women in a Neoliberal World (The Feminist Imagination - Europe and Beyond)
by Christina ScharffGender equality is a widely shared value in many western societies and yet, the mention of the term feminism frequently provokes unease, bewilderment or overt hostility. Repudiating Feminism sheds light on why this is the case. Grounded in rich empirical research and providing a timely contribution to debates on engagements with feminism, Repudiating Feminism explores how young German and British women think, talk and feel about feminism. Drawing on in-depth interviews with women from different racial and class backgrounds, and with different sexual orientations, Repudiating Feminism reveals how young women's diverse positionings intersect with their views of feminism. This critical and reflexive analysis of the interplay between subjective accounts and broader cultural configurations shows how postfeminism, neoliberalism and heteronormativity mediate young women's negotiations of feminism, revealing the manner in which heterosexual norms structure engagements with feminism and its consequent association with man-hating and lesbian women. Speaking to a range of contemporary cultural trends, including the construction of essentialist notions of cultural difference and the neoliberal imperative to take responsibility for the management of one's own life, this book will be of interest to anyone studying sociology, gender and cultural studies.
Repurposing Composition: Feminist Interventions for a Neoliberal Age
by Shari J StenbergIn Repurposing Composition, Shari J. Stenberg responds to the increasing neoliberal discourse of academe through the feminist practice of repurposing. In doing so, she demonstrates how tactics informed by feminist praxis can repurpose current writing pedagogy, assessment, public engagement, and other dimensions of writing education. Stenberg disrupts entrenched neoliberalism by looking to feminism's long history of repurposing "neutral" practices and approaches to the rhetorical tradition, the composing process, and pedagogy. She illuminates practices of repurposing in classroom moments, student writing, and assessment work, and she offers examples of institutions, programs, and individuals that demonstrate a responsibility approach to teaching and learning as an alternative to top-down accountability logic. Repurposing Composition is a call for purposes of work in composition and rhetoric that challenge neoliberal aims to emphasize instead a public-good model that values difference, inclusion, and collaboration.
Reputation: What It Is and Why It Matters
by Gloria OriggiA compelling exploration of how reputation affects every aspect of contemporary lifeReputation touches almost everything, guiding our behavior and choices in countless ways. But it is also shrouded in mystery. Why is it so powerful when the criteria by which people and things are defined as good or bad often appear to be arbitrary? Why do we care so much about how others see us that we may even do irrational and harmful things to try to influence their opinion? In this engaging book, Gloria Origgi draws on philosophy, social psychology, sociology, economics, literature, and history to offer an illuminating account of an important yet oddly neglected subject.Origgi examines the influence of the Internet and social media, as well as the countless ranking systems that characterize modern society and contribute to the creation of formal and informal reputations in our social relations, in business, in politics, in academia, and even in wine. She highlights the importance of reputation to the effective functioning of the economy and e-commerce. Origgi also discusses the existential significance of our obsession with reputation, concluding that an awareness of the relationship between our reputation and our actions empowers us to better understand who we are and why we do what we do.Compellingly written and filled with surprising insights, Reputation pins down an elusive subject that affects everyone.
Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication
by John Doorley Helio Fred GarciaReputation Management is a how-to guide for students and professionals, as well as CEOs and other business leaders. It rests on the premise that reputation can be measured, monitored, and managed. Organized by corporate communication units including media relations, employee communication, government relations, and investor relations, the book provides a field-tested guide to corporate reputation problems such as leaked memos, unfair treatment by the press, and negative rumors, and focuses on practical solutions. Each chapter is fleshed out with the real-world experience of the authors and contributors, who come from a wide range of professional corporate communication backgrounds. Updates to the third edition include: Global content has been incorporated and expanded throughout the book, rather than being restricted to only one chapter. Opening vignettes, examples, and case studies have been updated in each chapter. Additional case studies and examples with an international focus have been added.
Reputation Management Online: America's "Right to Be Forgotten" (NCA Focus on Communication Studies)
by Ben MedeirosThis book examines the work of the public relations, technology, and legal professionals who provide online "reputation management" services, situating their work within contemporary debates about regulating speech on the internet. The author argues that legal solutions like the European "Right to Be Forgotten" are not really possible in the U.S., but that the private solutions of reputation management help to ameliorate novel concerns about reputation. At the same time, he contends that these practices prompt different free speech and dignitary concerns unique to the digital environment. Drawing upon rhetorical and legal analysis of diverse texts, including reputation management promotional materials, interviews with practitioners, legal cases, and popular online commentary about reputational disputes themselves, the book intervenes in specific debates about the regulation of the internet, as well as broader socio-legal debates about the role of reputation-damaging speech in a democratic society. This timely and relevant study will have great relevance for all students and scholars of communication studies, public relations, rhetoric, new and digital media, internet law, technology and society, computer mediated communication, and sociology.
The Reputation Society: How Online Opinions Are Reshaping the Offline World (The Information Society Series)
by Mark Tovey edited by Hassan MasumExperts discuss the benefits and risks of online reputation systems.In making decisions, we often seek advice. Online, we check Amazon recommendations, eBay vendors' histories, TripAdvisor ratings, and even our elected representatives' voting records. These online reputation systems serve as filters for information overload. In this book, experts discuss the benefits and risks of such online tools.The contributors offer expert perspectives that range from philanthropy and open access to science and law, addressing reputation systems in theory and practice. Properly designed reputation systems, they argue, have the potential to create a “reputation society,” reshaping society for the better by promoting accountability through the mediated judgments of billions of people. Effective design can also steer systems away from the pitfalls of online opinion sharing by motivating truth-telling, protecting personal privacy, and discouraging digital vigilantism.Contributors Madeline Ashby, Jamais Cascio, John Henry Clippinger, Chrysanthos Dellarocas, Cory Doctorow, Randy Farmer, Eric Goldman, Victor Henning, Anthony Hoffmann, Jason Hoyt, Luca Iandoli, Josh Introne, Mark Klein, Mari Kuraishi, Cliff Lampe, Paolo Massa, Hassan Masum, Marc Maxson, Craig Newmark, Michael Nielsen, Lucio Picci, Jan Reichelt, Alex Steffen, Lior Strahilevitz, Mark Tovey, John Whitfield, John Willinsky, Yi-Cheng Zhang, Michael Zimmer
The Reputation Society: How Online Opinions Are Reshaping the Offline World
by Mark Tovey Hassan MasumIn making decisions, we often seek advice. Online, we check Amazon recommendations, eBay vendors' histories, TripAdvisor ratings, and even our elected representatives' voting records. These online reputation systems serve as filters for information overload. In this book, experts discuss the benefits and risks of such online tools. The contributors offer expert perspectives that range from philanthropy and open access to science and law, addressing reputation and reputation systems in theory and practice. Properly designed reputation systems, they argue, have the potential to create a "reputation society," reshaping society for the better by promoting accountability through the mediated judgments of billions of people. Effective design can also steer systems away from the pitfalls of online opinion sharing by motivating truth-telling, protecting personal privacy, and discouraging digital vigilantism.
The Request and the Gift in Religious and Humanitarian Endeavors
by Frederick KlaitsThis collection revisits classical anthropological treatments of the gift by documenting how people may be valued both through the requests they make and through what they give. Many humanitarian practitioners, the authors propose, regard giving to those in need as the epitome of moral action but are liable to view those people's requests for charity as merely utilitarian. Yet in many religious discourses, prayers and requests for alms are highly valued as moral acts, obligatory for establishing relationships with the divine. Framing the moral qualities of asking and giving in conjunction with each other, the contributors explore the generation of trust and mistrust, the politics of charity and accountability, and tensions between universalism and particularism in religious philanthropy.
Requiem for a Paper Bag
by Davy RothbartHey! My name is Davy. I make a magazine called Found. We publish notes & letters that folks find on the street. I asked my favorite writers, musicians, artists & entertainers to tell me about the things they've found. These are the stories they've shared.
Requiem for Reality: Critical Race Theocrats and Social Justice Dystopia
by Harry G. HutchisonCritical Race Theory, like most ideologies before it, promises an earthly paradise premised on ceaseless revolution, but instead of delivering on this promise, it produces a terrestrial hell echoing the inner nihilism of modern life. Contemporary social justice movements, just like progressivism, the New Deal, and post-Civil War Southern Democrats, place Westerners in bondage rather than delivering on the promise of unlimited freedom.Requiem for Reality responds to the widening pendulum shifts of our age. These developments consume and incense the nation. These shifts offer a bewildering set of claims grounded in the presumption that race and other forms of human identity explain all forms of disparity and inequality. Against such claims, it is crucial to distinguish between a development narrative and a bias narrative for the purpose of explaining ethnic disparity. The development narrative is grounded in data that often deliver unwelcome facts. The facts show that Asian Americans, as well as West Indian blacks, often do better than white Americans in schooling, per capita income, and crime rates. Indeed, Syrian Americans, Korean Americans, Indonesian Americans, Taiwanese Americans, and Filipino Americans experience significantly higher median household incomes than whites and higher test scores, lower incarceration rates, and longer life expectancies. Oblivious to such facts, the bias narrative, on the other hand, grounds itself in the &“white privilege&” thesis suggesting that only race matters. Surfacing from the toxic pit of ideology, the bias narrative emphasizes the racist claim that African Americans are the only ethnic group in the world who cannot succeed under less-than-ideal conditions. Separated from important facts, this narrative often substitutes absolute Neo-pagan certainties originating in a make-believe world for commonplace notions of truth and reality. As such, the &“white privilege&” thesis, rather than improving the conditions of African Americans and others, offers a utopian dream that threatens to become a national nightmare. The urgent pursuit of utopia reflects trends that are largely anthropological, sociological, and more spiritual than political. Responding to these developments, which have given rise to victimhood claims within gender and transgender categories will require more than argumentation, rational analysis, superior logic, or even the inauguration of a Hanging Judge. It will require courage because otherwise, Chairman Mao&’s forecast, stating that there is a great disorder under heaven and the situation is excellent, may come true here just like it has already come true for China.
Requiem for the American Dream: The Principles of Concentrated Wealth and Power
by Noam ChomskyA <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER!<p><p> In his first major book on the subject of income inequality, Noam Chomsky skewers the fundamental tenets of neoliberalism and casts a clear, cold, patient eye on the economic facts of life. What are the ten principles of concentration of wealth and power at work in America today? They're simple enough: reduce democracy, shape ideology, redesign the economy, shift the burden onto the poor and middle classes, attack the solidarity of the people, let special interests run the regulators, engineer election results, use fear and the power of the state to keep the rabble in line, manufacture consent, marginalize the population. In Requiem for the American Dream, Chomsky devotes a chapter to each of these ten principles, and adds readings from some of the core texts that have influenced his thinking to bolster his argument. <p> To create Requiem for the American Dream, Chomsky and his editors, the filmmakers Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott, spent countless hours together over the course of five years, from 2011 to 2016. After the release of the film version, Chomsky and the editors returned to the many hours of tape and transcript and created a document that included three times as much text as was used in the film. The book that has resulted is nonetheless arguably the most succinct and tightly woven of Chomsky's long career, a beautiful vessel--including old-fashioned ligatures in the typeface--in which to carry Chomsky's bold and uncompromising vision, his perspective on the economic reality and its impact on our political and moral well-being as a nation.<p> "During the Great Depression, which I'm old enough to remember, it was bad–much worse subjectively than today. But there was a sense that we'll get out of this somehow, an expectation that things were going to get better . . ." —from Requiem for the American Dream