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JONATHAN LERNER speaks to Tom DePietro on WGXC public radio
Thursday, June 1st, 2017“I want to give people a sense that this has happened before, there are lessons to be drawn, and there are dimensions of the ‘60s that they don’t know about.” JONATHAN LERNER on SWORDS IN THE HANDS OF CHILDREN at Rural Intelligence
Thursday, June 1st, 2017Read here.
Part one of an extended interview with JOEL WHITNEY at The Nation
Thursday, June 1st, 2017Read it here.
[Updated] Trump pulls out of the Paris Agreement on CLIMATE CHANGE: our reading list
Wednesday, May 31st, 2017As Trump announces the United States will pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, our reading list for a warming world
The United States is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter and withdrawal from the agreement will have a profound effect on the planet, the New York Times reports.1
The 2015 accord, regarded by climate activists as a watershed moment in the struggle for international climate action, compels nearly every nation on earth to reduce carbon emissions to retard the warming of the planet, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The United States’ withdrawal from the agreement, which was a central promise of Trump’s campaign, will severely weaken the accord and its chances of enforcement globally. Below, including selections from scientists, environmentalists, fiction writers and activists, is our essential reading list for a warming world.
—OR Books
EXTINCTION
A Radical History
Extinction: A Radical History argues that the vanishing of species cannot be understood in isolation from a critique of our economic system. To achieve progress, we must transgress the boundaries between science, environmentalism and radical politics. More |
Beautiful Trouble
A Toolbox for Revolution
Beautiful Trouble brings together ten grassroots groups and dozens of seasoned artists and activists from around the world to distill their best practices into a toolbox for creative action. More |
MAD SCIENCE
The Nuclear Power Experiment
In Mad Science, Joseph Mangano strips away the near-smothering layers of distortions and outright lies that permeate the massive propaganda campaigns on behalf of nuclear energy. More |
LOVE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE
A collaboration between an award-winning novelist and a leading environmental philosopher, Love in the Anthropocene taps into our corrupted environment to investigate a future bereft of natural environments. More |
In Deep Water
The Anatomy of a Disaster, The Fate of the Gulf, and How to End Our Oil Addiction
“[In Deep Water] shows the way forward to protect this national treasure, safeguard our future and break our destructive addiction to oil.” —Robert Redford More |
WELCOME TO THE GREENHOUSE
New Science Fiction on Climate Change
What will our new world look like in the face of climate change? In Welcome to the Greenhouse, award-winning editor Gordon Van Gelder has brought together sixteen speculative stories by some of the most imaginative writers of our time. More |
The Global Warming Reader
“…Here’s what isn’t happening: an outpouring of political outrage forcing leaders around the globe to wean our world off the fossil fuels that cause this heating. In some sense, this anthology is an attempt to deal with that paradox.” —from the introduction, More |
THE ANIMALS’ VEGAN MANIFESTO
Artist and animal rights advocate Sue Coe unleashes an outraged cry for action that, with extraordinary images and few words, takes its rightful place alongside the other great manifestoes of history. More |
Cruel
Bearing Witness to Animal Exploitation
Richly illustrated with full-color paintings and drawings throughout, Cruel conveys the terrible beauty, and intense suffering, of both the animals so sacrificed and the workers involved in their violent destruction. More |
Further Reading
- “It’s a simple demand: give the stolen land back” — EXTINCTION author Ashley Dawson writes for Resilience (6/8/2022)
- “Study Suggests a Supernova Exploded Near Earth About 2.5 Million Years Ago, Possibly Triggering an Extinction Event” — EXTINCTION recommended in Forbes (10/16/2020)
- “Human activity is causing the disappearance and deterioration of wildlife at a rate that could represent an existential threat to humanity within our lifetimes.” —Democracy Now during a segment featuring ASHLEY DAWSON, author of EXTINCTION (5/9/2019)
- EXTINCTION and LOVE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE are reviewed in Social Studies of Science (12/13/2017)
- “Expansion and exploitation are the threads of Dawson’s history.” EXTINCTION in PUBLIC BOOKS (3/13/2017)
Filmmaker and artist Lynne Sachs on STUDIO in BOMB Magazine
Tuesday, May 30th, 2017Here, in all its ecstatic detail, we are able to take account of a visible manifestation of the artist’s mind, a mind turned inside-out, the components of his practice revealed through the detritus and treasures of our technological culture. In Bartos’s images, we see numerous Apple computers, catalogues from Marker’s 2005 Museum of Modern Art installation “Owls at Noon,” an array of electronic keyboards, a signed photo of Kim Novak, and a 9/11 Commission Report.
Read the essay at BOMB Magazine.
Structures of Power and the Ethical Limits of Speech — Svetlana Mintcheva’s essay from ASSUMING BOYCOTT appears at Truthdig
Tuesday, May 30th, 2017Read the excerpt here.
“Jesus, big money and the GOP.” An excerpt from THE GOSPEL OF SELF at Salon.com
Tuesday, May 30th, 2017“Before there was Fox News, there was ‘The 700 Club.'” Read the full excerpt here.
JOE LAURIA appears on the Catskill Review of Books program on WJFF
Thursday, May 25th, 2017Listen here.
JOE LAURIA discusses HOW I LOST on The Peter Collins Show
Wednesday, May 24th, 2017Lauria focuses on key issues that drove the electorate toward Trump, and were downplayed or ignored by the Clinton campaign. We discuss her hawkish approach to Syria and Libya, her effort to respond to Sanders by “moving left” on TPP, minimum wage and other issues and the resulting perception that Clinton had no core values.
We talk about Syria, and the predictions of the 2012 report from Defense Intelligence Agency that an “Islamic state” would form in Syria and Iraq. Clinton was not honest about the real nature of the Syrian war and the role of nominal allies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the conflict.
We discuss the “basket of deplorables” speech, and some direct quotes from the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs–which she fought so hard to keep under wraps. We talk about the appearance of conflict of interest in Huma Abedin’s triple play: she was on the payroll of the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and foundation president Doug Band’s separate lobbying operation. We also touch on Sid Blumenthal who was on the foundation payroll as he lobbied Hillary for a deal for Joe Wilson’s client, resulting in over $60 million in State Dept. funds used to construct a power plant in Tanzania.
Listen here.
“This country’s greatest national disaster is manmade.” KAREN RUSSELL on America’s housing catastrophe, from the forthcoming TALES OF TWO AMERICAS
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2017Read it at LitHub.
“The height of hypocrisy” — MEDEA BENJAMIN on Democracy Now discussing Trump in Saudi Arabia
Monday, May 22nd, 2017I think going to a country like Saudi Arabia, that has no free speech, no free association, no national elections, no political parties, no trade unions, where people like Raif Badawi, the blogger, is imprisoned for 10 years for blogging, where human rights lawyers are imprisoned for 15 years for defending human rights—it is appalling that Trump would go to Saudi Arabia and not even mention the issue of human rights, much less try to meet with one of the advocates for human rights, while he was visiting Saudi Arabia.
Listen at Democracy Now.
MEDEA BENJMAIN appears on FAIR’s Counterspin
Monday, May 22nd, 2017Listen here.
“10 Reasons Trump Should Not Strengthen U.S.-Saudi Ties,” by MEDEA BENJAMIN
Thursday, May 18th, 2017Donald Trump has selected Saudi Arabia as the destination for his first trip abroad, strengthening U.S. ties to a regime that is fueling the very extremism, intolerance and violence that the US government purports to eradicate. Here’s 10 reasons why the United States should not be closely allied with the Saudi kingdom.
Read the list at Common Dreams.
ASSUMING BOYCOTT is reviewed in Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar
Monday, May 15th, 2017Readers of Arabic can find it here.
PATRICK COCKBURN on Trump’s meeting with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman in The Independent
Monday, May 15th, 2017Many people view Donald Trump as the most dangerous man on the planet, but next week he flies to Saudi Arabia for a three-day visit during which he will meet a man who surely runs him a close second as a source of instability.
Read the article at The Independent.
FINKS is “a riveting account of the CIA’s machinations to recruit some of the world’s leading writers,” says The National
Thursday, May 11th, 2017Read the review here.
FINKS is reviewed alongside other books on the CIA at January Magazine
Tuesday, May 9th, 2017As Donald Trump positioned himself at odds with the Central Intelligence Agency in the early months of his presidency, many people wishing for an end to Trumpist madness may have wound up rooting for the creepy forces of the CIA. Whether or not the tension between Trump and the agency continues, it’s wise to look beyond the headlines to see the reality of the CIA. That reality is laid bare in three recently published books examining some dark truths about this American spy agency, which remain still largely unknown to most of the everyday people the CIA theoretically protects.
Joel Whitney’s Finks is reviewed alongside Douglas Valentine’s The CIA As Organized Crime and Nicholas Schou’s Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood at January Magazine.
JOHN K WILSON on the implications of the Johnson Amendment at Inside Higher Ed
Tuesday, May 9th, 2017Trump is no defender of free speech. To the contrary, he is one of the greatest enemies of civil liberties ever elected president in modern times. I devote a chapter in my book to Trump’s support for repression, including his proposed ban on Muslims (now accompanied by “extreme vetting” of political views), his statements advocating for the torture of enemy prisoners and even the murder of their families, and his calls to dramatically loosen libel law in order to attack freedom of the press. Trump wants to repeal the Johnson Amendment for the very same reason that LBJ passed it: to serve his political interests. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
Read the rest here.
“Civil society needs to own the technology of the future.” An extract from OURS TO HACK AND TO OWN in Civil Society Futures
Tuesday, May 9th, 2017New gizmos come and go so quickly that we hardly notice when the meanings of our words change, and when what we expect of ourselves changes with them. Ordinary people have already made the Internet their own with their hacks, their memes, their protests, and their dreams. The cost of forfeiting control over these things is too high, and too mysterious. We need to expect better, to demand more. It’s time that we own and govern what is ours already…”
Read the full extract here.
“Products don’t solve problems.” MARA EINSTEIN in New York Magazine on Pepsi’s advertising fiasco
Friday, May 5th, 2017Her take, and more from others in the industry, at New York.
JOEL WHITNEY “points the flashlight at the US government.” FINKS has been reviewed at the History News Network
Thursday, May 4th, 2017Read more here.
Alex Nunns’ THE CANDIDATE shortlisted for the 2017 Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing
Thursday, May 4th, 2017From more than 50 books in consideration Alex Nunns’ The Candidate: Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path to Power has made the shortlist for the Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing 2017.
The winner will be announced by guest judges Joan Anim-Addo, Vera Chok and Owen Hatherley at a ceremony at the London Radical Bookfair on Saturday 24th June 2017.
WALTER MOSLEY discusses FOLDING THE RED INTO THE BLACK on The Marc Steiner Show
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017Listen here.
JOEL WHITNEY put together a playlist for FINKS at Large Hearted Boy
Monday, May 1st, 2017Joel Whitney has created a playlist for Finks, running from jazz to reggae to Radiohead, at Large Hearted Boy.
“Marker’s mind seems spatialized here, as though we were looking into his memory palace, an elaborate, idiosyncratic mnemonic become a memorial.” BEN LERNER and ADAM BARTOS in The Paris Review
Wednesday, April 26th, 2017Ben Lerner on photographs of Chris Marker’s studio by Adam Bartos, now collected in a volume with text by Colin MacCabe, in The Paris Review.
“In the following weeks, as public excitement began to build behind Corbyn… the Guardian’s response, save for the occasional mention, was a virtual blackout.” ALEX NUNNS in Novara Media on coverage of Jeremy Corbyn in The Guardian
Tuesday, April 25th, 2017A selection of the headlines from the Guardian website’s front page on 22 and 23 July gives a sense of the almost hysterical tone that took hold: “Blair urges Labour not to wrap itself in a Jeremy Corbyn comfort blanket”; “Think before you vote for Jeremy Corbyn”; “Labour can come back from the brink, but it seems to lack the will to do so”; “Blair: I wouldn’t want to win on an old fashioned leftist platform.” On these two panic-stricken days alone, the Guardian website carried opinion pieces hostile to Corbyn from Anne Perkins, Suzanne Moore, Polly Toynbee, Tim Bale, Martin Kettle, Michael White, Anne Perkins (again), and Anne Perkins (yet again). There was not a single pro-Corbyn column.
Read it at Novara Media.
THE ANIMALS’ VEGAN MANIFESTO in Life Elsewhere on WMNF Radio
Tuesday, April 25th, 2017“Sue Coe’s extraordinarily powerful work has intrigued me since my art school days,” says host Norman B.
Listen to the show here.
“When Labour talks about issues which affect everybody, like education and health, that’s historically where it’s strong… But a constitutional issue like Brexit drives wedges into the party’s fissures.” ALEX NUNNS in Vice
Thursday, April 13th, 2017“When Labour talks about issues which affect everybody, like education and health, that’s historically where it’s strong… But a constitutional issue like Brexit drives wedges into the party’s fissures. It’s extremely difficult to charter a path through the two-thirds of Labour voters who voted Remain and the third who voted Leave because they’re not evenly distributed among the party’s seats.”
Read more here.
Vegan Magazine: “In THE ANIMALS’ VEGAN MANIFESTO, Sue Coe marries art and activism, forcing readers to gaze upon the hidden horrors of animal agriculture.”
Tuesday, April 11th, 2017Read the full post at Vegan Magazine.
“It ends with pictures of a happier future for all of us: a vegan future.” THE ANIMALS’ VEGAN MANIFESTO in New Leaves
Tuesday, April 11th, 2017“It ends with pictures of a happier future for all of us: a vegan future. For me the most meaningful picture one of the last three is of a human person stepping out of a cage with a group of various animals watching from the outside of the cage, welcoming this liberation of their fellow creature, a human animal, who has been imprisoned for so long in the violence of their ways.”
Read the full review in the next issue of New Leaves.
