Playbook For Progressives

An organizing manifesto for the twenty-first century, Playbook for Progressives is a must-have for the activist’s tool kit. This comprehensive guide articulates pragmatically what is required in the often mystifying and rarely explained on-the-ground practice of organizing. Here, Eric Mann distills lessons he learned from over forty years as an organizer, as well as from other organizers within the civil rights, labor, LGBT, economic justice, and environmental movements.

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Pick What Happens to Democracy When a Demagogue Comes to Power? "It is hard to imagine understanding the Trump presidency and its significance without reading this book.” —Bob Bauer, Former Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama What—and who—is a demagogue? How did America’s Founders envision the presidency? What should a constitutional democracy look like—and how can it be fixed when it appears to be broken? Something is definitely wrong with Donald Trump’s presidency, but what exactly? The extraordinary negative reaction to Trump’s election—by conservative intellectuals, liberals, Democrats, and global leaders alike—goes beyond ordinary partisan and policy disagreements. It reflects genuine fear about the vitality of our constitutional system. The Founders, reaching back to classical precedents, feared that their experiment in mass self-government could produce a demagogue: a charismatic ruler who would gain and hold on to power by manipulating the public rather than by advancing the public good. President Trump, who has played to the mob and attacked institutions from the judiciary to the press, appears to embody these ideas. How can we move past his rhetoric and maintain faith in our great nation? In The Demagogue’s Playbook, acclaimed legal scholar Eric A. Posner offers a blueprint for how America can prevent the rise of another demagogue and protect the features of a democracy that help it thrive—and restore national greatness, for one and all. “Cuts through the hyperbole and hysteria that often distorts assessments of our republic, particularly at this time.” —Alan Taylor, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History

Now in its third edition, Progressive Community Organizing: Transformative Practice in a Globalizing World introduces readers to the rich practice of progressive community organizing for social change while also providing concrete tools geared toward practitioner skill building. Drawing from social movement scholarship and social theory, this book articulates a transformative approach to organizing that embraces emergent strategies and healing justice. It emphasizes framing processes and the power of stories using story-based strategy and digital activism. Embracing intersectional organizing, the book addresses topics such as identity politics, microagressions, internalized oppression, and horizontal hostility with attention to recentering and allyship as a growth-oriented journey of solidarity and liberation. Readers will engage with case studies focused on issues such as poverty, racial justice, immigration, housing, health and mental health, and climate crisis. This new edition includes: Expanded content on transformative change approaches including healing justice New content on the role of digital technology and social media in organizing Case studies of the Poor People’s Campaign and Extinction Rebellion Emphasis on the power of stories and story-based strategy for organizing and issue framing Transformative organizations with attention to feminist and decolonized organizational structures and cultures Expanded chapters on strategies and tactics focusing on power analysis and a range of tactics from direct action to resilience-based organizing The book will be of interest to students and practitioners who want to become more skilled in structural analysis, praxis, and self-reflexivity through critical and transformative engagement with historical and current social problems, social movements, and social welfare.

A Left Wing guide on how to defeat troublesome trolls and 'memelords' who stand against everything progressive. This book will show you how to fight fire with fire and defeat 'Kekistan' once and for all. This is a lesson in 'meming' for all right minded thinkers. No longer will we have to listen to mockery about how weak our memes are. This book is satirical and is meant as a joke. There are eight words on the first page, a fake quote on the last and a bunch of 'keks' in between. It is intended as a gift for humourless, regressive leftists from sensible people who understand internet culture on even the most basic level.

“This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

"Waldman's book is terrific-good sense mustered with evidence, well argued, and sharply written to boot. I agree fervently with almost everything he writes. This is the indispensable book for the 2006 elections." --Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties and The Twilight of Common Dreams "A well-sourced, partisan blueprint for undoing Republican control of the nation." --Publishers Weekly "Here's the ticket for Democrats to get back in power: read this book, understand what it means to be a true American progressive, expose conservatives as the mean elitists they are, get tough, and fight back. Nobody paints the strengths of progressives and the weaknesses of conservatives like Paul Waldman." --Bill Press, author How the Republicans Stole Christmas "With clarity and passion, Paul Waldman demonstrates persuasively that the forces of the right have not 'taken over the country,' as the media often lazily put it. They've only taken over politics. That can be reversed, and Waldman shows exactly how." --Michael Tomasky, Editor, the American Prospect

Rising fossil fuel prices and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions are fostering a nuclear power renaissance and a revitalized uranium mining industry across the American West. In The Price of Nuclear Power, environmental sociologist Stephanie Malin offers an on-the-ground portrait of several uranium communities caught between the harmful legacy of previous mining booms and the potential promise of new economic development. Using this context, she examines how shifting notions of environmental justice inspire divergent views about nuclear power’s sustainability and equally divisive forms of social activism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in rural isolated towns such as Monticello, Utah, and Nucla and Naturita, Colorado, as well as in upscale communities like Telluride, Colorado, and incorporating interviews with community leaders, environmental activists, radiation regulators, and mining executives, Malin uncovers a fundamental paradox of the nuclear renaissance: the communities most hurt by uranium’s legacy—such as high rates of cancers, respiratory ailments, and reproductive disorders—were actually quick to support industry renewal. She shows that many impoverished communities support mining not only because of the employment opportunities, but also out of a personal identification with uranium, a sense of patriotism, and new notions of environmentalism. But other communities, such as Telluride, have become sites of resistance, skeptical of industry and government promises of safe mining, fearing that regulatory enforcement won’t be strong enough. Indeed, Malin shows that the nuclear renaissance has exacerbated social divisions across the Colorado Plateau, threatening social cohesion. Malin further illustrates ways in which renewed uranium production is not a socially sustainable form of energy development for rural communities, as it is utterly dependent on unstable global markets. The Price of Nuclear Power is an insightful portrait of the local impact of the nuclear renaissance and the social and environmental tensions inherent in the rebirth of uranium mining.

The Progressive Gene fuses the idea of a universal, genetically determined personal and social morality with the expression of that morality in the individual's political philosophy. Although this connection extends to and encompasses society as a whole, the book focuses on the far left of the political spectrum, where the Progressives reside.