Political Sabotage

The idea of human rights began as a call for individual freedom from tyranny, yet today it is exploited to rationalize oppression and promote collectivism. How did this happen? Aaron Rhodes, recognized as “one of the leading human rights activists in the world” by the University of Chicago, reveals how an emancipatory ideal became so debased. Rhodes identifies the fundamental flaw in the Universal Declaration of Human of Rights, the basis for many international treaties and institutions. It mixes freedom rights rooted in natural law—authentic human rights—with “economic and social rights,” or claims to material support from governments, which are intrinsically political. As a result, the idea of human rights has lost its essential meaning and moral power. The principles of natural rights, first articulated in antiquity, were compromised in a process of accommodation with the Soviet Union after World War II, and under the influence of progressivism in Western democracies. Geopolitical and ideological forces ripped the concept of human rights from its foundations, opening it up to abuse. Dissidents behind the Iron Curtain saw clearly the difference between freedom rights and state-granted entitlements, but the collapse of the USSR allowed demands for an expanding array of economic and social rights to gain legitimacy without the totalitarian stigma. The international community and civil society groups now see human rights as being defined by legislation, not by transcendent principles. Freedoms are traded off for the promise of economic benefits, and the notion of collective rights is used to justify restrictions on basic liberties. We all have a stake in human rights, and few serious observers would deny that the concept has lost clarity. But no one before has provided such a comprehensive analysis of the problem as Rhodes does here, joining philosophy and history with insights from his own extensive work in the field.

Political Sabotage may not be the answer for all in understanding social crime and violence or police use of force to control it, but it does provide a focus and single source toward that goal. Want to know about Ruby Ridge and Randy Weaver, Rodney King and a truer story about the fiasco at Waco, Texas? Did law enforcement do it right? Maybe, but maybe not. These questions are also answered: What facts and experience create the subtleties for "the mystique of police culture?" Is a true unprofessional "code of silence" part of it? Is that culture a closed club for those wearing the badge of the Los Angeles Police Department? Is its "culture" and its use of police force in the attempt to control crime and violence responsible for the LAPD's downfall? Does diversity and affirmative action exist as co-conspirators in that downfall? Or will it all remain as the unknown result of the influence and impact of the emotional and ideological attitudes found in our American society and its sometimes politicized, attorney dominated, and unjust justice system? What part did political sabotage play in orchestrating what academic isolation and a supporting media label "the ineffective administration of a corrupt LAPD?" And what led that leadership through a moderate level of hesitation and silence to a federal consent decree and various "commission investigations," and to every activist and media embellished blame, to forgo the effort to retain the best parts of what had once made the LAPD the most innovative, respected, effective and efficient police organization in America? These questions have truthful and experienced answers. But the overall question is yet to be answered: Will the American citizen ever truly understand enough to make a difference?

Analysis of U.S. politics and ethics. Covers nomination process, unfair campaign tactics, espionage, reform problems, Watergate, media power, etc. Includes a mischief index.

DIVExamines who influences how federal, state, and local bureaucrats allocate their efforts /div

Sabotage is the deliberate disruption of a dominant system, be it political, military or economic. Yet in recent decades, sabotage has also become an artistic strategy most notably in Latin America. In Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, artists are producing radical, unruly or even iconoclastic work that resists state violence, social conformity and the commodification of art. Sabotage Art reveals how contemporary Latin American artists have resorted to sabotage strategies as a means to bridge the gap between aesthetics and politics. The global status of and market for Latin American art is growing rapidly. This book is essential reading for those who want to understand this new, dissident work, as well as its mystification, co-option and commercialisation within current academic historiographies and art-world curatorial initiatives."

This book contains advice and ideas for sabotage that could be carried out using simple equipment and methods. It considers methods of destruction and also obstructive techniques.

Worked Over is a book about large-scale social change seen at close range, through the lives of generations of working people in a small manufacturing center along New York State's old Erie Canal. Their compelling stories add a new dimension to current debates over corporate power and the public good. Dimitra Doukas draws on ten years of ethnographic and historical research on the Mohawk River Valley towns of Herkimer, Illion, Frankfort, and Mohawk, where the Remington company, maker of arms and typewriters among other things, was for many years the backbone of a thriving regional society. Corporate takeover of the varied Remington enterprises in 1886 sent shock waves through this society, ushering in a century of social distress and decreasing political autonomy. Since the 1970s, the area has suffered mightily from deindustrialization. Local experience, Doukas finds, has shaped an American culture of strongly egalitarian ideals. From this perspective, the region's present plight appears, to many in the region, as a betrayal of American values. Knitting together the ethnographic present, the remembered past, and the historical past, the author tracks today's discontent to the dawn of the modern corporate era for a revealing and intimate look at the rise of a new political and economic power structure.

How Bush-hating CIA Bureaucrats Are Sabotaging the War on Terror . Since the attacks on September 11, 2001, intelligence collection has become the number-one weapon in the effort to defeat al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. A plot penetrated is an attack stopped. And to the outside observer, the CIA has performed well as a key partner in the Bush administration's War on Terror. But as Rowan Scarborough reveals in this groundbreaking new book, significant elements within the CIA are undermining both the president and national security through leaks, false allegations, and outright sabotage.