The Party Is Over

The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times. In The Party's Over , Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the 20th century, and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the 21st century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion, and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the U.S. -- the world's foremost oil consumer -- is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a "managed collapse" that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future. More readable than other accounts of this issue, with fuller discussion of the context, social implications, and recommendations for personal, community, national, and global action, Heinberg's updated book is a riveting wake-up call for humankind as the oil era winds down, and a critical tool for understanding and influencing current U.S. foreign policy. Listen to an interview with Richard Heinberg from WRPI.

The New York Times bestselling exposé of what passes for business as usual in Washington today There was a time, not so very long ago, when perfectly rational people ran the Republican Party. So how did the party of Lincoln become the party of lunatics? That is what this book aims to answer. Fear not, the Dems come in for their share of tough talk— they are zombies, a party of the living dead. Mike Lofgren came to Washington in the early eighties—those halcyon, post–Nixonian glory days—for what he imagined would be a short stint on Capitol Hill. He has witnessed quite a few low points in his twenty-eight years on the Hill—but none quite so pitiful as the antics of the current crop of legislators whom we appear to have elected. Based on the explosive article Lofgren wrote when he resigned in disgust after the debt ceiling crisis, The Party Is Over is a funny and impassioned exposé of everything that is wrong with Washington. Obama and his tired cohorts are no angels but they have nothing on the Republicans, whose wily strategists are bankrupting the country one craven vote at a time. Be prepared for some fireworks.

Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, spent years in the party’s inner circle. In this no-holds-barred memoir, he shows why he switched sides and became a Democrat. After serving as a Republican governor—one who was on the short list for the vice presidency in 2008—Charlie Crist made headlines when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate as an Independent. He was on the front page again when he endorsed President Obama in 2012 and spoke at the Democratic National Convention—and yet again when he officially joined the Democratic Party later that year. In The Party’s Over, he’ll make even more news when he reveals: The inside story of his 2010 Senate primary campaign against Marco Rubio, where he learned exactly how vicious the Republican leadership can be. His journey from inner circle to persona non grata, thanks to his literal embrace of President Obama. His very frank opinions on Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and other top-tier Republicans. Why he believes that Democrats have the right vision for Florida and the nation. • What he’s learned as a member of both parties and why he remains convinced that the two-party system can still work—with the right leadership. Rather than just rehashing his career, in this book Crist offers a focused indictment of the failings of the Republican Party, naming names and identifying where things went wrong. The Party’s Over is as far from “politics as usual” as you can get.

DIVDIVThe most popular girl in her class has to cope with hard truths after high school graduation as she wonders, Now what?/divDIV Prom queen. Captain of the cheerleading squad. Girlfriend of the most popular guy in school. Westerly High senior Helen Miranda Revness—Hallie to her friends—has it all. She just wishes everyone would stop talking about where they’re going to college—and asking her why she’s not applying to schools. Hallie has zero interest in four more years of teachers and term papers./divDIV After graduation and an unforgettable summer of parties and romance, everyone—including her boyfriend, Jaz—heads off to college. Hallie is no longer part of a couple or a crowd. Her family, in which she had to grow up fast, is more chaotic and scattered than ever. She tries to get a job, but discovers that a high school diploma will only take her so far. After a shattering heartbreak, she finally has to confront the reality of who she is and where she’s going./divDIV “This sensitive picture of a young woman coming to terms with hard truths about adulthood and growing up in the process is well populated with believable characters. An involving . . . depiction of what it means to rethink basic values.” —Kirkus Reviews/div/div

The Fall of the Tory Party Despite winning the December 2019 General Election, the Conservative parliamentary party is a moribund organisation. It no longer speaks for, or to, the British people. Its leadership has sacrificed the long-standing commitment to the Union to 'Get Brexit Done'. And beyond this, it is an intellectual vacuum, propped up by half-baked doctrine and magical thinking. Falling Down offers an explanation for how the Tory party came to position itself on the edge of the precipice and offers a series of answers to a question seldom addressed: as the party is poised to press the self-destruct button, what kind of role and future can it have? This tipping point has been a long time coming and Burton-Cartledge offers critical analysis to this narrative. Since the era of Thatcherism, the Tories have struggled to find a popular vision for the United Kingdom. At the same time, their members have become increasingly old. Their values have not been adopted by the younger voters. The coalition between the countryside and the City interests is under pressure, and the latter is split by Brexit. The Tories are locked into a declinist spiral, and with their voters not replacing themselves the party is more dependent on a split opposition - putting into question their continued viability as the favoured vehicle of British capital.

If the US continues with current policies, the next decades will be marked by war, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. Resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared. The political élites, especially in the US, are incapable of dealing with the situation, and have in mind a punishing game of "Last One Standing." The alternative is "Powerdown," a strategy that will require tremendous effort and economic sacrifice in order to reduce per-capita resource usage in wealthy countries, develop alternative energy sources, distribute resources more equitably, and reduce the human population humanely but systematically over time. While civil society organizations push for a mild version of this, the vast majority of the world's people are in the dark, not understanding the challenges ahead, nor the options realistically available. Powerdown speaks frankly to these dilemmas. Avoiding cynicism and despair, it begins with an overview of the likely impacts of oil and natural gas depletion and then outlines four options for industrial societies during the next decades: Last One Standing: the path of competition for remaining resources; Powerdown: the path of cooperation, conservation, and sharing; Waiting for a Magic Elixir: wishful thinking, false hopes, and denial; Building Lifeboats: the path of community solidarity and preservation. Finally, the book explores how three important groups within global society - the power élites, the opposition to the élites (the antiwar and anti-globalization movements, et al: the "Other Superpower"), and ordinary people - are likely to respond to these four options. Timely, accessible and eloquent, Powerdown is crucial reading for our times. Listen to an interview with Richard Heinberg from WRPI.

Amid the social turmoil of the 1960s and ,70s, a young man in California found his purpose in the rise of the Black Panther Party, made a deadly mistake that cost him his freedom, and ultimately got his life back, having learned the true lessons of the Buddha Samurai. By the time Flores Forbes was twenty-five years old, he had just a GED and sixty college credits to his name. But he had gone far in his chosen profession as a revolutionary. In 1977, Forbes had been in the Black Panther Party for almost a decade and had become the youngest member of the organization's central committee. In this remarkable memoir, Forbes vividly describes his transformation from an angry youth into a powerful partisan in the ranks of the black liberation movement. Disillusioned in high school by the racism in his native San Diego, he began reading Black Panther literature. Drawn to the Panthers' mission of organizing resistance to police brutality, he eagerly joined and soon found himself immersed in a culture of Mao-inspired rigor. His dedication ultimately earned him a place in the Party's elite inner circle as assistant chief of staff, charged with heading up the "fold" -- the heavily armed military branch dubbed by Huey P. Newton the "Buddha Samurai." "My job was one of the most secretive in the party," writes Forbes, "and to this day most of the people who were in the Party over the years had not a clue as to what I really did..." With intimate portraits of such BPP leaders as Elaine Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, and Huey P. Newton, Will You Die with Me? is a riveting firsthand look at some of the most dramatic events of the last century and a brutally honest tale of one man's journey from rage to redemption.