Open Media

In this classic talk delivered at the Poetry Center, New York, on February 16, 1970, Noam Chomsky articulates a clear, uncompromising vision of social change. Chomsky contrasts the classical liberal, libertarian socialist, state socialist, and state capitalist world views and then defends a libertarian socialist vision as "the proper and natural extension ... of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society." In his stirring conclusion Chomsky argues, "We have today the technical and material resources to meet man's animal needs. We have not developed the cultural and moral resources or the democratic forms of social organization that make possible the humane and rational use of our material wealth and power. Conceivably, the classical liberal ideals as expressed and developed in their libertarian socialist form are achievable. But if so, only by a popular revolutionary movement, rooted in wide strata of the population and committed to the elimination of repressive and authoritarian institutions, state and private. To create such a movement is a challenge we face and must meet if there is to be an escape from contemporary barbarism."

In Global Governance, policy analyst Kristin Dawkins offers a refreshingly hopeful and astute roadmap towards a democratic future, framing the respective roles and accomplishments of corporations, governments, and citizen activists in light of the day-to-day needs of communities around the world. Written with an eye to the realities of power, Global Governance explores the origins and current state of play in the major global institutions, the rising dominance of global corporations and the growing wealth of the world's political elite. In describing the impacts of international trade, aid and development loans on Southern economies and communities, Dawkins carefully explains the way governmental policies overseas become instruments of coercion in the context of globalization. Writing with a passionate commitment to justice and democracy, Dawkins points out that the U.S. government is becoming increasingly hostile to the UN — even though many of the UN's institutions and treaties were designed to address poverty and the other problems created by globalization. At a time when the UN's very survival is being questioned, Global Governance is an urgent call to revitalize multilateralism and to build powerful new tools for democratic global governance.

Microradio and Democracy discusses the role of citizen access to communications in a democratic society, and how diversity, localism, and core political speech are undermined by corporate control of the public airwaves. Ruggiero examines the emergence of microradio activism in recent court cases, and the links between the microradio struggle and larger movements for democracy and social justice. Illustrated with photos and graphics, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned about keeping free speech for communities, not corporations.

In this interlocking prose web of first-person testimony, novelist, poet, and playwright Ariel Dorfman relates the struggles of fifty human rights activists hailing from more than forty countries. Manifesto for Another World features the words and struggles of internationally celebrated activists including Vaclav Havel, Baltasar Garzón, Helen Prejean, and Marian Wright Edelman; and Nobel Prize Laureates the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Oscar Arias Sánchez, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, José Ramos-Horta, and Bobby Muller. Equally moving are the stories of more than thirty others, unknown and (as yet) unsung beyond their national boundaries: Kailash Satyarthi, who has spent a lifetime working to free tens of thousands of victims of child labor in his native India, and Juliana Dogbadzi, who was sold into sexual slavery by her parents at age twelve, escaped after seventeen degrading years, and now is devoted to the liberation of African girls bound in the same terror. From their ranging voices Dorfman culls the message: freedom from persecution, and freedom of opportunity, for all. Manifesto for Another World is both a political testament and a work of art.

Truth-as Zinn shows us in the interviews that make up Terrorism and War-has indeed been the first casualty of war, starting from the beginnings of the American empire in the Spanish-American War. But war has many other casualties, he argues, including civil liberties on the home front and human rights abroad. In Terrorism and War, Zinn explores the growth of the American empire, as well as the long tradition of resistance in this country to U.S. militarism, from Eugene Debs and the Socialist Party during World War One to the opponents of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan today.

Chomsky observes the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a "Path to a Better World," while chronicling how far off the trail the United States is with respect to actual political practice and conduct. Analyzing the contradictions of U.S. power while illustrating the real progress won by sustained popular struggle, Chomsky cuts through official political rhetoric to examine how the United States not only violates the UD, but at times uses it as a weapon to wield against designated enemies.

An urgent call for the political transformation needed to address the common causes of climate change, COVID-19, and racism. "An iconoclast of the best kind, Stan Cox has an all-too-rare commitment to following arguments wherever they lead, however politically dangerous that turns out to be."-Naomi Klein 2020 was a year defined by crisis. For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm about the urgency of addressing climate change, but it took COVID-19 to demonstrate clearly that the future of human life on Earth is interconnected and at risk. While the virus quickly spread across the globe, extreme weather events compounded the suffering and economic catastrophe. In the U.S., public demonstrations of outrage over the murder of George Floyd expanded to include a growing awareness of the pandemic's disproportionate impact on communities of color. In cities around the world, people took to the streets to protest racial inequity in all of its forms. In The Path to a Livable Future, Stan Cox makes plain the connections between the multiple crises facing us today, and provides an inspired vision for how to resolve them. With a deeply informed, clear to-do list, Cox shows us how we can work together to address the climate emergency, white supremacy, and our vulnerability to future pandemics all at once. Our future depends on it. "In The Path to a Livable Future, Stan Cox shows us that the calamitous problems faced by all humanity, from pandemic to environmental devastation and settler colonialism, have a common root: the Western doctrine of looting and exploitation. Cox lays out a refreshingly grounded roadmap for the survival of all life on earth, based on up-to-date science, and anchored in the racial justice imperative. Global civilization is on a disastrous trajectory that can only be averted through holistic and bold pivots. The Path charts the way forward and gives us a reason to cling to hope."-Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land "Above all, he shows that a healthy, just, sustainable future is possible if we reduce our ecological footprint and share the earth's gifts equitably. For this we need to organize, resist, imagine, and forge another path together."-Vandana Shiva, author of Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology "Stan Cox cuts through the fog of mediocrity and offers a clear, honest vision for how social movements can win a truly just and sustainable society. There are few books I would recommend as wholeheartedly as this one. Don't miss it."-Jason Hickel, author of Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World "As Cox shows in this devastating but clear-eyed assessment, the multiple existential crises of our modern world-from climate change to pandemics-are interrelated and can be traced back to centuries of colonial domination of land and people."-Dina Gilio-Whitaker, author of As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock "Stan Cox stands in a class of his own. . . . The Path to a Livable Future is a testament to the fact that meaningful responses to the multifarious crises we face are unlikely to come-first and foremost-from traditional urban liberal strongholds."-Felix Marquardt, author of The New Nomads: How the Migration Revolution is Transforming our Lives for the Better

Investigating the essential role that the postal system plays in American democracy and how the corporate sector has attempted to destroy it. The fight over the future of the U.S. Postal Service is on. For years, corporate interests and political ideologues have pushed to remake the USPS, turning it from a public institution into a private business-and now, with mail-in voting playing a key role in local, state, and federal elections, the attacks have escalated. Leadership at the USPS has been handed over to special interests whose plan for the future includes higher postage costs, slower delivery times, and fewer post offices, policies that will inevitably weaken this invaluable public service and source of employment. Despite the general shift to digital communication, the vast majority of the American people-and small businesses-still rely heavily on the U.S. postal system, and many are rallying to defend it. First Class brings readers to the front lines of the struggle, explaining the various forces at work for and against a strong postal system, and presenting reasonable ideas for strengthening and expanding its capacity, services, and workforce. Emphasizing the essential role the USPS has played ever since Benjamin Franklin served as our first Postmaster General, author Christopher Shaw warns of the consequences for the country-and for our democracy - if we don't win this fight.

Since the attacks of September 11th, there has been a sweeping revision of U.S. immigration laws, foreign intelligence gathering operations, and domestic law enforcement procedures. While aimed at countering terrorism and bringing to justice those individuals who are responsible for carrying out acts of terror against the U.S., many of these measures also involve a profound curtailment of our constitutional rights and liberties. Among the most controversial of the new measures is the unprecedented order authorizing the creation of special military tribunals to try non-citizens suspected of terrorism. In Secret Trials and Executions, Olshansky helps us step back for a moment to assess several of the Bush Administration's 2001 policy pronouncements, and examine how the Constitution addresses the cardinal issues of military authority and the requirements of due process and equal protection under the law, and how the courts and Congress have defined the proper roles of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in our federal government. To provide a framework for this analysis, Olshansky looks at the history of military tribunals, whether the current situation warrants the type of forum proposed by the president, the official positions that our government has taken with regard to the use of military tribunals by other nations, the legal basis for the specific form of military tribunal that is established by the Military Order, what alternatives exist to bring to justice those who may be guilty of such crimes, what constitutional principles are at stake in this decision, and what the decision to use military tribunals will mean in terms of this country's credibility and moral authority in the international arena.

In her major address to the 99th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association on August 16, 2004, "Public Power in the Age of Empire," broadcast nationally on C-Span Book TV and on Democracy Now! and Alternative Radio, writer Arundhati Roy brilliantly examines the limits to democracy in the world today. Bringing the same care to her prose that she brought to her Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, Roy discusses the need for social movements to contest the occupation of Iraq and the reduction of "democracy" to elections with no meaningful alternatives allowed. She explores the dangers of the "NGO-ization of resistance," shows how governments that block nonviolent dissent, in fact, encourage terrorism and examines the role of the corporate media in marginalizing oppositional voices.

A veritable "Globalization for Dummies," 10 Reasons to Abolish the IMF & World Bank lays bare the most common myths of globalization in a clear and understandable way. Looking with hope to grassroots movement-building on a global scale, Danaher presents ten arguments for abolishing the IMF and World Bank and replacing them with democratic institutions that would make the global economy more accountable to an informed and active citizenry. Conceived as an effort to educate the public about how international institutions of "free trade" are widening the gap between the rich and poor globally, Danaher reveals how the lending policies of the IMF and the World Bank fail to benefit Third World peoples, and instead line the pockets of undemocratic rulers and western corporations while threatening local democracies and forcing cuts to social programs. Through anecdotes, analysis, and innovative ideas, Danaher argues that the IMF and the World Bank undermine our most basic democratic values, and calls for reframing the terms on which international economic institutions are operated using the principles of environmental sustainability, social justice, and human rights.

In Acts of Aggression three distinguished activist scholars examine the background and ramifications of the U.S. conflict with Iraq. Through three separate essays, the pamphlet provides an in-depth analysis of U.S./Arab relations, the contradictions and consequences of U.S. foreign policy toward "rogue states," and how hostile American actions abroad conflict with UN resolutions and international law.

In 9-11, published in November 2001 and arguably the single most influential post 9-11 book, internationally renowned thinker Noam Chomsky bridged the information gap around the World Trade Center attacks, cutting through the tangle of political opportunism, expedient patriotism, and general conformity that choked off American discourse in the months immediately following. Chomsky placed the attacks in context, marshaling his deep and nuanced knowledge of American foreign policy to trace the history of American political aggression-in the Middle East and throughout Latin America as well as in Indonesia, in Afghanistan, in India and Pakistan-at the same time warning against America's increasing reliance on military rhetoric and violence in its response to the attacks, and making the critical point that the mainstream media and public intellectuals were failing to make: any escalation of violence as a response to violence will inevitably lead to further, and bloodier, attacks on innocents in America and around the world. This new edition of 9-11, published on the tenth anniversary of the attacks and featuring a new preface by Chomsky, reminds us that today, just as much as ten years ago, information and clarity remain our most valuable tools in the struggle to prevent future violence against the innocent, both at home and abroad.

Essential radical texts by enslaved, jailed, and imprisoned Americans, edited by renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and activist-scholar Jennifer Black. "Filled with insight and energy, this extraordinary book gifts us the opportunity to encounter people's understanding of the fight for freedom from the inside out."-Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag and Abolition Geography "Martin Luther King told us what he saw when he went to the mountaintop....But there's also the foot of the mountain, and there are also the regions beneath the surface. I want to try to tell you a little something about those regions."-Angela Y. Davis, author of Angela Davis: An Autobiography Beneath the Mountain is a reader's guide for understanding the evolution of anti-prison tenets. This essential core of primary texts provides an arc of insurgent writings by dissidents and revolutionaries who experienced incarceration and state terror first-hand. With contributions from John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Crazy Horse, to Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, and Leonard Peltier, it also includes a previously unpublished communiqué from Angela Davis, written from jail at the time when she was forging the anti-prison critique that has since inspired a national movement. Beneath the Mountain offers a record of the historic foundations for the contemporary abolition movement. What emerges from these texts is an emancipatory vision that inspires the work being done today, a vision centered on organizing and solidarity as an antidote to repression. An invaluable resource for readers on both sides of prison walls, this compendium of resistance and hard-won vision will be essential to all who seek to develop an abolitionist critique and to further an understanding of the nature of repression and liberation.