Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades—and he fought with the Polish ant-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature.  In The Demon in Democracy, Legutko explores the shared objectives between these two political systems, and explains how liberal democracy has over time lurched towards the same goals as communism, albeit without Soviet style brutality.  Both systems, says Legutko, reduce human nature to that of the common man, who is led to believe himself liberated from the obligations of the past. Both the communist man and the liberal democratic man refuse to admit that there exists anything of value outside the political systems to which they pledged their loyalty. And both systems refuse to undertake any critical examination of their ideological prejudices.

About the Author

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A Most-Anticipated Book of the Year: Newsweek * Refinery29

“Timely and urgent . . . Pang is a dogged investigator.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Moving and powerful.” —Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author 

Discover the truth behind the discounts

In 2012, an Oregon mother named Julie Keith opened up a package of Halloween decorations. The cheap foam headstones had been five dollars at Kmart, too good a deal to pass up. But when she opened the box, something shocking fell out: an SOS letter, handwritten in broken English.

The note’s author, Sun Yi, was a mild-mannered Chinese engineer turned political prisoner, forced into grueling labor for campaigning for the freedom to join a forbidden meditation movement. He was imprisoned alongside petty criminals, civil rights activists, and tens of thousands of others the Chinese government had decided to “reeducate,” carving foam gravestones and stitching clothing for more than fifteen hours a day.

In Made in China, investigative journalist Amelia Pang pulls back the curtain on Sun’s story and the stories of others like him, including the persecuted Uyghur minority group whose abuse and exploitation is rapidly gathering steam. What she reveals is a closely guarded network of laogai—forced labor camps—that power the rapid pace of American consumerism. Through extensive interviews and firsthand reportage, Pang shows us the true cost of America’s cheap goods and shares what is ultimately a call to action—urging us to ask more questions and demand more answers from the companies we patronize.

Review

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This selection of essays from K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016) brings together the best of Fisher’s political writing. Ranging across topics from UK and American politics to communist realism, football, and depression, as well as including the unpublished introduction to what would have been his next book on acid communism, K-Punk: Politics shows Fisher at his most combative and incendiary, wrangling with the contradictions and complexities of capitalism and setting out the way forward into a more just, fair, and equal future for all.

Product details

• Listening Length: 9 hours and 24 minutes
• Author: Mark Fisher
• Narrator: Tom Lawrence
• Audible.com Release Date: September 17, 2020
• Publisher: Watkins Publishing
• Program Type: Audiobook
• Version: Unabridged
• Language: English
• ASIN: B08J7NSMCQ

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In this unique and exhilarating autobiography, Allan Jones – Canada’s first blind diplomat – vividly describes how an untreatable eye disease slowly decimated his visual world, most challengingly during his postings in Tokyo and New Delhi, and how he discovered and took to heart the revelatory Indian philosophy that changed his life. Advaita Vedanta, the most iconoclastic and liberating of the classical Indian philosophies, profoundly altered the author’s experience of self and world. He found that the true self, as distinct from the individual ego, far exceeds the boundaries of individuality. It lies beneath sightedness or blindness and is absolutely unaffected by the latter. This welcome shift of perspective was reinforced by startling discoveries in contemporary physics, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology that are fully consistent with Advaitic metaphysics. As for the practical applications of metaphysics, this book demonstrates step by step how Advaitic insight and practice significantly reduce physical and psychological tension. The most telling examples have to do with adjustments compelled by extreme circumstances. Thus Jones describes how he drew upon Advaitic mindfulness techniques to maintain his white cane mobility skills in the teeth of permanent spinal, nerve, and muscle pain. The arc of Beyond Vision moves from the claustrophobically personal to the openness of the transpersonal. It begins in a dysfunctional family background, breaking out into a full life encompassing an adventurous foreign service career, spiritual exploration, and an unconventional kind of marital love.

Review

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An Unabridged Edition with all charts, tables, and original footnotes, to include: Preface – Preface to the French and German Editions – Concentration of Production and Monopolies – Banks and Their New Role – Finance Capital and the Financial Oligarchy – Export of Capital – Division of the World among Capitalist Associations – Division of the World among the Great Powers – Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism – Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism – Critique of Imperialism – The Place of Imperialism in History

Product details

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Rush Limbaugh is a way of life for over twelve million avid and devoted listeners. For three hours every day this comic conservative of the airwaves with “talent on loan from God” entertains, provokes and persuades friend sand enemies alike in a no-holds-barred show that is one of the biggest draws in radio history. Using personal anecdotes, Limbaugh now reveals the major influences on his life and views, and blasts off on all the leading issues of our day. Nothing escapes his acerbic wit and huggable charm as he proves why he is on the cutting edge of societal evolution and the epitome of morality and virtue. Here he holds forth on such subjects as: Anita Hill, The Homeless Fraud, The Media, and many others. Tackling the hottest topics of the times from Feminazis to Environmentalist Wackos, Rush Limbaugh is at his satirical best—the provocative conservative and the showman who is “documented to be almost always right 97.9% of the time” about The Way Things Ought To Be.

About the Author

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER that connects the dots from Donald Trump’s racist background to the Russian scandals

“A searing indictment.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Johnston has given us this year’s must-read Trump book.” — Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

The international bestseller that brought Trump’s long history of racism, mafia ties, and shady business dealings into the limelight. Now with a New Introduction and Epilogue.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, who had spent thirty years chronicling Donald Trump for the New York Times and other leading newspapers, takes readers from the origins of the Trump family fortune—his grandfather’s Yukon bordellos during the Gold Rush—to his tumultuous gambling and real estate dealings in New York and Atlantic City, all the way to his election as president of the United States, giving us a deeply researched and shockingly full picture of one of the most controversial figures of our time.

”Provides useful, vigorously reported overviews of Mr. Trump’s life and career … Mr. Johnston, who has followed the real estate impresario for nearly three decades, offers a searing indictment of his business practices and creative accounting.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

”David Cay Johnston has given us this year’s must-read Trump book.”—Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC’s The Last Word

”Johnston devastatingly covers ground he broke open as a reporter on the Trump beat in Philadelphia and at The New York Times…The best of investigative reporting is brought to bear on a man who could potentially lead the free world.”—USA Today

”Carefully fleshes out the details of Trump’s known biography…with solid documentation.”—Tampa Bay Times

“Johnston’s case is unassailable and eye-opening.” — The Nation

Review

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A bold, urgent argument on the misplacement of value in financial markets and how we can and need to maximize value for the many, not few.

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In this timely and insightful new book, Stephen J. Harper, Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister, draws on a decade of experience as a G-7 leader to help leaders in business and government understand, adapt, and thrive in an age of unprecedented disruption.

The world is in flux. Disruptive technologies, ideas, and politicians are challenging business models, norms, and political conventions everywhere. How we, as leaders in business and politics, choose to respond matters greatly. Some voices refuse to concede the need for any change, while others advocate for radical realignment. But neither of these positions can sustainably address the legitimate concerns of disaffected citizens.

Right Here, Right Now sets out a pragmatic, forward-looking vision for leaders in business and politics by analyzing how economic, social, and public policy trends–including globalized movements of capital, goods and services, and labour–have affected our economies, communities, and governments.

Harper contends that Donald Trump’s surprise election and governing agenda clearly signal that political, economic, and social institutions must be more responsive to legitimate concerns about public policy, market regulation, immigration, and technology. Urging readers to look past questions of style and gravitas, Harper thoughtfully examines the substantive underpinnings of how and why Donald Trump was able to succeed Barack Obama as President of the United States, and how these forces are manifesting themselves in other western democracies. Analyzing international trade, market regulation, immigration, technology, and the role of government in the digital economy, Harper lays out the case for pragmatic leadership as a proven solution to the uncertainty and risk that businesses and governments face today.

About the Author

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Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the history of the battle against oligarchy in America–and how we can win the latest round.

Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they’re nearly there thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.

The United States was born in a struggle against the oligarchs of the British aristocracy, and ever since then the history of America has been one of dynamic tension between democracy and oligarchy. And much like the shock of the 1929 crash woke America up to glaring inequality and the ongoing theft of democracy by that generation’s oligarchs, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has laid bare how extensively oligarchs have looted our nation’s economic system, gutted governmental institutions, and stolen the wealth of the former middle class.

Thom Hartmann traces the history of this struggle against oligarchy from America’s founding to the United States’ war with the feudal Confederacy to President Franklin Roosevelt’s struggle against “economic royalists,” who wanted to block the New Deal. In each of those cases, the oligarchs lost the battle. But with increasing right-wing control of the media, unlimited campaign contributions, and a conservative takeover of the judicial system, we’re at a crisis point.

Now is the time for action, before we flip into tyranny. We’ve beaten the oligarchs before, and we can do it again. Hartmann lays out practical measures we can take to break up media monopolies, limit the influence of money in politics, reclaim the wealth stolen over decades by the oligarchy, and build a movement that will return control of America to We the People.

Review

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