Plutocratic Insurgency Reader
Plutocratic Insurgency Reader

Author: Robert J. Bunker

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 1796046957

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Plutocratic insurgency represents an emerging form of insurgency not seen since the late 19th century Gilded Age. It is being conducted by high net worth globalized elites allowing them to remove themselves from public spaces and obligations—including taxation—and to maximize their ability to generate profits transnationally. It utilizes ‘lawyers & lobbyists’ and corruption, rather than armed struggle—though mercenaries may be employed—to create shadow governance in pursuit of plutocratic policy objectives. Ultimately, this form of insurgency is representative of the challenge of 21st century predatory and sovereign-free capitalism to 20th century state moderated capitalism and its ensuing public welfare programs and middle class social structures. It can be viewed as a component of ‘Dark Globalization’ that, along with the emergence of criminal insurgency, is now actively threatening the public institutions and citizenry of the Westphalian state form. This important and groundbreaking Small Wars Journal book is composed of over thirty readings by fifteen contributors.

Come Hell or High Fever
Come Hell or High Fever

Author: Russell W Glenn

Publisher: ANU Press

Published: 2023-01-24

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1760465542

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‘Nations appear and fall, but cities endure and rediscover how to succeed. In this meticulously defined and researched book, Glenn presents ideas for minimising suffering during urban catastrophes. His urgency identifies risks held in urban areas by 3.5 billion people. These people are many of us: as urban populations occupying 3 per cent of our planet’s land area, drawing water from 41 per cent of the world’s ground surface, consuming 60 to 80 per cent of global energy and achieving 80 per cent of the world’s economic productivity. For Glenn, our resilience—through diversity in preparation, survival and recovery—includes comprehensive approaches that are sustained in duration, orchestrated in bringing all necessary capabilities to bear, layered in approach and early in application.’ —Major General Chris Field, Australian Army ‘The time to prepare for the inevitable is now. Dr Glenn has written a book that should be read by all leaders, planners and responders who may be called upon in an urban disaster, whether natural or man-made. Military leaders should give it particular attention, as the human race is increasingly concentrated in its cities. Understanding how to wage war in dense urban terrain is essential, especially if a nation also seeks to hold the moral high ground. The fruits of any victory won among people that fails to consider the lessons in Come Hell or High Fever are likely to be very bitter.’ —Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, United States Army (retired)

Rising Inequality in the United States
Rising Inequality in the United States

Author: Robert J. Bunker

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2019-08-26

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 1796054852

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Rising levels of inequality, both internationally and domestically, represent a societal as well as, increasingly, a national security concern. A strong and robust middle class has long been considered an integral part of American society, required for both the functioning of its industrialized economy and armor and mechanized-infantry based armies as well as the stability of its liberal-democratic governmental system. This reality now seems imperiled with the U.S. middle class appearing to be shrinking before our eyes. This new Small Wars Journal pocket book by Pamela Ligouri Bunker and Robert J. Bunker discusses such rising inequality concerns, provides an overview related to globalized capitalism’s domestic winners and losers, analyses criminal, plutocratic, and emergent authoritarian insurgency forms as well as the Fourth Epoch War theory construct, and then provides policy response recommendations for the U.S. government and armed forces. It is representative of the cutting edge Criminal and Plutocratic Insurgencies research and writing being produced by SWJ.

All Hell Breaking Loose
All Hell Breaking Loose

Author: Michael T. Klare

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2019-11-12

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 162779249X

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All Hell Breaking Loose is an eye-opening examination of climate change from the perspective of the U.S. military. The Pentagon, unsentimental and politically conservative, might not seem likely to be worried about climate change—still linked, for many people, with polar bears and coral reefs. Yet of all the major institutions in American society, none take climate change as seriously as the U.S. military. Both as participants in climate-triggered conflicts abroad, and as first responders to hurricanes and other disasters on American soil, the armed services are already confronting the impacts of global warming. The military now regards climate change as one of the top threats to American national security—and is busy developing strategies to cope with it. Drawing on previously obscure reports and government documents, renowned security expert Michael Klare shows that the U.S. military sees the climate threat as imperiling the country on several fronts at once. Droughts and food shortages are stoking conflicts in ethnically divided nations, with “climate refugees” producing worldwide havoc. Pandemics and other humanitarian disasters will increasingly require extensive military involvement. The melting Arctic is creating new seaways to defend. And rising seas threaten American cities and military bases themselves. While others still debate the causes of global warming, the Pentagon is intensely focused on its effects. Its response makes it clear that where it counts, the immense impact of climate change is not in doubt.

Dark Money
Dark Money

Author: Jane Mayer

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2017-01-24

Total Pages: 577

ISBN-13: 0307947904

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Who are the immensely wealthy right-wing ideologues shaping the fate of America today? From the bestselling author of The Dark Side, an electrifying work of investigative journalism that uncovers the agenda of this powerful group. In her new preface, Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump's victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system. Why is America living in an age of profound and widening economic inequality? Why have even modest attempts to address climate change been defeated again and again? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? In a riveting and indelible feat of reporting, Jane Mayer illuminates the history of an elite cadre of plutocrats—headed by the Kochs, the Scaifes, the Olins, and the Bradleys—who have bankrolled a systematic plan to fundamentally alter the American political system. Mayer traces a byzantine trail of billions of dollars spent by the network, revealing a staggering conglomeration of think tanks, academic institutions, media groups, courthouses, and government allies that have fallen under their sphere of influence. Drawing from hundreds of exclusive interviews, as well as extensive scrutiny of public records, private papers, and court proceedings, Mayer provides vivid portraits of the secretive figures behind the new American oligarchy and a searing look at the carefully concealed agendas steering the nation. Dark Money is an essential book for anyone who cares about the future of American democracy. National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist LA Times Book Prize Finalist PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Finalist Shortlisted for the Lukas Prize

Faces of State Terrorism
Faces of State Terrorism

Author: Laura Westra

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-05-16

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 9004224564

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This book examines the numerous illegal measures states use, from unlawful imprisonment and curtailing of civil liberties to torture, in the name of responding to terrorism. At the same time, it considers how trade and industrial activities terrorize people by depriving them of the natural resources they need to survive and by exposing communities to life-threatening hazardous conditions.

Cold Civil War
Cold Civil War

Author: Jim Belcher

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2022-03-22

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0830847650

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America is experiencing extreme polarization and fragmentation that could split the country in two. How can we bring America back together before its too late? Laying out a quadrant framework of understanding today's political climate, Jim Belcher reveals both why we're divided and how to move beyond the left-right stalemate toward a new vital center.

The Last Utopia
The Last Utopia

Author: Samuel Moyn

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-03-05

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0674256522

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Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.

Lives of the Great Commanders
Lives of the Great Commanders

Author: Quintus Curtius

Publisher: Fortress of the Mind Publications

Published: 2019-09-21

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1693918668

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This new, original translation of Cornelius Nepos's "Lives of the Great Commanders" is the first to appear in many generations. It is also the first completely illustrated and annotated translation of this ageless classic. It contains the following special features that are specifically designed for the general reader or student: 1. Over forty illustrations, including original portrait art and historical illustrations. 2. Over four hundred and forty descriptive footnotes that explain every name, location, and literary point of interest in the text. 3. A fresh, modern English translation that is faithful to the original Latin text. 4. A detailed foreword, descriptive introduction, map, and index for ease of reference. The Roman writer Cornelius Nepos (c. 110 B.C.--c. 25 B.C.) was one of the first biographers in the Western tradition. His "Lives of the Great Commanders" presents memorable and entertaining sketches of some of the most famous military and political leaders of antiquity. Written with a strong moral purpose, his book was taught and studied in schools for many centuries. Through him we learn what character traits made his subjects great, and what shortcomings produced their downfalls. Nepos's instructional biographies have never been more needed or relevant today. His themes--character, moral development, political freedom, and the consequences of corruption--are timeless and universal in their interest. A self-contained unit, this new translation is ideal both for those with no prior background in the subject matter, and also for the serious student.

Accumulation
Accumulation

Author: Nick Axel

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2022-04-05

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1452967822

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Examines how images of accumulation help open up the climate to political mobilization The current epoch is one of accumulation: not only of capital but also of raw, often unruly material, from plastic in the ocean and carbon in the atmosphere to people, buildings, and cities. Alongside this material growth, image-making practices embedded within the fields of art and architecture have proven to be fertile, mobile, and capacious. Images of accumulation help open up the climate to cultural inquiry and political mobilization and have formed a cultural infrastructure focused on the relationships between humans, other species, and their environments. The essays in Accumulation address this cultural infrastructure and the methodological challenges of its analysis. They offer a response to the relative invisibility of the climate now seen as material manifestations of social behavior. Contributors outline opportunities and ambitions of visual scholarship as a means to encounter the challenges emergent in the current moment: how can climate become visible, culturally and politically? Knowledge of climatic instability can change collective behavior and offer other trajectories, counteraccumulations that draw the present into a different, more livable, future. Contributors: Emily Apter, New York U; Hans Baumann; Amanda Boeztkes, U of Guelph; Dominic Boyer, Rice U; Lindsay Bremner, U of Westminster; Nerea Calvillo, U of Warwick; Beth Cullen, U of Westminster; T. J. Demos, U of California, Santa Cruz; Jeff Diamanti, U of Amsterdam; Jennifer Ferng, U of Sydney; Jennifer Gabrys, U of Cambridge; Ian Gray, U of California, Los Angeles; Gökçe Günel, Rice U; Orit Halpern, Concordia U; Gabrielle Hecht, Stanford U; Cymene Howe, Rice U; Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Simon Fraser U; Robin Kelsey, Harvard U; Bruno Latour, Sciences Po, Paris; Hannah le Roux, U of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Stephanie LeMenager, U of Oregon; Nashin Mahtani; Kiel Moe, McGill U; Karen Pinkus, Cornell U; Stephanie Wakefield, Life U; McKenzie Wark, The New School; Kathryn Yusoff, Queen Mary U of London.