Hard copy: The United States is destroying itself from the inside out.The Corruption of America is a kind of moral decay... a kind of greed...a kind of desperate grasp for power. And it's destroying our nation.These corruptions do not need to exist.If individual Americans take it upon themselves to become bettercitizens, act with rational self-interest, and reject the "ethos of gettingyours"... we can correct these corruptions.That's why Stansberry Research founder Porter Stansberry publishedAmerica 2020: The Survival Blueprint. Many are referring to it as themost valuable book in America..."I love the book; it is so clear and concise. Though I have studied a bitabout the smartest way to survive what is coming, this put all the bestideas together in one place! My hat is off to you guys! - J.R."Absolutely excellent book!! I need to buy another 12 for my familyand friends." - K.B."I read it the first day I had it. It is a great book that explains ourcurrent situation simply and very accurately. I intend to continue to usethis book as a guide for investing and I will recommend it to my familyand friends." - L.R."This is a story all Americans should know about. I don't usually buythings off the Internet, but I am extremely glad that I made an exception inthis case." - C.R.
Joel Perlmann traces the history of U.S. classification of immigrants, from Ellis Island to the present day, showing how slippery and contested ideas about racial, national, and ethnic difference have been. His focus ranges from the 1897 List of Races and Peoples, through changes in the civil rights era, to proposals for reform of the 2020 Census.
2020 is a year we shall never forget-not America, not the world. The tragic death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter GiGi. The global pandemic called COVID-19. The police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. The massive street protests of Black Lives Matter. The passing of famous names like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Chadwick Boseman, Naya Rivera, and Congressman John Lewis. The U.S. presidential election and its ugly aftermath. Amidst all of this, acclaimed writer Kevin Powell and the historic Nuyorican Poets Cafe partnered on seven free Zoom writing workshops to allow people to express themselves in a safe and non-judgmental space, and to build community given the harsh realities of COVID. Writers of all ages and identities showed up. Seven workshops turned into ten workshops plus a permanent Facebook group of a few hundred writers. And now this book: 2020: THE YEAR THAT CHANGED AMERICA. Award-winning and game-changing writers like Nikki Giovanni, Gloria Steinem, Etan Thomas, Nancy Mercado, Dave Zirin, Jackson Katz, jessica Care moore, asha bandele, Tim Wise, Bob Holman, and V (formerly Eve Ensler) join both previously published and newly published writers of blogs, essays, poetry, journal entries, and fiction. Soulful, informational, eye- catching, and gut-wrenching, this anthology is a testimony of resilience and loss, of hurt and hope, of stories remembered and stories forgotten, of politics and the political, and what is possible when so much seems impossible.
America faces daunting problems—stagnant wages, high health care costs, neglected schools, deteriorating public services. How did we get here? Through decades of dysfunctional government. In Democracy in America? veteran political observers Benjamin I. Page and Martin Gilens marshal an unprecedented array of evidence to show that while other countries have responded to a rapidly changing economy by helping people who’ve been left behind, the United States has failed to do so. Instead, we have actually exacerbated inequality, enriching corporations and the wealthy while leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. What’s the solution? More democracy. More opportunities for citizens to shape what their government does. To repair our democracy, Page and Gilens argue, we must change the way we choose candidates and conduct our elections, reform our governing institutions, and curb the power of money in politics. By doing so, we can reduce polarization and gridlock, address pressing challenges, and enact policies that truly reflect the interests of average Americans. Updated with new information, this book lays out a set of proposals that would boost citizen participation, curb the power of money, and democratize the House and Senate.
How historical, social, and cultural forces shaped the psychedelic experience in midcentury America, from CIA experiments with LSD to Timothy Leary's Harvard Psilocybin Project. Are psychedelics invaluable therapeutic medicines, or dangerously unpredictable drugs that precipitate psychosis? Tools for spiritual communion or cognitive enhancers that spark innovation? Activators for one's private muse or part of a political movement? In the 1950s and 1960s, researchers studied psychedelics in all these incarnations, often arriving at contradictory results. In American Trip, Ido Hartogsohn examines how the psychedelic experience in midcentury America was shaped by historical, social, and cultural forces--by set (the mindset of the user) and setting (the environments in which the experience takes place).
This book lays out compelling evidence that U.S. foreign policy for more than two decades has been an unqualified failure. If substantive changes are not made--soon--in how we engage with the world we risk suffering catastrophic loss. Whether Donald Trump wins a second term in November or Joe Biden is voted into office, it will be crucial that the country's jacked-up foreign policy be brought into conformity with new and emerging realities. If we continue the status quo of our current bipartisan foreign policy that has dominated for decades, we risk international obsolescence - or we'll fumble our way into an entirely avoidable, unnecessary, and pointless war. As of this writing, we are not at war with China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran. We have the strongest military with an unequaled ability to project power globally. The dollar is still the dominant global currency and we still have the most powerful economy on the planet. From this position of strength and power, we can change course on our foreign policy to slowly work off the negative consequences that have already accrued owing to past misdeeds, avoid any catastrophic outcomes in the present, and actually increase our power to ensure continued freedom and economic prosperity for generations to come. All that is possible and realistic at this moment. It remains to be seen whether we'll seize this opportunity or condemn ourselves to plunge blindly forward into an avoidable disaster. This book is written to expose how our foreign policy got jacked up, why it has bombed, and explains how it can be successful well into the future. The choice is ours. Generations of Americans will either thank us for the enlightened and wise choices we make in the coming months and years - or condemn us for failing to see the obvious truth; for blundering forward into preventable disaster.
The MacArthur grant–winning environmental justice activist’s riveting memoir of a life fighting for a cleaner future for America’s most vulnerable A Smithsonian Magazine Top Ten Best Science Book of 2020 Catherine Coleman Flowers, a 2020 MacArthur “genius,” grew up in Lowndes County, Alabama, a place that’s been called “Bloody Lowndes” because of its violent, racist history. Once the epicenter of the voting rights struggle, today it’s Ground Zero for a new movement that is also Flowers’s life’s work—a fight to ensure human dignity through a right most Americans take for granted: basic sanitation. Too many people, especially the rural poor, lack an affordable means of disposing cleanly of the waste from their toilets and, as a consequence, live amid filth. Flowers calls this America’s dirty secret. In this “powerful and moving book” (Booklist), she tells the story of systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that foster Third World conditions not just in Alabama, but across America, in Appalachia, Central California, coastal Florida, Alaska, the urban Midwest, and on Native American reservations in the West. In this inspiring story of the evolution of an activist, from country girl to student civil rights organizer to environmental justice champion at Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative, Flowers shows how sanitation is becoming too big a problem to ignore as climate change brings sewage to more backyards—not only those of poor minorities.
The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. “That's just how they are” or “there's really no excuse”: we've all heard those not so subtle digs. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. We haven't known how much the country will gain by properly valuing homes and businesses, family structures, voters, and school districts in Black neighborhoods. And we need to know. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes readers on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued. Perry begins in his hometown of Wilkinsburg, a small city east of Pittsburgh that, unlike its much larger neighbor, is struggling and failing to attract new jobs and industry. Bringing his own personal story of growing up in Black-majority Wilkinsburg, Perry also spotlights five others where he has deep connections: Detroit, Birmingham, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. He provides an intimate look at the assets that should be of greater value to residents—and that can be if they demand it. Perry provides a new means of determining the value of Black communities. Rejecting policies shaped by flawed perspectives of the past and present, it gives fresh insights on the historical effects of racism and provides a new value paradigm to limit them in the future. Know Your Price demonstrates the worth of Black people's intrinsic personal strengths, real property, and traditional institutions. These assets are a means of empowerment and, as Perry argues in this provocative and very personal book, are what we need to know and understand to build Black prosperity.
Does the identification number 60 indicate a toxic substance or a flammable solid, in the molten state at an elevated temperature? Does the identification number 1035 indicate ethane or butane? What is the difference between natural gas transmission pipelines and natural gas distribution pipelines? If you came upon an overturned truck on the highway that was leaking, would you be able to identify if it was hazardous and know what steps to take? Questions like these and more are answered in the Emergency Response Guidebook. Learn how to identify symbols for and vehicles carrying toxic, flammable, explosive, radioactive, or otherwise harmful substances and how to respond once an incident involving those substances has been identified. Always be prepared in situations that are unfamiliar and dangerous and know how to rectify them. Keeping this guide around at all times will ensure that, if you were to come upon a transportation situation involving hazardous substances or dangerous goods, you will be able to help keep others and yourself out of danger. With color-coded pages for quick and easy reference, this is the official manual used by first responders in the United States and Canada for transportation incidents involving dangerous goods or hazardous materials.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
