Events Books

I had been hoping for a more happy read. I know that not all search and rescues end happily but this book has many grim endings and some graphic details. I had a hard time reading certain sections and can't imagine what it was like for Beth Barkley to live them.

Because of her amazing courage and perseverence I could not put the book down. I'm glad I read it but I don't think it is a book I would re-read because it is so sad.

It doesn't have anything to do with reviewing the book but I came away wondering why on earth someone willing to face machine guns, hostile populations and sleeping in a tent in an Armenian winter had to worry about whether she could afford to take off work to go on these missions of mercy. You couldn't pay me enough money to do what she does. Why should anyone have to use their vacation time and be set back financially to do this?

The stories in this book could almost stand on their own. I can't imagine doing this dangerous and time consuming work for free, and for so many years! The copy of the book I got has a White Shepherd on the front, much more interesting than the picture shown here. I read it all in one night, couldn't put it down!

Being and animal lover it was more than anything the stories about the bonds forged between the dogs and their "persons" that drew me in. I'd always looked at dogs sniffing through rubble and thought "that's all there is." How wrong I was. Search and Rescue gave me a glimpse into the years long training, the poignant and oftimes funny adventures, the sacrifices and fortitude on the part of both person and dog that it takes to do this work. I was fascinated by the interactions between peoples of all nationalities, how they worked together all over the world, and the inside workings of the governments behind the scenes. What touched me the most was what Search and Rescue came to mean to one courageous woman and her three white German Shepherds. Search and Rescue will bring smiles, tears and understanding to all who read it.

I expected more technical information about training dogs, but was captivated by the stories and adventures. I wish there had been pictures of the White Shepherds. My 10 year old and 12 year old (boy and girl) liked the book very much.

I enjoyed this book VERY much since I do search and rescue but THIS IS NOT A TRAINING BOOK but a true story of a woman and her two dogs. if you are looking for a training book I would suggest the the book by Susan Bulanda called "Ready, the training of a search and rescue dog" it is a very good book. I used it to train my current SAR dog. Happy Searching!!!

This book is astounding, a great read that also teaches you more than you can believe about life and history and politics in the heart of the West Bank. Read it and you will be a wiser person and have a good time too.

This book is astounding, a great read that also teaches you more than you can believe about life and history and politics in the heart of the West Band. Read it and you will be a wiser person and have a good time too.

This book is astounding, a great read that also teaches you more than you can believe about life and history and politics in the heart of Africa. Read it and you will be a wiser person and have a good time too.

This book, although written a decade ago, is an insider's prescient account of how Hamas was born on the West Bank and why. It also is a terrific read, with true literary quality. Almost like a novel. And enlightening for policymakers and anyone else trying to understand the fundamentals of the Middle East.

This book is astounding, a great read that also teaches you more than you can believe about life and history and politics in the heart of the West Bank. Read it and you will be a wiser person and have a good time too.

By Jeffrey W. Bennett, ISP, author of ISP Certification-The Industrial Security Professional Exam Manual and Under the Lontar Palm
Excellent resource! As a Facility Security Officer for a DoD contractor complany, I find it to provide multiple layers of security or "security in-depth". This book offers insight from a retail environment that is very applicable to government and contractor security. Add this to your library.

In this latest edition, events after 911 is depicted thus the updated book reflects new security trends and concerns after the terrifying 911. Packaging arrived in nice shrink wrapped, without any dents or scratches. A must have for those taking ASIS exams.

Because of this book I was able to jump into Loss Prevention after Leaving my job as a Deputy Sheriff and I Doubled my yearly income. I just followed the the outline layed out in every chapter on conducting Security assesments and evaluations and then made recomendations. The customers keep referring other customers. I have plenty of work.

Here is a book that is a must for all security supervisors in the contract and private sector in security. We all have to start with the basics when training new security supervisors and officers. Here is a book that can aid greatly to the end result that we in the industry are striving for well trained and knowledgable Security Supervisors and officers. All chapters of this book can be set to lesson plan for classroom study or chapters can be assigned to all and have them answer the questions at the end of each chapters. Teaching how and when a security survey should be conducted and explaining to the client the findings and the recommendations that were found during the survey. If you have the book keep it if you do not get a copy ASAP it will only make that much prepared for the changes in the industry that will taking place today into the next century and beyond. Good Luck. Dennis Medick

The book is well organized, and covers a wide breadth. I recommend this for anyone wanting a thorough overview. It is a textbook, so it is more academic than hands-on. It is also a great source of references for a wide variety of organizations and standards.

This book seems at first glance to be primarily about genetically modified organisms (GMO), but is actually a frightening history of the power elite's largely successful attempt to gain control over food and food production. In the last 50 years food has gone from being an agricultural product grown by small farmers, to being a national security concern, to now being a weaponized commodity under the control of a few corporate owners.

Mr. Engdahl lays out his case in a methodical, scholarly, yet riveting manner, much as he did in A Century Of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. He begins with the GMO Revolution launched by a few powerful corporations, aided and abetted by a cooperative USA government. He then explores the birth of "agribusiness" and the oxymoronic Green Revolution. He monitors the revolving door between corporate advocates of GMO and government officials charged with policing food safety. The Rockefeller brothers' roles in these machinations are painstakingly revealed.

The eugenics movement -- very popular in early to mid-20th century USA until the Nazis lowered its public acceptance -- is shown to be alive and well under the new guises of genetics and molecular biology. I was more surprised by this than anything else in the book, but Mr. Engdahl proves this point beyond dispute. Along these lines, the only part of the book that I felt needed more explanation was the role of Darwinism, actually neo-Darwinism, in molecular biology. One could almost be left with the impression that a belief in evolution has led to the abuses of molecular biology in genetic manipulation. Once Mr. Engdahl got that far into the discussion, I wish that he had made a brief mention of the symbiogenesis interpretation of evolution now challenging the neo-Darwinists, e.g., in the books by Lynn Margulis. (Acquiring Genomes: The Theory of the Origins of the Species is one good example.) I'm not a scientist, but I would tend to think that a subscriber to the symbiogenesis interpretation would be less likely to want to create Frankenfoods.

What motivates the Genetic Manipulators, huge profits and control over the world's food production? As usual with the power elite, it's not just about the money, it's about power and control, but with a particular goal in mind. That goal is an elitist Utopia; a modern world much as it is, only with a whole lot fewer people, especially poor dark-skinned people who live in resource rich places like Africa, South America and parts of Asia. Complete control over food production is one of the primary means to this end, ethno-specific diseases being another. I had read this assertion before, but regarded it as the rantings of right-wing loonies until I read this book.

Mr. Engdahl is a regular contributor to on-line journals on the topic of geopolitics.

William Engdahl's new book, like his 'Century of War' book of a few years ago gives the layman like myself an understand of complex subjects that is rare with authors dealing with complex subjects. This is such a readable book. It is a great investigation into one of the most important issues of our times: The attempts by a few powerful groups to control the world's food supply. This book made me angry and worried for the future of our food supply and our future as a free (sort of) people. How dare our government leaders allow this !
Every person who cares about where their food comes from,truth in labeling, nutrition, health and affordable access to food supplies NEEDS to know this information. Is there a more important issue? What is more important than water, air and food ? The political agenda of food control, so well explained in this book, is more than a little chilling.

Seeds of Destruction should be read widely and it's information talked about by everyone. As a mother trying to feed my family healthy, nutritious meals everyday, this information is invaluable. Thank you Mr. Engdahl for this well written book! Maybe I'll read it to my children at night so they'll grow up knowing who the boogie men are!
Lori "The Rogue Reader Mom" Arizona

This is an excellent book that explains the threat of GMO foods.
Very good research.

Engdahl lays bare the partnership between government, the major foundations and the agribusiness industry in their eternal quest for global domination with extensive citations, tying it all together well. The Rockefellers do not shine with this exposure. This book is a sobering analysis of the situation we are facing with respect to destruction of the globe's biodiversity and the indigenous and cultural knowledge of how to feed ourselves, all for the sake of a scheme to lock in profits by a handful of corporations and a government that works on their behalf. If you're already down about what's going on, this book is not for you. If you can handle the reality of the situation, definitely read it. This threat is greater than any threat of nuclear destruction by far. Whatever your feelings on overpopulation, the schemes he lays out, developed by the Rockefeller foundation, are truly disturbing. Especially so are the contraceptive corn and incorporation of hCG into a tetanus vaccine(resulting in sterility) given out in enormous numbers to women of childbearing age in Mexico, Phillipines and Nicaragua. This book will make you want to collect seeds on everything you bring into your kitchen from now on, to say nothing of making you not want to eat anything of which you do not know the provenance.

This is my first Amazon.com book review and it is this book, Seeds of Destruction, that finally moved me to write such a review.

I have purchased literally thousands of dollars worth of books from Amazon.com alone and I find this book, Seeds of Destruction, is THE most important book I have come across.

I haven't read the entire book yet, but from what I have read so far (especially the chapter on Argentina), this is one of THE most important and timely books of the past 100 years and this new century.

There are only a few books that are worth their weight in gold and this book by F. William Engdahl is one of them. This work will be remembered as a "signature service" to humanity (a term used in the intelligence world to denote exceptional work).

What a priceless work of research and documentation (some 17 years of hard research) into the heart of absolute Evil that is masquerading behind this GMO movement--the veritable cancer that is metastasizing upon the Earth body--and that has been behind the so-called eugenics movement since 1913. But this book is much more than GMO. It is about the people behind the GMO and eugenics movement and why they are doing what they are doing.

If you really care about your children, your family, and the survival of the human race and of planet earth, then you must first buy and read this book, and then buy 10 more copies as I did and give them to all your friends and family members.

Tell them that this book might save their lives.

I have said this many times, "Knowledge is only a seed, only illumined action produces fruits!' This book is that vital seed without which we are looking toward to some really dire eventualities.

Though in places a bit heavy-going for a non-specialist readership, SDIMM is a first-rate introduction to the information sciences. As an overview of state-of-the-art technology, SDIMM may be dated, but the problems it describes are timeless -- and fascinating. Anyone interested in how information is measured, moved, and translated to the media of minds/brains and computers, would do well to read this exceptional book. Here's hoping RL makes future contributions to the popular science literature.

This is a popular computer book about data compression and data representation. It was first published way back in 1989 and now eleven years later it's not in the slightest bit out of date. How many popular computer books can you say that about?

Althought this book has been written 20 years ago, it is still very
fresh today. The bandwidth with which we communicate, and
our capacity for storing information have increased in the intervening
years, however the fundamental questions that are addressed here
have not changed much. In the first couple chapters, the author starts
with a very precise definition of what information and capacity mean.
This part is merely 50 pages in length, but makes this book worth
owning on its own - I wish somebody gave it to me when I was
learning about information theory.

The remainder of the book is devided into chapters dealing
with different aspects of information: text, speech and pictures,
including problems associated with their storage, processing
and intrepretation. The presentation is insightful, informative,
and, given that it is addressed to an audience of non-mathematicians,
surprisingly precise. Each chapter ends with a ligh-hearted essay,
some of which I found to be deceptively deep and insightful.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I'd strongly recommend this book for anybody interested in how things have evolved in computing. Great insight into stuff we take for granted like compression algorithms, error correction.

I read this book over and over and love it every time. It covers topics that I teach from the standard texts, but it covers them in a way that makes it all make so much more sense to my students. This truly is an amazing book!

Globalization is becoming more and more the name of the game in recent years, but is it really needed? "Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy" is a look why smaller economies are still viable in the modern world. Focusing on self-sufficient towns and cities that produce almost everything they need on their own, and how such locations improve their own economies while importing very little from the outside, "Small Is Possible" is an interesting read which offers something new from an oft-overlooked source - the past.

I need to first point out my conflict of interest in this review. lyle is my brother.

He calls this a non-fiction book and I am sure it is but it is unlike the other non-fiction books that I read. I would call it more of a storybook and Lyle is a great story teller.

It is a story about Lyle's life in a small town and the characters in that town.

In the book he did mention me:

"He (that would be me) is an insatiable entrepreneur who insists he be measured not by the vast pile of bad ideas, heaped at the bottom of the wall - but rather by those ideas that stuck. As a risk-taker he has figured out a way to stay in the possible, and not dwell on those ventures that stung him."

At one point he talked about his blogging and how he was finding it difficult to come up with topics and someone suggested that he needs to entertain people. I found his book very entertaining and this is something that I should probably consider more in my blogging.

I love the book and found it easy and quick to read. Lyle is a great writer (and always has been).

I don't agree with everything in the book. I think supporting small just for the sake of supporting small has some flaws. His book lays out many reasons why small can be better value. And if it is better value - then clearly I support it.

Although small is possible, I am going to strive for big. I wonder if Lyle will still like me?

I just finished the book and found it very interesting and well written. As a reporter for a small weekly newspaper that covers Pittsboro, NC, I was fascinated to learn more about the many personalities, businesses and organizations that make up this small town. I certainly see Pittsboro as a more dynamic and exciting place through Lyle Estill's eyes. I initially had low expectations of the book since I thought it would just be a compilation of essays, blog entries and newspaper columns, but it contained about 98 percent original writing. I have been telling many people around town about the book as a great way to learn more about Pittsboro. I think the book will be popular on a national scale since it talks about many ways that communities, and individuals, can be more self sustaining and this is an important issue nationally. On another level, it is interesting as the story of an entrepreneur who had the courage to renounce a very high-paying conventional job to pursue his dream.

It is easy to be overwhelmed with the doom and gloom consequences of American's thoroughly unsustainable lifestyle: climate change, pollution of air, water, and soil, declining ecosystems, and the very real risk that in 60 years, nobody will be living what we today consider to be a first-world lifestyle. What to do?

For starters, read Lyle Estill's Small Is Possible, a wonderful collection of writings that chronicles Lyle's own shift from get-setting deal-maker to homesteading community-builder.

Lyle's writing style is excellent: concrete, humorous, and often self-deprecating, Lyle's stories spring to life from the pages, and then linger in details which keeps the community and its members, not Lyle himself, in the foreground.

This book variously strikes me as: non-fiction Huckleberry Finn, a North Carolinian Omnivore's Dilemma, a contemporary Guns, Germs, and Steel, and The Tipping Point as played by actors in Chatham County.

Let me say again: the book is very well written, the material is extremely compelling and relevant to the 21st century, and, in the great tradition of open source software (which Lyle himself acknowledges), it is designed to be a resource for others who believe that small is possible.

Yesterday, I received a copy of Lyle Estill's newest book, Small Is Possible. I came home at 2:30, put on some easy-going clothes, lay down on the couch on the porch, read until 8, took a half hour off, then finished the book. I could not put it down. This is a wonderful reclaiming of the recent history of events in our county, Chatham.

The chapters are contained by writing on one subject in the true essay form, full of details about people we all know and some of whom we love. The writing is almost lyrical in some places. But what is exciting is to read is all that has made our county special. In a way I am scared that this excellent book will make it nationally as it is so well written, a Wendell Berry of Chatham, and that our special place will become a spotlight for people who want to see that change is possible in our dis...eased world. If that happens, however, I will hail to the chief who wrote it.

This is one of those books that comes along once and a great while, the kind of book that you want to send to EVERYONE, the kind of book we can take pleasure in reading to our children, as well as chuckling at various places while we read to ourselves. I absolutely love it and hope that all of you rush to buy it. I hope you buy a lot of copies and pass it around as birthday, wedding, graduation whatever kind of gift. It is that universal in its message.
-- Barbara Lorie

Social Security: False Consciousness And Crisis by the late John Attarian (1956-2004) who had served as Adjunct Scholar at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan, is an in-depth, 393-page study of the economic and political issues affecting the Social Security Administration and its polices. John Attarian expertly guides the reader through systematic rulings occasioned by demographic realities, the growing disillusions of the citizenry with respect to the availability and sufficiency of the Social Security system in their retirement years, to the executive controls and exploitations of Social Security trust funds, as well as governmental administrators and congressional political maneuvers with respect to a Social Security-based "retirement insurance" program and its implications for future generations. A work of seminal importance for today's national debate on the subject, Social Security is very strongly recommended for all students of political science, fiscal politics, and economic trends as they have effected the Social Security program in the past and the present, as well as projected impacts concerning the future of Social Security's availability to American citizens in the future.

With Social Security's bankruptcy coming up sooner than our members of Congress want to admit, John Attarian's book is a must read. It is not only very thoroughly researched, but absolutely demolishes the web of myths, lies and "spin" by which we have been misled about what is really going on with our national retirement system. In fact, one of the major myths that he destroys is that there is no crisis.

But beyond bringing the truth into focus, this book then constructively uses this better understanding of the facts to also diagnose some of the major proposed solutions to Social Security's problems. And he concludes, with typical candor and honesty, "This problem is well nigh insoluble,", although he does offer a "modest proposal" of some of the tough actions that will be necessary to get us out of the mess that all of these political falsehoods have covered up.

"Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis" is a must read for those interested in the history and legal underpinnings of social security. Anyone in the process of formulating an opinion on the future of social security is well-advised to have Mr. Attarian's excellent book near at hand. The footnotes alone are worth the price.

John Attarian's Social Security is the kind of book you loan to your leftist friends when they begin harping about the need for more government intervention in health care, the private sector, etc. Then you remember that leftists aren't the smartest people on the planet; if an argument can't be reduced to an easy to remember slogan, then it won't stick with them anyway. Attarian doesn't provide slogans, but he does give readers a very well documented history of Social Security, from the arguments before its passage in 1935 to the present with stopping off points in 1976 and again 1983, the years when funding crises revealed the deep but not unforeseen flaws in the program. Before entering into the history of the program though, he first lays out the current situation with the program and examines the dismal prognosis for it in the coming years using the forecasts issued by recent SSA actuaries. In a nutshell, the program is destined to go bust and there's no solution to the problem that doesn't involve ceding even more power to the government; and even this would only provide short-term relief. Even if the government were to confiscate 100% of the earnings of every worker in the U.S., it would not be enough to salvage the program. Many of the problems facing SS are well known, but the author provides concrete reasons for the present unease among younger Americans.

I personally found the focus on the early years of SS to be the most interesting. Here, the author culls the documentary record and shows that from its inception, SS was based on fraudulent premises. FDR and his advisors knew that SS was antithetical to the values and attitudes of 1930s era Americans, so they crafted their legislation to make the program sound as if it were an annuity for old age funded by a lifetime of worker contributions. During this time, government handouts were a source of shame and humiliation, so the program's proponents designed a marketing scheme that would assuage the pride of intended beneficiaries. Then as now, the language of the insurance industry has been used to bolster the public's faith in SS -- referred to by supporters and the very legislation itself as "insurance" and "annuity".

Drawing off of Supreme Court decisions, congressional testimony, private and public papers of administrative officials, the opinions of such luminaries as Henry Hazlitt in addition to private insurance actuaries, Attarian exposes several powerful myths of SS. 1) The SS trust fund is not really a trust fund. SS is paid out to eligible recipients from current tax revenues (i.e., current workers pay for Granny's paltry monthly stipend). This point is fundamental to understanding the "lock box" lie started by Republicans in the 1990s and picked up later by Al Gore and the Democrats. The Social Security Trust Fund is not really a trust fund. 2) The funding of the SS program is contingent upon an ever growing pool of workers and an economy destined for limitless growth and productivity increases. Unfortunately, the U.S. has been in a steady decline economically for decades. Real wages are stagnating or shrinking, white collar jobs are making a mass exodus to Third World countries, and the savings rate of the average American stands at a pathetic 5% of net income. 3) SS surpluses are required BY LAW to be spent by Congress as part of its general budget outlay (segues with point 1). It's been this way since the program's inception and any chatter about "saving" the surplus and stuffing it into a "lock box" are just more lies by politicians looking to avoid hard decision making. Workers have seen a steady erosion of SS benefits over time because the program is simply unworkable. Early beneficiaries received far in excess of what they actually paid in; present and future workers will have to pay more and more while getting less in return. The author is very frank in what this means when the money finally runs out in 2015 or so: A profound loss of faith in government followed by potential violence and political upheaval. Imagine paying your whole life into a program only to find out that the funds you thought would be paid back to you with interest don't exist. Millions of Americans are unaware of this fact and their reaction will be anything but mild when the collapse comes. If you're still drawing breath in 2015, you won't have to use your imagination at all, you can watch the mess unfold before your very eyes.

Attarian's writing style is fluid and the topics are well-structured. There are some technical discussions on the mechanics of the program, but I had no problem following them thanks to the author's ability to establish a framework useful to both layman and expert. The testimony and documentary evidence that he has gathered from 60+ years of SS is truly impressive. Both sides of the SS debate are well represented, but the author shows no remorse in exposing the deceptions artfully used by SS partisans. Neither is he reluctant to demolish current "save our SS plans". This book is very timely because of recent legislative efforts to expand the Medicare program. Like SS, Medicare is in dire straits financially, but this fact has not halted or swayed our boneheaded politicians from using the same bad planning and disingenuous rhetoric that went into getting the original SS Act passed. Social spending and bad planning will continue so long as we are stuck with our beloved "democracy". What few people realize is that economic laws are as immutable as those of physics. You can print more and more fiat money and run massive deficits only up to a certain point. It's even possible for the government to confiscate more wealth from private citizens, but eventually, the bag of tricks runs out and the politicians will be left to face mobs of angry workers defrauded out of decades of wages.

John Attarian's critical study of the social security system, which, according to this investigation, is anything but secure,should shake the confidence of younger Americans that their government-controled retirement funds will be waiting for them when they retire. Attarian insists that funds that we have been led to believe have been hermetically set apart for pensions are actually being diverted to other purposes. Equally relevant,social security funds are being rapidly depleted, a fact that is disguised by the way the federal government keeps its books. This looming crisis is further managed by treating social security as a sacred "entitlement" that both of our national parties are unalterably committed to preserving. Attarian argues persuasively that this sacralization prevents the political process from dealing with social security realistically, as a program whose time has come and gone.
Even those who do not agree with the argument of this book should read it carefully, since it makes a strong case for abolishing or radically rehauling a costly federal program. Moreover, Attarian combines a detailed knowledge of economics and economic policy with an elegant writing style. In his hand, economics ceases to be the dismal science and leads instead to witty prose. This book fills a curricular niche in policy courses that political science and economic departments tend to offer. Unlike most monographs I have assigned for courses in this field,however, Attarian's book is a pleasure to read. I shall order it for my students the next time I decide to cover this theme.

I like the condition on the book. It was very clean and new like. there were no marks inside the book and the respond was fast too.

I was very pleased with thier fast shipment. Keep up the good work and i will visit your online store again.

I went to Amazon because I knew that they would have a better price for books, even on new books...I was right! I was able to buy a BRAND new book for $30 less than the asking price at the store. You can't beat that! Amazon is reliable and a great source for low prices.

Excelente Source, I highly recomend this book for those social work students who are learning to assess client needs.

as a social worker in training, i have found this book to be a very helpful source.

First off, let it be said that this is not a critique from the right. People ought to read this work, which is more informative in terms of what we want to do now than, say, the Bolivia Diary, which we don't want to repeat.

One can see here something that has plagued the left for many, many, years. Throughout Che's work, there is a very comprehensive idea of the "good" person and all members of society will be molded into such a person. Che says that in socialism, heroism will become a feature of everyday life.

This sort of hypermoralistic perfectionism is not what governments should be doing. Heroism should "above the call of duty" and not made a public goal. Governments should expand freedom, which could very well include redistributing wealth or changing workplaces and forms of ownership. But creating the new socialist man should be left up to citizens to figure out.

Elections would be nice, too.

In this small book, originaly a letter, Guevara explains the various steps that individuals have in the revolutionary strugle. He explains the relation between a vanguard party and the masses, and focus on the echo that the party has to have on the masses needs. This is a key point in understanding Cuba and Socialism since in a one party sistem, the only way of having a participative democracie is by forcing the party to follow the peoples needs. More over, it's the view of a very tender and humane man, that differs greatly from the more known Stalinist Socialism.

Does socialism deaden individual freedom and creativity? Che Guevara, a leader of the Cuban revolution, answers this question in this 1965 article. He draws on the experience of that revolution. Guevara demonstrates that the individual reaches its highest creativity as part of the struggle against the exploitation and violence of capitalism. It is only through this process that the individual can reach his or her fullest development.

This pamphlet ranks with the communist manifesto, with State and the Revolution, with Trotsky's great writings against stalin, as one of the texts the encapsulates why and how we fight for a world of working people in power, why revolutionists like Che gave their lives for the cause of socialism, why humanity has a future out of the muck and mire and filth, why we fight.

Che admits revolutionists fight for the love of the world. Che who brought books of poetry and of languages and of higher math with him to Bolivia, not for his own enjoyment, but to truly educate the other fighters, Che in simple direct butalmost poetic words, explains why we fight, why we will win.


While this book may not be directly available from Amazon at times, they are available from the booksfrompathfinder on Amazon that you can find by clicking on the new and used books on this page.

Why did Cuba survive the 'collapse of communism' ? Che Guevara explained that
without a communist party, a genuine one which means led by the most politically
conscious and self-sacrificing workers and farmers, leading a constant battle for workers'
control and a higher level of consciousness and solidarity among the whole population,
any revolution would slide back toward capitalism. The Cuban Communist Party is such a
party: the only one in power anywhere since the 1920s.Thus, he predicted the collapse
of Stalinism ( as opposed to communism).Cuba put his ideas into practice in the middle
to late 1980s for the first time on a nationwide basis.It was this battle against bureaucracy
and for workers' democracy that made Cuba strong enough to survive its severest
economic crisis since the revolutionary triumph.Cuba is ready to aid as always any
revolutionary movements that develop as a result of the present crisis of capitalism, and
to aid the revolutions to come : its internationalism is intact. The basic line of march ,the
ideas as a guide to action that make Cuba capable of mobilizing millions for socialism and
the revolution in 2002 are outlined in this pamphlet.Workers and farmers everywhere
who fight back against capital NEED THIS BOOKLET.

Early in my political development when I was being radicalized by the Vietnam war and the movement against it I came under the influence of the pacifist elements of that movement. It did not take much effort to convince me that it was utterly insane to force people who had nothing against each other to murder one another. At the same time I was sorting out social forces in the world and determining whom I was for and whom I was against. I was coming to the conclusion that capitalists were the bad guys and socialists and communists were the good guys. However, I was coming face to face with a dilemma. Communists kill people. Then I read this book. James P. Cannon taught me that the armed struggle phase of a revolution was a war of self defense. My pacifism did allow for self defense. Cannon taught me that in a class society the oppressed class will of course resent their oppression and will take actions to change the situation to be more just. When the ruling class sees that its power and privelege is in real danger it will strike out by any means necessary to preserve the old order. That means they will use the most extreme violence against the oppressed. The oppressed, that is the workers, then have the right and indeed duty to themselves to defend themselves by any means necessary.

So Cannon in this book taught me and allowed me to reconcile my pacifism with revolutionary socialism. Many years have passed now since I read it and I still carry its lessons. That is why I can say that Socialism on Trial is possibly the most influencial book in my life. If you are reading it for the first time you may not be wrestling with the same concerns I was so its main meaning could be different to you. But I do recommend it because it covers various other angles of the revolutionary movement and may have just the answers you are looking for.

A real-life trial, with an exasperated and somewhat ineffectual prosecutor, an interesting defendant - and world revolution as the topic. Ever wonder whether communists aim to kill individual capitalists? How can you be a socialist if the majority of working people today don't agree they need socialism? Why take away the property of the wealthy that they have obtained by legal means? James P. Cannon answered each one of these questions, and many more, in his 1941 trial on charges of sedition. A wonderful, easy-to-read guide for anyone trying to understand Marxism. Excellent for high school students.

Fighting for what's right means that when the government threw the leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and fighting labor leaders into jail in 1941 for defying Roosevelt's war drive and Tobin, the bureaucrat that ran the Teamsters union then, Cannon and the other revolutionists respond by explaining why they were socialists, how the fight for a workers and farmers government in this country will proceed. This book has all the answers to any question about the fight for socialism, not only in the USA but anywhere else. It also contains a lot of history, a lot of humor, and a lot of Cannon's generous wisdom and wit.

This is a wonderful and unique book. When the U.S. government was leading the country into the slaughter of World War II, the Roosevelt administration sought to crackdown on dissent and militancy among the working class. One step they took was to adopt the Smith Act, a witch-hunting thought control act, and then to indict leaders of the labor movement and the Socialist Workers Party on charges of subversion and conspiracy. The socialists rose to the challenge however, turned the trial into a platform to explain their anti-capitalist views to a wide audience. Their years-long defense campaign also played an important role in sustaining the revolutionary movement throughout the war years.
Socialism in Trial is the actual court transcript of the testimony of James P. Cannon, then national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. Under the hostile questioning of the prosecutor, he calmly and concisely lays out what is wrong with capitalism, and why socialism and communism are the necessary alternative for working people. Cannon takes up imperialism, war, colonialism, and fascism; and discusses trade union struggles, how a revolutionary party is organized, defends the Russian Revolution and takes on the reactionary Stalinists then in power in Moscow.
The book also includes an exchange between Cannon and fellow-revolutionary Grandizo Munis who attacked the socialists' approach to defending themselves in a capitalist court. Cannon's reply should be studied by activists everywhere, all of whom are likely to face similar challenges and need to understand the rich lessons of previous defense campaigns.
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One of the chief founders and continuators of communism in the U.S., Cannon helped lead working class opposition against two world wars. The government put Cannon on trial. This book is the transcript of his courtroom testimony. He answers questions about the fundamentals of socialism-many of them posed by a very hostile government prosecutor. Despite the tense environment, Cannon speaks as though he were addressing interested co-workers during lunch-break in a factory. Down-to-earth, logical, witty, and with a deep and passionate grounding in Marxism. Cannon's assumption is that socialism, clearly explained, will make sense to workers. This approach--rather than talking-down or sugar-coating a la the Greens and other reformists-is the correct approach. As workers see their hopes of health, security, dignity and justice going down the tubes with the unfolding capitalist crisis, they want to hear the unvarnished truth about capitalism and socialism. This book gives it.