Parties Books

Unfortuantely, I have only seen Codename Greenkil's chapter 4 regarding the "CWP's role" in the organization of the Brown Lung Association. I can speak to this with certainty and state that this chapter is on the money.

Some current CWP veterans claim that they organized the first chapter of the BLA in Greensboro, NC. This simply is not true. The hard work of organizing, i.e. facing down the fear factor of what Cone Mills might do, door knocking, building leadership, coordinating meetings/events, etc, was done by social activists with no affiliation with the individuals who later formed the CWP.

However, those individuals who later became the CWP did contribute invaluable medical roles in helping workers become identified as "possible" victims of brown lung disease, a critical first step in getting eligible for compensation and one that rarely occured in the Carolina's before 1974. In spite of the fact of expert physician estimates of 30-40,000 brown lung cases in the Carolinas, only some 80 had received workers' compensation before 1974.

I lived in Greensboro, NC when the the events in this book took place. Ms. Wheaton has done a remarkable job of research, in addition to naming names and defining the racist nature of the actions and the cover up. So sadly, it was no surprise that these events took place in my former city. It was also no surprise that the collaboration between the police/Klan/lawyers/
city officials convinced the 'jury' that the so-called officials had acted properly. In this year it perhaps becomes a more important read than when it was first published.

"Come to the party with Jesus" is an action rhyme story of the first recorded miracle of Jesus at the wedding feast at Cana. I have come to love Chris Saunderson's colorful illustrations. They depict the characters and settings of Bible times. In this story the faces reflect an air of festivity and celebration. The text by Leena Lane and the actions that accompany each illustration create an interest for the reader and make learning a fun experience for the child. Everyone will long remember the party atmosphere, the music, the miracle and celebrating in the presence of Jesus.

The Action Rhyme Book Series is ideal for use in day care centers, kindergarten classrooms, and in church school programs. It also provides an opportunity for those surprise and unexpected teachable moments that help bond child and parent.
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake, a Christian Education Consultant

Who doesn't love the story of Jesus helping out, even if reluctantly, by providing another round of wine at a wedding party? If you are a mom, or know one, you will appreciate the underlying message of this New Testament story of "listen to your mother ..."! Kids will love the actions suggested for the party scenes - "toot toot - yum yum - pour pour". This title from the Action Rhyme Book series can fit into any religious education curriculum.

This fascinating book represents Gene Clanton's matured historical wisdom about the importance of Populism in Kansas during the Gilded Age. From Sockless Jerry Simpson to the Wizard of Oz, Clanton illuminates the significant story of agrarian discontent in this crucial state along with the leaders and issues that make the subject so interesting and controversial. Clanton's work also provides key background for understanding modern American politics. Lewis L. Gould, Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin

Readers of Thomas Frank's current bestseller, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS: HOW CONSERVATIVES WON THE HEART OF AMERICA, would do well to add O. Gene Clanton's A COMMON HUMANITY: KANSAS POPULISM AND THE BATTLE FOR JUSTICE AND EQUALITY 1854-1903, to their personal library. In a well-researched and written volume, Clanton adds the human interest details of how early Kansas agrarians struggled in the last half of the 19th century to overcome the burdens of industrial monopolies and credit shortages.

Clanton, like Frank a Kansas native, points out that although the Populist--or People's--Party withered away with the coming of the new century, its adherents' educational efforts laid the groundwork for the later successes of more potent and progressive reform efforts.

David C. Flaherty, editor emeritus, Washington State University, 12/10/04

These documents sum up 16 years of discussion of the fight for women's rights in the Socialist Workers Party. These documents explain why patriarchal class society is the cause of women's oppression and how deeply women are oppressed in modern imperialist capitalism. However more than analysis, these documents provide a blueprint for the coming fights that will advance women's rights, the massive struggle by working people to take power out of the hands of capitalism. This is not an academic discussion, but a discussion by front line fighters for women's liberation, leaders of the struggles on campuses and the fight that won abortion rights in the early 1970s, leaders in the fight for women's equality in industries like coal, steel, and the railroads in the 1980s Important struggles like the unsuccessful fight for the Equal Rights Amendment and the victory that forced the Supreme Court to grant abortion rights are an important part of these documents as is evolution of organizations like the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the Coalition of Trade Union Women.

This three-volume trilogy is really satisfying. The sweep of subject matter is amazing -- takes up every question that could possibly ever puzzle you: how were abortion rights won (explore connection with civil rights movement)... is there a distinction between women's rights and workers' rights...what about women's struggles in the Middle East, Africa, Asia...do men profit from women's oppression...what about getting into non-traditional jobs (and the relative weight of women neurosurgeons versus women coal miners)...how to develop women's self-confidence...Could only have been written by those totally immersed in the fight to change the world -- and who therefore have been driven to understand the weight of women's fighting contribution and the means to actively promote it.

When I first went to China in the mid-1970's, I was confused as to how Hong Kong, with no resources, could be so rich, and China, with massive resources, could be so poor. Nowhere was the contrast so stark as crossing the bridge at Lo Wu, where we had to disembark the Hong Kong train and stroll across the border to re-embark on a Chinese train to Canton. The Hong Kong border police were sharp, disciplined, lively, friendly and their cousins across the bridge, literally cousins, were sloppy, unhappy, sullen and dull. That difference ran through everything on both sides. How could this be? How could the China that gave the world Shang bronze, silk, paper, tea, amazing ceramics, stunning architecture, gunpowder, the stirrup, not to mention literature and ten thousand other useful things, could end up so poor, so uninventive?

I mention in my book that China has been under foreign control for some 500 of the last 1,000 years. I developed a hypothesis that under foreign domination, China does not thrive. Further, given Chinese history, there is nothing in Chinese culture that would bar China from assuming a position in the first rank among the nations today. Later, when I took a sabbatical from work to finish a bachelors degree in Asian studies, I came across a professor who made the same point, except about the Chinese under the Yuan Dynasty when poetry and art flourished. He proposed since all industry would benefit the Mongols, the Chinese elite retreated into the reflective arts, and the industrial arts re-emerged when the Ming tossed the Mongol invaders out.

But here is the problem with my hypothesis, China was poor, and is poor, but clearly Mao Tse Tung and all his associates were Chinese, so China clearly spent the last century under Chinese control.

Or not.

I just finished two books by Laszlo Ladany, a Hungarian lawyer, fluent in Chinese, who spent the 1940's in Shanghai and North China and moved to Hong Kong in 1949 eager to see how the new China would develop. He started China News Analysis, a weekly summary of Chinese media and party documents. His reports were required reading in all of the intelligence services around the world, if nothing else to double check what the home services were learning. He died in Hong Kong in 1990. The first book "Law and Legality in China" is a summary of Chinese law in history, and then covers specifically law under the Peoples Republic of China. In essence Ladany demonstrates China had all power in the hands of the party, with party members exempt from the law, and chaos otherwise. So, under Chinese communist rule, things can be very bad indeed. Think power with no responsibility.

The next book was more to the point: The Communist Party of China and Marxism, 1921-1985: A Self Portrait. It is a strange title. But his success as a China watcher stems from his discipline of working strictly with documents from the Chinese Communist Party, and reading their official publications. Hence the "self-portrait," that is, Chinese Communism as the Chinese Communists tell it. Ladany also met with escapees, refugees, defectors and anyone else heading in or out of China (recall China was closed to the world for at least 10 years, and had only one ambassador, to Egypt, during the cultural revolution). Ladany even consented to meet with me a couple of times, but back then there were only a couple of hundred Americans let in China twice a year, and I was one of them.

As the Communist party tells it, Chiang Kai Shek and Mao were revolutionaries... both looking for something to fill the vacuum of the crumbling Qing dynasty. Chiang choosing nationalism, and the founders of the Chinese Communist Party in the 20's, Mao among many others, turned to the recently victorious communists in Russia for a plan of action. The degree to which the Chinese "communists" did not understand what communism was, and the degree to which they slavishly followed Moscow is astonishing to read. All this by page six! As the book progresses, communism in China was a Russian operation, which begs the question, how could so few people, under foreign direction, manage to take over a country? Ladany lays this out, translating from the Chinese documents.

According to the communists, the nationalists were winning the war on the communists at every step, forcing a grand retreat, or the Long March to Yan'an. Lucky for the communists, the Japanese invaded, tying up the nationalists, and Moscow directed the Chinese communists to ally with the nationalists in the fight against the Japanese. At the same time, the communists were to avoid any heavy lifting in the struggle while doing everything they could to undermine the nationalists, especially in public opinion. One result was after the US victory over Japan, US generals, short of the manpower necessary to garrison North China, had to rely on surrendered Japanese troops to maintain order. So in spite of the victory, the Chinese citizens were still facing Japanese bayonets and soldiers. The communists offered an alternative. The communists were given equal rank in international negotiations, as the Soviets insisted. Although a history, the book proceeds almost like a novel, so read it for the details. But as I proceeded, I felt confident that my hypothesis was in fact a worthy theory. Chinese communism was merely a Eastern European import, not Chinese.

I recall reading Mao's little red book in China, and being astonished at how banal it was. (This is not unique, everything I've ever read by any politician has since proven to be as bad). Through constant struggles, anyone with any education or wisdom was purged in China, so the farther along the communist progressed, the cruder and more ignorant the leaders left standing. Forgive me for repeating myself, but this is what the communists say about themselves, after Deng Xiaoping gained power. Recall the rehabilitation of many past leaders, such as Liu Shaoqi, and criticism of even Chairman Mao.

I took particular delight in Mao's campaign for More Faster Better Cheaper, an effort to bring material benefits to the Chinese peasant through communism. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but more faster better cheaper comes through free markets, or given human nature, relatively free markets.

To review the argument in How Small Business Trades Worldwide, innovators introduce new and better products, and eventually conservators "steal" the product and lower the cost and widen the access to the item, service or agricultural produce, through economies of scale. At the same time access (distribution) widens, the quality improves and options emerge, giving more better cheaper faster.

Think telecommunications, travel, energy, distribution, and even beer. In the last 3 decades we saw all `deregulated' to some extent, and in that measure in these fields we got more better cheaper faster.

This free market is not what democrats or republicans call free markets... when they say free market they mean policies that reward their friends and punish their enemies (each has a different set of friends and enemies, while there is a super class that benefits either way, not unlike the super bowl, where one loses and one wins, but the owners clean up regardless, making money off of taxpayer funded stadiums).

The free market is not `capitalism.' Capitalism is a term coined by the enemy of free markets, slick because it describes one function in the free market, and that is capital formation. Capitalism is to a free market as a carburetor is to a car: important, but not the thing. Free markets precede governments, let alone any "ism." Free markets are merely exchanges between neighbors, and cultures evolve in part to protect (the root of the word "legal") free trade from either coercion or fraud, or both. Like natural law, indeed as part of the natural order, free markets already are, and how, given the terrain, climate, resources and human genius the Chinese cultures grow around what is natural in man, so it is different from what, say the Saxon cultures grow around what is natural in man.

When Chinese revolutionaries grasp something temporary and possibly the worst experiment in human history and manage to impose it on China, the results were starvation, murder, theft and every other conceivable disaster. (And to read Ladany, about the riskiest career choice a human could make in the last century was to become a communist. No one slaughtered more communists than communists.) Not only did China fail to get more better cheaper faster, they ran out of toothbrushes. Forget about vitamin E. The Chinese clinched it...in every attempt, socialism bring less, slower, more expensive and worse. You can say the Chinese had astragalus and other wonderful home remedies from traditional Chinese medicine, but they did not have those either since production and distribution of everything collapsed.

The book entertains the question as to whether China was ever communist at all, or simply in a constant conflict of a Trotskyite sort. In any event, constant purges wiped out the educated class, leaving the army in control of the country, with Mao on top. Well, of course, if communism had just one more chance, like Cambodia, it would work, but it never does. (Of course pure communism works, but only in monasteries where a closed economy of people who have died to the world and prove their dedication to Christ by submitting to a Prior. Not everyone is called to that life.)

I watched the change from the Maoists being in control to Deng Xiaoping gaining control, and I was under the impression that the chaos stopped with Deng. Not so, according again, to the communists. And obviously, in 1989, the Tien An Men square debacle showed the conflicts continue. No one can riot like the Chinese, and films come out of China regularly proving this art is gaining popularity. They do have the advantage that in a riot, the more the merrier, and in all things Chinese, a large crowd is assumed.

Back to my hypothesis: on page 453 of the latter book, there it is... Ye Qing, who studied in Paris with Zhou Enlai, and with the Communists in Moscow in the 1920's left the communists in 1927 calling them "just more warlords who split the unity of the country." He said "communism was a European product, an imported foreign commodity" His argument was the divided China presented a temptation the Japanese could not pass up. Because of the communists the Japanese invaded, and 50 years of misery ensued. Ye's argument from the 1920's was recalled in the 1980's because precisely that question was being asked in China... how did communism ever help China? To ask the question is to know the answer.

But one thing is clear. Can you name the leader of China? I had to look it up. No more all-powerful Chairman. Rational law is being instituted. Freedom is growing and economic opportunity with it. Anyone who travels to China can see it is changing, growing fast. China now lends the United States money, to help us out!

It is not so much that China has instituted reforms that are helping Chinese, but that the communists have so little control that the Chinese people are very free indeed. What we are seeing, are Chinese, relatively free of foreign influence, are exhibiting the creativity any nation would show, and succeeding quite well. As Chinese.

The communists tried to wipe out China's past, as the Soviets tried in Russia, as Pol Pot tried in Cambodia. It didn't work. There is a group in China, in charge, called the communist party. They are about as communist as I am. There is no Soviet Union calling the shots (so to speak.) The Chinese are rebuilding China after a disastrous century, a century in which China's fate was largely decided by foreigners. This next century I think we'll see China reassume it's natural place in the world and begin to offer mankind the fruit of its genius. In the natural course of events, a China that is 1/4 of the world's economy would be a very good thing, no more a threat than New York is to California. Each getting rich benefits the other. Competition means to "strive with," competition is not combat.

India is reassuming its rightful place as well.

Magnetism belongs to nobody, and the Chinese are making great strides in magnetic levitation transportation, a cheap clean and fast way of moving things. Coupled with computer technology, they very well may leapfrog America in advanced transportation and distribution. Just as Jobs at Apple took GUI from Xerox and built a fortune on it while Xerox could not catch a profit, so China will take what naturally belongs to everybody, in their relative freedom and their natural genius as humans, (merely Chinese in this instance), and profit.

USA cannot do mag lev for the simple reason too much of our economy is based on subsidies to the auto and airline industry. In 30 years, taking a flight in USA will be as quaint (and as embarrassing) as riding a rickshaw in Hong Kong is today, when Red Wind Transport can deliver you door-to-door 300 miles away in one hour flat, providing any personal services you desire on the way.

This book is very helpful for those who want to know more about the earlier years of the Chinese Communist party. More than half the book covers the period before the 1960s. The author has synthesized a lot of information from the the available documents and interviews with old Communist leaders. He does a good job of pointing out the inconsistencies of currently available knowledge (for personal testimony is often self-serving, not least in a Communist country), while also supplying solid educated guesses at what really happened. The writing is clear, though because of the nature of the material, one might get lost at times with the many, many names if close attention isn't paid. This is probably a better book for a person already acquainted with recent Chinese history than an absolute beginner.

Rae's Conservative Reformers does a wonderful job of taking an objective look at the 104th Congress and the Republican Freshmen involved. Not only does Rae look at this one Congress, but at one hundred years of Congress and their decline in power that made a reform group necessary. Rae does an excellent job of analyzing the budget crisis of 1995-1996 and what implications this had among the freshmen in Congress. For anyone interested in politics, this book is a "must read."

A comprehensive and scholarly treatment of the new majority has been long awaited. To the citizen desiring political knowledge, as well as to the academic, Conservative Reformers provides the most thorough discussion of the freshmen, their political motivations, and the institutional constraints they faced. Additionally, Rae weaves his observations, data, and interviews into a solid theoretical framework that beckons the philosophical. Particularly useful were the initial chapters, which provide an historical overview of the themes addressed throughout. For example, the author demonstrates that public disaffection with Congress is not a new addition to the political landscape in the U.S. Most humorous are the pages addressing the rise of the Republican candidates in the 1980's, as one can only imagine such antics in Congress. Finally, the chapter on the budget impasse was by far the most entertaining and engaging consideration of the topic that I have yet to see. Long after the Republican takeover ceases to be a current event, Conservative Reformers will continue to interest readers due to its analytical and theoretical richness.

What's amazing about the upcoming presidential election is how early things are getting underway. "Contenders and Pretenders" is a great sort of primer book, it looks at all the candidates, their pluses and minuses, and some other issues that are going to determine the outcome in 2008. One chapter titled "Red State, Blue State," looks at how if the Democrats don't nominate a contender that will win some of the traditionally Republican leaning states, it could be 2000 and 2004 all over again. The author shows why the candidates getting all of the press right now on both sides probably won't be there at the end. The book was really worth the money!

The author does a great job of looking at all of the presidential candidates for 2008. He analyzes the top-tier contenders, as he calls them, but is also not afraid to discuss how some of the "pretenders" are going to have significant roles in deciding who the next president is going to be. Ultimately, he makes some bold predictions about who the republican and democratic presidential nominees will go to. Even if you may not agree with his selections, you will be able to see, based on his analysis, how he came to those choices.

i think i liked this book more than my son.
this book takes you through the day as corduroy's friends set up his surprise party and all the fun they have at it.

My daughter just loves this book. Her Daddy has to read it to her every night before bed. She loves lift-the-flap books in general, but this one really seems to catch and keep her attention. I will be buying all of the books in this series for her birthday in a couple weeks!

I enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot. I took "Easy Politics" on a plane trip along with a current well-reviewed mystery novel. I found "Easy Politics" the far better read!
The author argues that too many apathetic voters open the door to more money in politics, contributed by people who too often expect an obscene return on their investment in the form of softened administrative regulations or lucrative government contracts. The result is cozy politics, which involves big bucks and undercuts what government tries to do. Unlike many books concerned with such corruption, the author proposes a solution in the form of revitalized political parties. These citizen-based organizations differ dramatically from the current parties, which are obsessed with campaign technology and fundraising. The author's modern political parties combine TV, radio, and direct mail with more grassroots activity where local and state party activists listen to citizens, explain party positions, and mobilize voters at election time. This book provides stimulating ideas and solutions without requiring a lot of prior knowledge of politics.. I enjoyed Cozy Politics because it was informative, well reasoned, dealt with an important topic and was easy for me to read and understand.

Too Little Citizen Participation and Too Much Cozy Politics
Increasing numbers of apathetic American citizens have opened the way to "cozy politics" where decisions are driven primarily by who benefits along the way rather than by the purpose of a federal government program or regulation. Cozy politics is different today because far more money changes hands in politics and wealthy individuals, interest groups, and professional associations achieve access and often receive beneficial treatment in the form of softened regulations or lucrative government contracts in exchange for political contributions.
Cozy politics thereby contributes to the increasing erosion of civic confidence, the warping of political parties, the denigration of politicians, and the compromise of federal administrative agencies. Drawing on a rich body of scholarly work, public interest group data on the Internet, and the morgues of national newspapers, I have amassed evidence of a wide range of cozy political arrangements that crosses party lines. Politicians delivering for their "second constituency" are having a serious impact on Congressional decisions and on agency missions.
The answer to such political excesses and voter apathy is to reinvent political parties by strengthening their citizen base and thereby reestablish the classic democratic balance between numbers and money. These parties would combine the use of media and mailing technologies with greater organization of voters at the local and state levels. In seeking to revive politics, local and state party leaders should draw on the decentralized, participatory model found in a number of global corporations. Ironically such corporations, dedicated to developing long-term relationships are treating their customers more like citizens while politicians, too often focused solely on the next election, treat the citizens more like customers. The book concludes with three recommendations on how to jump-start the formation of such citizen-based parties.

This is a great read. It is clear and concise, and offers a great look into the time period.

This book is a well-focused incursion into several ongoing debates in early American historiography. Anyone who has read academic history about that period in the last thirty years should be aware of the republicanism-liberalism debates as well as the arguments surrounding the development of capitalism in the early republic.
Shankman's book focuses on Pennsylvania politics during the years of the Jefferson and Madison administrations as well as the decades immediately prior and after. Pennsylvania had the most advanced and diversified economy of any of the states. For that reason, Shankman believes that the arguments among the various factions of the Jeffersonian party ended up being of great consequence. Much of the rest of the country followed Pennsylvania's lead and the broad consensus that came out of Pennsylvania in regards to the meaning of democracy and the state's role in economic development became the national consensus for the first half of the nineteenth century.
Shankman's first chapter is a superb exposition of the development of the opposition to Hamilton's economic policies and to Adam's assertion of national power in reaction to the Whiskey Rebellion and in the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. His exposition is concise and very even handed. On the state level, three strands of Jeffersonians emerged: the Quids, the Snyderites and the Philadelphia Democrats. Shankman delineates their differences and traces those to differences in their geographical origins and social status.
As long as they were a party of opposition these three variants were able to work together. With the election of Jefferson in 1800 their differences fractured their alliance.
This is the meaning of Shankman's title. The "crucible of conflict" is practically a mantra throughout this book. The idea is that the political debates and electoral conflicts in Pennsylvania drove the Jeffersonian's thought in directions it would not otherwise have gone. In the end, they had to either give up some of their cherished ideals or be brushed aside in state politics as irrelevant.
For example, one of the basic assumptions of the thought of the time was the idea of "the people". There was this sense that there was a common interest that united the whole populace. If no one started out from a position of too much relative wealth or political influence and if all were allowed to freely pursue their dreams then no major conflicts could develop among the people. If there was discord, it was due to distortions in the system, e.g., the judges manipulating the judicial system in defiance of the majority (the more things change...) The problem that the Jeffersonians had to face was "the creative endeavors of certain citizens were causing inequality to grow among citizens" (p.168).
The eventual solution to the issue of equality and economic development was to allow everyone an "untrammeled right to pursue his self-interest" (p.165).
This development is played out in Shankman's telling of the 1805 governor's race. This chapter is another incisive exposition. Shankman is an excellent writer.
One final but very important point. In his final chapter, Shankman positions his thesis in the ongoing debates that I mentioned at the beginning. He expounds on Merrill and Wilentz' point that it is easy to look back at this period and to see the development of a capitalist economy as being inevitable. They point out that while everyone back then embraced "commerce and commodity production" that that is not the same thing as capitalism (p.240). This is a common problem in historical writings. A wide open development is seen as having been almost inevitable. One of the real strengths of Shankman's book is that he reminds us just how wild and wooly in possibility this period was. Capitalism was not inevitable. We could have gone a different way. This is a superb telling of why we went the way we did.