Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts

The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And The Psychology Of Genocide Review

The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And The Psychology Of Genocide
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This book explores the question of how doctors, who are sworn to do no harm, became the integral organizers and managers of the Nazi death camps. Through exhaustive interviews with these doctors, people who knew them, and camp survivors, Lifton arrives at more than just individual psychological profiles of these professional killers. He presents us rather with a dense, psychosocial exploration of the dynamics of state-organized terror, along with enough history to describe the milieu in which these dynamics evolved. (Many people will be surprised to discover that the eugenics movement, which fueled the Nazi terror, had a large following in the United States during the 1930's.)
The book reads like a novel in parts (especially the chapter on Josef Mengele). However, I found the introduction one of the most interesting sections; in it Lifton describes the process he went through to gather and analyze his data. This included interviewing ex-Nazi doctors, who suspected or knew outright that Lifton himself is Jewish. Lifton's descriptions of the verbal dances he and these doctors did around the German/Jewish conflict are fascinating.....For obvious reasons this book is not an "easy read," despite the quality of the writing. It will literally give you bad dreams. But it serves to instruct us about demons which still inhabit the collective human psyche, demons which we fail to acknowledge only at our peril. For this reason, if no other, it demands our attention.

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A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Review

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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"A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.," edited by James M. Washington, is an impressive volume. This book brings together essays, speeches, sermons, interviews, and excerpts from King's books. Together, these many documents offer insights into the life and philosophy of a giant of the civil rights movement in the United States.
The book includes the "I Have a Dream" speech, the letter from Birmingham jail, the "Playboy" interview, and more. There are even fascinating transcripts from two television appearances.
This is a thought-provoking collection. I was fascinated by King's strong critique of that part of the white Christian establishment which opposed his movement. It is also intriguing to read that, apart from the Bible, King would choose Plato's "Republic" if he were to be marooned on the proverbial desert island with only one book. Also noteworthy is the emergence of King's multi-faith, global vision of humanity.
This is an important volume for those interested in African-American studies, 20th century U.S. history, or progressive currents in Christian theology. But more than that, "A Testament of Hope" is truly a testament for all people.

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"We've got some difficult days ahead," civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., told a crowd gathered at Memphis's Clayborn Temple on April 3, 1968. "But it really doesn't matter to me now because I've been to the mountaintop. . . . And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land." These prohetic words, uttered the day before his assassination, challenged those he left behind to see that his "promised land" of racial equality became a reality; a reality to which King devoted the last twelve years of his life. These words and other are commemorated here in the only major one-volume collection of this seminal twentieth-century American prophet's writings, speeches, interviews, and autobiographical reflections. A Testament of Hope contains Martin Luther King, Jr.'s essential thoughts on nonviolence, social policy, integration, black nationalism, the ethics of love and hope, and more.

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Common Sense - The Way Back Review

Common Sense - The Way Back
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By remarkable coincidence, Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue: An American Life just came out, jumped to the top of my 'waiting to read" stack, and includes the phrase "Commonsense Conservative" is featured in that book. Combine it with Richard Branson's "Gaia Capitalism" and you have the makings of something special.
This book is short (123 pages), easy to read, and an inspiring patriotic labor of love, a gift to all of us who care deeply for American the Beautiful and are confused and/or angry about all that has been done "in our name" by the festering cesspool of Washington-based politicians and senior bureaucrats who live to claim budget share (inputs) rather than deliver public service (outputs).
The author provides the single best, most complete, and most sensible demarche against EARMARKS that I have ever seen. Included are eight illustrations and I will list them here because they capture the essence of this book's common sense:
1. System analysis by "Prohibition Peers"
2. Real system analysis of Prohibition
3. Nation's Wealth
4. Value of the Dollar
5. Production of consumable assets
6. The Nation's and the "Commons" Wealth
7. Prosperity versus Freedom
8. The Iron Triangle--the Politics of Collusion
Although the author lists and address five "showcase" programs of excessive federal authority that should be nullified by all 50 states (and I would added, secession is most certainly an option for many including Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, Vermont, Flordia, and perhaps Maine and New Hampshire as well), he focuses primarily on EARMARKS. The five are the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Interstate Commerce Commission, Inflation, Earmarks, and Income Tax.
Early on I am impressed by the author's pointing out that all the "isms" are in fact the same, a concentration of power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. His focus, "the real deal," is on individual sovereignty, on the individual's ability to create new wealth without destroying the commons.
The author says that monopolies would not exist and I absolutely agree, observing that "home rule" is sweeping across the USA and corporations as well as absentee landlords may one day find they are barred from counties no longer tolerant of carpetbaggers. A couple of references:
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
The reader should be prepared for a lot of UPPER CASE sentences, what the online world calls "shouting" but once you get used to it the book reads very well.
Among the various recommendations of the author that are outlined in "The Way Back," I am particularly taken by two: 1) recognize that inflation is a tax and mandate annual reporting on anything leading to inflation; and 2) eliminate the individual income tax.
In 1992 Alessandro Politi, an Italian journalist, coined the term "intelligence minuteman" to capture my concept of public intelligence (decision-support) of, by, and for We the People. Today for $75 billion of our hard-earned dollars, the secret intelligence community provides the President with less than 4% of what he needs to know, and nothing at all for most others. I myself have beaten the US Intelligence Community in a benchmark exercise on Burundi for the Aspin-Brown Commission. This author is an intelligence minuteman, and he offered all of us a gift of intelligence (decision support).
Below I list a few books within my Amazon limit of 10 links. Those interested in hyow 1,400 other books across 98 categories might be connected to this book are invited to visit Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where I provide access options that Amazon has refused to implement for over four years, e.g. you can see all the books reviewed on Democracy, or Pathology of Power, or Congressional Failure, etc.
In this constained review context, see also:
An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard
Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect
Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Revolution: A Manifesto
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!
Secession: How Vermont and All the Other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire

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The tyranny that destroys wealth, inhibits the creation of wealth and punishes political dissent is expanding at an alarming rate.
The Congress is passing 1500 to 2000 page laws (the Bible is only 1500 pages), without debate or even disclosing the content of those laws.Is passing laws without disclosing the content or allowing debate different from a Dictatorship?Is our freedom already lost?
These laws bloat the bureaucracy and increase the power of the government over the individual.This increase in government power threatens to completely eliminate the individual freedom that produced the 'Industrial Revolution" and created unprecedented wealth.This loss of individual freedom could return the World to the 'Middle Ages".
The book, "Common Sense-The Way Back," proves that freedom results in the creation of wealth - tyranny results only in poverty and despair.
The Wannabe Peers are the politicians who lust after the personal power and prestige possessed by the 17TH Century English Peers.They have already reclaimed much of that power and prestige at the expense of our liberty.The primary constituency of the 'Wannabe Peers" is the poverty stricken and destruction of wealth increases that constituency.Is it any wonder that the 'Wannabe Peers'" programs are proven to have destroyed wealth, inhibited the creation of wealth, destroyed individual freedom and punished political dissent?These programs have brought us to the brink of a severe economic crisis that will make the 1930's seem like the good old days.
"Common Sense-The Way Back" contains the recipe to undo the offending programs, regain our freedom and prosperity.
"Common Sense-The Way Back" is an abridged version of the author's earlier book, "21st Century Common Sense".

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