Back in 2007, at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (the church’s big annual national gathering), I had the remarkable experience of hearing Amy Goodman moderate a panel of extraordinary gentlemen. One was Daniel Ellsberg. One was Mike Gravel, then a contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. And the third was Robert West, a former president of Beacon Press, which is owned by the UUA.

I was in the front row for this spellbinding bit of group storytelling, along with my daughter, then not yet quite 17. “This is what heroes look like,” I told her. “Take a good look — because this is what your faith and your family will expect of her on the day that history knocks on your door and insists that you take a stand.”

Tags: Amy Goodman, Breaking the Sound Barrier, Democracy Now!, Sara Robinson

Econned by Yves Smith shows how economists persuaded the political and media elites that they knew what they were doing. Smith shows that they didn’t, and then shows how Wall Street traders and their bosses exploited the world those economists and their corporate sponsors created. The result was financial collapse. Economists aren’t held accountable, and neither are the people who profited.

Tags: Econned, economists, financial crisis, Financial Fraud, Paul Samuelson, Yves Smith

Ever wonder about why Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor? Or why they became imperial in the first place? It’s all here in The Imperial Cruise, and it all points to America’s own “Rough Rider,” Teddy Roosevelt.

Perhaps you thought “waterboarding” started in Iraq. It was really the Spanish-American War in 1898. Massacres in Vietnam? There was precedent here too. Photos in the book.

Tags: Beijing, Burt Cohen, China, Hawaii, Honolulu, James Bradley, Japan, Korea, Manila, Monroe Doctrine, secret agreements, Seoul, Teddy Roosevelt, The Imperial Cruise, The Philippines, Tokyo, waterboarding, William Howard Taft

The FDL Book Salon chats with Frank Schaeffer, author of Patience With God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism). Schaeffer critiques those who demand certainty — both religious and atheist thinkers — and instead invites people to consider a belief system rooted in wrestling with questions.

Tags: atheism, Crazy for God, FDL Book Salon, Frank Schaeffer, GOP, Orthodox church, Patience With God, Religion, Religious Right

Moshe Adler’s Economics for the Rest of US is a strong introduction to the core conceits and theories of modern economics. The book takes readers on a well written tour of leading thoughts on key topics of perennial concern. Employment, equality, efficiency, wages are thrown around moving minds and legislation. As we struggle with high unemployment, stagnant wages and international competition, these issues must be understood. I would recommend this work as a intellectually curious guide to thinking about vital issues and the discipline of economics. It is valuable to have a fast, smooth run through of these topics. The interplay between the field of economics and the economy is a long ignored and vital discussion.

Tags: Economic Efficiency, economics, Economics for the Rest of Us, Efficiency Wages, Executive Compensation, income inequality, Max Fraad Wolff, minimum wage, Moshe Adler, Redistributing Goods, Role of Government, Theories of Wages, Unemployment

Lynn Gobbell was fired because her boss didn’t like the John Kerry bumper sticker on her car.

In Colorado, teacher Meg Spohn got the pink slip from DeVry University for complaining about her job on her personal blog.

At Best Lock Company in Indiana, workers are axed for social drinking because the company president believes it’s a sin.
Can Employers do that?

You betcha, writes human rights attorney Lewis Maltby. He’s president and founder of the National Workrights Institute, which he formed after leading the American Civil Liberties Union office on free speech and privacy protection in the corporate world.

Before heading up the Workrights Institute, Maltby had spent time in the corporate world where “learning how to run a productive, profitable company without violating employees’ human rights” became the focus of his life. Right up front in “Can They Do That,” Maltby gets to the crux of the misconception most people have when facing unfair treatment on the job.

Tags: AFL-CIO, at-will employment, Can They Do That? privacy, Can They Do That? Retaking Our Fundamental Rights in the Workplace, Employee Free Choice Act, employment law, justice, Labor, Lewis Maltby, National Labor Relations Act, National Workrights Institute, Tula Connell, unions, workplace

In How America Can Rise Again, author (and former Jimmy Carter speechwriter) James Fallows explores the question of “whether America is finally going to hell”, but in the tradition of the jeremiad, he offers possibilities for overcoming the massive problems he diagnoses.

Tags: America’s Future, debt, How America Can Rise Again, James Fallows, Jim White, jobs, Military Strength

In Baker’s retelling, the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department, specifically Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson (featured on the cover as the “false profits” of the title), allowed the housing bubble to grow unchecked, ignored and even encouraged the reckless mortgages that intensified risk, and were caught completely off-guard by the eventual meltdown. Stripped of their home equity wealth, consumers could not ring up the purchases that fed the national economy. Foreclosures and a glut of vacant housing on the market devastated the construction industry. The write-offs and toxic securities at the banks brought them to their knees. Baker says this was completely predictable:

Tags: Corporate cons, Corporate greed, David Dayen, Dean Baker, economy, False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy, FDL Book Salon, financial crisis, Stimulus, Uncategorized, Wall Street

Join us as we chat with Demos fellow and author Rich Benjamin about his book, Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America.

Tags: book salon, race, racism, Rayne, Rich Benjamin, Searching for Whitopia

We’ve all heard of the ‘American Way’, but is there a ‘European Way’? In Europe’s Promise, Steven Hill explores European approaches to a range of contemporary policy challenges – from economic policy, to social policy, to health care, to climate change, to foreign policy – and shows that there is a distinctive ‘European Way’. He also argues convincingly that Americans have much to learn from it.

Tags: book salon, economy, Europe, Europe’s Promise, Health care, R. Daniel Kelemen, Steven Hill