Why Americans don't join the party

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Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

"Every four years as the presidential elections approach, the alarm bell clangs for progressive-minded people, warning them about the looming take-over of the country by Republican ultras intent on yoking the nation under a fascist regime. Every four years, the Democratic Party offers itself as the only bulwark against the jackboot. Every four years, this argument becomes more and more labored; the differences between the two parties harder to detect." "In this volume, the editors and writers of CounterPunch, the radical newsletter and popular website, reveal how each party is fattened by the same roster of corporate contributors; bows to the desires of defense contractors and media conglomerates; hawks an economic program that shifts money up the tree to the super-rich; imprisons the poor with starvation wages or puts them behind bars in a vast gulag mostly created by that bipartisan failure, the War on Drugs." "The message of this book is: don't put the cart before the horse. First come the ideals, the social movements, that create the gravitational pulls that politicians have to heed. Justice won't come to America just because some candidate pledged it on the final night of a convention. It will come through people's movements, citizens organizing together in the workplace, or on the front lines defending their air, their water and their forests. There's work to be done. Let's get to it."--BOOK JACKET.

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Andrew L. Johns

"In Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War, Andrew L. Johns examines the relationship between foreign policy and domestic politics during America's longest war, assessing the influence of the Republican Party - including the congressional leadership, state and local politicians, grassroots organizations, and the Nixon administration - on the escalation, evolution, and resolution of the conflict. This groundbreaking work also sheds new light on the institutional tensions that existed between Congress and the president as they struggled to formulate and implement U.S. foreign policy." "In clear, incisive prose based on virtually unprecedented research in more than eighty congressional and presidential archives, Vietnam's Second Front covers the broad range of the Republican Party's impact on the Vietnam War, offers a compelling reassessment of responsibility for the conflict, and challenges assumptions about the roles of Congress and the president in U.S. foreign relations." --Book Jacket.

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Virginia Jeans Laas

"First written in 1937 and never before published, Bridging Two Eras is the fascinating autobiography of Emily Newell Blair, a remarkable woman who successfully reconciled a productive public life with the traditional values of a housewife and mother."--BOOK JACKET. "Because Blair's life essentially spanned two eras, from the end of the nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth, she thought of herself as a bridge builder. A dedicated feminist, she wanted her autobiography to help women understand what life was like during that transition time. She had moved from being a conventional, middle-class, midwestern wife and mother to becoming an acclaimed author, a nationally known feminist, and vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee only two years after women gained the right to vote. She felt that her story could encourage women to take their rightful places in public life."--BOOK JACKET.

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Corey D. Fields

"What do you think of when you hear about an African American Republican? Are they heroes fighting against the expectation that all blacks must vote democratic? Are they Uncle Toms or sellouts, serving as traitors to their race? What is it really like to be a black person in the Republican Party? Black Elephants in the Room considers how race structures the political behavior of African American Republicans and discusses the dynamic relationship between race and political behavior in the purported 'post-racial' context of US politics. Drawing on vivid first-person accounts, the book sheds light on the different ways black identity structures African Americans' membership in the Republican Party. Moving past rhetoric and politics, we begin to see the everyday people working to reconcile their commitment to black identity with their belief in Republican principles. And at the end, we learn the importance of understanding both the meanings African Americans attach to racial identity and the political contexts in which those meanings are developed and expressed"--Provided by publisher.