How Progressivism Destroyed Venezuela

How Progressivism Destroyed Venezuela
Author: Elizabeth Rogliani
Publisher: Histria Books
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2022-09-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1592112250

On December 6, 1998, the Venezuelan people voted in an election that would drastically change the course of the country. After Hugo Chavez Frias won the 1998 election and assumed office in 1999, most Venezuelans felt hopeful of the promise of change and the opening up of new possibilities, and perhaps the return of an era of prosperity such as Venezuela had known in the 1950s. Reality, however, proved much different.The Venezuelan people slowly came to realize that they had voted for something that could no longer simply vote out of office. Over the past two decades, Venezuela experienced a massive political, socio-economic, and ideological transformation. It has gone from one of Latin America's most stable democracies to a failed, impoverished state. Some believe this marks the end of what once was a bastion of freedom in South America; others, more optimistically, believe the nation can once regain its former glory despite the devastation.How Progressivism Destroyed Venezuela explores the causes of the disaster facing this proud and once prosperous nation. Although the most obvious explanation for Venezuela's tragic situation is Hugo Chavez, his corrupt government, and his failed policies, the seeds of this disaster were planted in the country long before he ever set foot in the Presidential Palace. This book explores the progressive ideas and events that led up to the election of 1998. It discusses the events, policies, and attitudes that defined the late Hugo Chavez Frias's government and how his once unexpected leadership in the country managed to become entrenched, despite its colossal failures and popular protests.Venezuelan activist Elizabeth Rogliani, who lived through many of the events she describes, shows how a population that was on its way to achieving first world status threw it all away with a single vote; and how fundamental human rights, once taken for granted, were gradually lost while most of them slept. Elizabeth Rogliani is a political commentator and has appeared on The Laura Ingraham Show.

San Fransicko

San Fransicko
Author: Michael Shellenberger
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2021-10-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0063093634

National bestselling author of APOCALYPSE NEVER skewers progressives for the mishandling of America’s faltering cities. Progressives claimed they knew how to solve homelessness, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, progressives made those problems worse. Michael Shellenberger has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirty years. During that time, he advocated for the decriminalization of drugs, affordable housing, and alternatives to jail and prison. But as homeless encampments spread, and overdose deaths skyrocketed, Shellenberger decided to take a closer look at the problem. What he discovered shocked him. The problems had grown worse not despite but because of progressive policies. San Francisco and other West Coast cities — Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland — had gone beyond merely tolerating homelessness, drug dealing, and crime to actively enabling them. San Fransicko reveals that the underlying problem isn’t a lack of housing or money for social programs. The real problem is an ideology that designates some people, by identity or experience, as victims entitled to destructive behaviors. The result is an undermining of the values that make cities, and civilization itself, possible.

The Old is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born

The Old is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born
Author: Nancy Fraser
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1788732723

Neoliberalism is fracturing, but what will emerge in its wake? The global political, ecological, economic, and social breakdown—symbolized by Trump’s election—has destroyed faith that neoliberal capitalism is beneficial to the majority. Nancy Fraser explores how this faith was built through the late twentieth century by balancing two central tenets: recognition (who deserves rights) and distribution (who deserves income). When these begin to fray, new forms of outsider populist politics emerge on the left and the right. These, Fraser argues, are symptoms of the larger crisis of hegemony for neoliberalism, a moment when, as Gramsci had it, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.” In an accompanying interview with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, Fraser argues that we now have the opportunity to build progressive populism into an emancipatory social force.

Rescued from ISIS Terror

Rescued from ISIS Terror
Author: Firas Jumaah
Publisher: Histria Books
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2022-10-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1592112765

In the summer of 2014, Firas Jumaah was working diligently to complete his doctorate in chemistry at Lund University in Sweden when he suddenly received news that an ISIS advance in northern Iraq threatened the lives of his wife and children who had returned to their native land for a family wedding. The Islamic State had unexpectedly launched an assault on a nearby village inhabited by members of the Yazidi religious minority, to which Firas belongs, slaughtering or enslaving the entire population. Fearing for his family, Firas immediately returned to Iraq and soon found himself reunited with them behind enemy lines. As the situation worsened by the minute, Firas managed to send a message to his professor, Charlotta Turner, to let her know that he did not expect to return to Sweden to complete his dissertation. Unbeknownst to Firas, Charlotta sprang into action. “What was happening was completely unacceptable,” she later explained. “I got so angry that ISIS was pushing itself into our world, exposing my doctoral student and his family to danger, and disrupting his research.” Charlotta consulted university officials about what could be done to help. Unwilling to accept this tragic situation or to abandon her student and his family to the whims of fate, she quickly organized a commando mission that resulted in the dramatic rescue of Firas, his wife, and his two young children, ages four and six, from war-torn Iraq, bringing them safely back to Sweden. Thanks to the heroic efforts of Charlotta and those who supported her efforts, Firas Jumaah finished his Ph.D. in 2016. He now works as a chemist in the Swedish pharmaceutical industry. In Rescued from ISIS Terror, Firas and Charlotta tell their fascinating story. In this riveting tale of family, friendship, and loyalty in the face of extreme adversity, they brilliantly interweave the story of the dramatic rescue operation with that of the tragic situation faced by the Yazidi people in Iraq.

How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century

How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century
Author: Erik Olin Wright
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1788739558

What is wrong with capitalism, and how can we change it? Capitalism has transformed the world and increased our productivity, but at the cost of enormous human suffering. Our shared values—equality and fairness, democracy and freedom, community and solidarity—can provide both the basis for a critique of capitalism and help to guide us toward a socialist and democratic society. Erik Olin Wright has distilled decades of work into this concise and tightly argued manifesto: analyzing the varieties of anticapitalism, assessing different strategic approaches, and laying the foundations for a society dedicated to human flourishing. How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century is an urgent and powerful argument for socialism, and an unparalleled guide to help us get there. Another world is possible. Included is an afterword by the author’s close friend and collaborator Michael Burawoy.

U.S. Imperialism and Progressivism

U.S. Imperialism and Progressivism
Author: Britannica Educational Publishing
Publisher: Britannica Educational Publishing
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2012-06-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1615307540

With one eye on the world and one on the home front, the United States at the turn of the 20th century was distinguished both by its emerging global engagements—including the acquisition of new territories and its involvement in the First World War—and the social movements that surged throughout the country. Readers examine American history between the end of the Civil War and the end of World War I, considering in depth both the imperialist and progressive influences that heralded the country’s future position as a major force on the international stage. Meticulously chosen articles, speeches, and other primary source documents are included alongside narrative to provide a complete picture of the era.

Progressive New World

Progressive New World
Author: Marilyn Lake
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2019-01-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674989988

The paradox of progressivism continues to fascinate more than one hundred years on. Democratic but elitist, emancipatory but coercive, advanced and assimilationist, Progressivism was defined by its contradictions. In a bold new argument, Marilyn Lake points to the significance of turn-of-the-twentieth-century exchanges between American and Australasian reformers who shared racial sensibilities, along with a commitment to forging an ideal social order. Progressive New World demonstrates that race and reform were mutually supportive as Progressivism became the political logic of settler colonialism. White settlers in the United States, who saw themselves as path-breakers and pioneers, were inspired by the state experiments of Australia and New Zealand that helped shape their commitment to an active state, women’s and workers’ rights, mothers’ pensions, and child welfare. Both settler societies defined themselves as New World, against Old World feudal and aristocratic societies and Indigenous peoples deemed backward and primitive. In conversations, conferences, correspondence, and collaboration, transpacific networks were animated by a sense of racial kinship and investment in social justice. While “Asiatics” and “Blacks” would be excluded, segregated, or deported, Indians and Aborigines would be assimilated or absorbed. The political mobilizations of Indigenous progressives—in the Society of American Indians and the Australian Aborigines’ Progressive Association—testified to the power of Progressive thought but also to its repressive underpinnings. Burdened by the legacies of dispossession and displacement, Indigenous reformers sought recognition and redress in differently imagined new worlds and thus redefined the meaning of Progressivism itself.

The Invisible Walls of Dannemora

The Invisible Walls of Dannemora
Author: Michael H Blaine
Publisher: Histria Books
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2022-07-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1592111602

The infamous Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, became the site of one of the most famous prison breaks in modern American history in 2015. But the conditions that made possible the notorious escape had festered for many years. This new book reveals the inner workings of this massive prison. It is the first look inside at what it was like to work at the Clinton Correctional Facility, and its effects on those who spent time there on both sides of the bars.The author, Michael H. Blaine spent a career at the Clinton Correctional Facility. Having been an Officer, Sergeant, and Lieutenant, his story reveals the changes he observed and what he experienced at each rank.

Oil Revolution

Oil Revolution
Author: Christopher R. W. Dietrich
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2017-06-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 131673952X

Through innovative and expansive research, Oil Revolution analyzes the tensions faced and networks created by anti-colonial oil elites during the age of decolonization following World War II. This new community of elites stretched across Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, and Libya. First through their western educations and then in the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, these elites transformed the global oil industry. Their transnational work began in the early 1950s and culminated in the 1973–4 energy crisis and in the 1974 declaration of a New International Economic Order in the United Nations. Christopher R. W. Dietrich examines how these elites brokered and balanced their ambitions via access to oil, the most important natural resource of the modern era.