Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1196624 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-15
• Released on: 2007-11-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 198 pages

Review
"Heather Wokusch's political essays stand prominently among a noble American tradition of dissent and free thought, and provide vital ammunition for all who seek to realize a world where peace and social justice may prevail. Wokusch's exceptionally intelligent, witty, and passionate work beckons us to action." -- Sunil K. Sharma, DissidentVoice.org Editor and Publisher

Heather Wokusch stands in a fine - though scarcely flourishing - tradition of American journalism: she's committed to serving the people for whom she writes, to giving a voice to the voiceless and not taking buzzwords for an answer. If you want to know what's at stake in today's politics, don't rely on the corporate-controlled media: read The Progressives' Handbook. -- Steven P. McGiffen, Editor of Spectrezine.org and author of Biotechnology: Corporate Power Versus The Public Interest

What sets the books above the heap of other politically-inspired manuals is Wokusch's writing style. She is punchy but not preachy and her ability to synthesize information, giving readers everything they need to know and leaving out the rest, is invaluable. -- Tara Lohan, AlterNet.org

About the Author
Heather Wokusch is a blogger and the author of The Progressives' Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now series. Her political awakening came in 1986 when she spent a year doing development work in the Philippines and witnessed the People Power Revolution firsthand. Her commentary is regularly featured on major progressive sites and her articles have appeared in publications such as The Baltimore Sun, In These Times, Foreign Policy in Focus and Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung. Heather's a former jazz singer, has an MA in clinical psychology and more than 20 years of experience in education.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

US Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chemical and Biological Weapons

Risky weapons labs
A new arms race

Poisoning ourselves
Napalm returns

Anthrax hits home
Courting doomsday
Nuclear Weapons

Poor oversight

Depleted uranium

Double-speak, denial and winning a nuclear war
Discarding non-proliferation agreements
Arming the Heavens

Missile "defense" mania

Weather warfare

FALCON
No Damn Excuse

Landmines

Down with arms control

Gee, now where did I put that stinger missile?
I pledge allegiance to Lockheed Martin

Coming soon to a protest rally near you
Ten Easy Ways to Make a Difference Now

Women's Issues

Back to the Kitchen, Betty

So long, Capitol Hill

Erasing your right to know

Stacking the courts

Pennies on the dollar
Goodbye Birth Control
Keeping contraception out of reach

There goes Plan B

Title X at risk

Exporting our insanity
Outlawing Abortion

Weakening Roe, one ruling at a time

Pro-choice terrorists
Keeping Women in Danger

Institutionalized denial
Say One Thing, Fund Another
Schoolyard Scandals
The attack on Title IX
Academia's glass ceiling
"Abstinence-only" and why virgins get STDs
Give Them Liberty, Not Death
Iraq
Afghanistan
Ten Easy Ways to Make a Difference Now

Education

Houston, We've Got Your Problem
Leaving Our Children Behind
Don't know much about history

Inadequate funding

Propaganda, profits and NCLB
Reading, Writing and Religion

It's back-to-school time for Jesus

US Department of Education be damned

Buster Bunny and terrorist teachers
Selling off Public Schools

The perils of privatization

Charter schools

Salvation through vouchers

Phi Beta capitalism
Teachers in Trouble

Low pay, low expectations

Deregulating certification

Deactivating professors
Educational Apartheid

Separate and unequal

Books or Boots?
Shortchanging Students

Funding our future

Pell hell
Improving NCLB
Ten Easy Ways to Make a Difference Now

Mainstream Media

McMedia Monopoly

F the CC

What Liberal Media?
Terrible Tomlinson

Public broadcasting's conservative slant

Putting the BS into PBS
Bush-league Propaganda

Snow job or blow job?

Fake news reports
Banging the War Drum on Cue

All the news not fit to print

Ready, aim... invade!
War Is Heck

Transfer tubes and body counts

Pentagon propaganda

Lessons from Al Jazeera
s-Election 04

Unfair, unbalanced and undemocratic

Bulgegate

Necklacing Dan Rather
Press Freedom under Fire

The US military and hotel journalism

Shooting the messenger

Koran-gate and anonymous sources
Towards a Democratic Media

Beating the broadband bullies
Ten Easy Ways to Make a Difference Now

Final Thoughts

Notes

Customer Reviews

Brilliant book!
This November 2007 updated version of The Progressives' Handbook (Volume 1) is even better than the first one, including a lot of new links and information. I've never read a better summary of the Bush administration's hidden weapons of mass destruction programs anywhere else and Wokusch's rundown of rollbacks in women's issues, education and media should be recommended reading for all Americans. She has a fun and accessible writing style, but the information packs a punch. Buy one for your best progressive friend - buy two for your right-wing relatives.

An Eye-Opener


I consider myself informed but was stunned at the information presented here. I've read Wokusch for years and waited for this book, and it lives up to all expectations. She's got a way of making complex topics understandable and getting across how big political issues affect each of us personally.

The US Weapons of Mass Destruction chapter is amazing, and should be mandatory reading for all Americans. I don't think anyone else has brought out so much information about US biological/chemical/nuclear weapons programs before. Readers will be stunned at how much money is being diverted to these secretive programs and how much danger they pose to all of us.

The Education chapter comprehensively covers threats to American public education. As Wokusch writes: "Put it all together and the Bush administration's scam seems clear: force public schools to meet impossible demands through NCLB testing, don't give them enough money to make the required changes, and then question the patriotism of anyone who disagrees. Shut down the many schools which inevitably fail and offer vouchers as the solution, thereby privatising education and mandating that taxpayers fund religion in the classroom. Nifty way to institutionalize huge corporate profits with almost no accountability."

The Women's Issues chapter is a great review of rollbacks in women's rights under Bush, with witty subsections like "Back to the Kitchen, Betty" and well-documented facts. It's worth buying the book just for the Mainstream Media section on Jeff Gannon alone ("Snow job or blow job?"). Hysterical.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Wokusch describes the problems America is facing but then gives tons of ideas for how each of us can make the situation better. Can't wait to start reading Volume 2.

The Progressives' Handbook
This book is a Progressives' dream.

Here comes a relentless chronicle of what the Bush Administration has brought us in so many areas [US Weapons of mass Destruction, Women's Issues, Education, Mainstream Media, Elections & Voting, Environment, Foreign Policy...]. Heather Wokusch tells us very concisely where we stand as a result, with simple suggestions on what we can do about it.
Chock-full of well-documented facts yet very easy to read, lively, uncompromising, here's the perfect Reference Book for our troubled times.

This was a colossal undertaking, no doubt, on the behalf of us the *real* people who may get confused at times by the thickness of the lies raining on us. This book feeds our mind and also frees our intuition and vision for a better world.

It also provides countless tips on what we can do to hold on to this vision and help it unfold.

What a Must-Read, we have much to thank Heather Wokusch for!