America Is A Tinderbox

"The Tinder Box: How Politically Correct Ideology Destroyed the U.S. Forest Service describes in detail how the agency set about destroying itself from within. It was an effort organized and directed by high level employees who ranged far beyond the parameters of the Bernardi Consent Decree as approved by a federal judge. The narrative is based on an enormous stash of documents located at a federal records center and interviews with former employees. To carry out a doctrine that broke the morale and backbone of its workforce, the agency launched a thirty year campaign of mendacity, embracing scores of programs designed to hire the unqualified over the qualified. The end result is an agency now incapable of carrying out its mission of managing 193 million acres of forest lands. In truth, since 1990 America has lost 113 million acres to wildfire. This extensively researched book will leave readers in a state of shock over the decline of of one of America's most venerable institutions.

A collection of interviews conducted by TRNN senior editor Paul Jay with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Chris Hedges, including the series that launched the first episode of Reality Asserts Itself.

This second edition of "The Tinder Box," published in September 2014 by Seneca Books, provides readers with greater detail concerning events that occurred within the U.S. Forest Service from 1982 through 2008, and has a far more extensive Index. Since 1990 over 113,000,000 acres of America's timber lands have been consumed by wildfire, one of many disasters the U.S. Forest Service must be held accountable for. Over that same period the timber industry, companies engaged in making wood products, owners of properties adjacent forest lands, and the public at large have become incensed by the agency's ineptitude. To learn more read Christopher Burchfield's "The Tinder Box: How Politically Correct Ideology Destroyed the U.S. Forest Service." The book goes back to the very beginning--33 years ago--when the agency set about destroying itself from within. Readers will finally grasp those terrible events inside the agency, all of which took place entirely outside of public purview. Indeed, this is the first inside look at how--step-by-step, political correctness destroyed an American institution.

A collection of interviews conducted by TRNN senior editor Paul Jay with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Chris Hedges, including the series that launched the first episode of Reality Asserts Itself.

Selected by Aracelis Girmay, A Tinderbox in Three Acts is at once elegy and exegesis, fact and invention. In her fourth poetry collection, Cynthia Dewi Oka performs a lyric accounting of the anti-Communist genocide of 1965, which, led by the Indonesian military and with American assistance, erased and devastated millions of lives in Indonesia. Under the New Order dictatorship that ruled by terror for over three decades in the aftermath, perpetrators of the killings were celebrated as national heroes while survivors were systemically silenced. Drawing on US state documents that were only declassified in recent years, Oka gives form and voice to the ghosts that continue to haunt subsequent generations despite decades of state-produced amnesia and disinformation. In service of recovering what must not be remembered, A Tinderbox in Three Acts repurposes the sanitized lexicon of official discourse, imagines an emotional syntax for the unthinkable, and employs synesthetic modes of perception to convey that which exceeds language. Here, the boundary between singular and collective consciousness is blurred. Here, history as an artifact of the powerful is trumped by the halting memory of the people whom power sought to destroy. Where memory fails, here is poetry to honor the dishonored, the betrayed, the lost and still-awaited.

The Iroquois Theater in Chicago, boasting every modern convenience, advertised itself proudly as “absolutely fireproof” when it opened in November, 1903. Mr. Bluebeard, a fairy tale musical imported from the Drury Lane Theatre in London was the opening production. And leading the troupe of nearly 400 was one of the most popular comedians of the time, Eddie Foy. None of the many socialites and journalists who flocked to the shows were aware that city building inspectors and others had been bribed to certify that the theater was in good shape. In fact, the building was without a sprinkler system or even basic fire fighting equipment; there was no backstage telephone, fire alarm box, exit signs, a real asbestos curtain or ushers trained for emergencies. A month later, at a Christmas week matinee, the theater was illegally overcrowded with a standing room only crowd of mostly women and children. During the second act, a short circuit exploded a back stage spotlight touching off a small fire which spread in minutes throughout the theater. Panic set in as people clawed at each other to get out, but they could not find the exits, which were draped. The doorways, locked against gate-crashers, were designed to open in instead of out, creating almost impossible egress. The tragedy, which claimed more than 600 lives, became a massive scandal and it remains the worst theater fire in the history of the country.

This edited volume, now in its second edition, brings together the some of the most important figures in the evolution of Critical Pedagogy and a number of up-and-coming scholars. Together they provide comprehensive analyses related to the struggles against the triangulation of Neoliberalism, Conservatism, and Nationalism, not just in education but in all of social life, through the democratizing forces of critical pedagogy. Its re-release coincides with the 50th anniversary of the publication of Paulo Freire’s landmark publication, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The second edition has been updated with a majority of new chapters to address the current political shifts that have hastened erosion of the public sphere and public education today. These critical pedagogues show how neoliberal attacks can be collectively resisted, challenged, and eradicated especially by those of us teaching in schools and universities.

Healing That Reaches Beyond the Self In this landmark work, Marianne Williamson reminds us that there is a point in everyone's spiritual journey where the search for self-awareness can turn into self-preoccupation. All of us are better off when contemplation of holy principles is at the center of our lives. But it is in applying those principles in our lives that we forge the true marriage between heaven and earth. In the compassionate but clear-eyed prose that has won her so many avid readers, Williamson shows us that the principles which apply to our personal healing also apply to the healing of the larger world. Calling on Americans to turn the compassion in our hearts into a powerful force for social good, Williamson shows us how to transform spiritual activism into a social activism that will in turn transform America into a nation seriously invested in the hope of every child and in the potential of every adult.

This provocative work documents how Canada and Mexico offer the United States open markets for its investments and exports, massive flows of skilled and unskilled labour, and vast resource inputs - all of which boost its size and competitiveness - more than does any other US partner. They are also Uncle Sam's most important allies in supporting its anti-terrorist and anti-narcotics security. Clarkson and Mildenberger explain the paradox of these two countries' simultaneous importance and powerlessness by showing how the US government has systematically neutralized their potential influence.

"The Story of a Tinder-box, penned by Charles Meymott Tidy, delves into the fascinating history and significance of a seemingly ordinary object. Tidy's narrative skillfully weaves together historical anecdotes and insights, transforming the tinder-box into a symbol of innovation and societal progress. This book serves as a captivating exploration of the ordinary artifacts that shape our lives and collective memory."