The Velvet Coup

Not only will breakdowns like the one that occurred in November 2000 grow more frequent, they will grow more serious as well."--Jacket.

According to the media, the 2000 election debacle was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke. But, Lazare argues that such events are likely to become the rule rather than the exception. After more than 200 years, America¿s antiquated gov¿t. is in a state of breakdown. A constitutional overhaul is needed to update the machinery in line with the needs of modern democracy. But, such change is difficult to achieve. As a result, the U.S. has entered the 21st cent. with an 18th-cent. gov¿t. A new arrangement is required, one which abolishes the electoral college, equal representation in the Senate for all states regardless of size, & an all-powerful Supreme Court. Only when these shackles from the past are broken can the Amer. public assert control over their gov¿t.

"From right wing conservatives to Wall Street fat cats, progressive writer Jill Cody delivers a no-holds-barred look at a country that's becoming politically, morally and financially bankrupt." -- Thom Hartmann, nationally syndicated talk show host and bestselling authorThe American people have been abandoned. Behemoth corporations, the uber-rich, the media, Congress, and the Supreme Court have withdrawn their support from "We, the People", in spite of their duty, allegiance, or responsibility to American citizens. Billionaires and corporations are flourishing as they abandon loyalty to employees and American citizens. The same wealthy people and corporations are hoarding billions of dollars offshore to avoid paying taxes while privatizing their profits and subsidizing their losses. By doing so, they are intentionally abandoning their civic responsibility for the obscene accumulation of profit, and are impeding the government's ability to serve the public good.When you read this eye-opening expose ́, you will discover:* who launched the Velvet Coup* which seminal moments in U.S. history are threatening our democracy today* what Citizen Voter Type you are, and how to become a powerful citizen* what Living in the Black or Living in the Red means, and how those choices could either rescue or ruin America* how we can reconstruct our lives and laws to save our middle class and democracy.Jill Cody, a well-known, influential educator, consultant and advocate, presents an expanded view of abandonment to illustrate how this calculated crisis is destroying our democracy. This book's optimism speaks to the hope that, when we realize we have lost something of great value, we will fight to get it back. After reading America Abandoned, you will know it is time to take a stand, be bold, and recapture our democracy.

The “definitive biography” of the poet and political dissident who became the last president of Czechoslovakia—and first president of the Czech Republic (Walter Isaacson). This portrait of Vaclav Havel, iconoclast and intellectual, renowned playwright turned political dissident, president of a united then divided nation, and dedicated human rights activist, is written by his former press secretary, advisor, and longtime friend—and recounts the turbulent twentieth-century era through which he prevailed. Havel’s lifelong perspective as an outsider began with his privileged childhood in Prague and his family’s blacklisted status following the Communist coup of 1948. This feeling of being outcast fueled his career as an essayist and a dramatist writing absurdist plays as social commentary. His involvement during the Prague Spring and his leadership of Charter 77, his unflagging belief in the power of the powerless, and his galvanizing personality catapulted Havel into a pivotal role as the leader of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Although Havel was a courageous visionary, he was also a man of great contradictions, wracked with doubt and self-criticism. But he always remained true to himself. This “smart and exciting” biography is “both inspiring and filled with lessons for our time” (Walter Isaacson). “Havel was one of the most important intellectual-troublemaking statesmen of his time—a nonconformist, determined to live in truth, who questioned the system, his countrymen and himself constantly. No one is better suited than Michael Zantovsky to describe, interpret, and analyze this moral giant . . . A brilliantly informed intellectual and political history.” —Madeleine Albright “Entertaining, intimate, and moving . . . Zantovsky’s voice—that of a natural storyteller with an eye for the memorable anecdote, a mischievous wit, an easy intelligence, and keen sense of balance and fairness—is so engaging.” —Paul Wilson, The New York Review of Books

The first full-length study of Iranian nationalism in nearly five decades, this sophisticated and challenging book by the distinguished historian Ali M. Ansari explores the idea of nationalism in the creation of modern Iran. It does so by considering the broader developments in national ideologies that took place following the emergence of the European Enlightenment and showing how these ideas were adopted by a non-European state. Ansari charts a course through twentieth-century Iran, analysing the growth of nationalistic ideas and their impact on the state and demonstrating the connections between historiographical and political developments. In so doing, he shows how Iran's different regimes manipulated ideologies of nationalism and collective historical memory to suit their own ends. Drawing on hitherto untapped sources, the book concludes that it was the revolutionary developments and changes that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century that paved the way for later radicalisation.

NO OTHER COUNTRY SO DOMINATES THE HEADLINES: Iran is portrayed as a nuclear threat, a terrorist nation, a charter member of the Axis of Evil bent on the destruction of Israel. But behind those headlines—and the fierce rhetoric of Iran’s most hard-line leaders—is a proud nation with a 2,500-year history of Persian poetry, art, and passion. Based on more than thirty extended reporting trips to Iran, including the turbulent aftermath of the disputed June 2009 election, Scott Peterson’s portrait is the definitive guide to this enigmatic nation, from the roots of its incendiary internal struggles to the rise and slide of Iran’s earthshaking 1979 Islamic Revolution. This prize-winning American journalist with unparalleled experience in Iran takes us there, inside a country where an educated and young population is restlessly eager to take its place in the world; where martyrs of the "sacred" Iran-Iraq War are still mourned with tears of devotion; where the cultural and religious forces of light and darkness are locked in battle. Peterson brings stunningly alive the diversity within Iran—from the hard-liners who shout "Death to America" to the majority who comprise the most pro-American population in the Middle East. Let the Swords Encircle Me gives voice to Iranians themselves—the clerics and the reformers, the filmmakers and the journalists, the True Believers and their Westernized and profane brethren—to understand the complexities of Iran today. Through dedicated and in-depth reporting, Peterson shows how every word, image, and sensibility in Iran is often deliciously unexpected and counterintuitive. Ideology matters. So does "resistance." And azadi: freedom. Peterson deftly holds a mirror up to both sides of the U.S.-Iran conflict. Americans and Iranians, he writes, share a belief in their own exceptionalism and "manifest destiny" (which for Iran includes its nuclear ambitions) and frequent need of an "enemy" in political discourse. The same elements that have locked the United States and Iran in the most vicious of struggles—stretching back to the 1953 CIA coup in Tehran and the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage saga—are the same ones that could one day make Iran and the United States the most "natural" allies in the region. In this critical and personal account, Peterson illumines the latest episodes of Iran’s century-old quest for democracy and freedom. He explains how the Islamic Revolution—launched as a beacon of justice and resistance for Iranians and all the world’s Muslims—has not lived up to its ambitious promise. He shows how the violence of 2009 damaged the regime’s legitimacy and marks the start of an irreversible decline. Let the Swords Encircle Me takes us into the minds and hearts of Iranians today, and will be a crucial guide as Americans and Iranians attempt to overcome their bitter estrangement.

Written for scholars and practitioners puzzled by Iran's foreign policy choices, this book argues that Iran's foreign policy behavior is best understood in the context of the regime's foreign policy ideology, which is rooted in a conception of Iran as a nation changed by the 1979 Revolution and an example to other nations in a changing world.

The conflicts in the South Caucasus are now a decade old, but still appear impervious to solution. The hopes that independence raised have been dashed by an insidious cocktail of past and present regional hegemony, historical antipathy and Soviet planning. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, thus, continue to wait for their long awaited Spring. In a region where Western academic writing has focussed, during the last decade, almost exclusively on the dynamics of regional security and Great Power rivalry, even in the context of conflict, this volume provides an important and necessary legal appraisal of the possible processes and structures which may, ultimately, facilitate the finding of constitutional settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In the work, Tim Potier, an academic lawyer with much experience in the Caucasus, has written a powerful but dispassionate account which will prove not only to be of use to academics, diplomats and government officials working in the region, but also be of lasting value to the ongoing development of the international law on self-determination and autonomy. Dr Potier also considers the fate of what he prefers to term, `regionally non-dominant titular peoples'.