Governments

Gash has produced a scholarly work on the life of this much neglected political giant of the 19th Century. The book covers the complete life of Jenkinson and sheds much light on interesting issuse like his relationship with his father and political contemporaries like Pitt, Grenville, Canning and Castlereagh. A reassessment must be made of his importance after a careful study of Professor Gash's work. No other Prime Minister had so much experience before becoming First Minister and no other Minister had to deal with so many contrasting difficulties- War, Revolt, Religious Toleration, Starvation, Urbanisation and Royal intrigues! An excellent introduction to the period and a scholarly biography.

Gash has produced a scholarly work on the life of this much neglected political giant of the 19th Century. The book covers the complete life of Jenkinson and sheds much light on interesting issuse like his relationship with his father and political contemporaries like Pitt, Grenville, Canning and Castlereagh. A reassessment must be made of his importance after a careful study of Professor Gash's work. No other Prime Minister had so much experience before becoming First Minister and no other Minister had to deal with so many contrasting difficulties- War, Revolt, Religious Toleration, Starvation, Urbanisation and Royal intrigues! An excellent introduction to the period and a scholarly biography.

This book is a must for those who want to understand Puerto Rico's political situation. In a straightforward way, Ronald Fernandez presents the political and economic aspects of Puerto Rican society. He concisely explains how the island, as a 500-year old colony, evolved through history to acquire its actual form. In this book the reader will find more than the official line. Using the legendary robbery by Los Macheteros (The Machete Wielders) to the Wells Fargo in 1983 as an epicenter, Fernandez presents the story behind the scenes, and explains why Puerto Rico is "an island that handled ignorantly, could easily become America's Northern Ireland."

Fernandez provides a detailed and knowledgeable analysis of an often overlooked political faction in Puerto Rican politics and analyses one of several acts of "terrorism" attributed to the Macheteros. Fernandez also provides the reader with a brief, yet enlightening, history of Puerto Rico and its relations to the United States and in doing so lays the groundwork for an explanation of the motives that lead the "Macheteros" to advocate independence for Puerto Rico by any means necessary. A must read for anyone interested in the hypocrisy of U.S. domestic (foreign to the macheteros) policy and for those interested in finding out some of the history behind the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners several months ago.

Collaboratively compiled and edited by Randy Albelda (Economics, University of Massachusetts) and Ann Withorn (Social Policy, University of Massachusetts), Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, And Beyond is a scholarly selection of impressive essays by a variety of learned authors on topics relating to American welfare policy. From the effects of globalization on the current system, to fallacies of welfare-to-work policies, to issues of the rights of women and people of color, Lost Ground covers a very wide area of controversial issues often conveniently ignored by today's too-eager politics. Lost Ground is a welcome and strongly recommended addition to academic reference collections and reading lists in the area of American social policy in general, and welfare reform in particular.

The downside of welfare reforn is well documented in this new anthology. Moreover, welfare issues are analyzed in the context of broad political shifts, including globalization, the end of the family wage, the sexual revolution, and rise of black liberation, feminism, and multiculturalism.

The very first line of Maharishi's Absolute Theory of Government tips the reader off that this book is like none other in the field of administration: 'My philosophy of government locates the absolute government supreme government, at the unmanifest basis of creation...'

This book opened my vision to the amazing possibility that all the diverse desires of the millions of constituents of any government can actually be simultaneously fulfilled. And how could such an impossible feat be accomplished--that one administration could make everyone happy? Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor, farmers and industrialists, young and old...all can be fulfilled through the knowledge of the unified state of Natural Law, the 'unbounded seat of intelligence' at the basis of each person's own consciousness.

What is this level of perfection? It is described as pure, non-changing, supreme, self-referral, beyond space and time. The book proclaims that administration from this absolute level of life will reflect the same perfect harmony as the administration of the complex universe. It makes clear that absolute, perfect administration is not the phenomenon of action, it is the phenomenon of least action, of silence, of that level where we are all the same, where all our differences are unified. It is about a state of governing where the governor and governed are ONE.

Such a concept is breathtaking yet so utterly simple. Maharishi lays out the logic that we need only to align our human intelligence with the intelligence of Nature at the unmanifest basis of creation, that unified level which holds together all diversity, through the mental technique of Transcendental Meditation. And--voila--our lives can spontaneously be lived in the same innocent, beautiful harmony as the cosmos, in perfection.

This book convinced me that government can work. Especially in these days of chaos and confusion, we urgently need to go beyond the surface level of the problem to this knowledge of the perfect unity that lies within each of us.

The book Maharishi's Absolute Theory of Government gives hope to all Americans and indeed to all world governments that today's problems can be solved through an ideal system of administration through natural law. Natural law reflects the orderly dynamics of Nature that simultaneously handles all aspects of the Universe from the behavior of subatomic particles to the motion of the planets. The book explains how any administrator can engage this infinite source of organizing power to bring stability, harmony and peace to any level of activity without generating the negative affects of fatigue, frustration and struggle.

The book explains how natural law can be applied as the basis for ideal administration and outlines the action steps individuals, communities, societies, and governments can take to achieve it. The bookends with Maharishi's invitation "All governments are invited to enjoy the dawn of a new world order of peace and happiness".

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested for both in depth and in breadth analysis for better understanding of the Reagan administration.This will give you a detailed insight,relating significance of the said regime.This is an excellent book one shouldn't miss!

This is a great book if you are interested in the policies of the Reagan administration and the effects of the decision making made by Reagan. The interviews and documents are extremely useful in detailing the feeling of the era. If you are a student of either history or poly sci, this is a very good source for research on the government and the activities of the 1980's.

John Hagelin is an absolute genius: full ride to Harvard to study quantum physics; solved einstein's unified field theory; and discovered the ingredients for a perfect government. Some of this book is readable for the lay-man; much is not. I encourage to read this fascinating work, but note that much of the science and math presented is not understood by the average college-educated individual.

Premise: realign government so it is in harmony with natural law. Natural Law = planets fall around the sun, a ball thrown in the air will eventually come down. He says much of government currently goes against natural law (swimming upstream opposed to drifting downstream).

He gets into fascinating material, including: 1. the human mind has four levels of consciousness: awake, asleep, rem, pure consciousness. 2. everything in nature--while incredibly complex--when broken down to the simplest level, is the same. This unified field is called the superstring. 3. the human mind in pure consciousness is the same mathematically as the superstring.

John Hagelin is the Natural Law Party's presidential candidate. This guy is amazing; he deserves at least our attention. I wonder why people like John Hagelin and Harry Browne--true admirable american geniuses who run for President--are never covered by the major media...especially TV. More on that, read "A Reason To Vote" by Robert Roth.

Dr Hagelin is a courageous and original thinker. This book grows out of his monographs in the 1980s considering a possible connection between consciousness and the unified field of quantum field theory (his expertise), and out of his foray into public policy during his 1992 and 1996 Presidential bids.

What he's conceived is a unifying theory of politics, one based on the premise that government is itself governed by the collective consciousness of the people. Toward that end, he proposes establishing coherence creating groups of experts in Transcendental Meditation® as a foundation for positive social/political progress, and he presents the empirical basis of this novel approach. Then, he gives a summary of the latest field tested, proven knowledge in a variety of policy areas.

These issues include sustainable agriculture, preventive health care and natural medicine, effective crime prevention and rehabilitation, educational programs that keep children in school and develop their potential, renewable energy, and so on.

The key to this book is that it avoids fluff. It's not a New Age "feel good" tract, but rather a scientific and informed assessment of the latest thinking that can get our country and others working for the good of everyone. I'm not familiar with anything quite like it.

Market-driven politics - part two of review
There is a great wood and trees problem in understanding the politics of this process. Unlike the textbook models of markets, every single real market has its own unique features. Individual cases then enable us to see some of the common features of this process. Leys does not make the case that each of the four conditions have a distinctive politics. Instead he shows the roles of lobbies, of personal networks of influence, of political funding, of the infiltration of political parties, the state and institutions of global regulation, of the resourcing of partisan research and think tanks, of the interested peopling of advisory councils and public boards. Their purposes, in a spectacular denial of conflicts of interest, are to weaken public regulation in relentless cycles of pressures for incremental change, to weaken enforcement and/or quality standards (but to apply them selectively to disadvantage public services), to weaken sources of resistance and stoke support, to restrict public capital and current expenditure, to re-structure the sources of public revenue, to claim risk-minimising contracts with residual state providers, to present the transformations of service into commodities, supply and demand as a 'technology' transfer and abolish the concepts of public service. In both broadcasting and health conglomerates diversified, concentrated and differentiated; pay became spectacularly more unequal, product quality was shaped by commercial interests and residual services deteriorated and were rationed. New labour politicians, whose party is increasingly funded by corporate interests, operate in centralised and 'depoliticised' ways which take them away from the electorate, unions and activists and enable them to naturalise markets and audit and to de-democratise the state..

At a time when Tony Blair has called public service unions 'wreckers', Colin Leys shows just who the real wreckers are. He argues that public services are a key aspect of a democratic society; they express such a society's collective interests and they help shape it at the same time. There is never no alternative. Public services can be provided in many ways, from voluntary work, through non-profit trusts to state provision. These can be more efficient - not simply in costs but also in the quality of outcomes - than are firms dominated by short-term shareholder interests. Leys indicates what is to be done: public services need a clear philosophy that is publicised, celebrated and funded through taxation. They need practical policy, encouraging innovation and dynamism where it can be justified on public service grounds. They need active political protection and defence from the constant attempts to invade which 'markets', aka capital, are bound to make.

This is a richly researched, well structured, beautifully written and compellingly argued book, and one which offers an original analysis of the hegemonic politics of markets. It could not be more relevant to our times. Buy this book, but do not add it to the gently groaning shelf. Keep it much closer to hand; read, reflect and act on it.

Market-driven politics

Followers of the debates on globalisation will be well aware of a surge of recent books associated with the anti-globalisation movement which explore corporate brands have reshaped consumption and culture (Naomi Klein's No Logo) have infiltrated the state (Noreena Hertz Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy)and have also consumed political parties and refashioned them in their own image (George Monbiot's Captive State).

Colin Leys, the reputed scholar of third world development and of British politics, has entered the fray on behalf of a socialist alternative with an investigation of the response of national politics to global economic forces. He uses the experience of Britain for this project, but his story spans the world and is of world-wide relevance. The book moves its lens systematically from the global system towards the detail of rapidly proliferating real markets. Leys peers through two key holes to see the politics involved in the penetration by markets of areas of society formerly ring-fenced for non-market forms of provision and values. The two cases are public service broadcasting and health care; both regulated in distinctively British ways but now being privatised and commercialised in ways only too familiar worldwide.

Leys starts where most critics of globalisation leave off. The economy is replacing society as the subject of politics. In low intensity democracies (the phrase is Samir Amin's) ruling parties find it increasingly difficult to direct the terms on which governments regulate the economy, though there are conditions under which some do it better than others. Their politics is driven by corporates which operate not nationally but globally. Leys has a wealth of evidence with which he fleshes out this profoundly political process (globally in chapter 2 and in Britain in chapter 3).He asks: how do states get voters to endorse policies which meet the demands of capital? How do states pull off the theft of sovereignty from their citizens? How are markets to be naturalised and democratic politics to be insulated from demos? This book answers such questions.

There is a general logic to the process: capital must expand. 'Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets'! proclaimed Karl Marx. Capital expands in many ways, some primitive (resources are seized by force, peasants shoved off the land) others are sophisticated and carefully planned (the seething life cycles of products and their substitutes). Markets appear to slither into households (domestic service) and out again ('DIY', but read the book, for DIY is not what it seems..). Markets proliferate (markets for derivatives, markets for advertising, for management consultancy, legal advice, repairs..).

Leys follows markets expanding into the non-market public sphere. This is the arena for public goods, for national culture and for democratic expressions of citizenship. The novel insight powering Leys' analysis of market-driven politics is as follows. For markets to take over, four political conditions have to be achieved. First, public services have to be broken down into sets of private commodities (hip replacements, laundering, current affairs programmes popular with advertisers....) each of which can be supplied at (more or less) known prices. Second, needs and delights have to be reworked into effective demand expressed through purchasing power alone. Third, workers with collective values and a public service vocation have to be transformed into profit-makers and on less secure terms. Lastly, business requires and usually gets the risks of this transformation to be underwritten by the state. Those remnants of public services that cannot be completely abolished will be left as services of the last resort.

After this first phase looks like being successful, the general dynamic starts to grind; the costs of labour can be reduced; less specialised labour may be shed, components may be subcontracted to cheap sites. Products will be standardised for scale economies and a mass market. 'Flexible production' usually masks a standardised technological core. All other labour, all other costs, will be transferred to consumers. (And the buck stops with women.)

Private contractors do not have to be efficient to notch up rates of profit attractive to shareholders. Public resources will be transferred to retain poorly functioning private firms up to the point where the costs of maintaining an inefficient status quo exceed those of exposing deficiency or delinquence, together with the transactions costs of replacing the contract.
- to be continued - in part two of review

As an ancestral native of Talbot County, on Maryland's own Eastern Shore, I'm proud that we still have people like Bart Talbert out there defending our status as a Southern state. In my travels throughout the deeper South, I've often had to defend my accent and my heritage against those who view Maryland natives as "Northerners." It's sad that more people, particularly the young, seem to have no interest in the history of their people that is continually being erased. There is overwhelming evidence that Maryland would have thrown her lot with the Confederacy, had not Linclon's unconsitutional military occupation and a traitorous governor entered into the fray. Of course, it didn't help matters any that Maryland is geographically separated from the rest of the South by a very large bay. There was also the wholly unconstitutional election for Maryland's new governor, where votes for the Southern candidate were disqualified, and the mass imprisonment of politicians and prominent citizens who dared defy the Tyrant. In any case, Talbert presents good, albeit brief evidence here of what the truth really is. I would also recommend that readers explore other historical works on the subject like "Maryland and the Confederacy", by Harry Wright Newman, and a "Southern Star for Maryland", by Lawrence M. Denton. It pains me greatly that this book, and the two others I've mentioned, are all out of print. I've heard that Bart Talbert is now back in Maryland and teaching within the state's university system, and I can only hope that the knowledge he's capable of passing on to students there is appreciated by them and not lost.

This fascinating book describes events in Maryland just prior to and during the War Between the States. It focuses on thecharacter of the State and the political climate of the time in contrast to so many other Civil War books that simply rehashtroop movements and military tactics. Although Dr. Talbert's book is thoroughly documented with extensive footnotes and somewhat scholarly, he still managed the distinct achievement of writing in a very readable style that tells a story which is difficult to put down -- even though we may already know theoutcome. Modern political correctness has obscured from memory many of the events that took place in Maryland. Dr. Talbert, however, brings them together and provides a record which preserves the facts for posterity. He covers many fascinating facts and stories which together paint a clear picture of an unequivocally Southern State that was denied its will. Maryland: The South's First Casualty also includes a section containing brief biographi

In this book Cabrera Infante takes us by the hand through the history of Cuba, past and present, in a masterful way. As a growing teenager in Cuba myself in the sixties, I can "see" again all that happened in the beautiful island-archipelago from a richer, most understandable perspective than when I was there and saw things take place, but did not fully understand them: The witchhunt against all intellectuals who dared "think" what was not sanctioned by the totalitarian state and its main disease: Castroenteritis ! The repression against "hippies", "Beatle Lovers", homosexuals, singers and anyone who could challenge the Caribbean Nazi-Stalinism. (It made me remember my "underground" listening to the Beatles!).
An excellent, deep analysis of causes and consequences, of life in internal and external exile and very sharp chronicles about the lives of poets, writers, politicians and "men with many exes decorations", i.e. exminister, exambassador, exrevolutionary, experson, etc. Incredibly good use of the Spanish language, worthy of the prize Cabrera Infante recently earned: The Cervantes Prize of the Spanish language! I highly recommend this book for lovers of true history and of the Spanish language!

El Autor de Tres Tristes Tigres nos ofrece una visión distinta del fenómeno Castro (un cubano que ama su patria y escribe contra su líder). Un libro que denuncia algunos de los atropellos que el "presidente" cubano perpetra contra los mismos cubanos. Una compilación de textos escritos a lo largo de los varios años que G.C.I. vive en su autoexilio, con la calidad y el humor al que nos tiene acostumbrados. La marca indeleble de Caín en el juego de palabras y en su estilo erudito, no se extrañan en Mea Cuba, una obra que expone los sentimientos más íntimos del autor frente a la Isla Caribeña que lo vió nacer. Aspectos de la Revolución (la mayúscula es de Guillermo)que se entrepapelaron en la historia, sus actores, el arte cubano y el pensamiento de Castro, vistos todos desde la ventana pineal de Cabrera Infante.

I was fortunate enough to locate the Malaysian edition of this fascinating book while I was visiting Malacca, Malaysia this past summer. Francis Seow's 'The Media Enthralled : Singapore Revisited' paints a very bleak picture of the government controlled press and the media in this authoritarian island-state. While on a trip to Singapore, I made enquiries about purchasing a copy of this book, but I was told by all the book-stores in Singapore that it was unavailable for sale or special order! Today, Lee Kwan Yew is a leader that is still feared by the state, and bookstores in Singapore do not want to risk incurring the wrath of Harry by carrying books that are highly critical of him. The fact that I had to purchase this book from Malaysia, is a good case in point of how tightly controlled this country has become. This excellent book chronicles the Singapore press from it's humble but independent beginnings to how Lee Kwan Yew turned it into the rag of his People's Action Party. A fascinating read for anyone interested in Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew, and the secret behind this Asian Miracle! One of Lee's 'secret-ingredients' for Singapore's success is to suppress the press!

Mr Seow's book is to date the only piece of research that I know which does an indepth study of a much misunderstood state apparatus. The singaporean government to date has been lavished with praise from most quarters, mainly due to misinformation on their part. Seow's book shows how Lee Kuan Yew pseudo-democratic state hides behind a veneer of democratic respectability. How the press and media is controlled by the state and how all independent avenues are banned. He also shows how government instrumentalities are used to police its hegemony on its behalf. An excellent study of deceit. A great study of Lee Kuan Yew.