Elections Got You Down? The 17 Best Social and Political Awareness Books of 2010 (PHOTOS)

In a season of political discontent -- trivialities and distractions, renewed culture wars and the rebirth of regressive impulses -- these books remind us what is really at stake in political participation and democratic tension. It's easy to get depressed, or lose sight of social justice goals, in the midst of electoral theater, and convenient to look away from the real causes of income inequality or human rights violations. We're engaged in a losing counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, and an escalating one in Pakistan, continuations of the Long War; we've never really paused to understand why the law was so cavalierly abused in the last ten years--let alone hold the offenders accountable; we've tried to move past the financial collapse with at best superficial remedies, without addressing the motivating economic causes; and we still root for the American Dream (the one that John Boehner has finally, tearfully chased down) without inquiring into the quality of life the dream actually embodies. We can improve our quality of life, we can take inspiration from active citizens inside our borders and from nations dedicated to social welfare; we can even look back at shining moments in our own history to retrieve democratic virtues. These were some of the best books of the year that made just such a case for social uplift, based on reason, analysis, and judgment.

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Matt Taibbi, 'Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America' (Spiegel & Grau)

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What Taibbi did as an exclamation point for the Bush years in his incomparable The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire (2008), he has done now for the new administration. Hands-down, this is the sharpest, funniest, most agitating political book of the year! Taibbi excels at the vicious barb, holding Wall Street manipulators and their political allies in utter contempt. On Alan Greenspan's social climbing: "Greenspan met [Ayn] Rand in the early fifties after leaving Columbia, attending meetings at Rand's apartment with a circle of like-minded intellectual jerk-offs who called themselves by the ridiculous name the 'Collective' and who provided Greenspan the desired forum for social ascent." On Sarah Palin's politics of resentment: "Being in the building with Palin that night [the 2008 Republican convention] is a transformative and oddly unsettling experience. It's a little like having live cave-level access for the ripping-the-heart-out-with-the-bare-hands scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. A scary-as-hell situation: thousands of pudgy Midwestern conservatives worshipping at the Altar of the Economic Producer, led by a charismatic arch-princess letting lose a grade-A war cry." The grifter class is ripping America of a superpower's worth of accumulated wealth--now that we don't produce much anymore--and Taibbi is on the job to tell us the real story of the mortgage scam, how municipalities are selling off public assets for a pittance, how the bankers got rich even as they brought down the financial system, and how the oil price hike of 2008 was a speculative bubble fueled by Goldman Sachs. You get the feeling that the media watchdogs are still asleep at the wheel.

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What Taibbi did as an exclamation point for the Bush years in his incomparable The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire (2008), he has done now for the new administration. Hands-down, this is the sharpest, funniest, most agitating political book of the year! Taibbi excels at the vicious barb, holding Wall Street manipulators and their political allies in utter contempt. On Alan Greenspan's social climbing: "Greenspan met [Ayn] Rand in the early fifties after leaving Columbia, attending meetings at Rand's apartment with a circle of like-minded intellectual jerk-offs who called themselves by the ridiculous name the 'Collective' and who provided Greenspan the desired forum for social ascent." On Sarah Palin's politics of resentment: "Being in the building with Palin that night [the 2008 Republican convention] is a transformative and oddly unsettling experience. It's a little like having live cave-level access for the ripping-the-heart-out-with-the-bare-hands scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. A scary-as-hell situation: thousands of pudgy Midwestern conservatives worshipping at the Altar of the Economic Producer, led by a charismatic arch-princess letting lose a grade-A war cry." The grifter class is ripping America of a superpower's worth of accumulated wealth--now that we don't produce much anymore--and Taibbi is on the job to tell us the real story of the mortgage scam, how municipalities are selling off public assets for a pittance, how the bankers got rich even as they brought down the financial system, and how the oil price hike of 2008 was a speculative bubble fueled by Goldman Sachs. You get the feeling that the media watchdogs are still asleep at the wheel.

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yukonark said on 6 Saturday 2010 pm30 1:04 pm: I would add Paul Loeb's newly-revised edition of "Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times." Just the first chapter is worth the price of the book.

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Comments

[hippie4ever]

03:22 AM on 11/09/2010

I notice the Bush book didn't make the list, lol.

[LynneSpreen]

09:31 AM on 11/08/2010

This is supposed to make us feel better? I mean, I heart Matt Taibbi but peering into the bowels of Hell doesn't seem like a prescription for joy.
www.AnyShinyThing.com, A Blog for Smart Women of a Certain Age

[Jon Vanhala]

08:02 PM on 11/07/2010

nice list

[T4]

03:05 PM on 11/07/2010

i gues when i go throughthis list, especially Taibbai I am struck by the absence of caring their arguments against Obama - after he created the final collapse of the eocnomy by pumping the grifter and megabanking classes witrh $2 trillion and it was this moneythatdestroyed the economy. Now do i find andy mention in these books of the collusion between the public finacesector and the private finance sector invooves almost exclusively the indiviudal ofonlyone cultural elite stretching across Bush and Obama - why is that HP readers why is that these analyses don;t include these simple connections? if you were a cop you 'd look for just these connections to figure out this scam out - are you anti-semitic to point this out, are you deaf , dumb and blind not to see it. Is it all some blnd coincidence that almost all the major players in the biggest financial scam in our history belong to the same cultural elite?

[axollot]

09:05 AM on 11/10/2010

Wow, where to begin. No Obama didnt ring in the final collapse of the economy. Heck he didnt even bail out the banks (but don't feel bad over 70% of Americans think he did). No, the problem and connection a cop could make between Obama and all other Presidents, say since Reagan is $$. Reagan started the shite-storm of deregulation and low taxes, it looked good on the short term but on the long term it benefited only the wealthiest and there in lies the problem we are still working in that world. Obama had to push through a very watered down bill against Wall ST that didnt put the firewalls back in place that had been systematically dismantled over the past 30 odd years.
So how do we fix it? Well the problem is collusion is legal now. Yep we even call it "free-speech" when a corporation gives unlimited $$ to a candidate it is in essence BUYING the vote of their political candidate.
The answers are simple tho - END CORPORATE PERSON-HOOD and Change the campaign finance laws to public finance. Then WE THE PEOPLE should get our voice heard and our vote will be worth more.
Because we allowed them to make the laws to suit the 'suits'. For example, regular Joe's go to jail for insider trading BUT if you are a politician and you know inside info and sell/buy stocks based on it you do not go to jail!

[Jean Reece]

05:57 PM on 11/18/2010

Well said. Not one person has been punished or forced to return any of their ill-gotten gains for the sub-prime mortgage global ponzi scheme. To the contrary - Robert Rubin, Chairman of Citigroup blew town with 126 million. And worse yet it can all happen again since, as the previous poster points out, no real financial regulations have been put back in place. This is serious people - we are headed straight for financial hegemony. Or we may already be there, in which case we're all screwed no matter how much we rant and rave on HuffPo.

[David Pasco]

09:43 AM on 11/07/2010

"Griftopia," and "Zombie Economics" look promising.

[T4]

03:08 PM on 11/07/2010

Griftopia misses the chief point of telling who are the grifters and their backgrounds on the govt and proivate side - this would show clearly the undelying connections she talksabout - close but she doesn;t make the final connect the dots piece. GS, Greenspan, Bernake, Shearson-Lehman are all linked by one commomn element

[SaddleBum]

04:42 PM on 11/08/2010

you have obviously not read 'Griftopia'

[MikeNAustin]

10:35 PM on 11/06/2010

Hell no, I loved the elections. Obama's out of control spending is OVER!

[c-tom]

02:42 AM on 11/08/2010

You mean Bush's out of control spending shows no sign of stopping. Foolish wars in Asia are costing and will continue to cost huge amounts of money. With Republicans back in control of the House don't look for the huge transfers of wealth to the rich (another Bush legacy) to stop.

[MikeNAustin]

06:10 PM on 11/08/2010

No, I mean Obama's. The whole world knows very well he's the guy who spent us into bankruptcy.

[jmyoung666]

08:06 AM on 11/08/2010

The out of control spending is military in nature and largely the fault of Bush. The bailouts have been repaid with interest. The stimulus has almost entirely paid for itself and will more than pay for itself over time and the healthcare law is deficit neutral.

[MikeNAustin]

06:08 PM on 11/08/2010

If you think healthcare is gonna be revenue neutral, I've got some beachfront property for you in Arizona. We're gonna be paying the medical bills for half of Mexico before long. Why, we have no real border and anyone who asks someone for an ID is sued and called racist, idiotic! So, yeah we're gonna be paying an awful lot of Mexican medical bills.

[Robert David Steele]

09:31 PM on 11/06/2010

Half of this list is great and lives up to the billing. The other half is pedestrian and way off the mark. Here are a few books I would recommend that are earth-shaking--and the only one on the original list I totally agree with as a game changer is Matt Taibbi's GRIFTOPIA, see my summary review at http://www.tinyurl.com/SteeleGRIFTOPIA

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/08/review-the-world-is-open-how-web-technology-is-revolutionizing-education/

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/08/review-surrender-to-kindness-one-mans-epic-journey-for-love-and-peace/

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/08/review-guest-cognitive-surplus-creativity-and-generosity-in-a-connected-age/

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/08/review-preliminary-reflexive-practice-professional-thinking-for-a-turbulent-world/

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/07/review-building-social-business-the-new-kind-of-capitalism-that-serves-humanitys-most-pressing-needs/

[Pragmatism First]

08:59 PM on 11/06/2010

My library doesn't have most of these books. What's up with that?

[yukonark]

01:04 PM on 11/06/2010

I would add Paul Loeb's newly-revised edition of "Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times." Just the first chapter is worth the price of the book.

[lolapowers]

12:17 PM on 11/06/2010

Yes! Iwas definitely born in the wrong country, wrong continent. I would definitely have been very happy as an Italian mama singing opera arias, drinking good wine and celebrating La Dolce Vita!

[Galia Hannah]

12:05 PM on 11/06/2010

Also Diane Ravitch's "Death and Life of the Great American School System" is an important book to all Americans who want to know what's happening with the schools.

[springsm]

01:23 AM on 11/07/2010

from her perspective or with facts and resources?

[MAH147]

11:59 AM on 11/06/2010

Missing from the list is Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.How the Working Poor Became Big Business by Gary Rivlin. The business model of separating the poor from their very limited assets is and has been used for much of the last decade by major US financial institutions.

[critterup]

10:00 AM on 11/06/2010

I like my Kindle. Living in Florida and having books everywhere is a nightmare for trying to keep the bug population and mildew under control. Plus, when I don't want the books anymore and they are really not recycleable to used book stores I really hate throwing them in the trash (environment). Helps keep the book clutter down. I LIKE MY KINDLE!!!

[GaryinToronto]

12:12 PM on 11/06/2010

I HATE YOUR KINDLE. It's shocking to me how little people realize just how much power over our culture and speech we are handing over to a few corporations with e-readers. Did you realize that amazon can edit or even delete your books without contacting you first? They actually did this with - of all books - Orwell's "1984" when they realized there was a copyright issue with the electronic version they were selling - they just went out wirelessly and deleted everyone's copy (which meant students reading it for school lost their notes as well). The fact that they weren't conscious of the irony of sending "1984" down the memory hole in this manner tells you how much they actually care/think about literature. They might as well be selling widgets...

[eric14]

01:37 PM on 11/07/2010

GarinToronto:

That is a great story, a tale for our times. Amazing.

[lolapowers]

12:14 PM on 11/06/2010

I get it! You love your KINDLE! But dont you miss the smell of a new book? The feel of the pages? I do! I also like to look at the little critters that land on them. It's all part of a sensory experience we are slowly losing when we get so involved in cyberworld!

[wilsonkeywest]

09:11 AM on 11/06/2010

may be you should read BROKE

[thesidetrek]

09:04 AM on 11/06/2010

'Griftopia' arrived yesterday, can't wait to dig in. This is a compelling list, many look like must-reads.