Summer Reading - "Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts." Mother Jones The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him-and Why Independents Shouldn't by Cliff Schecter This book is a hard-hitting profile that explores the gap between the public record of John McCain and his media image. Schecter-a senior fellow at Working America and political commentator on major national media outlets-paints the real picture of the man behind the happy-go-lucky public persona we've seen on the campaign trail-an often irascible, irritable and utterly unpredictable character. Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries) by Jared Bernstein As Bernstein says, "economics has been hijacked by the rich and powerful, and it has been forged into a tool that is being used against the rest of us." Bernstein, senior economist and director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., offers lay people tangible insight into what it takes to ensure that those who make it work also share its rewards. The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by Steven Greenhouse America's workers are being squeezed by declining wages, rising health care costs, evaporating pensions, job insecurity and globalization, according to Greenhouse, who covers workplace issues for The New York Times. The book takes a probing-and often shocking-look at why, in the world's most affluent nation, so many corporations are intent on squeezing their workers dry The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity by Robert Kuttner Founder and co-editor of American Prospect magazine and a Boston Globe columnist, Kuttner offers a new model of managed capitalism that can deliver security and opportunity, while rekindling democracy as a check on concentrated wealth. Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life by Robert B. Reich Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, presents a breakthrough book on the clash between capitalism and democracy, explaining that widening inequalities of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity and the spreading effects of global warming are the logical outcomes of supercapitalism. Reich sets out a clear course to a vibrant capitalism and a concurrent, equally vibrant democracy. Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It by Thom Hartmann Air America Radio host Hartmann writes that our middle class has been dismantled over the past 25 years and replaced by a system to line the pockets of the super-rich and big corporations. He details the weakening of the safety nets for working people and argues that an empowered, educated middle class is crucial to a functioning democracy. Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy by Jeffrey Feldman A teacher at New York University and editor of the blog Frameshop, Feldman says the corporate media has allowed a host of right-wing talk show hosts and commentators to foul the airwaves with hate, bigotry and shrill discourse that silences opposition and destroys any chance for serious, civil debate. He also dissects the technique and "framing" strategies of the right and examines the linguistic and cognitive implications of what these "outright barbarous" media personalities have wrought. The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences by Louis Uchitelle An eye-opening account of the devastating impact of layoffs on individuals at all income levels, this book traces the rise of job security in the United States to its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s and the factors that caused a U-turn beginning in the 1970s. Uchitelle gives specific recommendations for policies that encourage companies to restrict layoffs and create jobs. Winner of the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael K. Honey The author combines labor history with civil rights history in a moving and meticulous account of the sanitation workers' strike that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis in early 1968. Honey painstakingly recreates the explosive situation into which King stepped after 1,300 sanitation workers, almost all of them African American, went on strike, including marches and sermons, King's assassination and its violent aftermath.