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Download flyer here.
Now available
Price: $18.95
230 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-935514-32-9
Early Praise for The Book of Sins:
“In her debut novel Angie O’Gorman imagines a future in which capitalism buys out Christianity. Like all good dystopian novels, The Book of Sins asks us to consider what will happen if present trends continue. Her fully-realized characters cause us to question our own complicity in these trends.”
-- Susan Neville, author of Sailing the Inland Sea: On Writing, Literature, and Land
“Angie O’ Gorman's Book of Sins is a captivating story that portrays the ravages of the capitalist system and its co-opting of Christian religion. Through the lives of several working women, she captures the creative struggle of the poor for their own voice. Together, the women challenge the power structure of interlocking church, business, and legal authorities. O’Gorman skillfully portrays the capitalist system's worship of profit, and the failure of Christianity to challenge the collapse of the social contract and the costs of privatization. A wonderful resource for labor organizers and faith based communities.”
-- Eileen Purcell, Union Organizer, San Francisco, California.
“Through Angie O'Gorman's characters we gain a chance to think about the not-so-distant future, the year 2034 to be precise. Her characters remind me of people I know. Their struggles and conflicts seem familiar. O'Gorman skillfully builds awareness of a new type of authoritarian structure that dominates their lives. This novel beckons conscientious and careful reading. I hope to ponder it with a small group intent on reflection, contemplation, and action.
-- Kathy Kelly, Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
The Book of Sins is continuously clever, playfully fun, and frightfully serious.
-- Mary Elizabeth Bickel, EdD, Catholic Action Network, St. Louis
Purchase at:
Via the web: http://thebookofsins.wordpress.com,
Via regular mail: Plain View Press, P.O. 42255, Austin, TX 78704.
Local independent and university book stores
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[86] comments (682 views)
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"I Couldn't Deny It Anymore" - Elsa Rassbach interviews U.S. Sergeant Matthis Chiroux |
| | | 4/14/09 | Afghanistan |
War resister Sgt. Matthis Chiroux on the US / NATO occupation of Afghanistan. More...
[61] comments (779 views)
| William Sieghart | The Times (of London) | 1/31/08 | |
Last week I was in Gaza. While I was there I met a group of 20 or so police officers who were undergoing a course in conflict management. They were eager to know whether foreigners felt safer since Hamas had taken over the Government? Indeed we did, we told them. Without doubt the past 18 months had seen a comparative calm on the streets of Gaza; no gunmen on the streets, no more kidnappings. They smiled with great pride and waved us goodbye.
Less than a week later all of these men were dead, killed by an Israeli rocket at a graduation ceremony. Were they “dangerous Hamas militant gunmen”? No, they were unarmed police officers, public servants killed not in a “militant training camp” but in the same police station in the middle of Gaza City that had been used by the British, the Israelis and Fatah during their periods of rule there.
This distinction is crucial because while the horrific scenes in Gaza and Israel play themselves out on our television screens, a war of words is being fought that is clouding our understanding of the realities on the ground...
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[72] comments (889 views)
| Phyllis Bennis | Institute for Policy Studies | 12/29/2008 | Palestine/Israel |
The death toll in Gaza continues to rise. The carnage is everywhere - city streets, a mosque, hospitals, police stations, a jail, a university bus stop, a plastics factory, a television station. It seems impossible, unacceptable, to step back to analyze the situation while bodies remain buried under the rubble, while parents continue to search for their missing children, while doctors continue to labor to stitch burned and broken bodies back together without sufficient medicine or equipment. The hospitals are running short even of electricity-the Israeli blockade has denied them fuel to run the generators. It is an ironic twist on the legacy of Israel's involvement in an earlier massacre - in the Sabra and Shatila camps, in Lebanon back in 1982, it was the Israeli soldiers who lit the flairs, lighting the night sky so their Lebanese allies could continue to kill.
But if we are serious about ending this carnage, this time, we have no choice but to try to analyze, try to figure out what caused this most recent massacre, how to stop it, and then how to continue our work to end the occupation, end Israel's apartheid policies, and change U.S. policy to one of justice and equality for all.
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The Israeli airstrikes represent serious violations of international law - including the Geneva Conventions and a range of international humanitarian law.
The U.S. is complicit in the Israeli violations - directly and indirectly.
The timing of the air strikes has far more to do with U.S. and Israeli politics than with protecting Israeli civilians.
This serious escalation will push back any chance of serious negotiations between the parties that might have been part of the Obama administration's plans.
There is much work to be done.
Read entire article here: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3994
[46] comments (760 views)
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Putin's Ruthless Gambit - The Bush Administration Falters in a Geopolitical Chess Match |
| Michael T. Klare | Tomdispatch.com | 9/2/08 | Empire/Intl Relations |
Many Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin's jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the age-old ethnic politics of southeastern Europe, with assorted minorities using contemporary border disputes to settle ancient scores.
Neither of these explanations is accurate. To fully grasp the recent upheavals in the Caucasus, it is necessary to view the conflict as but a minor skirmish in a far more significant geopolitical struggle between Moscow and Washington over the energy riches of the Caspian Sea basin -- with former Russian President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin emerging as the reigning Grand Master of geostrategic chess and the Bush team turning out to be middling amateurs, at best....
[53] comments (1175 views)
| William D. Hartung | Common Dreams | 8/15/08 | Empire/Intl Relations |
"Perhaps the most ironic statement yet in the war of words over Russia’s military intervention in Georgia was John McCain’s assertion that 'I’m interested in good relations between the United States and Russia, but in the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.' Too bad no one told the Bush administration that before it went into Iraq. With the situation changing by the hour, it’s hard to give an up-to-date analysis of the war in Georgia. But it is possible to talk a bit about the roots of the conflict, and what might be done going forward."
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2008/08/i-spent-good-deal-of-yesterday.html
[58] comments (1502 views)
| Patrick Schoenfelder | Bruce Gagnon's blog "Organizing Notes" | 8/13/08 | Empire/Intl Relations |
"I am convinced the U.S. wants to confront Russia militarily and if they can get someone else to do it then why not. It's the cold war strategy come back to life... Below is a really fine summary I read late last night that I wanted to share. I think it really lays out the key points in this whole situation."...
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2008/08/i-spent-good-deal-of-yesterday.html
[42] comments (1043 views)
| Tom Abeln | n/a | 7/28/08 | Politics |
in response to John McCain's call for Barack Obama to return to America and talk to the American people. More...
[34] comments (1032 views)
| Mike Owens | ksdk news channel 5 | 7/23/08 | St. Louis Area |
This is the type of network news that is exceedingly rare and immensely important and deserves feedback from the viewer to encourage more. Please call or email them and thank them and alert your friends.
[33] comments (1014 views)
| David Enders and Richard Rowley | Pulitzer Center | 7/18/08 | Iraq |
David and Richard are on the ground in Iraq outside of the Greenzone reporting on the conditions of the country. David was there before the war, during the first couple of years of the war, and is back again to give this first hand account of the differences in the lives of the Iraqis and the condition of the country, as a whole. This has been an ongoing blog examining the condition for several months. More...
[34] comments (1149 views)
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Letters from a Desperate Veteran part 1: A memorial service yet to be held |
| Cloy Richards | Grassroots America | 5/26/08 | Iraq |
I received two phone calls today. The calls had very similar messages in wording, yet totally different meanings to me. The first was from a fellow veteran and activist, asking that I "try to have a peaceful Memorial Day". The second was from my brother, wishing me "a happy Memorial Day". If you've read my poem "Survivor's Guilt" you already know that I find nothing "happy" about Memorial Day. I type this letter in the hope that I may find some kind of peace today.
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[20] comments (1249 views)
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Col. Ann Wright: Five years after government resignation, protester still fired up |
| Nick Lucchesi | blogs.riverfronttimes.com | 4/8/08 | Iraq |
Ann Wright, one of only three U.S. government officials to publicly resign over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was in St. Louis Tuesday night to speak with anti-war supporters at MokaBe's Coffeehouse and at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid Ave.
... An FBI translator noticed that her superiors were changing dialogue on transcripts of conversations between U.S. officials and Turks and Pakistanis about selling nuclear information. When she brought it to the attention of her bosses, she was fired.
Another former translator, this time in England, leaked secret information concerning alleged illegal activities by the U.S. government in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. She was criminally charged.
A naval lawyer based at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp released the names of prisoners being held there, after the military refused to provide any documentation. The lawyer served six months in prison.
These whistle-blowers and the stories of 22 others are chronicled in Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
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[28] comments (1119 views)
| Tom Coghlan | Telegraph.co.uk | 3/21/08 | Iran |
Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, has triggered speculation that he has been using a tour of the Middle East to prepare Iran's neighbours for a possible war with Tehran.
Mr Cheney, whose nine-day tour has included stops in Turkey, the Gulf and Afghanistan, insisted that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
"The important thing to keep in mind is the objective that we share with many of our friends in the region, and that is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be very destabilising for the entire area," Mr Cheney told ABC News before arriving in Kabul, the Afghan capital, after a visit to Oman.
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[21] comments (1043 views)
| Andrew Wimmer | counterpunch.org | 3/19/08 | Iraq |
Getting the Story Right: War Demands Its Due
By Andrew Wimmer
Anniversaries are a time for storytelling. Each year we are afforded an opportunity to expurgate, embellish, tweak. It is a kind of spring-cleaning for our collective psyche. Some bits of the narrative get swept away, allowing others to come into clearer focus. It is a time to tidy up, to get the story right.
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[21] comments (1171 views)
| Howard Zinn | The Progressive | 3/1/08 | The Movement |
There’s a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I’ve never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held—security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness” for working people.
Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: “Well, I’m writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can’t tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now.”
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[23] comments (1323 views)
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