"These are times for despair over the suffering that the U.S. military has inflicted on people in Iraq and elsewhere. But these are also times for rejoicing over the budding global movement for peace and justice that is challenging U.S. militarism. And these are times for educating ourselves so we can build our movement with intelligence and foresight. POWER TRIP gives us the critical road map we need to understand where those in power would like to take us, and how we can veer off that dangerous course to build a kinder, gentler nation and planet."
—MEDEA BENJAMIN, cofounder of Global Exchange and Code Pink: Women for Peace

"POWER TRIP is an important book. It provides an insightful analysis of the evolution, execution, and potential repercussions of the Bush administration’s hard-line foreign policy doctrine since September 11th. It examines how the U.S. is losing its moral standing in the world and squandering international sympathy created in the wake of 9/11. This book warns readers that the Bush administration’s imprudent policies today could make our country less safe in the future."
—CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH (D-Ohio)

"Finally, here’s a book which demonstrates authoritatively that a foreign policy based on the American values of fairness, compassion, and justice is a policy that best serves the interests of America. It’s beautiful to see that what’s good for our hearts is also good for our wallets and security."
—BEN COHEN, cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s and president of TrueMajority.org

"The current team in Washington is acting like fanatics, tearing up treaties and ignoring old alliances in pursuit of a new and dangerous doctrine of preemption. Every day in Washington, spineless politicians marching in lockstep with their “special interest” patrons auction off our national interest to the highest bidder. As a result, our government by, for, and of the people is going, going, gone! POWER TRIP powerfully details this sorry state of affairs and, even more importantly, “suggests what we can all do to start moving America back in the right direction."
—ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, author of Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America

REVIEW FROM THE PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Review of John Feffer's "Power Trip" John Feffer, ed., Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Strategy After September 11, Seven Stories Press, New York, 2002, 254 pp. I really like this book. It is part of an encouraging, broader trend among American progressives to better present, market, and articulate their ideas and policies so that ordinary Americans might actually understand and appreciate them. Power Trip is a collection of short essays by some of the best American writers and analysts on the left including Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Klare, Bill Hartung and others who will be familiar to PSR members from conferences, coalitions, and the pages of journals like The Nation. In fact, the authors are affiliated with Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. Power Trip is edited by John Feffer, a former Scoville Peace Fellow and rising, prolific young progressive analyst. It is presumably his hand that has made a collection of essays seem as if it were written by a single, lucid, highly readable and jargon-free author. That is what makes this small volume so ideal for busy people, policy makers, journalists, or young people new to left analysis and other moderns who want or need a coherent overview of the Bush Administration's ideology, grand strategy, and reckless tactics. For PSR members, there is not a lot new here, though sections on economics or Central Asia may be. Rather it is the comprehensive, coherent set of explanations for preemptive war, new nuclear weapons, rising military spending, attacks on the UN and other international institutions and treaties that makes Power Trip worth buying and giving out like candy to friends, relatives, and at least moderately persuadable policy makers. I even love the cover, which features an attractive, close, full color photo of George W. Bush chopping wood in light snow fall. The President looks either handsome, virile, and All-American (the Marlboro Man sans cigarettes) or, depending on your visceral response to Bush, like an axe murderer. In either case, browsers lucky enough to find Power Trip in their local bookstore will stop, look and pick up the book. They won't be repulsed by 1930's style left graphics with woodcut workers and stenciled fists or by ecologically and politically correct covers designed to be eaten when finished and which appear to be made from oat bran. So grab Power Trip. And if you can't find it and that smashing Bush photo, go to Amazon.com through our web site and we'll end up with a portion of proceeds. Enough said.

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A concise dissection of the new U.S. unilateralism, Power Trip is the first book-length critique of this fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy to consolidate and extend U.S. global control. Charting the new terrain of foreign policy after September 11 and demonstrating how the Bush administration is building on the policies of its successors, here are Barbara Ehrenreich, William Hartung, Ahmed Rashid, Michael Ratner, Noy Thrupkaew, Coletta Youngers, Mark Weisbrot, and their contemporaries with new essays on
* the new military strategy of the Bush administration and its preoccupation with controlling access to natural resources
* the “Axis of Evil” targets of the war on terrorism
* the cultural arm of the new unilateralism, from propaganda to Hollywood movies
* the domestic impact of post–September 11 policies on spending priorities and civil liberties
* the probable consequences of international critical response to the new U.S. policies
* appropriate alternatives to current U.S. policies. Power Trip will include charts, maps, and tables that identify the targets of U.S. operations, the scale of military spending, and the sources of U.S. energy.

John Feffer is the author of Beyond Detente: Soviet Foreign Policy and U.S. Options (Hill & Wang, 1990) and Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions (South End Press, 1992).