Non Fiction Authors From The United States

"Modern humans appeared some 200,000 years ago. Human activity began to change Earth’s carbon balance roughly 200 years ago. Then, just a bit over twenty years ago, the World Wide Web created the potential for humans to communicate, think, and act as a planetary species with a collective awareness of the global impact of our presence."

"The challenge at hand goes far beyond making some adjustments to our economic policies and institutions. We must take the step to a new human civilization defined by a mature relationship to one another and Earth’s community of life."

"Establishment interests are gaming the political system. They support Democrats who blame corporations for our problems. They support Republicans who blame government. We the people line up on one side or the other and are so focused on the opposing party as villain, we fail to notice the extent to which corporate power and government power are unified in the cause of corporate rule, through the oligarchy’s control of money, markets, politics, and media."

"I call this system a “suicide” economy because it is systematically destroys the foundations of its own—and our—existence. Also known as capitalism, it is dedicated to what Pope Francis calls the idolatry or worship of money. The terminally destructive outcomes of the suicide economy are not acts of nature. They are the result of human choices. We can make different choices, but to do so we must understand where we went wrong and why."

"By contrast, the system now in place: Counts Ecosystem Destruction for Financial Gain as Wealth Creation: It values life only for its market value. And counts as wealth creation the depletion of Earth’s capacity to support life in order to grow the financial assets of those who already have financial assets far beyond any need. This assures both the systematic depletion of Earth’s capacity to support life and increasing control of what remains of that capacity by a tiny oligarchy.... Encourages and celebrates ever more excessive and wasteful consumption by the few while reducing the many to increasing desperation and exclusion from access to the essential means of living—including clean air to breath, water to drink, fertile soils to grow food, and a place to live....Limits Meaningful Participation in Rule Making to the Winners in a Rigged Game: A corporate dominated, money-driven political system puts the power to make the rules in the hands of those who profit from environmental destruction and economic exclusion, thus creating a positive feedback loop reinforcing political choices that assure ultimate system collapse."

"I call the next system economy a “living” economy, because its underlying design principles come from our understanding of healthy living systems."

"The goal is a new economic system that supports three essential and inseparable outcomes: Ecosystem Health and Balance: It must value life above all else and support individuals and communities in growing the generative capacity of Earth’s biosphere, while meeting human needs within the limits of that capacity. Shared Prosperity: It must support the sharing of resources to meet the essential needs of all people by securing their right of access to a means of living. Living Democracy: It must give each person an active voice in the decisions that affect his or her life, and support the just and nonviolent resolution of conflict through processes that are both inclusive and transparent."

"The current system failure is thousands of years in the making and touches on every aspect of society. There is no magic-bullet solution. Nor will marginal adjustments to the current self-destructive system suffice. We must reinvent our culture and our institutions from the bottom up. The observations I share in this report are the product of my life experience, much of it living and working in Africa, Asia, and Latin America..."

"For those of us who grew up believing that capitalism is the foundation of democracy and market freedom, it has been a rude awakening to realize that under capitalism, democracy is for sale to the highest bidder and the market is centrally planned by global megacorporations larger than most states."

"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy and the market economy."

"As power begets power and competition becomes more ruthless, the appetites of the wealthy become more extravagant and the excluded become more desperate. The growing gap erodes trust and institutional legitimacy, which in turn compels an ever greater diversion of resources to security measures — from car alarms and security guards to police and prisons."

"Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous shift in power from the institutions of the state to global corporations with economic resources far greater than those of most states and with a global reach that places them beyond accountability to any persons, place, or public institution. Through the processes of corporate globalization humanity is moving rapidly toward Empire’s ultimate goal of unifying the world’s people under a unified system of governance."

"Those who sit atop the resulting pyramids of power all too often use their favored positions for personal gain at expense of those less favored. It was true for the kings and emperors who ruled by divine right. It is true for many of the political elites who hold power by electoral mandate. And it is true for many corporate CEOs, as the Enron scandal revealed so dramatically."

"The defining agenda of the Era of Empire has centered on unifying the planet’s territory and resources under centralized institutions with the power to impose order in the name of peace and prosperity... Far from bringing universal peace and prosperity, however, the dark side of their legacy is a world of enormous inequality, violence, repression, and environmental destruction."

"Television has already been wholly colonized by corporate interests, which are now laying claim to our schools. The goal is not simply to sell products and strengthen the consumer culture. It is also to create a political culture that equates the corporate interest with the human interest in the public mind."

"There are more idealized definitions of capitalism, but I refer to the real capitalism—the kind we are living with. This capitalism is grounded in an elitist ideology of individualism supported by an institutional system devoted to the concentration and abuse of wealth for the exclusive benefit of a private ruling oligarchy. It is the capitalism that claims to champion democracy and markets even as it destroys them. The capitalism that claims to bring universal prosperity even while denying it to all but its most favored servants. The capitalism that destroys life to make money and organizes as a suicide economy that destroys the foundations of its own existence—and ours."

"In its literal meaning, capitalism means rule by capital, more specifically rule by the owners of capital for their exclusive private benefit."

"This month the Green New Deal was introduced in the U.S. Congress with much fanfare, and its opponents quickly mobilized. Opponents, both on the right and in the middle, immediately attacked the plan as unaffordable far-left socialist overreach, clearly hoping that the socialist label would scare people away. I’m sensing that for most of today’s electorate, the threat posed by wildfires, floods, mass extinctions, rising sea levels, and a shifting polar vortex is far more frightening than simplistic political labels. That’s especially the case for labels like “socialism” and “communism,” which date from a time that for many is ancient history. Our living spaceship is dying by our hand, and there are no escape capsules, and no place to go if there were. So people, especially the young, are mobilizing to act and to demand action from both government and business.., In the United States, the middle class is disappearing as the division between rich and poor becomes ever more extreme. It is now evident to most people that we face a desperate need for deep change. There may be no place in a viable human future for profit-driven global megacorporations."

"Success requires leadership from all levels of society, including from people everywhere working to grow community-facilitating cultural values, institutions, and infrastructure in the places where they live. Together we need to achieve four conditions critical to the transition... 1. Earth balance. We must reduce humanity’s total environmental burden to bring us into sustainable balance with the capacity of Earth’s generative systems. This requires immediate action... 2. Equitable distribution. We must achieve an equitable distribution of wealth and power. Immediate action is required to stop the further concentration of wealth while advancing equitable cooperative ownership... 3. Life-serving technologies. We must advance technologies that strengthen rather than impair life’s regenerative capacity. Immediate action is required to roll back use of harmful technologies, including the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture and our dependence on carbon and nuclear energy.... 4. Living communities. We must rebuild relationships of people to one another and to nature to create strong, healthy, deeply democratic living communities. This will involve reducing dependence on money while encouraging sharing and mutual self-help in the places where people live... It is time to unite as families, communities, and nations in our common identity as members of an ecological civilization, with a commitment to creating the possible world of our shared human dream."

"Around the world, people are realizing the current path will lead only to disaster, and they’re beginning to ask the hard questions about what to do next. We humans now have the knowledge and technology to move beyond the violence, fear, and daily struggle for survival that besets the lives of so many. We have the capacity to secure a world of peace, beauty, diversity, creativity, material sufficiency, and spiritual abundance for all people, and have all that in balance with Earth’s ecosystems. Achieving such a goal requires that we make this vision our common goal and transform our cultural narratives, institutions, and infrastructure accordingly—a steep but imperative challenge. Success requires leadership from all levels of society, including from people everywhere working to grow community-facilitating cultural values, institutions, and infrastructure in the places where they live."

"For all the advances of modern societies, traditional tribal communities may have better served the essential needs of people for emotional support, nutrition, and exercise than does contemporary society. We don’t need to return to the ways of our ancestors, but we do need to learn from them. What are those lessons? Instead of building more single-family dwellings, we should build multigenerational, multifamily homes in vibrant eco-villages that share facilities, tools, labor and resources. Instead of designing cities for self-driving, single-person cars, design them for walking, biking, and public transportation with lots of places for people to meet and greet, mix and mingle. Instead of growing an economy dependent on global movements of money, people, and goods to maximize profit uncoupled from place, create economies that bring people together to maximize health and well-being in the place where they live."

"Irrespective of where we fall on the political spectrum, a great many of us don’t trust our own political system. Nor should we: It represents power that is captive to interests quite at odds with our own. The biggest share of U.S. military expenditure goes to preparing for war with another world power—specifically, Russia or China... Both have much to lose and nothing to gain from starting a 20th century-style conventional war with the United States... They are aware such a war would have devastating consequences for all—worst of all if it involved nuclear weapons. Our problem is not that we and our allies are spending too little on war, but that we are spending far too much.... When two corrupt parties control the political system, debating which is the more corrupt simply diverts attention away from addressing the source of the corruption. In this case, the source is extreme inequality combined with a system of law that allows for a virtually unlimited concentration of corporate power...The corporate establishment has been winning this battle for decades by keeping us divided between those who place the blame on business and the market and those who place the blame on government... United we stand, divided we fall is a rallying cry for our time. We must do this together."

"Rats and mice, for example, tend spontaneously to develop a high incidence of tumors. This renders them unsuitable for detecting tumors. Still, no animals are used as often as rats and mice for assessing the effect of numerous experimental treatments upon the production of tumors. The reason is that they are inexpensive and take up little room."

"Arguments to the effect that it is wrong to cause pain and suffering to animals are often rejected by claiming that animals simply do not suffer. … Ironically, it is precisely upon the assumption that animals do suffer from stress, fear, and pain in a manner similar to humans that the validity of much of animal experimentation rests. Few, if any, conditions are studied as widely in animals as are pain, stress, ulcers, fear, and anxiety."

"One type of medical research involves ascertaining whether certain pathological conditions in humans can be alleviated or cured by certain drugs. Animals are used as "models" upon which to test these treatments. To do this it is necessary for the animal subject to have the condition in question, and in order to bring this about healthy animals are made sick. … It turns out, however, that the conditions artificially induced have little in common with the naturally occurring diseases in animals (when these exist) and much less in common with the diseases in man."

"Those experiments that cannot be justified on scientific grounds can be no more justified than the frivolous killing and torturing of animals. In fact they are even less capable of justification, since such experiments block more fruitful uses of scientific resources."

"The error in depicting critics of animal experiments as anti-science becomes clear when one begins to question the extent to which the purported scientific aims of these experiments are actually accomplished. For then it turns out that the experiments and not their critics are unscientific."

"Some people, many who profess to be yogis, argue that vegetarianism is not a healthful diet for everyone. We agree that vegetarianism is not for everybody; it is only for those who desire happiness and peace. It is definitely a must for those who are interested in enlightenment."

"The search for happiness is natural, because it is the constitutional position of the spirit soul to be eternally joyful. But our search for happiness in the external, physical world is always frustrated; we look everywhere, never realizing permanent pleasure. Temporary, relative pleasure is certainly here to be had, but it is always accompanied by its counterpart: pain. Those who are wise, then, look within, learning how to pursue not only the relative pleasure of this world but, more to the point, they focus on the higher pleasure of the spiritual realm."

"Just as the Bible teaches the Golden Rule — “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” — the Mahabharata (5.39.57), predating the Bible, teaches a similar truth, and in almost the exact same wording. Yogis and spiritual adepts in India extend the teaching to its logical limits, showing kindness to all species of life — and this, of course, means vegetarianism. It is hard to be kind to animals if you are eating them. In other words, if you don't want someone eating your entrails, don't eat the entrails of others."

"To become a vegan is by far the best way we have at this time in history to contribute to peace on Earth. Being a vegan in the world today is to be involved in a nonviolent, direct-action protest against cruelty and an affirmation of kindness."

"To be a joyful vegan in the world today is to become involved in the most radical, positive, political revolution ever. A fork can be a weapon of mass destruction or an instrument of peace. Everything a vegan eats or consumes reflects a choice that takes into account the well-being of others rather than just ourselves—and that is a big difference. Each one of us can make a huge difference by choosing not to eat animals. By choosing kindness over cruelty, we contribute to the sustainability of our planet Earth and can even change the destiny of our species and all the species on Earth."

"is a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings. Jivamukti is a Sanskrit word that means to live liberated in joyful, musical harmony with the Earth. The Earth does not belong to us—we belong to the Earth. Let us celebrate our connection to life by not enslaving animals and exploiting the Earth, and attain freedom and happiness for ourselves in the process. For surely, the best way to uplift our own lives is to do all we can to uplift the lives of others. Go vegan!"

"Yoga teaches that whatever we want in life we can have if we are willing to provide it for others. So if yogis want to be free, they understand that to deprive others of freedom will ultimately not benefit their project—to be free themselves. Following that logic, yogis abhor slavery and examine their own lives to find ways that they themselves might be condoning slavery and then eradicate those ways of acting. The fact is that animals who are raised for food are slaves. Making kind choices when it comes to the food we eat is one of the most basic ways to begin to ensure our own happiness and freedom. The cause for our own happiness, health, and freedom lies in how happy and free we can make the lives of others. The definition of others includes other animals."

"If yogis are to come to the realization of the interconnectedness of life, then we must free ourselves from the conditioning that has caused us to think it is all right to exclude all the other animals from our own goals of peace, freedom, and happiness. … By working to alleviate the suffering of animals you are working at the cause level of human suffering."

"When we have a choice it is always best to choose kindness. Veganism is simply the kinder choice."

"The ICE activity we are protesting is allegedly being directed by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Miller called a meeting of ICE officials last month and directed them to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens.” Not to target “the worst of the worst,” as the president had indicated. Not even to target criminals or gang members at all. But to roll up to a Home Depot where day laborers gather. To post up outside of a grammar school graduation in a neighborhood with a high percentage of undocumented residents. Just go and grab them and pull them away from their homes and their babies and their lives. Just lock them up. Now that’s what they’re doing. That’s what we’re protesting. And if it turns out their papers actually are in order, which it has more than a few times, then tough shit."

"It's our blood and bones And these whistles and phones Against Miller and Noem's dirty lies"

"Among the results of the backlash against the family-separation policy was the decision by David Glosser to speak out against his nephew Stephen Miller, sharing the history of his family's difficult journey to the United States in order to disprove the premises of the White House's approach to immigration. In 2018, he wrote in Politico about having "watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family's life in this country." "I had a unique platform from which to speak," Glosser told me. "I had no choice other than to reveal the truth to the background of our family and how it relates to the background of the architect of this catastrophe." Miller, for his part, sees his family's ancestral home of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, as having been harmed by "globalists" and the "owners of capital.""

"Trump’s rhetoric in his speeches to the military has been awful—he has ridiculed former commanders in chief, castigated sitting elected officials, and told the members of America’s armed forces that other Americans are their enemies. But his actions are worse. In deploying troops to American cities, he has set up a confrontation in which military commanders may soon have to choose between obeying the president and obeying the law. “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Judge Karin Immergut—a conservative Trump appointee—wrote last week when she blocked Trump’s attempt to send troops to Portland. The White House aide Stephen Miller likely foreshadowed Trump’s next moves, including possibly ignoring such rulings, when he lashed out at Immergut’s decision. Miller, a man who hates being called a fascist, made the fascistic accusation that a “large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country” is being “shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general.”"

"Kasmer described a young Miller as an “awkward, funny, needy middle child who loved to chase attention” but was “always the sweetest with the littlest family members.” She added that he was “young, conservative, maybe misguided, but lovable and harmless.” “People always ask me, ‘What happened to you?’ I don't have a clear answer," Kasmer continued in July. “I can only surmise it was a perfect storm of ego, fear, hate, and ambition-all of it mangled into something cruel and hollow, masquerading as strength. You were born into privilege, into safety, and wealth. And somehow, you've weaponized all of it.” Kasmer has also accused Miller of hypocrisy, criticizing him for leading the Trump administration's harsh immigration policies that take away the very opportunities that once helped his own family come to the U.S. and build a life. “We’re Jewish—we grew up knowing how hated we were just for existing,” Kasmer told The New Republic in December. “Now he’s trying to take away the exact thing that his own family benefited from: that ability to create a life for themselves, to prosper, to build community, to have successful businesses—to live a rewarding life.”"

"The cousin of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller accused him Thursday of being responsible for an ICE agent fatally shooting a woman in Minneapolis. “When I called out my cousin for being the ‘face of evil’ I DID NOT stutter,” Alisa Kasmer wrote on Threads, referencing a Facebook post she made last year. “Renee Nicole Good’s death is blood on YOUR hands, Stephen. I’m just glad our grandparents are no longer alive to witness the shame you have brought to our family,” Kasmer added. [...] Kasmer, who lives in Miller’s Los Angeles hometown, where there were major protests last summer over ICE raids, publicly blasted him on Facebook in July, recalling babysitting him as a child and describing him as once “lovable and harmless” but now someone she could no longer support or tolerate. “I grieve what you’ve become, Stephen… I will never knowingly let evil into my life, no matter whose blood it carries—including my own,” she wrote at the time."

"There’s a video that made the rounds in the early days of the first Trump administration, when Miller was a lower-level spokesghoul. It’s our boy as a Santa Monica High School student and worth taking a fresh look at now that we know he’s one of the architects of this ICE campaign of random terror. There he is. The sneer for which he’d come to be known is already fully formed. His beard is largely too embarrassed to have anything to do with his face. He’s got the general look of someone you’d see juggling outside of a Barenaked Ladies show because he’s afraid to go inside the Barenaked Ladies show because someone in there might be doing pot. He’s arguing for his right to leave his trash behind. And he seems to want to be cheered for it. Los Angeles is crazy vast. Santa Monica High School is 12 miles from where I sit writing. If I left right now, I’d be there in an hour. But do you know what’s one half of one mile, one ten-minute walk away, from Santa Monica High School? The beach. A really nice, clean, and well-maintained beach, as a matter of fact. Miller could have been taking a surf lesson, eating some Dippin’ Dots, or watching a majestic sunset over the Pacific Ocean. Instead, he’s sneering to a crowd about his right as a white person to leave his mess behind for a brown person to clean up."

"Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us."

"A high-nutrient diet will reduce your desire for high-calorie, low-nutrient foods. Within weeks, your taste buds will change, and you'll lose interest in the unhealthy foods you once thought you could never live without. You'll feel more satisfied eating fewer calories than you were eating before. The result is lasting health and permanent weight loss."

"When the ratio of nutrients to calories is high, fat melts away, and health is restored. The more nutrient-dense food you consume, the more you'll be satisfied with fewer calories, and the less you'll crave fat and high-calorie foods."

"As you begin to eat healthful, nutrient-dense foods, such as vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds, you flood your body with the vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that it so desperately needs. You will not only see immediate weight-loss benefits, your food preferences will also undergo a metamorphosis as you begin to crave health-supporting food instead of disease-causing food. The foods that once meant so much to you lose their appeal. And your bad emotionally based eating habits will start to disappear along with your waistline."

"A diet optimally designed for adult humans would naturally be ideal for the children of that species, too. There are no special needs children have that would make them require a different diet. Even at the time of rapid growth and brain development, the optimal supply of energy and essential fats can be met by an appropriately planned vegetarian or vegan diet."

"Whether you eat a vegetarian diet or you include a very small amount of animal foods, for optimal health you must get the majority of calories from unrefined plant food with a minimal amount of animal products. A large quantity of unrefined plant food grants the greatest protection against developing serious disease."

"There is considerable evidence that the lipoprotein abnormalities (high LDL and low HDL) that are linked to heart attack deaths in adulthood begin to develop in early childhood and that higher cholesterol levels eventually get “set” by early food habits. What we eat during our childhood affects our lifetime cholesterol levels. For many, changing the diet to a plant-based, low-saturated-fat diet in later life does not result in the favorable cholesterol levels that would have been seen if the dietary improvements were started much earlier in life."