Book cover illustration by Richard Cole
Unofficial Occupy Slogan/Internet Meme Come to Life
Brenton Lengel -- World News Trust
Feb. 19, 2015
I think everyone can agree we live in a really messed up world.
It’s been nearly four years since a handful of anarchists, progressive activists, social democrats, and other such malcontents like myself sat down in a park and demanded to be heard -- and heard we were -- and four years later I’m still not sure how to feel about the response.
Too often, activists are seen purely as critics of the social order, and like every other radical movement, Occupy Wall Street was accused from its very inception as being generalized outrage with no unified solution or voice -- all bluster and rage, but no plan of action.
Enter Mickey Z. and Occupy this Book. In the grand tradition of social radicals like the late, great Abbie Hoffman, from whose seminal work, Steal this Book, the author draws from and pays homage to, Mickey Z. uses wit and humor and a healthy dose of pragmatic compassion to draw attention to real-life social problems. Better yet, he provides a series of realistic grounded solutions and, perhaps more importantly, a lens through which we can acknowledge the gravity of what we’re facing yet still find a way to carry on with our lives.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from activism, it’s that idealists, both young and old, can become paralyzed by the sheer enormity of the problems before us: environmental devastation, racial and gender oppression, war and militarism, social inequality, political dysfunction, and animal cruelty. Occupy this Book provides a compassionate, digestible framework that challenges the reader to see these things, take a deep breath, and find their own way forward.
If the author will forgive me a metaphor -- Occupy this Book will teach the reader to see the entire swamp, but still shoot the alligators closest to the boat. Though, of course, Mickey would say you probably shouldn’t shoot alligators at all, and that’s the beauty of what he’s put on the page.
Occupy this Book is a worthy successor in a grand tradition of radical texts, to be enjoyed and utilized by activists who are just now becoming aware of these problems as well as by grizzled veterans who need to re-center and re-evaluate their tactics and perspectives. It is a breath of fresh air in a world which is too often dour, dogmatic, and prescriptive.
Brenton Lengel
Activist, Yippie, Anarchist
Host of Insurrection with Brenton Lengel
Star Com Media LLC.
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Buy these books by Mickey Z. here:
Occupy this Book: Mickey Z. on Activism A Q&A guide to becoming an activist by a leader in the Occupy movement in New York City. Full of insights into what it takes to be an activist, accompanied by quirky toons by Richard Cole, Mickey Z. advocates saving our world from the tyranny of global environmental disaster, animal abuses, war profiteering and the abuses of government against its citizens. Occupy this Book is a daily reminder of how to stay in the movement and to stay in top shape as an activist. Buy Now: | A Darker Shade of Green J.T. is a sensitive but privileged 12-year-old who s runaway to New York City. He soon comes under the guidance of Allie Romano, a homeless man who stays afloat by challenging people to chess and scamming book clubs for free books to sell. Allie quickly becomes a teacher and mentor for J.T. setting off a chain of events that just might explain how an American chess champion could wind up wanted by the FBI for eco-terrorism. Told in a documentary style, this manifesto/expose weaves internet posts, diary entries, quotes and interviews to tell stories within stories. The reader, much like J.T., has a lot to learn. Award winning author Mickey Z. brings an unrelenting compassion to the troubles of our modern world, pointing us in one clear direction: It s time to embrace a darker shade of green. Buy Now: | Dear Vito James Hemming is a personal trainer who, in his spare time, enters air guitar contests mimicking Vito Bratta of the old hair metal band, White Lion. He meets the waif-like Indigo at the gym and recruits her into a plot to make himself famous while resurrecting Vito's legend. The tale unfolds through a pasticcio of flashbacks, diary entries, letters to Vito, and related vignettes that suddenly segue off to introduce back-stories, underlying themes, and other unexpected intersections. It's funny, quirky, perverted, and guaranteed to provoke a response. Buy Now: |
Self Defense for Radicals Radicals, feminists, environmentalists, activists for animal rights, human rights, civil rights--there are plenty of rebels and dissidents putting their safety on the line for what they believe in. Conversely, there's never been a shortage of reactionaries seeking to repress such vision and passion, often turning peaceful demonstrations into violent clashes in the process. This guide gets readers off and running in the right direction. From eye gouges to groin punches, they'll find a powerful collection of tactics which they can use to fight back. Buy Now: | No Innocent Bystanders: Riding Shotgun in the Land of Denial No Innocent Bystanders is a manifesto in fractals. Transcending labels and political parties, it gets to the heart of our planet's rapid decline using a blend of facts, humor, vignettes, and relevant quotes and lists. On the liner notes for The Freewheelin Bob Dylan album, it s stated that the song A Hard Rain s A-Gonna Fall was written during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. A desperate kind of song, Dylan called it. Every line in it is actually the start of a whole song, he explained. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn t have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one. No Innocent Bystanders has been created in that spirit. Buy Now: | CPR for Dummies The world is creeping towards destruction--no, not theoretically--it's really happening. In these last hours will humanity come together to correct their collective wrongs? Or will there be rampant beatings and kinky sex? A group of strangers are brought together by synchronicity to answer the age-old question: you lookin' at me, punk? The answer entails the comeuppance of the rich, police brutality, aerobic instruction by the Messiah, sexual slavery, and mutating genes.(Is this sounding good? I hope so. It's not easy writing these. I'm just a corporate monkey trying to snag your hard-earned dollars but don't let that get in the way of buying this book. Did I mention SEX yet?)Author Mickey Z's experimental tour-de-force is a funny, challenging deconstruction of the concept of the "novel" as well as life in the United States of America. Buy Now: |
50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism As new book. In this invaluable reference guide, you'll find 50 reasons to be a proud, progressive patriot, including: Thomas Paine fueling the revolutionary fire with common sense. Emma Goldman spreading anarchy in the USA; Eugene Debs running for president from his prison cell. etc. Buy Now: | A Gigantic Mistake Articles & Essays for Your Intellectual Self-Defense. Includes an anti-introduction by Howard Zinn. Buy Now: | The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda An essential guide to finding the truth hidden behind the lies. Buy Now: |
The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet Looking back on their lives, people often ask themselves "Where did the years go?" "The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet provides a wide ranges of provocative answers to that question. Edited in the style of a documentary, "The Murdering of My Years is a compendium of stories by activists and artists about how they manage to get by in America. They talk about the jobs they've had (as cabbies, organizers, waitresses, clerks, drivers taking scabs to secret scab trainings, telemarketers, etc.), how they were initially politicized, the nature of their art, and how they feel about working (or resistance to working) in a political context. The stories range from the absurd to the heartbreaking, from the exciting and strange to the depressingly banal. The book examines the pain, disillusionment, and fundamental hopelessness that afflict many workers. It also tells stories or triumph, joy, and subversion in the workplace. Buy Now: | Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of the "Good War" Saving Private Power questions the ultra-patriotic assumptions we have been taught since birth. The U.S. did not enter WWII to end the Holocaust, to make the world a safer place, or to stop fascism. The opposite is true. The U.S. business class traded with Hitler and Mussolini up to and even during the war. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh's public Hitlerphilia were symbolic of big business's admiration for Hitler's anticommunism. Using techniques gleaned from modern advertising, the U.S. Office of War Information injected anti-Japanese bloodlust and hysteria into the population. When the U.S. killed 672,000 Japanese through indiscriminate bombing, even Secretary of War Henry Stimson wondered why "there has never been a protest over...such extraordinarily heavy loss of life. There is something wrong with a country where no one questions that". Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation are cashing in on the revived interest in World War II. But time's up for the trafficers of cheap nostalgia. The media elite have sold us the myth about the U.S.'s noble role in the "Good War" for too long and the facade is beginning to crack. The recent release of John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope is only the beginning. Saving Private Power digs deeper, to find the truth about the this war and the world it left in its wake. Buy Now: | |