Wendell Potter, former Vice President of Communications at CIGNA, made national headlines in 2009 when he testified before a Senate panel, disclosing how profit-driven insurance companies engage in practices forcing millions of Americans into under-insured or uninsured status.

Since then he has worked tirelessly as an outspoken critic of corporate PR and the distortion and fear manufactured by the wealthy health insurance industry. It is a PR juggernaut that is bankrolled by millions of dollars, rivaling lobbying budgets and underwriting many “non-partisan” and “grassroots” organizations. His book, Deadly Spin, is not just an expose of health insurers but a stark warning that corporate spin is distorting our democracy.

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Wendell is currently a senior analyst at the The Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan nonprofit that produces original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern; the senior fellow on health care for the Center for Media and Democracy, an independent, non-partisan public interest organization; and speaks out on both the need for a fundamental overhaul of the American health care system and on the dangers to American democracy and society of the decline of the media as watchdog, which has contributed to the growing and increasingly unchecked influence of corporate PR. He also serves as a consumer liaison representative for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

In widely covered testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee in June of 2009, Wendell disclosed how insurance companies, as part of their efforts to boost profits, have engaged in practices that have resulted in millions of Americans being forced into the ranks of the uninsured. Wendell also described how the insurance industry has developed and implemented strategic communications plans, based on deceptive public relations, advertising and lobbying efforts, to defeat reform initiatives.

Since then Wendell has testified before two House committees, briefed several members of Congress and their staffs, appeared with members of Congress at several press conferences, spoken at more than 100 public forums, and has been the subject of numerous articles in the U.S. and foreign media.

Editor Alia Malek in conversation with Karen Korematsu

On September 20th, 2011, City Lights welcomed Alia Malek and Karen Korematsu to discuss the new book: Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice published by Voices of Witness (a nonprofit division of McSweeney’s Books).

A groundbreaking collection of oral histories, Patriot Acts tells the stories of men and women who have been needlessly swept up in the War on Terror. In their own words, narrators recount personal experiences of the post-9/11 backlash that have deeply altered their lives and communities. The eighth book in the Voice of Witness series, Patriot Acts illuminates these experiences in a compelling collection of eighteen oral histories from men and women who have found themselves subject to a wide range of human and civil rights abuses—from rendition and torture, to workplace discrimination, bullying, FBI surveillance and harassment.

Alia Malek is an author and a civil rights lawyer. Born in Baltimore to Syrian immigrant parents, her reportage has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Salon, The Christian Science Monitor, The Columbia Journalism Review, and WashingtonPost.com. Her first book was A Country Called Amreeka.

Karen Korematsu is the founder of the Fred Korematsu Civil Rights Fund, sponsored by ALC. She is the daughter of Fred Korematsu, who challenged the internment orders during WWII. Mrs. Korematsu-Haigh shares her father’s passion for social justice and continues to help support the new Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education at the Asian Law Caucus in development and outreach.

John Gibler reads from To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War

In conjunction with Global Exchange, John Gibler visited City Lights Bookstore on June 15th, 2011 to read and talk about his new book, To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War.

Combining on the ground reporting and in-depth discussions with people on the front lines of Mexico’s drug war, To Die in Mexico tells behind-the scenes-stories that address the causes and consequences of Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar drug-trafficking business.

Gibler tells the hair raising stories of a Mexican journalist kidnapped, interrogated and threatened with death by the Gulf Cartel before being miraculously released; family members of people killed in the conflict; survivors of assassination attempts and massacres; along with crime-beat photographers, funeral parlor workers, government officials, convicted traffickers, cab drivers and others who find themselves working against, with, or for the drug cartels.

Gibler sees beyond the cops-and-robbers myths that pervade government and media portrayals of the unprecedented wave of violence and looks to the people of Mexico for solutions to the crisis now pushing Mexico to the breaking point.

John Gibler is a writer based in Mexico and California, the author of Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt (City Lights Books, 2009), and a contributor to País de muertos: Crónicas contra la impunidad (Random House Mondadori, 2011). He is a correspondent for KPFA in San Francisco and has published in magazines in the United States and Mexico, including Left Turn, Z Magazine, Earth Island Journal, ColorLines, Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Fifth Estate, New Politics, In These Times, Yes! Magazine, Contralínea, and Milenio Semanal.

Credit: Ellsberg.net

Daniel Ellsberg, legendary whistleblower and the man responsible for releasing the top secret “Pentagon Papers,” discusses Howard Zinn’s recently released “The Bomb,” published by City Lights.

As an active WWII bombardier returning from the end of the war in Europe and preparing for combat in Japan, Howard Zinn read the headline “Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan” and was glad—the war would be over. “Like other Americans,” writes Zinn, “I had no idea what was going on at the higher levels, and had no idea what that ‘atomic bomb’ had done to men, women, children in Hiroshima, any more than I ever really understood what the bombs I dropped on European cities were doing to human flesh and blood.” During the war, Zinn had taken part in the aerial bombing of Royan, France, and in 1966, he went to Hiroshima, where he was invited to a “house of rest” where survivors of the bombing gathered. In this short and powerful book, the backstory of the making and use of the bomb, Zinn offers his deep personal reflections and political analysis of these events, and the profound influence they had in transforming him from an order-taking combat soldier to one of our greatest anti-authoritarian, anti-war historians.

Simultaneous publication this August in the U.S. and Japan commemorates the 65th anniversary of the USA’s two atomic bombings of Japan by calling for the abolition of all nuclear weapons and an end to war as an acceptable solution to human conflict.

Jeffrey Haas discusses The Assassination Of Fred Hampton from Lawrence Hill Books

The Assassination of Fred Hampton is Jeffrey Haas’s personal account of how he and People’s Law Office partner Flint Taylor pursued Fred Hampton’s assassins, ultimately prevailing over unlimited government resources and FBI conspiracy. Not only a story of justice delivered, the book puts Fred Hampton in a new light as a dynamic community leader and an inspiration in the fight against injustice.

praise for the book:

“A riveting account of the assassination, the plot behind it, the attempted cover-up, the denouement and the lessons that we should draw from this shocking tale of government iniquity.”  —Noam Chomsky, author and political activist

“A remarkable work.”  —Studs Terkel

“A true crime story and legal thriller, this powerful account puts together all the pieces, step by step, giving us the anatomy of a despicable episode in recent American history. The writing is clear and straightforward; the overall impact devastating.” —Phillip Lopate, author of Getting Personal

“This is an extremely important book–and a tale well told–for America to read if it wants to become what it says it has always been—the land of the free and the home of the brave.”  —Ramsey Clark, lawyer and former United States Attorney General

Jeffrey Haas is an attorney and cofounder of the People’s Law Office, whose clients included the Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society, community activists, and a large number of those opposed to the Vietnam War. He has handled cases involving prisoners’ rights, Puerto Rican nationalists, protestors opposed to human rights violations in Central America, police torture, and the wrongfully accused.

Elaine Elinson

Wherever There’s a Fight captures the sweeping story of how freedom and equality have grown in California, from the gold rush right up to the precarious post-9/11 era. The book tells the stories of the brave individuals who have stood up for their rights in the face of social hostility, physical violence, economic hardship, and political stonewalling.