Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I bought this book together with "The Good Fight" by Peter Beinart. While both books have their utility, neither is as good as Joe Klein in "Politics Lost." Waldman gets five stars to Beinart's four mostly because he is much more readable, has many useful tables including an analysis of the states where extremist Republicans as well as extremist Democrats are weak, and his book is generally focused on the left of center middle and the caring citizen as opposed to policy wonks that Beinart addresses in his book.
Page 111 is a very fine diagram of the issue columns that the Democratic Party simply does not address responsibly nor--a theme throughout the book--courageously. Over-all the book does a very fine job of defining the distinctions between conservatives and progressives, as well as the distinctions between what conservatives stand for and what they say, and what progressives stand for and do not say.
The author spends most of his time comparing conservatives to progressives (code for left of center liberals) which is something of a pity because he appears to have a very well developed sense of the issues and what the center and left-center can and should stand for.
There are two bottom lines in this book, and both of them make eminent sense to me:
1) Don't bring a knife to a gun-fight. The author points out in detail how inept and weak and unfocused the Democrats are at every stage of the political game beginning with high school and collage political clubs.
2) Stand for the public, for the individual taxpayer, for the blue-collar worker, the working poor, the lower middle class. The author stresses that this is a fight between those who respresent special interests and believe the government role is to liberate the marketplace (code for allow the looting of the Commonwealth) and those who should be representing the masses of individual workers and taxpayers.
The author takes a long view and believes that it will take a great deal of time to recover from the total abdication to the extremist Republicans. While this nice in principle, the book does not focus as well on what it will take to win over-whelmingly; for that we recommend Joe Klein's "Politics Lost." On the issues, Matthew Miller's "The Two-Percent Solution."
On a personal note, I would add that the author's focus on "Being Right is Not Enough" is perfectly consistent with my own view that "Vote Democratic Is Not Enough." Rove and Cheney have demonstrated, twice, that they can steal Presidential elections that are close--through Florida in 2000, through Ohio is 2004. Even if every liberal-progressive adopted the ideas in this book, they would not be enough. We need a multi-party focus on electoral reform and crushing the extremist Republican thieves (I am a moderate Republican), crushing the special interests, and restoring the Republic to the public---a Republic of, by, and for the People, not Corporations.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success

Click here for more information about Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success

Read More...

The Radicalism of the American Revolution Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I first read the work of Gordon Wood in graduate school a quarter century ago, especially his magnificent and massive 1972 book, "The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787." This study, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," is essentially a continuation of that earlier work, probing the intellectual underpinnings of the era. It, too, is a magnificent work and fully deserving of the Pulitzer Prize that it received. While covering some of the same ground as Bernard Bailyn's "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" (Harvard University Press, 1967), this book develops a more detailed, rigorous, and compelling portrait of a society transforming itself from one of feudal relationships to one predicated on republicanism, democracy, and market-driven capitalism.
At a fundamental level, Wood argues, the American Revolution was truly a radical episode in world history. He comments that "The republican revolution was the greatest utopian movement in American history. The revolutionaries aimed at nothing less than a reconstitution of American society. They hoped to destroy the bonds holding together the older monarchical society--kinship, patriarchy, and patronage--and to put in their place new social bonds of love, respect, and consent. They sought to construct a society and governments based on virtue and disinterested public leadership and to set in motion a moral government that would eventually be felt around the globe" (p. 229). They advocated ensuring equality as the first task of society; Wood calls this "the single most powerful and radical ideological force in all of American history" (p. 234). And all Americans, he argues, embraced the idea of equality as manifested in labor and accomplishment. He notes, "Perhaps nothing separated early-nineteenth-century Americans more from Europeans than their attitude toward labor and their egalitarian sense that everyone must participate in it" (p. 286).
Wood closes "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" with this, "No doubt the cost that America paid for this democracy was high--with its vulgarity, its materialism, its rootlessness, its anti-intellectualism. But there is no denying the wonder of it and the real earthly benefits it brought to the hitherto neglected and despised masses of common laboring people. The American Revolution created this democracy, and we are living with its consequences still" (p. 269).
Above all, Wood argues that ideas and ideological issues matter in the context of American history. Self-interest is very real, but ideas and ideals serve as powerful motivations for actions. This is a stunningly significant book that must be read by all who seek to understand the origins of the United States.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Radicalism of the American Revolution

Get 38% OFF

Click here for more information about The Radicalism of the American Revolution

Read More...

The First Amendment in Schools: A Guide from the First Amendment Center Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The First Amendment In Schools: A Guide From The First Amendment Center is the collaborative effort of Charles C. Haynes, Sam Chaltain, John E. Ferguson Jr., David L. Hudson Jr., and Oliver Thomas, and provides the reader with a straightforward and well-researched discussion of crucial important First Amendment rights which protects all citizens with freedom of speech and expression in America with specific reference to how this applies to public school issues, policies and concerns. Discussing 50 key legal cases, as well as the rights and responsibilities of educators and students, and offering information concerning more than 60 educational and advocacy programs and organizations providing First Amendment resources, The First Amendment In Schools is an excellent primer on this often controversial and occasionally misunderstood civil right.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The First Amendment in Schools: A Guide from the First Amendment Center

Get 50% OFF

Click here for more information about The First Amendment in Schools: A Guide from the First Amendment Center

Read More...