Amazon.com
The first question many people ask when hearing of a new book from Al Gore is, "Is it about the environment?" The answer is yes, but it's not (or, rather, not only) the kind of environment he wrote about in Earth in the Balance and of course painted such a vivid picture of in his Oscar-winning documentary (and companion book), An Inconvenient Truth. It's the political environment he's concerned about in The Assault on Reason: the way we debate and decide on the critical issues of the day. In an account that balances theoretical discussion of the foundations of democracy with a lacerating critique of the Bush administration, Gore argues that the marketplace of reasoned debate our country was founded on is being endangered by a variety of allied forces: the use of fear and the misuse of faith, the distractions of our entertainment culture, and the concentrations of power in the national media and the executive branch. In his essay and answers to our questions below, he introduces the crisis he sees, as well as the opportunity for its solution he envisions in the open forums of the Internet.
A Message from Al Gore to Amazon.com Readers
I've dedicated my book, The Assault on Reason, to my father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., the bravest politician I've ever known. In the 1970 mid-term elections, President Richard Nixon relied on a campaign of fear to consolidate his power. I was in the military at the time, on my way to Vietnam as an army journalist, and I watched as my father was accused of being unpatriotic because he was steadfast in his opposition to the War--and as he was labeled an atheist because he dared to oppose a constitutional amendment to foster government-sponsored prayer in the public schools. The 1970 campaign is now regarded by political historians as a watershed, marking a sharp decline in the tone of our national discourse--a decline that has only worsened in recent years as fear has become a more powerful political tool than trust, public consumption of entertainment has dramatically surpassed that of serious news, and blind faith has proven more potent than truth.
We are at a pivotal moment in American democracy. The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, has reached levels that were previously unimaginable. It's too easy and too partisan to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes.
Reasoned, focused discourse is vital to our democracy to ensure a well-informed citizenry. But this is difficult in an environment in which we are experiencing a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time--from the O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson trials to Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith.
Never has it been more vital for us to face the reality of our long-term challenges, from the climate crisis to the war in Iraq to the deficits and health and social welfare. Today, reason is under assault by forces using sophisticated techniques such as propaganda, psychology, and electronic mass media. Yet, democracy's advocates are beginning to use their own sophisticated techniques: the Internet, online organizing, blogs, and wikis. Although the challenges we face are great, I am more confident than ever before that democracy will prevail and that the American people are rising to the challenge of reinvigorating self-government. It is my great hope that those who read my book will choose to become part of a new movement to rekindle the true spirit of America.
Questions for Al Gore
Amazon.com:Of all I've read and seen on climate change, I don't think anything has had quite the impact on me that those vivid maps of shrinking coastlines did in An Inconvenient Truth. You've spent years trying to communicate the threat of climate change and you've learned how to use compelling images to tell that story, but in this book you're very wary of the power of visual images to overwhelm reason with fear. How do you spur people to action in a crisis like this without using fear?
Gore: I often open the slideshow by talking about the "climate crisis." The English meaning of the word "crisis" conveys alarm, but the Chinese and Japanese expressions use two characters together: the first means danger, but the second means opportunity. The animations do help to convey some of that sense of danger--but the opportunities are enormous. We are beginning to see companies taking advantage of the new markets that are emerging as they innovate and put to market the technologies that we need to solve this crisis. Some have become ubiquitous, like the hybrid electric engine and compact fluorescent light bulb. There are thousands of opportunities like this all around us if governments will show the type of bold leadership that we need--and work with industry to exploit these opportunities.
Amazon.com: You describe two problems with television culture: it's a top-down system in which, as you say, "Individuals receive, but they cannot send," and its physiological vividness allows it to bypass our reason. The user-created communities that seem so promising on the Internet would seem to solve the first problem, but what about the second?
Gore: There are a number of barriers for individuals who want to communicate over TV. The major networks won't give average Americans a voice, and it is virtually impossible to start a channel. One solution, that I have worked on with my partner, Joel Hyatt, is the creation of Current TV, where viewers can submit content over the Internet to air on the channel.
With regards to the Internet, anyone with access to a computer and broadband can create a website or blog and post content. They can send information into the public forum. Of course, we need to continue to work to bridge the digital divide, to ensure that we expand the access of people to the Internet, but the threshold for entry is much lower than that of television.
Amazon.com: You're the chairman of Current TV, the interactive cable channel aimed at young people. Can you talk about the challenges of constructing a platform where the kind of substantive dialogue you are looking for can take place?
Gore: One of the things I talk about in the book is infotainment--the "well-amused" audience that is bombarded with the latest programming about O.J. Simpson, or JonBenet Ramsey, or Anna Nicole Smith. What we are trying to do, in part, is to provide a public forum for viewers to submit content about issues of concern to them. And they have, by the thousands, on issues from the war in Iraq to the environment to education and others. I am continually amazed by both the quality of the submissions and the breadth and depth of the subject matter.
Amazon.com: You have a chapter on the importance of checks and balances in government (in a sense, that's what the whole book is about), and we're seeing the effect that active oversight from Congress is having right now. For most of your eight years in office, you and Bill Clinton had to work with a Republican Congress. I'm sure that at times (say, 1998) that had its frustrations, but do you think it was valuable to have that balance, or did it prevent you from doing what you came into office to do?
Gore: Checks and balances are vital to the functioning of our system of government. Of course it can have its frustrations, but the Founders intended that we have a system whereby no one branch has too much control over the others. Ultimately, it is up to voters to decide the control of Congress and the White House and then for elected officials to work to serve the public interest and to try to implement policies that serve the country. These are core values that are at the heart of who we are as a nation.
Amazon.com: I wanted to ask about the Office of the Vice President. I think it's safe to say that the last two vice presidents, you and Dick Cheney, have been the most powerful and influential in our history. Why do you think that is?
Gore: I think the answer is very different in the two administrations, but in a world that is truly globalized, with a broader information ecology, with challenges ranging from a more complex system of international issues ranging from the climate crisis to asymmetric attacks, it is not a surprise that a President might choose to draw upon more advice from the office of the vice president than in the past. This is a trend that I would expect to continue under future presidents, as the range of the demands on the presidency will not diminish over time.
Book Description
A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degration of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason
At the time George W. Bush ordered American forces to invade Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11. Voters in Ohio, when asked by pollsters to list what stuck in their minds about the campaign, most frequently named two Bush television ads that played to fears of terrorism.
We live in an age when the thirty-second television spot is the most powerful force shaping the electorate's thinking, and America is in the hands of an administration less interested than any previous administration in sharing the truth with the citizenry. Related to this and of even greater concern is this administration's disinterest in the process by which the truth is ascertained, the tenets of fact-based reasoning-first among them an embrace of open inquiry in which unexpected and even inconvenient facts can lead to unexpected conclusions.
How did we get here? How much damage has been done to the functioning of our democracy and its role as steward of our security? Never has there been a worse time for us to lose the capacity to face the reality of our long-term challenges, from national security to the economy, from issues of health and social welfare to the environment. As The Assault on Reason shows us, we have precious little time to waste.
Gore's larger goal in this book is to explain how the public sphere itself has evolved into a place hospitable to reason's enemies, to make us more aware of the forces at work on our own minds, and to lead us to an understanding of what we can do, individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason and safeguard our future. Drawing on a life's work in politics as well as on the work of experts across a broad range of disciplines, Al Gore has written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for clear thinking.
Customer Reviews:
Wrong title.......2007-10-09
The title should have been "The Assault on the Bush Administration." I like Al Gore and most of his beliefs. I also agree that the Bush administration is poor to say the least. But this book goes way too far for the title. I got to the point that I could not even finish reading it because it was no longer about "reason" but about proving that Bush should not be in office. Even though I agree with that, the title does not tell the audience that that is what the book is about. In less you want to just spend time reading about how Bush and his people are so bad for America, and not about reason, then don't waste your time.
Good ideas but a socialist agenda .......2007-10-08
The tome starts well with excellent commentary on current politics. Unfortunately, it clearly illustrates what social circles Mr. Gore thrives. The strident complaining about the unfair treatment of the left is amazing. At times, I thought I was reading a Richard Nixon book after he was forced to resign. One of the problems Gore has is Bush is so close to him in thinking despite the philosophical differences. He blunders on and on about how bad Republicans are yet his own party does exactly the same thing when in power. Despite the early pious quotes, his socialist agenda comes clearly through. Many problems are cited but no real solutions except government ones. I recommend the book to see how elite leftist views the "unfair" world.
OH MY GOD!......You Gotta Read This!.......2007-10-08
Loved It.......This book makes you question authority, especially what has been going on for the past 6 1/2 years.....Tis book will make you mad, and you will want to write a letter to your public officials....some of the information will make you sick to your stomach: why does this current President let these things happen....WOW...
thought provoking.......2007-10-04
I'd like to ask all the candidates whether they have read this book, carefully. (The right answer would be "yes". It is like a college course, with so many ideas that it is a slow read, but it is worth the effort. I almost didn't read it because of a negative David Brooks column, but he is quite wrong in dismissing this book.
Great Book for Our Times; A Must Read!.......2007-10-03
In "the Assault on Reason," Al Gore clearly and successfully identifies the core battle between Faith and Reason going on currently within the United States politically and culturally.
Book Description
“It’s hard to imagine any American reading this book and not seeing his country in a new, and deeply troubling, light.”—The New York Times Book Review
The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against “failed states” around the globe. In this much-anticipated follow-up to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, showing how the United States itself shares features with other failed states—suffering from a severe “democratic deficit,” eschewing domestic and international law, and adopting policies that increasingly endanger its own citizens and the world. Exploring the latest developments in U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Chomsky reveals Washington’s plans to further militarize the planet, greatly increasing the risks of nuclear war. He also assesses the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; documents Washington’s self-exemption from international norms, including the Geneva conventions and the Kyoto Protocol; and examines how the U.S. electoral system is designed to eliminate genuine political alternatives, impeding any meaningful democracy.
Forceful, lucid, and meticulously documented, Failed States offers a comprehensive analysis of a global superpower that has long claimed the right to reshape other nations while its own democratic institutions are in severe crisis. Systematically dismantling the United States’ pretense of being the world’s arbiter of democracy, Failed States is Chomsky’s most focused—and urgent—critique to date.
Customer Reviews:
Very good analysis of the catastrophic U.S. foreign policy.......2007-09-19
This is my first Chomsky book. It is quite clear he is an academic and able to say the same thing in different ways (at least through out the first half of the book) but the context is nevertheless good and important- as a nation, we are "bullies" and it is ok for us to break laws but not for everyone else. He gives specific examples like treaties that have been violated and UN resolutions that we vetoed and violated too in order to protect and pursue our national security interests. And given the new generation of politicians- neoliberals and neoconservatives- it is nothing new when it comes to the Iraq War- It's all in the name of national security. We really don't care about democracy in the Middle East only that our thirst for oil is met.
The second part of the the book he clarifies the context and the meaning of the failed states. He delineates several examples after World War II in which we meddled into foreign country affairs and created "failed states"- from countries in Central America, South America, and the Middle East. Now because of our corrupt, immoral, and greedy influence, we are now more than ever looking like a failed state.
I thought he made several very good points but it was nothing new to me given that I have already read various books relating to U.S. foreign policy already. The only criticism I had was that it seemed redundant at times. Overall though, very good and recommended.
The bias of a Chompsky.......2007-09-10
Mr. Chompsky never fails me. Whenever I want to read something that makes me dislike America, I can count on Noam. His failure to be honest in this book is apparent from about page 5 onward. His positive reviews are pretty much canned and produced by the Jim Jomes style followers he courts on college campuses. I give this book only 2 stars. One star because he uses a few big words and another star because in actually writing a book and marketing it, he is contributing to capitalism. Other than that, his rhetoric is tedous.
FAILED STATES: THE ABUSE OF POWER AND THE ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY.......2007-08-31
THIS WELL-RESPECTED AUTHOR HAS DONE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE A GREAT FAVOR WITH THIS EASILY READ, WELL DOCUMENTED BOOK. TO ADMIT THAT WE, AS AMERICANS, HAVE INDULGED IN AND ALLOWED SUCH ABUSES OF POWER IS HUMILIATING. BUT WITH THIS AWARENESS, THERE IS HOPE WE CAN CHANGE COURSE AND MOVE AWAY FROM BEING A "FAILED STATE."
Great.......2007-08-06
Well researched, well thought out. Another fine book. I will use it with my history students.
an uneasy reality.......2007-07-21
Reading Chomsky is like being sprayed in the face with a garden hose. Just as there is no question that you are now soaking wet, there is no question about what our country has become. Noam Chomsky is an excellent author who manages to get his point across with a good dose of truth and factual evidence. There is no denying what he says and it makes you fear the path our nation's leaders have chosen despite the wishes of the citizens. The author demonstrates a real need for change and gives you ideas on how to effect those changes. A quick read loaded with fact and not all that preachy. A good book to be sure.
Book Description
America's leaders say the economy is strong and getting stronger. But ordinary Americans aren't buying it. They see what the rosy statistics hide: We are all struggling under the weight of terrifying economic instability. No matter how well educated and hard working we are, we know that the bottom can fall out at any moment. Meanwhile, the safety net that once protected us is fast unraveling. With retirement plans in growing jeopardy while health coverage erodes, more and more economic risk is shifting from government and business onto the fragile shoulders of the American family. In The Great Risk Shift, Jacob S. Hacker lays bare this unsettling new economic climate, showing how it has come about, what it is doing to our families, and how we can fight back. Behind this shift, he contends, is the Personal Responsibility Crusade, eagerly embraced by corporate leaders and Republican politicians who speak of a nirvana of economic empowerment, an "ownership society" in which Americans are free to choose. But as Hacker reveals, the result has been quite different: a harsh new world of economic insecurity, in which far too many Americans are free to lose. The book documents how two great pillars of economic security--the family and the workplace--guarantee far less financial stability than they once did. The final leg of economic support--the public and private benefits that workers and families get when economic disaster strikes--has dangerously eroded as political leaders and corporations increasingly cut back protections of our health care, our income security, and our retirement pensions. Hacker concludes by advocating an "insurance and opportunity society" that would safeguard economic security and expand economic opportunity, ensuring that all Americans have the basic financial security they need to reach for and achieve the American Dream. Jacob Hacker brings into focus as never before the pressures that the Great Risk Shift exerts on our pocketbooks and on our lives. Blending powerful human stories, big-picture analysis, and compelling ideas for reform, this remarkable volume will hit a nerve, serving as a rallying point in the vital struggle for economic security in an increasingly uncertain world.
Customer Reviews:
A book to avoid out of respect to fellow taxpayers.......2007-07-30
My book came, and I flipped through it to the last chapter--the REAL reason why I got this book.
While I knew this was a whiny tome about how people are being expected to shoulder more and more of their own social burdens, the title did contain a "how you can fight back" clause.
Well, the so-called "fighting back" involves exchanging one set of social programs for another, for example:
Medicare--of course, this would become Universal Health Care.
Retirement--instead of the accounts we have now, there'd be a Universal Savings account invented to take it's place. This account would cover any kind of savings you can imagine--retirement, college, etc., and would take the place of the ailing Social Security program.
Welfare--another magical account would be created to cover "insecurity": periods of unemployment, downshifting or pay cuts, high inflation, death of a working spouse, etc. to take the place of the existing food stamp, AFDC, unemployment, and/or disability. This would become Universal Insurance.
In short, the author proposes turning America into a highly-taxed, highly-coddled state like Denmark, where all is provided at taxpayer expense (up to 80% of people's pay), and only enough is left for housing, food, gas, and fun (like there'd be any fun on THAT plan!). Where would low-income earners come up with the money for THIS plan?
A quick calculation reveals that we couldn't even afford to pay rent on the 20% of our remaining income, let alone eat and commute, on our middle-class income with this plan.
Taxpayers would contribute to the new accounts, and the government would administer them just like it does now, except that your dollars would have your name on them. Personally, my dollars have my name on them now with my own private accounts, and I'm not paying for something I don't want or need.
There are solutions to these problems in existence now, but few are able to (or choose to) take advantage of them. This plan would take the choice out of the equation, and as far as I can see, doesn't account for the entrepreneurial spirit or self-employment.
If you prefer being self-sufficient, self-reliant, personally responsible, and to live below your means, then stay away from this book. There's nothing here for you except anger. This plan is clearly geared for the mindless sheep out there who want something for nothing, only this plan shows how dear the cost of that something would be--we're already paying up to 40% of our incomes in various taxes just to support people and government now!
What got us into trouble as a country is the fact that government borrows against assets--what's to say the government won't borrow against THESE assets as well? I don't want my accounts to be used as collateral by Uncle Sam.
Where oh where is the INCENTIVE to improve one's self, dear author? This is what got the "have-nots" into the position they're in now!! We've been leading horses to water for so long, they now expect us to bring it to them--and we STILL can't make them drink.
Rising Inequality and Anxiety in America.......2007-05-11
This past fall I heard Jacob Hacker speak about his work in The Great Risk Shift, and I just finally got around to reading the book. What I like about Hacker is that he not only critically examines complex political and societal issues, but he beautifully transforms his conceptions into practical solutions. He doesn't just ask, "What can we do?" He shows us how it can be done.
There are points I agree with in his book and other points I still have some reservations about, but his explanations and reasoning is thoroughly engaging nonetheless. For instance, he proposes a health coverage plan that reemphasizes national concerns about health care security. His proposal places more obligations on employers, which in my opinion, is a plausible expectation if the United States is not willing to adopt a universal health coverage plan. Hacker points out that a large contributor to the rise in bankruptcies is a result of healthcare costs. It's clear that health care insecurity poses great risks to countless Americans from all different placements of the socioeconomic spectrum.
I did face some apprehension and concern regarding his "universal insurance" proposal. This insurance would be designed to protect families in the event of a threatening change in finances and security - for instance a drastic pay decrease. Although I can agree that current job market conditions are very unstable (I myself have faced a drastic pay decrease formerly working in the business sector), I also feel as though we generally have a highly exaggerated sense of materialism and pretentious consumption patterns in America. How will these factors be accounted for when claiming instability and who is entitled to what? Is this where federal money should go when much larger issues regarding our nation's schools, health and extreme poverty are being neglected?
In the Great Risk Shift, Hacker identifies significant points of concern for Americans and the anxieties and rising inequality pressing citizens. With higher and higher concerns, these are questions we will be continually readdressing for years to come. This book proves Hacker always has amazing ideas and great things to say. We can contiunally look forward to his new approaches at examining significant social and political issues.
An attempt to ameliorate economic volatility.......2006-12-16
Although Jacob Hacker exaggerates the level of risk shift in the "Great Risk Shift", he makes some public policy proposals that deserve at least debate if not adoption.
Much of the book is a critique of what he calls "The Personal Responsibility Crusade", which he views as the vehicle for the shift. He tends to overreach at times. Much of the talk I have heard regarding "personal responsibility" was directed about teenage pregnancy or fathers who abandon those they impregnate and/or their children. He is right that "personal responsibility" is sometimes invoked as an argument against certain government social programs but those programs also have very real budgetary concerns that feed most of the efforts to constrain them.
Some of his arguments also seem peculiar. On page 66 Hacker quotes some corporate statements to outline what he calls the "new contract" for workers. "The only job security is a successful business" and "if loyalty means that this company will ignore poor performance, the loyalty is off the table". It is strange he would cite these as somehow new, when were they not true? Even under the "old contract", an unsuccessful business could not offer job security, nor was poor performance ignored.
Hacker makes a compelling case that there is more volatility in incomes (although incomes are generally higher) than in the past. His argument that this was essentially by design is a little less compelling. The three decades after World War II is his (and that of many others) reference point for security. That era can't be recreated. Fortunately, he doesn't resort to the easy (but unwise) option of endorsing trade protectionism, rather he recognizes the globalized economy is a fact of life and suggests a series of measures to mitigate the greater risk born by workers.
For health care coverage, he proposes something called "Medicare Plus", which is a variation on "pay or play" coverage proposals, which require employers to cover their employees or pay into the government plan that covered their employees and everyone outside of the employer market. It isn't really clear why this proposal is better than a universal government run system, other than Hacker seems to think the latter can't be enacted.
He also wants to enhance unemployment insurance and introduce "wage insurance" (for those who are displaced and take a new job that pays less than their previous job).
He also makes a proposal that appears to be novel, what he calls "universal insurance" that would cover families from an array of potential vicissitudes. Both this idea and wage insurance do not have a track record (at least not in the United States) and may not work as well in practice as they might in theory, but they at least deserve discussion.
Strong on describing the issue; Weak on solutions.......2006-11-20
"The Great Risk Shift" has much to recommend it. Hacker cogently explains the way risk has been transferred since the New Deal and Great Society eras (when health care, pensions and the like were seen as collective or corporate responsibility) to individuals. Hacker is at his best in describing the issue -- indemnity medical plans replaced with HMOs or medical savings accounts; defined benefit pension plans replaced with defined contribution plans or 401(k)s; secure, full-time jobs replaced with several part-time jobs cobbled together to make a less-than-full-time salary; broken families who cannot be relied upon for support.
Where the book falters, however, is in its view that every risk should be socialized, at least to some extent. When it comes to catastrophic health risks, many would agree that society should assist. I tend to agree with Hacker that one's medical insurance should not depend on one's employer: some businesses cannot afford adequate insurance for their employees. Likewise, adequate health insurance cannot always be purchased in the market: insurance companies "cherry pick" the healthiest candidates. Thus, Hacker has convinced me that we need some sort of baseline national health insurance, at least for significant or catastrophic illnesses (after all, we have something like it today, as those with health insurance subsidize the emergency room visits of those without it). However, we need to beware of a system with Canada-style rigidity or one which leaves no room for innovations.
Fewer would want to subsidize pensions, however, and Hacker fails to provide a real solution. The problem with defined contribution plans is not that they cannot work, but that they must be adequately funded. They can work if employers contribute enough to them so that employees can have a real pension when they retire. Likewise, individuals should be allowed to put greater amounts of pre-tax income into 401(k)s, and companies should be able to match a greater amount dollar-for-dollar. (This is the type of free-market solution that Hacker does not favor, as he believes individuals are not always able to manage their own 401(k) money.) In any event, Hacker provides no advice for those who find themselves in a defined contribution plan, under the present rules, other than "save more and stop spending on luxuries." As for broken families, that is a trend that predates "the risk shift" and will not be solved by the government. Although Hacker wants more risks to be socialized, it is important to ask what this will cost, and whether we will have a Eurpoean-style economy at the end of it.
Hacker has correctly identified the trend to shift risk from government and corporations to individuals. The question is whether the solutions he suggests will be appropriate and cost-effective. The jury is still out.
Unchallenged Assumptions.......2006-11-16
From his comfortable tenure at Yale, Jacob Hacker offers us an analysis of where things have gone wrong with the American economic system. He identifies three traditional pillars of economic security:
1. The family
2. The workplace
3. Public and private benefits
The first two are under siege. The third one is at risk. Hacker argues that the erosion of that third one - public and private benefits - is not inevitable.
Fair enough. But let's start with the family. The decrease in the stability of the family unit over the years didn't just happen. Victims of the Jerry Springerization of the family - as a mainstream example of how far things have gone askew - have no one to blame but themselves. The freedom to treat family relationships as a disposable commodity is bound to come with some trade-offs. Economic security is one of them. While the erosion of family bonds has been widespread, it is not inevitable either.
As for the other two pillars, they revolve around the ability of commerce to fund them. More corporate profits means more tax revenues - and at least the possibility of more jobs. Without corporate profits, we have no corporations to bash, no corporate profits to tax, and no jobs or benefits, public or private.
Yes, traditional jobs are under siege and traditional benefit programs are morphing. Hacker says we have choices. Yes, we do.
We could, as a society, opt to have more stable jobs, even in an era of increasingly worldwide competition. This is a valid choice. Many parts of Europe have opted for lower overall standards of living in exchange for greater job security and more leisure. Many EU citizens appear willing to tolerate double-digit long-term unemployment rates and higher tax rates in exchange for generous social safety nets.
Of course, we in America have always been looking for the free lunch. Look at U.S. savings rates, which are negative. A critical examination across all socioeconomic classes suggests that the personal saving deficit may have more to do with an insatiable appetite for big-screen televisions, $90 a month cable services, frequent restaurant dining, coiffed hair and acrylic nails, rather than for prudent expenditures on basics like food and shelter.
But by all means, we should welcome Mr. Hacker's debate. It will be useful to make explicit the trade-offs that come to light in the process.
Book Description
In this remarkable and elegant work, acclaimed Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino fuses legal manifesto and poetic memoir to call for a redefinition of civil rights in our law and culture.
Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Given its pervasiveness, we may experience this pressure to be a simple fact of social life.
Against conventional understanding, Kenji Yoshino argues that the demand to cover can pose a hidden threat to our civil rights. Though we have come to some consensus against penalizing people for differences based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, and disability, we still routinely deny equal treatment to people who refuse to downplay differences along these lines. Racial minorities are pressed to “act white” by changing their names, languages, or cultural practices. Women are told to “play like men” at work. Gays are asked not to engage in public displays of same-sex affection. The devout are instructed to minimize expressions of faith, and individuals with disabilities are urged to conceal the paraphernalia that permit them to function. In a wide-ranging analysis, Yoshino demonstrates that American civil rights law has generally ignored the threat posed by these covering demands. With passion and rigor, he shows that the work of civil rights will not be complete until it attends to the harms of coerced conformity.
At the same time, Yoshino is responsive to the American exasperation with identity politics, which often seems like an endless parade of groups asking for state and social solicitude. He observes that the ubiquity of the covering demand provides an opportunity to lift civil rights into a higher, more universal register. Since we all experience the covering demand, we can all make common cause around a new civil rights paradigm based on our desire for authenticity–a desire that brings us together rather than driving us apart.
Yoshino’s argument draws deeply on his personal experiences as a gay Asian American. He follows the Romantics in his belief that if a human life is described with enough particularity, the universal will speak through it. The result is a work that combines one of the most moving memoirs written in years with a landmark manifesto on the civil rights of the future.
“This brilliantly argued and engaging book does two things at once, and it does them both astonishingly well. First, it's a finely grained memoir of young man’s struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, and second, it's a powerful argument for a whole new way of thinking about civil rights and how our society deals with difference. This book challenges us all to confront our own unacknowledged biases, and it demands that we take seriously the idea that there are many different ways to be human. Kenji Yoshino is the face and the voice of the new civil rights.” -Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
“Kenji Yoshino has not only given us an important, compelling new way to understand civil rights law, a major accomplishment in itself, but with great bravery and honesty, he has forged his argument from the cauldron of his own experience. In clear, lyrical prose, Covering quite literally brings the law to life. The result is a book about our
public and private selves as convincing to the spirit as it is to the
mind.” -Adam Haslett, author of You Are Not A Stranger Here
“Kenji Yoshino's work is often moving and always clarifying. Covering elaborates an original, arresting account of identity and authenticity in American culture.”
-Anthony Appiah, author of The Ethics of Identity and Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor Of Philosophy at Princeton University
“This stunning book introduces three faces of the remarkable Kenji Yoshino: a writer of poetic beauty; a soul of rare reflectivity and decency; and a brilliant lawyer and scholar, passionately committed to uncovering human rights. Like W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, this book fearlessly blends gripping narrative with insightful analysis to further the cause of human emancipation. And like those classics, it should explode into America's consciousness.”
-Harold Hongju Koh Dean, Yale Law School and former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights
“Covering is a magnificent work - so eloquently and powerfully written I literally could not put it down. Sweeping in breadth, brilliantly argued, and filled with insight, humor, and erudition, it offers a fundamentally new perspective on civil rights and discrimination law. This extraordinary book is many things at once: an intensely moving personal memoir; a breathtaking historical and cultural synthesis of assimilation and American equality law; an explosive new paradigm for transcending the morass of identity politics; and in parts, pure poetry. No one interested in civil rights, sexuality, discrimination - or simply human flourishing - can afford to miss it.”
-Amy Chua, author of World on Fire
“In this stunning, original book, Kenji Yoshino demonstrates that the struggle for gay rights is not only a struggle to liberate gays---it is a struggle to free all of us, straight and gay, male and female, white and black, from the pressures and temptations to cover vital aspects of ourselves and deprive ourselves and others of our full humanity. Yoshino is both poet and lawyer, and by joining an exquisitely observed personal memoir with a historical analysis of civil rights, he shows why gay rights is so controversial at present,
why “covering” is the issue of contention, and why the “covering demand,” universal in application, is the civil rights issue of our time. This is a beautifully written, brilliant and hopeful book, offering a new understanding of what is at stake in our fight for
human rights.”
-Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Jewel In A Field.......2007-06-13
Dean Yoshino has given us a lesson using the perfect mixture of poetry and prose in this his latest work. Reading it was like listening to a Aretha Franklin: refreshing! But most importantly, the work will act as a bridge between minority groups; limning aspects of experience that we all--- religious, sexual, and ethnic--- have in common. That is to say, it will help us to understand how the laws of the land apply to all who are pressured to conform to majority norms.
Uneven, but fascinating........2007-06-06
Kenji Yoshino is obviously a skilled writer. He is also a sharp thinker: the concepts covered here require a deft hand and skilled thought in order to not come off as a trite "Be your authentic self" pep talk. His assessment of human culture's demands on its minorities (at least those he is familiar enough with to speak for) are well put. Certain portions (especially in the early chapters) seem excessivly verbose. However, where the book really comes unglued is the uneasy marriage of personal narrative and political discourse. Both are clearly written by someone passionate and well versed in the subject matter. But the blending of two styles, while sometimes quite successful (and touching), can make this less than an easy read at times. Still, if you're not bothered by the blending (or better yet, if you're intrugued by it) this book has more than a few great ideas to chew on. Flawed or not, this is an intriguing and thought-provoking read.
Gay and Lesbian Rights.......2007-05-10
Anyone interested in the state of our country today should read this book about the civil rights movement of today.
The dark side of assimilation.... exposed!.......2007-04-06
This should be required reading for all everyone in civil rights work and all lawmakers. The only place this book falls short is in the areas it doesnt discuss that all women, and straight WASP males need to understand for THEMSELVES about the covering demands made on THEM. Since these are out of Yoshino's experience one can not fault him much on that score. He points those groups in the right direction however. This is a wonderful but painful book. It is meant to provoke thought. It is not a simple tirade against conformity but something deeper. It is a starting point for thinking and discussing our civil rights.
I would also highly recommend the first half of this book to anyone who counsels people on questions of their sexual identity.
If you care about the state of our culture, read this book.......2006-11-10
In Covering, Kenji Yoshino presents a new paradigm for civil rights. By weaving his own personal story of life as a gay, Japanese American man with the legal history of the civil rights struggle of gays and lesbians, Professor Yoshino creates a new, compelling genre of literature. In a bold move that bucked the traditional legal "neutral voice" treatise, Professor Yoshino makes himself and the law available to everyone, including legal scholars. Without a hint of jargon, this book shows how the status and treatment of gays and lesbians has moved from conversion to passing to now covering. His own identity development has passed through similar phases.
Covering is a mechanism through which an individual with some "disfavored" or non-dominant idenity traits downplays those traits in order to retain employment, avoid abuse, and generally navigate through the world. When we all recognize the way that covering affects us, whether it is the Black woman who is refused the right to wear cornrows (a real case involving American Airlines), or Professor Yoshino being told by colleague to be a gay professional, not a professional gay, we can move towards a new vision of civil rights. The author advocates not for the dismantling of all covering demands - some are legitimate - but that we force the discussion why a particular demand is being made.
Notably, Professor Yoshino's paradigm does not exclude anyone; in fact, its power lies in the fact that even the most privileged person (typically white heterosexual men from wealthy protestant families) can relate to the idea that they shouldn't be forced to downplay elements of his identity. We all have skin in the game when we move away from strict group-based identity politics to recognizing the inherent right we all have to express our idenity in non-conformist ways.
One criticism I have, though, is that there is no clear format for these discussions. Although Professor Yoshino states that we need to move away from legal solutions and start with the culutral context, I have a hard time imagining the format for an individual from an oppressed group "discussing" the demand to cover with their oppressor. For example, if someone with flashy rims on their car is stopped and fined under the pretext of some traffic safety regulation, if would be difficult to engage the officer in a discussion of why this law is being unfairly targeted to his attempt at expressing his cultural identity.
Perhaps the best solution is that we all need to read this book. Everyone. Spread the word. Give it as a holiday gift. Start these discussions in your homes, schools, and communities. Under this paradigm, we could all live freer, more fulfilled lives.
Book Description
COLOR ATLAS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT is a clinical resource for practitioners who assess and treat sexually assaulted adolescents and adults. The atlas presents color photographs of injuries of the internal and external genitalia, anus, and mouth, which are magnified for distinct visualization of the injury, providing critical visual aid to the accurate physical diagnosis of sexual abuse. Also included are many photographs of normal anatomy of the adult genitalia, as well as typical variations that may be found, to contrast with the photos of sexual assault victims. The text provides findings in consensual intercourse, which are critical for comparison to assault injury. There is a detailed description of the assessment of the sexually assaulted individual, including the physical and emotional aspects. Rape trauma syndrome is included. Four actual case studies of sexual assault victims are presented, along with photographs of their injuries.
Customer Reviews:
Sexual Assault.......2006-02-26
This is a wonderful book for individuals who are examining patients who have been sexually assaulted. Shows normal anatomy and variations, including non-sexual injuries. As a Nurse Practitioner and a new Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner I find this book to be an excellent reference. It had been recommended to me by the educational coordinator of the SANE course I took.
Color Atlas of Sexual Assault.......2003-06-22
An excellent resource book for anyone working as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. I recommend this book to all nurses new to forensic nursing. A must have book!
Linda Sifuentes, RN CA-SANE
Austin Travis County Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner
Austin, Texas
procardia1@aol.com
Very good pictures.......1999-11-11
This book is very complete, and has many pictures describing a variety of situations. Highly recommended.
You should also consider "Sexual Assault: The Medical-Legal Examination". This book has more information on the psychology of the assailant and the assailed, and on filling out legal forms during examination, but "Color Atlas" has more pictures.
An essential resource book.......1999-08-23
My forensic nurse colleagues have provided an outstanding resource for those of us who perform sexual assault exams and forensic evidence collection. The photographic documentation of cases and information in the Color Atlas have proved invaluable to me as a sexual assault nurse examiner. Our district attorney also purchased the book as a reference. I applaud the five authors of this text for a job well done. They have produced a professional work, accurately and well written,with outstanding photodocumentation of sexual assault cases.
Average customer rating:
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Sexual Assault Victimization Across the Life Span: A Comprehensive Clinical Guide and Color Atlas for Professionals Who Deal with Sexual Assault (2 Vol. Set)
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Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault: A Forensic Handbook
ASIN: 1878060627 |
Book Description
Sexual Assault Victimization Across the Life Span A Clinical Guide and Color Atlas is an essential two volume set for anyone who may come into contact with someone who has been sexually assaulted. Professionals from the medical, legal, and law enforcement fields will find critical information on how to perform a physical examination, properly document examinations and investigations, collect forensic evidence (including DNA analysis), and address legal and prosecution issues. Individual sections are devoted to the unique problems of sexual victimization for children, adolescents and adults. Other invaluable chapters on domestic violence and acquaintance rape, male sexual assault, sexual assault in correctional settings, assault of the elderly, and victimization of people with disabilities are included.
Authored by a pediatrician, an emergency room physician, and a gynecologist,
Sexual Assault Victimization Across the Life Span A Clinical Guide offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date information available. Actual case histories and full-color photos are used to aid in the evaluation, care, and follow-up treatment of a sexually assaulted person of any age. Written by experts in various assault-related fields, this clinical guide addresses and discounts the myths surrounding sexual assault and presents specific findings related to behavior, affective functioning, cognitive ability, and physical conditions.
Book Description
For the first time, a sitting judge blows the whistle on America’s out-of-control courts.
A judge for more than twenty years, Robert Dierker has enjoyed a distinguished legal career. But now that career may be on the line. Why? Because he is breaking the code of silence that has long kept judges from speaking out to present a withering account of how radical liberals run roughshod over the Constitution, waging war on the laws of nature, the laws of reason, and the law of God.
Even those outraged by America’s courts will be shocked by Judge Dierker’s story of activist judges, deep-pocketed special interest groups, pandering politicians, and others who claim to stand for tolerance, equal rights, and social justice, but actually stand for something quite different—something closer to totalitarianism.
Citing not only Judge Dierker’s own experiences but dozens of other recent court cases,
The Tyranny of Tolerance shows how the courts enable left-wing activists to ram their dangerous agenda down the throats of the American people. Consider:
• Why do the courts claim the power to tax us?
• Why is a Christian fired when he voices opposition to his employer’s favoring homosexuals?
• Why are airline pilots sued and sent to “diversity training” for recommending that suspicious-looking people of Middle Eastern appearance be kept off planes?
• Why does a judge who defends a monument to the Ten Commandments in a courthouse lose his job?
• Why are speech codes imposed on employers, university students, lawyers (and judges!), while “artistic” indecency is protected from even the mildest regulation?
• Why are peaceful abortion protesters thrown in jail, their right to free speech crushed?
• Why are white and Asian students denied admission to colleges and universities in the name of “diversity”?
• Why is an enemy fighter captured in Afghanistan granted access to U.S. federal courts, overturning judicial precedent safeguarding the president’s wartime powers—to say nothing of common sense?
With this passionate insider’s account, Judge Dierker reminds Americans what’s at stake in the battle for the courts: the Constitution, the success of the war on terrorism, the freedom to worship God, the ability to keep our families safe, the institution of marriage, and much more.
Fortunately, Judge Dierker shows how we can defeat the radical liberals’ tyranny of tolerance. By wresting back control of the courts and restoring the legal, moral, and religious principles embedded in the Constitution, we can ultimately reclaim the republic the Founders bequeathed to us.
Customer Reviews:
Don't waste your money.......2007-08-18
This makes Levin's Men in Black look like a scholarly book. Tyranny of Tolerance makes no attempt at considering the complexities of some of the questions that the author discusses. In fact, loaded with inconsistencies and incoherence, it is at best a rant. A simple example should suffice: he insists that judges should follow the intent of the Constitution and its plain meaning. If that is the case, he should argue that the narrow purpose of the 14th amendment was not to announce a broad principle of equal treatment, but a specific protection for black Americans. The Congress that wrote the amendment enacted affirmative action laws favoring blacks. Instead, like the judges he criticizes, Dieker "morphs" the amendment into a rule that he favors. Readers serious about understanding judging and the Supreme Court ought to read Kermit Roosevelt's book about Judicial Activism.
A Needle of Truth out of the Haystack of Judicial Deception .......2007-05-27
Political Correctness is a passive aggressive form of tyranny but one of the most dangerous tyrannies nonetheless. It is passive because it is subtle and has the power to make its victims feel guilty for opposing it and thus easier to subjugate. It is dangerous because by the time we get fed up with it and decide to stand up to it most of the damage has already been done.
The Judicial code of silence is just such an example of this damage. How can sitting judges, with more job security than most Americans can dream of, be bludgeoned into silence so easily? Nothing more perfectly demonstrates the tyranny of political correctness, masquerading as "tolerance."
Judge Dierker as written a good book. He is bold and courageous for doing it and will no doubt suffer career ostracism, if not death threats, for it. He reminds me of the scientists who break their own code of silence to speak out on the hoax of anthropogenic global warming. The machinations of both of these elements of political correctness have the goal of transferring more control over the personal lives and finances of ordinary Americans to a government in the hands of the enemies of truth, justice and the oh-so-politically incorrect "American way."
If you are one of those who is fed up with being pushed around and dictated to by mad power hungry moonbats this book is for you. It affirms that you are not alone.
The Code Exposed.......2007-05-27
"Tolerance" is one of those words that have a positive connotation so it is no surprise that the Democratic Party has co-opted it as one of its watchwords. However, in THE TYRANNY OF TOLERANCE, judge Robert Dierker insists that the drive to achieve tolerance has reached such a manic level that the word now implies tolerance for some is a zero sum game that inevitably results in intolerance for others. Such a wish to force tolerance on those whom the tolerant deem intolerant is now reflective in a broad swath that cuts across all sectors of America. Those who see themselves as dispensers of tolerance call themselves liberals, but Dierker more correctly terms illiberal liberals. As a circuit judge of the Twenty-Second Judicial Circuit of Missouri, Dierker, over a twenty year career on the bench has seen it all, and during those two decades has seen a negative transformation in the basic legal framework of his court and by extension, the United States. At the core of this metamorphosis is the evolving view held by the Left of the Constitution. Originally, seen as the cornerstone of our republic, it has slowly been eroded away from meaning what it says to what a leftist judiciary says it means. Now, the illiberal liberals use it to force an agenda on the very fabric of our society, one that includes filing "lawsuits to kick the Boy Scouts out of public parks, to get sodomy into a constitutional right, to throw peaceful abortion protestors in jail, to allow abortionists to pull babies three-quarters out of the way of the womb and kill them, to crush pro-lifers' rights of speech and assembly, to nullify the reproductive rights and parental rights of men, to bankrupt the firearms industry as a means of disarming a free people, to impose racial quotas on employment, and to eliminate God from the Pledge of Allegiance." (Page 3)
It is pretty clear that Dierker is a conservative judge who takes a view of society that includes a refusal to expect a guaranteed level playing field of wealth and justice. The Left, in his view, wishes a society that is based on a Marxist redistribution of wealth and a utopian guarantee of justice for all to be achieved by legislative fiat. Historically, whenever any society is instituted under Marxist rules of wealth redistribution and socialist guarantees of employment and institutionalized multiculturalism, the result has inevitably been economic collapse as with the Soviet Union or social dysfunction as with most of multicultural Western Europe. These calamities Dierker is determined to avoid. In an overly brief coda, he notes how a concerned citizenry can reverse this decades long slide toward collapse and dysfunction. He writes that voters can demand judges who will decide issues based on what the Constitution says, and not on what agenda they would prefer it contain. Congress must be persuaded to curtail runaway judges by explicitly abolishing corrosive and divisive policies like affirmative action. And finally, Presidents must be chosen at least partly on their willingness to defy power-hungry supreme courts as Lincoln did when he authorized suspension of habeas corpus in Maryland in 1863. Dierker exhorts us to realize that it is not too late to wish to be intolerant of the perverted brand of tolerance now bandied about by the illiberal liberals.
Book review.......2007-04-10
This book is very importent to any who are concerned about the current fact the liberal judiciay is out of control and taking us down the road to complete judicial autocracy.
Wow! The Truth about the Legal Thought Police Pogrom.......2007-03-20
WOW!! This Book is a Rare Find - and a Very Important One.
Using Clear and Unambiguous language to explain in straightforward terms the current state of Constitutional Law and the Judiciary in modern Weimar Amerika - Judge Dierker has both produced a Masterwork of American Letters, and Turned Over the Rock on the Ugly underside to the attack on our Country by Radicals within the alleged `Legal Profession' using the pretext of `Tolerance' as a platform for a Draconian Political Thought Policing attack on Society and the Constitution.
For those thinking of attending Law School (or already there) - this book is Vital, particularly as it covers Basic Issues that are Now Censored by Law Schools and Constitutional Law Texts (like Justice Scalia's Dissent in Romer v. Evans - where he discussed Homosex Bias in Legal Education - and was Censored from the Cohen & Varat Text Book for it) - and does so in a refreshingly candid manner.
In fact, this book is so complete and yet concise, that if one supplements this book with the Cases it Cites (available on the Net for free) - it would serve as a Far Better Constitutional Law Text than most of those on the market. I say this as a Constitutional Law Scholar / First Amendment advocate who graduated with Distinction from the McGeorge Law School - and was threatened with extreme physical violence by a Professor (Myers) while a student in retaliation for daring to support Justice Scalia's (censored - but not forgotten) dissents in class.
For those who are Not Lawyers - Read This Book!! In barely 200 Pages Judge Dierker lays out the Major Cases and Players and Scams that are the stock in trade of the Radical Gender Feminist / Homosex Attack on Society. He does so in an easily understandable and lucid manner, that allows Citizens (and not just the self anointed `legal elite') to understand what is really going on, and how the scam is being run. For many the legal system and Supreme Court is a mystery beyond comprehension - but in the Tyranny of Tolerance the system is dissected in a manner understandable by all.
This Book truly lays bare the inner workings of the Legal System - and Identifies the Strategies and Tactics that have been used to turn it in to the Enemy of the People, and a tool for the self anointed power elites to enforce their Pander or Perish agenda - BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) through the Tyranny of the `Tolerance' police.
One of the BEST READS I have Ever Found - Worth the Time for Any Citizen. 5 Stars!
Amazon.com
Popular radio host Michael Savage returns to print with another attack on the forces of liberalism that he believes are tearing America apart. Using the same brash, abrasive style in his writing that has become a trademark of his radio show, he writes that "the Left operates specifically to undermine God, country, family, and the military" and that liberalism is "either treason or insanity" or "a mental disorder." He also takes on illegal immigration, the state of health care in the U.S., the "Hollywood Idiots," and the decline of schools and morality in general, all of which he blames on Liberals. Savage also drops bombshells such as: "Federal courts and judges in America today are to be more feared than al-Qaida," and Ruth Bader Ginsberg's appointment to the Supreme Court is "akin to appointing the general counsel of the Ku Klux Klan to the bench."
Statements as bombastic as these deserve to be backed up with substance and well-thought out arguments, yet Savage offers little more than an anecdote or two before moving on to the next rant. This is not to say he doesn't make some good points or highlight blatant abuses by government, questionable suits brought by the ACLU, or morally bankrupt product coming out of Hollywood, but one can't help noticing that several shades of gray have been left out of his black-and-white arguments. Due to this lack of hard facts and background, Savage's book is not particularly convincing. Still, Savage does consistently challenge readers with controversial opinions and conclusions, so it would be a shame for potential readers to dismiss his book simply on ideological grounds alone. And if he really sets your blood boiling, you can always call him up on his show and take him to task. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
Talk radio sensation and
New York Times bestselling author Michael Savage again goes for the jugular in this latest brash, incendiary attack on the corrosive effects of liberalism on our culture. Where
The Savage Nation took shots at everything under the political spectrum, this book focuses squarely on the dangers assailing the cornerstones of American life, pointing out how liberal propaganda and agendas are seeping into our churches, our schools, even our families. Bold, sometimes angry, and always controversial, this book is pure, no-holds-barred Michael Savage, one of the strongest, most original voices in America today.
Customer Reviews:
Savagely Unsatisfying.......2007-08-24
Before writing my review of this book, I should like to make one thing clear: I owe a tremendous debt to Michael Savage. Listening to him was what first made me question the liberal nonsense which I was being fed in high school, and now that I have swung fully to the other side of the spectrum, he is still a joy to listen to, if a touch over-the-top at times. As such, when I opened this book, I expected to enjoy it. Certainly, I was prepared for a moment or two of thought-provoking shock, since Mr. Savage is a master of delivering such a thing on his radio show, but that was a risk I was prepared to take, because I was sure that Mr. Savage's voice would translate very well into the written medium.
I was sadly mistaken. Reading this book felt to me like reading some horrible, unholy union of a drunken rant, a war cry and a speech by some vilified totalitarian demagogue. Every page seems to shriek with rage and irrationality. It is a sad disappointment.
Needless to say, Mr. Savage is a far better talk show host than author. What this book does, however, is unveil Mr. Savage's long forgotten socialist roots, for the style of argumentation is one far more familiar to those on the left than those on the right. For instance, Mr. Savage does not even bother to intellectually attack his opponents. Rather, he accuses them of supporting pedophilia, drugs and perversion simply for objecting to certain expansions of government power. His opposition on this point, ironically enough, invokes a quote from the great libertarian economist Frederic Bastiat, who wrote:
"Every time we object to a thing being done by the government, the socialists conclude that we object to it being done at all. We object to a state sponsored education. Then the socialists say we are against education. We object to a state sponsored morality. Then the socialists say we want no morality at all. We object to a state enforced equality. Then the socialists say we are against equality. It is as though the socialists were to accuse us of wanting people to starve because we do not want the state to raise grain."
Similarly, Mr. Savage concludes that because the ACLU opposes giving policemen drastically increased powers, they want perverts and druggies to walk free. What he conveniently ignores, of course, is that no one, policemen included, will always use their powers for good. This is not to say that I do not find his critique of the ACLU to be true. I merely find it to be sloppy. The argument against the ACLU is infinitely more complex than a simple false dichotomy which places pedophiles on one side and good people on the other. Mr. Savage does his allies in the conservative movement no good by spewing this oversimplified invective into the air. Rather, he makes us look like the idiots which so many left wing college professors imagine us to be.
This brings me to a larger problem with Mr. Savage's book - it employs the sloppiest of argumentation techniques. Rather than attack arguments, what it does is attack imagined motivations. For instance, rather than shoot down the argument against prayer in schools on an intellectual level, Mr. Savage complains that the Left hates God. Anyone who has ever heard of the Reverend William Sloane Coffin or liberation theology knows this is not universally true (unless one imagines that Richard Dawkins speaks for the entire left wing). I have already touched on Mr. Savage's rather unfair treatment of the opponents of the patriot act (not all of whom are Leftists, incidentally - unless you consider the CATO Institute to be leftist). Besides this, Mr. Savage shows himself to be a hypocrite. He spends a good portion of his book ranting about how we need to shut down the "traitors" in our midst, but warns critics in his introduction that any sort of criticism of him shows them to be "brownshirts." Obviously, many of Mr. Savage's critics are fascistic in nature, but the hypocritical nature of the message, coming as it does in the preface to a book whose entire purpose is to demonize dissenters, makes Mr. Savage's otherwise persuasive argument look weak. Again, Mr. Savage is not doing himself or the conservative movement any favors.
I will continue listening to Michael Savage, however. I shan't buy any more of his books, but I shall listen to him. I would suggest, however, that Mr. Savage listen to the likes of William F. Buckley Jr. and Bill Bennett. Perhaps if he imitates them, he will stop exposing his own psychological nudity and expose the rather more unattractive intellectual foolishness of the Left. Those looking for an intellectual attack on liberalism, look somewhere else. Those looking for a scream of rage permeated with demagoguery, you have found the book of your dreams.
Savage tells it like it is!.......2007-06-27
Michael Savage, egomaniacal radio shockjock.... speaks the TRUTH, but I actually prefer his books over his radio tirades. Why? Because on the radio he tends to spend too much time going 'me me me me me' and ranting and raving. He must be something like bipolar. He is soooo much better when he is calm and collected. Obviously he has an iq above 200 (I should know, so do I... whoops, there's that 'me me me' thang, heh heh). BUT in his books, you get the gist of what he says on the radio, but calmly, collectedly... you have time to review, to muse, to draw your own conclusions. Michael Savage sees what's happening to the greatest country in the world (in case you cain't figgur it out, I mean the US of A)... we need to close our borders, we need to treat illegal aliens as the FELONS they are, not give them 'amnesty', we need to understand the threat of invasion by illegal aliens to our core structure (taxes, healthcare, physical safety, first-worlder thinking) by third-worlders. We need to STOP calling them 'emerging nations' unless you mean 'poking their slime-covered heads out of the cesspools of the third worlds. We need to understand the threat to our sophisticated, spiritual way of life by hardcore muslims, by practicing homosexuals, by liberals who don't believe there is 'absolute truth' and who practice 'political correctness' with the apparent goal of utter destruction of our great great country and way of life. We need to really support our troops who are out there fighting a war to save our way of life. We need to let the soldiers FIGHT not wait to get shot before firing back.
As a woman, I have worked in Saudi Arabia, I KNOW the real, not imagined, threat and brutality of islam which cares nothing for the rights of women and children. We need to understand the current 'agenda' of the Bush family (god help me I voted for that sinister idiot). We need to stop the governmental entities from stealing our freedom and way of life, little by little, step by step until we will be living in a modern-day nazi germany as so many peoples in other countries around the world live today.
Michael Savage for President!!!!! He speaks for me, he doesn't think for me, but he DOES speak, and so very well, what I think. Go Michael Go!!!! Great Book by a brilliant man who isn't afraid to speak the truth. Rush Limbaugh could learn so much from Michael.
Not even wrong, just insane.......2007-06-24
Michael Weiner-Savage, the blathering radio entertainer, now sets himself up as America's political and social conscience. Unfortunately for those who think he has anything relevant to contribute, Weiner is poorly qualified to pass judgement on the issues. In his book, he offers copious opinions, and practically no evidence to back up anything he asserts. In fact, he is SO far off base that he isn't even wrong. He's incoherent. His anger has made him irrational.
Apparently, there is a sizable audience for angry, incoherent ramblings. And that folks, is a sad observation on the state of public discourse in our country today. Demagogues like Weiner-Savage and other "hate radio" jocks have very successfully turned Americans against one another with their divisive tirades.
Good Reading for True Americans.......2007-06-13
Very well written. Great explanations of topics. Unfortunately, very true!
You should read it to understand the deep end........2007-06-07
It is amazing that many reviews have praised the amount of anecdotal evidence that Savage offers. Indeed, there are plentiful amounts of anecdotal evidence, back to back. Savage makes a compelling argument. That is, if you're a dim-witted idiot.
Savage rarely points out any statistics, or backing of his information. That's because he can't. Statistics would show a much clearer point, not one where he describes an illegal immigrant stealing all of his finances, a story which would be impossible to check. Savage writes with no coherent thought. Any student of economics or math would be thoroughly unimpressed with this book. There is lack of logic and reason behind his arguments.
Do you argue against globalization because one person loses their job while hundreds have a better standard of living? Evidently, Savage does. His attack on American colleges talks about the increase of sexual activity on campus. Please, it was similar twenty years back. Of course, he pipes about how he wanted to attend an Ivy League but was too expensive. Please, if he was as poor as he claims, financial aid was back then as it was now, college was much cheaper, and to be accepted into Ivy League, many students there have the ability to "think." Savage toots his own horn pretending that he could have gone to an Ivy League. He references Queen College, his alma matter, as formerly being excellent and today a relic of what it was. Please, Queens College has done significantly better since you were there Savage. You just can't admit that you went to what was a college that could never compete with an Ivy League. Queen's endowment is at $687,000, less than your house, - you have probably not given a penny back. Savage's pretentious attitude wants to come across to the reader that he was smart. Please, don't believe it.
I'm a neoconservative, and Savage probably hates me too. Yet, the causes that he lists, take for instance the issues he's had with law is ridiculous! It has NEVER in the history of law been up to the judge to decide how they "feel." A judge should only decide the facts of each course. How they are presented is up to each individual lawyer. The author of this book eloquently (which I mean by yelling at on the page) forgets that. Savage feels that the judge should sit down and think about how he "feels" about each case. Oh wait, aren't those judges of corrupt countries? When the judge decides its "fair" because he just received $500 underneath the table? Judges should look to only evidence and not emotional reason.
Read through his book carefully. Look for statistics (you won't find any!). It's easy to be blinded as he rampages off. Savage writes quickly, jumping from idea to idea, without coherent reason. As a result, you are not "thinking" about he's saying. Many of you are mindlessly following. Congrats.
Fear the ideologues and fear the demagogues said Jefferson. Amazon readers, have you heeded this advice?
Amazon.com
Michael Savage is the host of The Savage Nation, a radio program that airs on over 300 stations nationwide. A self-described victim of "truth-in-mouth syndrome," he claims to be "the only man in the country saying it the way it really is." His stated purpose for writing the book is to save a "homosexualized, feminized America" from a liberal assault that is "unraveling the very fabric of this great nation." Declaring that "a minority of feminist zealots rule the culture," he blames Democrats and liberals for everything from a general decline in morals in the United States to bringing the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. Although one chapter is entitled "Crimes of the Democrats" (with special attention paid to Al Gore), Savage is no Republican stooge--this "bipartisan basher" reserves plenty of venom for the GOP as well, particularly regarding immigration, one of his favorite subjects. Savage calls for a severe tightening of U.S. borders and vigilant racial profiling in order to combat terrorism and the spread of infectious diseases. He also rails against liberal media bias, big government, the lack of prayer in schools, rampant pornography, the UN, the ACLU, and a host of social ills that he believes were caused almost exclusively by hippies in the 1960s and the Clinton administration in the 1990s.
Like many talk-show personalities, Savage is confrontational, angry, entertaining, and prone to exaggeration, sometimes all at once. He can also be funny and sarcastic. But while he does offer some interesting observations and enough food for thought to make this slim volume worth a read, his book is essentially one long rant with precious little useful information to back up his often bombastic claims. His angry-man shtick may make for stimulating drive-time listening (and high ratings), but it doesn't make for a particularly convincing book. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
Michael Savage attacks big government and liberal media bias. The son of immigrants, Savage shows how traditional American freedoms are being destroyed from the outside and undermined from within-not just our own government, but also from alien forces within our own society. Savage argues that if the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, then only a more "savage nation" will enjoy these liberties. Savage's high ratings and the rapid growth of his program prove he is in touch with the concerns of the average American.
Customer Reviews:
This guy tells it like it is and makes so much sense!.......2007-08-21
I love this book! And I love Michael Savage's opinions! I agreed with so many great things he points out in this book. It's no accident this guy has one of the most listened-to talk shows in America.
Wonderful Book!.......2007-01-10
I bought this for a gift and they really enjoyed reading this. Now they listen to him on the radio. Worth the money.
As a Conservative, I feel sorry for Mr. Savage.......2007-01-04
I found several of the ideas in the book to be intruiging. However, it was next to impossible to unearth these nuggets from the heaping debris of rhetoric.
I had a hard time believing that his book, filled with name-calling and childish rants, was written by someone with multiple advanced degrees. Perhaps if I listened to his radio show I would know who "Rat Boy" or "Larry Seltzer" were off the bat, but it took me a while to figure it out. Rather than letting his facts speak for themselves, he chooses to call people childish names. Rather than saying "Johnnie Walker Lindh is a traitor," he basically says "Rat Boy smells like poop." Its sad.
While he claims to be discussing "facts," the book is devoid of any referencing or foot/endnotes. Which is a shame because some of his "stories," if true, would be worth reading additional information on. Unfortunately, I have to, as Mr. Savage suggests, take his word for it.
political correctness is our death.......2006-12-16
Being familiar with Savage's radio show, I will say that I thought this book might have been better written. It's a casual style that I believe weakens a few of his arguments. Other than that, this book should be a wake up call to American citizens.
Deal with it folks; political correctness is a virus that will kill the American culture. Illegal immigration will destroy us in a few decades, if left unchecked. I can't agree with Savage any more.
This book isn't the ranting of a racist. I've been made to feel like one because of similar beliefs. I'm concerned about preserving our culture. There are other cultures. If you don't like this one, don't come here. If you want to be an English speaking
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A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming
