Government and Politics Books

(see KKJ's review as well)
Am also a former student of Baker's (in Singapore a long long time ago) and I have to say, he definitely IS the one to write a book on S'pore/Malaysia. Cheers to you Mr B. Or may we call you "Jim" now? :)

Of all peeps to write a book about Singapore and Malaysia history this would be the man. I just ordered it and now I wait. Mr. Baker has always stood out to me as a great teacher. I had the privilege of being taught by him, I was never a history buff or even interested in becoming one. After having to take four classes of his in my senior year, due to my previous years performances, I can now say history intrigues me. I look forward to reading this. Class of 1988

Baker spins a tale as dizzying as it is captivating; as intoxicating as it is true. The twists just keep on coming. This is the best thing since Goosebumps.

This is a wonderful book as Jim Baker knows what he is talking about as he has lived in Singapore his entire life (60-70 years). So, naturally, some of the history of Singapore he knows first-handed, as he acurately describes how the nation became a first world country. This gives the truthful and honest facts of both Singapore and Malaysia as it is a must read for anyone looking for the best info. on these two nations.

This book is wonderful, as it fully explains the history of Singapore and some wonderful facts, not commonly found within many other books on Singapore. Jim Baker is an excellent teacher and writer, talking about the thing he knows best, Singapore, as he has lived there his whole life. This is the book to go to for the true and honest facts of both Singapore and Malaysia. A must read.

This book is truly a work of art! Beautifully illustrated with wonderful copies of actual documents such as the Declaration of Independence. It's a hands-on learning experience. Every school library and home should have a copy of this patriotic masterpiece. Highly recommended read!

Although this is not an exhaustive academic study of the Declaration, this is a very useful and informative book. There are many illustrations and other props included that add to the literary content. When I bought this book the intent was to use it as a coffee table book that folks could pick up when they come to visit. It serves that purpose well, but I believe that it could also be an interesting book for an adolescent who is very interested in American history.

Museum in a book indeed! And it's not just for the youth either. The fact is our history is lost to most Americans, especially when it comes to the Colonial/Revolutionary War era of our nation. This book - The Declaration of Independence: The Story Behind America's Founding Document and the Men Who Created It - can change that. In my opinion, it should be in every American school, in every American library, and in every American home. It should be required reading for every public school child and immigrant. Of course, that would never happen - the ACLU wouldn't allow such a dastardly thing - imagine forcing school children and American-wannabe's to learn about what made this country great - and it IS great. The greatest, in fact, even with its faults.
What our fore-fathers did was something that one would never see today - people willing to give one's life, to possibly suffer in a torcherous prison - by signing a document to ensure a free and independent country where one would not have to be controlled by a tyrant. Where a peanut farmer, an actor, or a backwoods lawyer could become the President. And this book gives not only wonderful written descriptions on how that all came about, but allows the reader to experience, through replicas of original documents that one can actually hold and read as if grasping the original (including a draft of the Declaration) writings that made the formation of our great United States.
By the way, there is no political correctness in this book - just pure factual American history - so if your are looking for the anti-European revisionist history books mandated by the liberal left, this one isn't for you.

This book I just purchased a week ago and it has served me well. I am a graduate of 8th grade and I know that this book would be useful in so many branches of school work such as oral presentations and visual aids. This book describes in a lot more detail than I could ever have emagined. I'd recommend this book to history teachers any time and for 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders learning about this subject. GREAT BOOK!!!

Rod Gragg has done an excellent job of accurately portraying the events leading to the declaration of independence. Furthermore, he did an excellent job of remaining true to the actual historical events, rather than approaching the subject with a political agenda. I highly recommend this book to any person desiring a deeper understanding of America's founding fathers and the events that led to our independence. I can not wait to read more of Mr. Gragg's books.

Here is a book for every adult American who cares about what happens to his/her country. It will make you depressed and angry and ... well-informed. Get it.

Could a second American Revolution be required to set America on the correct path once more? "Delusional Democracy: Fixing the Republic without overthrowing the Government" is a deftly written call to action - not to overthrow the government, no, but to do whatever they can to set our democratic institution on the right path once more, to cut through the oceans of false information and misrepresentation that do no right for its citizens. Offering advice and protocol to save America while there's still time, "Delusional Democracy: Fixing the Republic without Overthrowing the Government" is highly recommended to community library political shelves everywhere and for anyone who wants an honest look at today's government.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to know what really is happening in our country today. I don't see how we can continue to ignore the trampling upon our freedoms and rights as Americans.

The best book i have read this year. Joel Hirschhorn tells it like it is.

A must read book!

This book is well written and concise. It serves as a fantastic wake-up call to the American people. It succinctly describes the anti-democratic practices, tendancies, and directions in society, the economy, the mass media, and government that have been eroding our participatory institutions by distracting citizens for decades.

It is an indictment of the corruption that flourishes at all levels of society and particularly in government. It exposes the culture of lying and spin and describes how untruth damages democracy.

This book gives form and focus to the discontent shared by people around the country. It is a clear call to arms against the status quo in our time and offers thought-provoking and unconventional ideas for how to reform the system through citizen action.

This outstanding work of critical scholarship takes the Dred Scott case as a point of departure to examine several important issues in American history. These include both the nature and dynamics of the great sectional conflict over slavery, and the nature of juidicial power in our system of government. Fehrenbacher provides careful history and analysis of the Dred Scott case itself, it significance in its own time, and the possible role of this case in the history of Supreme Court power. Fehrenbacher's reconstruction of the case and the associated political events is remarkably erudite; informed by the highest level of critical intelligence. He dispells a number of myths related to the case and his analyses of contemporary politics and legal history are equally astute. This book is exceptionally well written. Even when exploring apparently obscure details of 19th century juidicial and political history, Fehrenbacher's writing is always lucid, and at times, elegant.

I read the abridged edition of 1981, titled Slavery, Law and Politics. I can only echo what the other reviwers have said. It's about a court opinion but it is anything but dry. You learn much about the law and politics of slavery, from the founding of the nation forward. You learn about the Dred Scott case itself, including the legal maneuverings in the lower courts. The author's analysis of Chief Justice Taney's opinion for the Court is one of the best single chapters I have read in a history book in a long time. The author is learned but the prose is engaging--elegant, even. You feel you are in the company of a wise teacher, who is not trying to impress you but simply to impart his considerable knowledge without ego on a topic that turns out to be an excellent prism through which to view an important swath of our history. Read it!

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It might seem that a 700 page book (600 pages of text; 100 pages of notes) on a 19th century court case might be the epitome of exceedingly dry material suited only for particularly motivated graduate students. But I found this book captivating. What came through in every paragraph was the work of a skilled and judicious historian sleuthing his way to an understanding of the background and ramifications of the enormously important Dred Scott decision. Not one page in this book read like the work of an uninspired academic sawing his way through a pile of research notes.

Fehrenbacher focuses on the political, legal and constitutional aspects of the Dred Scott case. He explores the background and developments, from the arrival of the first slaves in the colonies in 1619 through the bitter political battles of the 1850s. His discussion of legal developments is particularly interesting because this is one area where the reader encounters the concrete complications and conflicts between various state and federal laws affecting slaves and slave owners. He also shows how legal developments and constitutional theories were affected by the increasingly acrimonious political battles over the rights of slaveholders. His analysis of Chief Justice Taney's opinion was particularly impressive. Finally, his discussion of the immediate and longer term impact of the Dred Scott decision was fascinating. When I finished the book, I was disappointed that he hadn't carried the thoughts in the last chapter further (even though it was clear he had chosen a good stopping point for his analysis). I was also tempted to go back to the beginning and re-read the book immediately! It is so rich, and there's so much of importance to understand. (Instead, I started in on Fehrenbacher's more recent book, The Slaveholding Republic.)

One of the strengths of the book is Fehrenbacher's attention to the relevants facts and texts. His text never reads like a cut-and-paste compilation of other authors' conclusions. Throughout, Fehrenbacher was doing his own thinking - and he came through as quite skilled in asking good questions, identifying all the relevant facts, weighing the possible meanings and interpretations, and arriving at fair conclusions. (Whatever the topic, it's always a pleasure to read the work of someone who works as Fehrenbacher did in this book.)

I highly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in American legal or constitutional history, in the events that lead to the Civil War, or in race relations in America.

There is little that I can add to what has already been written. Fehrenbacher is clear, thoughtful, and comprehensive.

Dred Scott Case by Don Fehrenbacher proves to be a definitive account of this controversial Supreme Court case that had far reaching consequences then the fate of one black slave wishing to be free. The book is superbly researched, written and the author presented total clarity in his presentation. He clearly points out the total significance of this case in face of American history.

This case is often overlooked as part of 1850s pre-Civil War history but the author make it clear that long term effects of this case clearly helped initiate the American Civil War. It also helped Abraham Lincoln become President and ironically speaking, discredited Robert Taney, the chief author of the Dred Scott decision so badly that Taney was totally ineffective as the Supreme Court Chief Justice during the Civil War. His rulings against Lincoln and many of his civil rights violations during the war went totally ignored and although he was always treated well, he was a total non-entity as a factor. His death was viewed with relief.

The book gives a very insightful background on slavery and its impact on American history prior to the case. It doesn't get into Dred Scott himself until page 210 or so. It pretty obvious that the author has excellent command of his subject matter. His insight on what influence and repercussions of this decision after the Civil War proves to be quite interesting. I was bit surprised how Taney's reputation have survived so well despite of his decision that the author clearly shown to be crude, shallow and highly biased. The author have clearly shown that Taney did not behaved as a Supreme Court Chief Justice in this case but as a pro-southerner who wishes to nationalized slavery throughout the land as a mean to end this debate once and for all.

I would regard this to be one of the mandatory reading material that any reader must tackled if he or she wants to advance their knowledge of the Civil War and its issues.

If ever the First Amendment needed a life jacket, this is the time. Rowse tells how good newspapering, that is tough, honest reporting, is drowning thanks to the media giants and the corporate villains who control them. Whether its politics, economic disasters for the working poor, pollution or corruption, America is being denied a saving hand from the very institutions that the Founding Fathers provided us. Here is a lighthouse book offering a way out of our troubled journalistic waters. And it's a page-turner, as well.

It's quite alarming to learn how the failure of the press to report responsibly on government and politics (versus scandal, crime, and drama) is affecting the demise of a living democracy. Four out of ten Americans don't even know who the vice president is (although I have to believe in this year with the VP running for president, that might be different)! The book documents quite well how the press is methodically contributing to the decline of interest in politics and the power and political influence of the owners of media giants. A good read!!

Rob

In Drive-by Journalism, Arthur Rowse makes a convincing case that a lack of reliable news is crippling American democracy.

As a result of deregulation of the news and entertainment industries, a steady series of corporate mergers has concentrated the media into a five-firm oligopoly of unprecedented power. We may think we have a lot of channels to choose from, but they all come from the same handful of sources, all of which are more interested in satisfying corporate investors than in producing an informed electorate. Rather than compete, the media conglomerates collude like mafia bosses, divvying up the available markets, using every available second of air time to sell us products, services, and a consumer lifestyle. This does not speak well to the likelihood of our getting trustworthy news.

Rowse deftly slaps down the ridiculous yet pervasive myth that the mass media are liberally biased and demonstrates conclusively that quite the opposite is true. Although many reporters have liberal tendencies, they are not the ones who determine which stories get reported. News networks have become lap dogs for their parent companies, and these media giants are as conservative as they are powerful. Moreover, they respond to advertisers, not the viewing public. NBC, for example, wouldn't dream of reporting on General Electric, the most notorious polluter in the nation, because GE is now NBC's parent company. The same is true of ABC and Disney, CBS and Westinghouse. In fact, every major network is now owned by the biggest advertisers in the nation. Don't think that isn't affecting what gets reported on the 6 o'clock news.....

According to Rowse, about 40% of what we see on the news these days is not even the product of investigative journalism; it is pre-packaged propaganda "donated" to the networks by political and corporate public relations firms. By accepting these gracious handouts, the networks can reduce the number of expensive journalists they employ. The result, of course, is that networks no longer investigate; they merely serve as conduits through which powerful organizations deliver their pre-fab images to the public.

Perhaps Rowse’s most frightening point is the link he makes between poor news reporting and citizen apathy. With nothing but info-tainment and scandal stories on the news, Americans have no viable means to choose between one candidate and another, between one policy and another. So they don’t bother. With voters thus sidelined, well-funded corporate lobbyists have the undivided attention of our lawmakers, whom they outnumber 40 to 1.

This book is well-documented, well-organized, well-written, and vitally important in our times. Better still, it’s truly interesting. Rowse provides fascinating insider anecdotes that bring all his statistics to life. Very highly recommended.

In Drive-By Journalism: The Assault On Your Need To Know, Arthur Rowse sets for a compelling and persuasive argument that we are being lulled into political and social apathy by the steady beat of media produced "news-amuse" journalism. Rowse points out that media mergers are rapidly creating a huge news cartel with just five conglomerates controlling what most people see, read and hear in television news broadcasts and major urban center newspapers. Profit-at-all-costs pressures have created a kind of "drive-by" journalism with an emphasis on trivia and tragedy ("If it bleeds, it leads!). News producers must nowadays showcase information in a recreational or entertainment framework that prefers sensationalism over substance, sound bites over insights. That's why such critical matters as health care, gun control, tax equity, campaign reform, and the environment are made subservient to personality and horse race style coverage. Drive-By Journalism should be on the shelves of every community library in the country, and required reading for journalism students, media activists, and those charged with the responsibility for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating the news of the day.

"I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubator ... and left the children to die on the cold floor."

Casual news observers will recognize this quote, or at least the essence of it.

During the build-up to the Gulf War, this story, told by a teen-age Kuwaiti girl, was repeated again and again in the news media. As much as anything else, the anecdote softened public resistance to American intervention in Kuwait - a huge military undertaking that never completely shed its mercenary hue, but which enjoyed broad public support nevertheless thanks largely to a media that seemed ill-equipped or unwilling to get beyond the veneer of official proclamations and gee-golly techno-wizardry to the tough business of covering a war.

Less casual observers might know that the story was a pure fabrication. In fact, it took two curious reporters relatively little effort during the war's aftermath to discover what the entire Washington press corps had missed - not only was the story not true, but the girl who told it was the daughter of a Kuwaiti ambassador.

What very few of us probably realize to this day, however, was that the tale was just one piece of a coordinated propaganda campaign conducted by PR flacks on behalf of the Kuwaiti royal family. All told, the Kuwaitis spent $11.5 million to win the hearts and minds of their American saviors, most of it paid to Hill & Knowlton, one of the largest public relations firms in the world. For that relatively modest sum, Kuwait was able to summon the sympathy and might of the world's most powerful democracy, despite Kuwait's own questionable commitment to human rights. And going along for the ride the whole way were the American media.

The victory of public relations over reportage prior to the Gulf War is just one of the fascinating nuggets found in Arthur E. Rowse's Drive-By Journalism: The Assault on Your Need to Know, a blistering indictment of the current state of American journalism. A veteran journalist and media critic who has worked for National Public Radio, U.S. News & World Report, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, Rowse writes like a man who knows how the sausage is made and isn't too pleased about his grandchildren having to eat it.

His book chronicles a spate of journalistic cardinal sins and exposes a rogues'gallery of media decision makers who have turned the sacred business of informing the public into a scramble for ratings and profits.

Elian, Monica, O.J. and JonBenet are just the tip of the iceberg, and, in Rowse's view, symptoms of a much more pernicious dynamic than just the public's demand for sensation and scandal.

At the heart of the media's current reliance on fluff, trivia and sensationalism, he argues, is the trend toward corporate ownership of media outlets. While journalism has always been a business, the profit motive was once far more balanced by - even subordinate to - journalistic standards.

In the 1960s, when CBS head Bill Paley was questioned by a member of his news division about the cost of his ambitious plans for news coverage, his response was more typical of that era: "Don't worry about that. I've got Jack Benny to make money for me. You guys cover the news."

Since then, says Rowse, mainstream media outlets have fallen all over themselves to slash staffs while favoring grislier, more sensational, more irrelevant coverage. Thus, crime reporting has become more frequent and more strident even as crime has dropped, while stories with emotional impact like the Elian Gonzalez saga supplant coverage of policy decisions that affect millions of Americans.

And instead of discussion about candidates' qualifications or stances on pressing national problems, campaign coverage is dominated by trivial horse race issues like who's raised the most money.

This hasn't just made us more uninformed, argues Rowse. We've also become much more susceptible to disinformation. Eager to fill the hard news gap left by the media have been special interest lobbyists, public relations flacks and think tanks - well-funded and well-organized groups with agendas to sell.

Rowse also explores the well-worn canard that our mainstream media are predominantly liberal. Not only does the prima facie evidence - that media are increasingly coming under the control of profit-driven corporations - suggest a conservative tilt, a look at the opinion pages of daily newspapers, where aggressive spin is encouraged, tells a different story as well. Of the top political columnists in the nation, the far-right Cal Thomas, with 537, is syndicated in the most dailies. George Will is second with 450. In fact, based on client numbers, Rowse counts a 3-to-1 advantage for conservative columnists over liberal ones. Add in talk radio, which is almost exclusively the province of right-wingers, and the liberal media myth explodes.

Other disturbing trends cited by Rowse are the increase in "gotcha" journalism; a snowballing, media-fueled cynicism about government's ability to address national crises; and a tendency to tilt reporting toward advertisers and affluent readers at the expense of broader coverage. (If the stock market is this strong then inflation-adjusted wages couldn't possibly have fallen in the last 20 years, right?)

If there's a criticism here it's that Rowse is woefully short on solutions, and those he does offer feel like spit in the wind. Perhaps the only real recourse, then, is for us as individuals to simply smarten up. Drive-By Journalism is a good first step down that path.

Even though tomes have been written on the American presidents, Dr. Smith manages to bring fresh insight as a result of painstaking research. ( It could serve as a model for any student looking to document his research) The book is not "light" reading....but the author writes with clarity and with as much impartiality as humanly possible. I found his distinction between the ways that these presidents' faith shaped their policies to be thought-provoking. This book provides a strong framework from which to examine the coming election season.

I encourage you to set aside a block of time each day as you loose yourself in the history and faith of each of these men. It is full of interesting faith facts that just a history of these presidents would never touch. I must confess it took me time to read and digest this book, but well worth the time. I look forward to reareading this book in order to grasp new facts that I did not glean from the first read. I would love to see it used in school class rooms everywhere. The research, notes and excellent writing of this work is outstanding!

A first-rate work in which eleven presidents are analyzed in terms of their religious beliefs and their actions. Solid framework of analysis. The work brims with new details, broad understandings, and sound and judicious conclusions. Impressive, varied bibliography. The copious notes, alone, are worth a close read. Sparkling writing and sound organization make this a page-turner.

Gary Scott Smith's Faith and the Presidency is fascinating to read and weighty in substance. Full of personal details drawn from the lives of various presidents as well as important observations about public policy and religious impulses, Smith hits the sweet spot between bold, exciting claims and strong supporting evidence.

I was particularly persuaded by the book's observation that the foreign policy of presidents more readily reveals their philosophical commitments because the U.S. presidency has greater latitude abroad than at home.

This is a book worth reading from cover to cover. Smith hits a home run with this exceptional book. A tour de force!

If you are looking for fresh information about the role of faith and religion in the lives of some of America's greatest presidents then I highly recommend purchasing Faith and the Presidency.
The author, Gary Smith has done his homework. His research is very thorough and his style of writing is clear and free of technical jargon.
I thought the book presented a balanced view of democrat and republican presidents; and the author covers each president's religious affiliation without bias. After reading this book I finally understand why religion is such a hot topic during every presidential election.
Reading about Abraham Lincoln and how his faith helped him address the crises of the civil war is the best I have read to date.
Students, teachers of history, religious leaders and those with a love of presidential history need this book to complete their library. A must read for 2007!

Dempsey's Fool's Errands is brilliant. He methodically recounts the pitfalls of an indiscriminate nation building policy. Anyone who is serious about shaping or understanding America's foreign policy should read this.

Fools Errand is an extraordinary account of failed attempts at "nation building" during the Clinton Administration. Gary Dempsey's expertise is evident as he guides the reader through a maze of disturbingly flawed policy, astonishing bureaucracy, arrogance and stupidity that doomed nation building attempts to failure. Dempsey's analysis is brilliant, and he relates complex events with remarkable clarity.

Dempsey's Fool's Errands is brilliant. He methodically recounts the pitfalls of an indiscriminate nation building policy. Anyone who is serious about shaping or understanding America's foreign policy should read this.

Fools Errand is an extraordinary account of failed attempts at "nation building" during the Clinton Administration. Gary Dempsey's expertise is evident as guides the reader through a maze of disturbingly flawed policy, astonishing bureaucracy, arrogance and stupidity that doomed nation building attempts to failure. Dempsey's analysis is brilliant, and he relates complex events with remarkable clarity.

~Fool's Errands: America's Recent Encounters With Nation Building~ is a terse analysis and overview of Clinton foreign policy maladministration. It succinctly captures his sad legacy of nation building efforts in the 1990s. Driven by naïve Wilsonian idealism, perhaps rosy views of human nature, and a quixotic fixation with seeing "democratic enlargement," the Clinton State Department presided over one foreign policy boondoggle after the other. Nation building efforts in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo were all entered with the best of intentions. Nonetheless, the end results were spurious victories with limited successes and arguably outright failures in some cases where intervention caused more harm than good. Some contests deemed triumphs are perhaps Pyrrhic victories at best. In such cases, US/UN/NATO babysitting (i.e. peacekeeping) has been deemed semi-permanent, political tripwires are everywhere, and an uneasy peace ensues.

(1) SOMALIA was an emerging crisis duly noted by Bush Senior after a coup d'état toppled the government in Mogadishu. Bush Senior sponsored increased humanitarian aid following instability and a famine, but withheld a more direct presence. After the coup, the vacuum of power was filled by rival warlords. Thereafter, Clinton soon came on the scene and pushed for more direct intervention. Dempsey and Fontaine paint a startling sketch of war torn nation and give cogent reasoning why well-meaning foreign policy goals led to disaster. Powerful warlords in the cities plundered the spoils of humanitarian aid for their own gain to buy weapons and buy off cadres of foot soldiers to do their bidding. The Somali animosity towards Westerners intensified amidst the chaos; humanitarian workers became victims of warlord violence and street crime. The Western world took note of the stark aforesaid events. The U.S. intervened under U.N. auspices. They were in the precarious position of picking allies from the warlord factions and protecting unarmed U.N. personnel. The thorn in their side was Mohammed Farah Aideed, a dominant urban warlord who pilfered foreign humanitarian aid rather than distribute it equitably. He used the spoils to buy and arm his own armies and finance his criminal syndicate. Aideed was bold and flagrantly attacked UN peacekeepers and killed foreigners. The U.S. responded to these hit-and-run attacks by targeted strikes that summer. In October 1993, 18 U.S. Army Rangers were tragically killed in fighting while hundreds of Somali causalities fell. That conflict drew ominous parallels to Beirut and the quagmire touched a nerve in Washington. Thereafter, many in Congress demanded withdrawal. Clinton lashed out at isolationist "poison" and lack of U.S. commitment in the aftermath of sharp criticism. Further scandal erupted as millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars were lost to misappropriations, corrupt contract practices and embezzlement at the behest of UNOSOM. The U.S. eventually would relent and for the most part curtailed its presence. Aideed has died in fighting in 1996. Though Somalia is not a happy ever after story, the situation has marginally improved. Having endured Marxist despotism and anarchy, markets have since started to develop in the 1990s. Neighboring Djibouti helped broker a peace conference of Somali factions while an election brought President Hassan to power. Somalia is slowly emerging from the backwater Third World and all without a significant U.S. presence in the nation.

(2) HAITI is another horror story of good intentions gone awry. Haiti has a sad history of being mired in poverty, instability, corruption and economic stagnation with a paltry $250 per capita income. Clinton insisted on making democracy a grandiose cause in trying to strong arm a military junta out of power, and seeking the return of a democratically elected Marxist named Jean Aristide. The consequences of a naïve insistence on making the world safe for lofty democratic platitudes are well documented. The Clinton Administration made a fundamental mistake of economic sanctions to expedite a regime change. Clinton only succeeded in cutting the Haitian GDP by fully one-third after the nominal foreign businesses that were there packed their bags. In the end, U.S.-U.N. sponsored sanctions only hurt the Haitian people. The effects of sanctions will likely have repercussions for decades. Clinton sent in Marines to restore Aristide to his palace in Port-au-Prince which was simple enough. Afterwards came massive aid packages and troops that were deemed necessary to train Aristide's security forces and maintain order. The Haitian markets and economic development remained stagnate. Aristide only proved himself to be a corrupt kleptocrat who plundered the lion share of humanitarian aid to line his pockets while buying off protection for himself and his cronies. Haiti has since been mired in more crime and poverty as the corrupt Aristide rigged subsequent elections. Aristide was eventually toppled at dawn of this century, and many observers welcomed it. The present Bush Administration refused to restore him to power much to chagrin of the Fidel-coddling Rep. Charles Rangel of New York. Clinton's policies in Haiti spelled a disaster, and rested on naïve insistence on bringing a corrupt, avowed Marxist back to power in the name of democracy. It was also part of a politically correct agenda since Haiti in the early 1990's was being lead by a French Haitian in an essentially black republic. This was a touchstone of intervention for a Democratic administration obliged to defend political correctness over our vital security interests.

(3) BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, that is a multi-ethnic Bosnian democracy, can be surmised as wishful thinking. The malfeasance in the nation-building campaign by the U.S. and NATO is Bosnia is captured by the chapter's subtitle, the Potemkin State. Potemkin, of course, alludes to the illusory idyllic village settings that were fabricated by Gen. Potemkin in eighteenth century Russia to awe Catherine the Great's courtesans from a distance as they toured her ostensibly idyllic kingdom. The artificiality of the Potemkin Villages came to embody the superficial and halfhearted attempts to reform and liberalize Catherine's kingdom. Happy peasants and happy villages were all a façade. Likewise, Bosnia remains an illusory farce, a state that exists merely on paper. It is deeply divided into mono-ethnic regions with separate standing armies and security forces. Germany helped foment the problem by recognizing the Bosnian State amidst a Civil War. By recognizing a independent Bosnia, Germany and NATO gave a carte blanche to the Bosniacs to wage war against the Serbs. The brokered peace at the Dayton Accord and negotiations came far too late. Germany and NATO exacerbated the crisis and the death toll by their intervention. Thereafter the Albright State Department decided that political correctness and the need for "multiethnic democracy" trumped the rights of Croats and Serbs. Croats abdicated their Croat settlements in Bosnia as are the Serbs in the New Bosnia. Technically, there really isn't such thing as an ethnic Bosnian. The so called Bosniacs are merely Muslims who live in Bosnia. The conflict in Bosnia was a proving ground for radical Islamists who trained and fought there, and networked with Mujahideen and Al Qaeda. War crimes committed by those other than Serbs are downplayed if not ignored, though all sides have unclean hands. I'm not a Serb apologist nor do I dismiss their atrocities in pointing out that Croats and Bosniacs committed their share as well. The difference is the outside world turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the later two nationalities. Serbs didn't initiate hostilities and something has to be said about the fact that the first refugees in 1992 were 40,000 Serbs. Not surprisingly, the prospects for ethnic reintegration are bleak and a multiethnic, cooperative, democratic Bosnia is an illusory farce and a modern Potemkin State. Bosnia is a veritable powder keg ready to go off.

(4) KOSOVO is a quagmire, and perhaps the biggest failure of any nation-building scheme the Clinton Administration contrived. Historically, Serbia has the strongest ties to Kosovo with more than a millennium of ties to the region. The battle of Kosovo against the Ottoman Turks was fought there. Moreover, it is home to innumerable sacred Serbian Orthodox shrines, many of which have been desecrated by Muslim militants. Nonetheless, the policies of the internationalist overseers are inherently philo-Albananian. While the occupiers and the Western media sensationalized accounts of Muslim victims of Serb aggression, many Serbs, Macedonians and Gypsies in the region have suffered immensely and many refugees of the later three nationalities have fled Kosovo. For all the hue and cry about ethnic cleansing, the unintended consequences of NATO policy was the massive ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians. War and terror atrocities only seem to get reported though when Serbs are the culprits. The West-NATO-US aligned itself with the Albanian KLA, which was nothing more than a corrupt, narco-terrorist group involved in illegal drug and arms trafficking as well as white slavery. The CIA, in fact, has long classified the KLA as a terrorist group. The KLA has little interest in the aims of the internationalist cadre behind KFOR, preferring instead a Greater Albania including Kosovo purified of non-Albananians. Kosovo will likely remain in the economic doldrums since its political status remains in limbo. The only foreign investment seems to be in security forces, building and maintenance of support structures for occupying peacekeepers. The economic prospects of Kosovo are in limbo, and international controls greatly hinder prospects of burgeoning markets or foreign investment. Investors simply lack confidence in an unstable region that is locked in political limbo for perpetuity.

President Bush said prior to his election in 2000, "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation building." I tend to agree, but I have not changed mind on the subject. This book is vitally requisite for addressing the contemporary issues as the issue United States continues to be naively obsessed with reckless intervention in the name of "democratic enlargement," furtherance of Wilsonian idealistic ideology and international human rights agendas. If we want lessons from history, we have to look no further than the last decade of the last century. Nation building takes more than imperious regime changing by superpowers and copious amounts of foreign aid. Free governments cannot be simply imposed. Nations must be built from within from slow cultural and political transitions. The Clinton foreign policy gurus act as though democracy is some tangible commodity for export abroad, and ignore how fragile the institutions of free government really are. They misread cultural, historical and strategic considerations before inaugurating their campaign of reckless interventionism and nation building. Bombing a region or country into the ground and whimsically rebuilding it into a free democracy seldom goes as planned. Gunpoint democracy has proven itself to be an illusory farce; the four major attempts at nation building in the 1990's were dismal failures. Dempsey and Fontaine substantiate this assertion in their book with sound reasoning and a trenchant analysis.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana

Most people are neither "True Conservatives" nor "True Liberals/Progressives but rather a mixture depending upon the issue.
I know I am certainly that way.

We all want to think that if the other side just knew the "facts" as we know them, they would think just like us. But the world doesn't work like that. We all have our biases and filter information accordingly.

Before the introduction the author quotes Dale Carnegie: "In talking to people, don't begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing--and keep emphasizing--the things on which you agree. Keep on emphasizing, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose."

This is absolutely right-on-target.

That goal for most American's is: FREEDOM, OPPORTUNITY AND SECURITY for all.

A central theme in Framing The Future: How Progressive Values Can Win Elections And Influence People" by Bernie Horn (a senior director for policy and communications at the Center for Policy Alternatives in Washington, D.C.) is that for the last seven years, the federal government has been disastrously dominated by a small cadre of neo-conservative ideologues in both foreign affairs and domestic issues. The only antidote to the damage done to America's prestige abroad and our economic foundations at home in an American style democracy is the election of a majority of responsible progressives to the halls of congress and the White House. "Framing The Future" is based upon sound research, polling, and testing methodology to create simple step-by-step instructions on how political and social progressives can best and most effectively articulate their positions on the issues of the day (especially during electoral contests) and employ successful strategies to gain back the levers of government to advance their own solutions to the political, social, cultural, and economic problems that currently beset our nation. Simply stated, "Framing The Future" should be considered mandatory reading for every political activist, candidate for political office, and social issue advocacy group in the country.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Bernie Horn's "Framing The Future" will interest both political activists and students of American politics. Horn makes the case why, and how, progressives need to change their tactics - less preaching to the choir, more persuasion of the swing voters who actually decide elections.

A really interesting read that all Democratic candidates should see. A total blueprint on how to take back the power of words the Republicans have stolen.

Framing the Future is a must read for anyone advocating progressive issues from health care to world peace, Bernie Horn does a great job of showing us how to frame progressive issues in way that people can understand and support.

A MUST HAVE for people wanting to learn about "teenage" issues in America. This book and Mike Males other book "Scapegoat Generation" should be required reading for sociology and juvenile justice classes.

Males has done it again in Framing Youth, a book that utterly slams the 1990's American dogma that 17-year-old "kids" need to be curfewed, uniformed and monitored at all times lest they booze, dope and kill. This book should be required reading for every politician, social worker, teacher, parent and even student. Many youth rights groups like NYRA, ASFAR and Youthspeak have already flocked to this fine piece of literature as part of their arsenal in their battles against the special interest groups and politicians that would (and do) oppress them.

I used Mike Males in a college research paper that I recently wrote, "The Politics of Sex Education," and found him fascinating. Since teenagers can't vote, they can't defend themselves against the avalanche of claims that are made against them. Fortunately, however, Males comes to their aid, arguing on their behalf, as their biggest defender anywhere. His writings were the most direct arguments that I found anywhere on teenage sexuality. I plan to read more of Males, although I can already imagine what he will say. He will defend teens against all charges, whether they are high violence rates, high drug rates, "promiscuous" sex, or tobacco use. He will help set the record straight. Teenagers aren't behaving any differently than the rest of us. They are just being blamed of all of it.

It's hard to believe, but Males has managed to follow up his acclaimed The Scapegoat Generation with another solid work. The only question left after reading Framing Youth is why hasn't the rest of the country caught on?

Framing Youth, author Mike Males' follow-up to The Scapegoat Generation, is simply the best book out there in regards to understanding our adolescents' "dreadful behavior". Politicians, the media, and even what we think of as "unimpeachable scientific agencies", have led us all, even us health professionals who work with adolescents on a daily basis, to believe such a distorted view of reality, in relation to our "problems with teens", that we routinely take what appear to be logically good decisions to benefit teens, then wonder why those kids "just don't get it". In reality, it's us adults who haven't yet "got it". Mike will take you through the Top Ten Reasons Why Kids Have a Bad Rep, and afterwards I guarantee you'll be a better health professional, community activist or politician in regards to understanding adolescent behavior. Just be sure you can handle the truth, because the enemy is us.

Although it saddens me to see a strong literature emerging today that was largely anticipated and ignored by people like David Barnett with his Global Reach work in the 1970's, it is a good thing that strong voices like those of this author are now making very comprehensive documented cases for how corporate power and privatized wealth are collapsing nations, bankrupting economies, and impoverishing more and more people unnecessarily.

The table of contents of this book is extraordinarily details and brilliant in its organization. Although the book is mostly case studies that one can read through rapidly if accepting of the author's key points, this may well be one of the finest itemizations of the ills of the 21st century: corporate power run amok, privatization and concentration of wealth (which is, incidentally, one of the precondition for revolution), the collapse of national and local economies (e.g. Wal-Mart), the dismantling of the welfare safety net in most countries, and the outbreak and spread of famine and civil war.

The author is probably the foremost scholar and commentator on how the "free" market is not so free, and how the existing capitalist system is predatory, aided by locked in privileges that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank impose on nations foolish enough to accept their intervention. In this the author is consistent with Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty) who has put forward the need for a complete make-over of developmental economics, to include an end of the normal business practices of the IMF and the World Bank.

I was tempted to remove one star for lack of sufficient reference to the works of others, but the personal insights and comprehensive review caused me to leave the ranking at five stars. I see a clear pattern emerging in the literature (see my other 700+ reviews) and what I am waiting for is for someone to cut the spines off all these books and "make sense" of the total picture in a manner comprehensible to the indivdual voter.

If we are to restore informed democracy and moral capitalism, this book is one of the foundation stones.

See also:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War onthe American Dream and How to Fight Back
Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents)
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

M. Chossudovsky attacks head on the New World Order imposed by the World Bank (WB0), the IMF and the WTO, calling their economic 'reforms' enforced on countries in distress not less than genocides.

Their 'free market' system is rigged. The WTO agreements grant entrenched rights to the world's largest financial and industrial conglomerates, derogating the ability of national governments to regulate their economies. The IMF programs enforce governments to privatize big chunks of their national economy, liberalize their markets and downsize social provisions (education, health, social security).
Their 'free' market system is synonym of human poverty, destruction of the natural environment, social apartheid, racism and ethnic strife, undermining of women's rights, economic dislocations, forced displacements, landless farmers, shuttered factories and jobless workers.
More, he accuses the IMF of supporting the appropriation of global wealth by speculators through manipulation of currency and commodity markets. It even manipulates itself its economic statistics in order to show that its policies work. Finally, it cooperates with warmongerers and 'peace keepers'.

He illustrates his verdicts with a host of examples.
Somalia: the entire social fabric of the pastoralist economy was undone through duty-free beef and dairy products from the EU.
Rwanda: the restructuring of the agricultural system precipitated the population into destitution, leading to a genocide.
Ethiopia: the Structural Adjustment Programme caused starvation.
Bangladesh: a devaluation and price liberalization exacerbated famine. Deregulation of the grain market meant dumping of US grain surpluses.
Brazil: enhancement of social polarization by supporting the land-owning class.
Peru: after liberalization, the price of bread increased more than 12 times.
Russia: helping the oligarchs.
India (Andhra Pradesh): repeal of minimum wages and support of caste exploitation
Yugoslavia: serving the strategic interests of Germany and the US by cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics.
Korea, Thailand, Indonesia: the vaults of the central banks (100 billion $) were pillaged by international speculators. The bail-outs of those countries were underwritten and guaranteed by the same Wall Street banks involved in the speculative assaults.

The author proposes a solution which will be extremely difficult to implement in our actual world, where media and governments are controlled by the powerful: democratization of the economic system and ownership structures, disarming of speculation, redistribution of income and wealth and rebuilding the Welfare State.

Michel Chossudovsky's book constitutes a devastating denunciation of an inhuman system sold by economic strangulating wolves clad in sheepskins.
It confirms the forceful analysis of globalization by Joseph Stiglitz.

A must read.

I also recommend a voice from the South: Walden Bello.

Chossudovsky is a brilliant economist and a burning torch for the truth that people are unable to see, hear, or accept due to the propaganda schemas that are embedded in their minds (like a microchip programming) by the global media cartel and the political demagogues.
Chossudovski analyzes the past and the present in relation to debt, globalization, and international financing. He dispels the myth of the good samaritan (like the IMF, the World bank, and the Federal Reserve, etc) that destroys economies of other countries, and impoverish them under the guise of capitalism (actually corporate socialism) and freedom, in order to own them. He clearly elucidates the dollarization process and its role in the New World Order. This book makes a powerful reading that sheds the light on a vanishing truth. I would highly recommend this volume to anyone who is interested in world finance as well as their future, and the future of their children.

With the North American governments and their media flacks noisily championing "economic liberalisation", dissenting voices are muted. The voices of those most directly affected by "globalisation" are fainter yet. Michel Chossudovsky attempts to overcome the raucous proponents of "international free trade" with an examination of just what it does and how it impacts civil societies. The picture he provides isn't pleasant. However, turning away will not cause it to fade from lack of our attention. In fact, reading this book is an eye-opening, if not eyebrow raising experience.

Among the rare critics of globalization Chossudovsky has "on-site" credentials beyond his academic base. He's been on the scene of several nations subjected to International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies. He examines the results of these and other international financial agencies' policies. From Chile through Rwanda to Somlia and Korea, he shows how a new form of warfare is under way. Conquest no longer requires bullets to occupy a nation nor suppress a people. Conquerers now wield position papers, American dollars or Euros and trade impositions. Surrender agreements come in the form of "conditions" accompanying loans and investments. These dicta result in the stripping away of social programmes, alienation of subsistence farm holdings and displacement of vast numbers. These people, deprived of income, traditions and opportunity have become a new breed. They are the hopeless poor for which no amount of "aid" can provide succour.

As he demonstrates repeatedly, the mechanism is simple. The formation of the IMF gave financiers, chiefly North American, a cudgel to change governments, force farmers and pastoralists to convert to cash crop economies, and reduce or eliminate government services. The initial steps were instituted by the Bretton Woods conferences designed to restore nations devastated by World War II. Private financial institutions imposed conditions on loans granted to recovering countries. "Recovering" countries rapidly expanded into "developing" countries as these institutions recognised the value of cheap labour in them. Accepting "foreign investment" led to indebtedness difficult to repay. Defaulting was unacceptable to both borrower and lender, leading to new rounds of loans. These, however, rarely reached the borrowing nation since the new funds were set against the older debt. "Servicing the debt" meant imposition of stringent conditions, ranging from privatisation of services, amalgamation of small land holdings to produce crops to be purchased cheaply, but sold at inflated prices. The consumers of these goods are you and your neighbours.

Each of the nations Chossudovsky examines suffers the same schedule of "structural adjustment programmes" imposed by the IMF. These SAPs outline the changes a nation must endure to receive the "benefits" of globalization. Restrictions on outside investment must be eliminated, with the concomitant privatisation of state-owned facilities and services. Where workers aren't laid off, their wages are frozen or reduced. Local currencies must be adjusted to American dollars, which has the impact of intense inflation spirals almost overnight. The result is a populace under increasing pressure, marginal or famine-stricken and powerless. Civil unrest isn't an option, since disruption brings reprisals - often, of course, the withdrawal of investment, failure to renew loan guarantees or simply real military action.

Although the repetitive nature of the manipulations of the financial institutions on national sovereignty leads Chossudovsky to some redundancy, the reader should understand we are dealing with a global crisis. "Bitter medicine" and "bitter irony" recur, because the circumstances he describes are redundant. An imposing and sometimes intimidating account, he is careful to shift the responsibility to institutions rather than consumers. It is, however, the developed country consumer that provides motivation for many levels of the problem. Chossudovsky's analysis is thorough, well-founded and expressive. He shows why social unrest in "developing" countries is the result of imposed conditions, not unstable populations and environments. That he offers little in the way of solutions for the predicament the world now suffers is only testimony to the immensity of the task ahead. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I was originally born in Uganda and I can assure you that Africans have always been suspicious of the so-called "aid" they receive since it almost always comes after a crisis that they can't quite explain (like how did a bunch of poor, illiterate preteens get the money to buy those fancy weapons, or why won't aid agencies buy food from the local farmers and distribute THAT).

Suspicions and rumors are insufficient to counter what appears, on the surface, to be international generosity. That is why I am grateful for Chossudosky's contrarian masterwork. It confirms the fears and suspicions regarding a return to colonialism and economic slavery. The fact that Chossudosky was willing to put his career on the line to write this hard-hitting book is worthy of our attention. He shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is a deliberate and systematic campaign of "economic genocide" against Africa and all other resource-rich regions. Neoliberalism have mastered the British colonial-era double-speak of "liberty", "democracy", "markets", etc. "Market liberalization" is nothing more than armed robbery. And "investment" is really nothing more than "asset stripping". The Adam Smith phraseology of free-trade and free markets is used, much like their British predecessors, to recolonize the world. Chossudosky shows how the "Washington Consesus" has embarked on a foreign policy strategy of economic sabotage and "strangulation." As Kissinger famously ordered, in the now declassified National Security Memorandum 200, Africans should be kept from becoming consumers of their own raw materials.

Chossudosky does an enormous favors to us neophytes by decoding the neoclassical econo-babble. His brilliant deconstruction of IMF structural adjustment policies is worth the price of this book alone. But he goes beyond that. He shows how nations can be brought to their knees through currency devaluations and speculative attacks. The whole cynical process of creating the crisis then blaming it on the victims, i.e. the "Asian" Crisis which is in fact an American Crisis, or the excuse used to maintain Odious Debt on impoverished nations: "their corrupt leaders are to blame for the Odious Debt". Yes but those "corrupt" leaders were trained at American military bases (much like the 9/11 hijackers), and are killing us with American made weapons (thanks again Kissinger). Besides, everytimes Africans (or Latin Americans) try to put a reformer or socialist democrat in power, he develops a nasty habit of being assisinated.

This book will make you angry at how long and how often you've been lied to. Everything you thought you knew about economics will be tested as the Machiavellian machinations of international creditors, grain companies, and financial "investors" is revealed in page after riveting page. I also recommend Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism and Horowitz' Emerging Viruses. If it's not out of print then get The Merchants of Grain. Some publishing companies are refusing to publish some of these books because of their controvesial nature so get them before they're made "out of print".