I’ll open up this review with a disclosure (as reporters and news organizations always should when they’re covering rivals or their parent corporations). I am a fan of Robert Reich ever since I first heard him speak on NPR in 1991 and he has promptly answered both of my e-mails to him. These were actually written by him too, not form letters giving the standard excuses I receive from my useless Republican Senators and Congressman. I also will stay in my car whenever he gives his weekly three-minute opinion piece on Marketplace (another NPR-based show). Finally, when I did have a subscription to The American Prospect, I usually went to the last page quickly to read his monthly editorial (Reich is a founding member of that publication). So you now know that this review will be favorable to him and his arguments, yet I don’t agree with the outcome he feels will be inevitable, if matters unfold according to his suggestions.
Firstly, this book is definitely going to annoy Republicans and especially the 30% of the country that would jump off a cliff if Bush told them to. It will also be too Centrist for the Radical Left which is very good at making a scene, yet ineffective at actually affecting much change, unless it aids the Republicans’ fear mongering. Reason is a bit of an outreach to the more rational people who vote Republican over economic, defensive and social issues (the mythical McCain camp) but it’s more of an articulation on Liberal blueprints for the future. It’s not exclusively blueprints though. There’s much debunking of the Right-Wing Noise Machine; their distortion of facts, their claims of standing up for “Everyday Americans” and how we’ve been down this road before in America (The Gilded Age is a very shameful period for the US). Reich also attacks the Right’s mouthpieces in a calm, factual manner through numbers and facts unlike his foes’ use of rhetoric, insulting and outright lies. I always laugh at the fibs about the past told by people such as Bork and Bennett. According to them, in the Fifties there was respect for elders, no need for abortions and all the other nonsense purporting that the US was Utopia until those uppity Hippies and Liberals took the country in the wrong direction. I was a little kid when Happy Days first appeared on TV in the mid-Seventies. Like all programs set in the past, it painted a more idyllic picture of the recent era. As cool as the Fonz was, my father quickly debunked my perception over Greasers by letting me know how most people like Fonzie were assholes and thugs (more like the Lords of Flatbush characters). Reich attacks the Right’s nostalgia with anecdotes and facts while wondering if Bork and company come from an alternate universe.
Much like Eric Alterman (who read the book and mentioned it on his site, altercation.msnbc.com), I wish I could share Reich’s optimism over the country’s future. I feel that the powers in charge learned their lessons from the recent past and they intend on keeping the nation on their demented track (turning the US into a larger version of Mexico when it comes to the income and social gaps). Do you recall lately how cranks such as O’Reilly and Savage have claimed how there was a Socialist Revolution in the late Thirties? They wish. FDR could be pragmatic but he was a politician first and never a friend of the Socialists. Reich doesn’t believe the Liberal agenda is inevitable after the Radical Conservatives (Busheviks, Neo-Cons and other allies of this administration) have totally looted the treasury, destroyed the national infrastructure and set the world on fire. He bludgeons the obvious: the Liberals need to do a better job getting their points across and stop letting the RadCons define them. However, he actually makes the best argument I haven’t heard in such detail from others. The argument? Since the Sixties, the RadCon camp started making their move to take over the Republicans with Goldwater and it has paid off pretty handsomely. The Democrats are currently struggling, especially with the party being sucked down the toilet by Leiberman and the Clintons with their DLC and Centrist (really Republican Lite) agenda. Forming a Third Party has always yielded failure for the last 150 years so Reich says to stop wasting energy there, we’ll never be Canada. The true Liberals, Progressives and Greens will have to lead a coup in the Democratic Party, especially in divorcing themselves from the DLC. This moving to the Center is a myth. There is no true Center, it’s just moving to a half-way point which keeps being pulled to the Right. Reich quotes Truman’s famous saying, “If you give a man a choice between voting for a Republican and a Republican. He’ll always vote Republican.” It’s time to redefine Democratic Party. If the Republicans want to cry class warfare, I say let them because I can show how they already declared war on the poor back when Reagan was elected.
I’m not going to go on much further because this is a polarized book and I don’t want my site to be part of the Red v. Blue, Republican v. Democrat, etc. mess. The country has too many of them already and most of them (especially the Right Wingers) are factually challenged. Reich’s latest book is a great, inspiring read but he won’t gain any serious converts. That’s okay though. Weeks ago, sex columnist and sexual hypocrite Dan Savage told Al Franken that the Liberal Camp shouldn’t care about converting others through their shows, books, magazines, etc. The RadCons don’t. They cater to the crowd that believes in such nonsense. Rush, Michael Savage (real surname is Weiner), Hannity, etc. preech to their own choirs. Their stormtroopers are then enthused and I have to deal with these idiots at my in-laws’ house, my coffee shop and those poisoned by their lies at work. Dan Savage argues that we need to strengthen the Liberal choir to get out there to help turn the tide. That’s where Reason stands. So if you’re in my political camp, I recommend this book. If you’re undecided or one of those contrarians who thinks they’re sooooooo independent, I can only suggest the book but go back to sticking your head in the sand (Jon Favreau, I’m pointing at you for your dumb statement on Howard Stern). Lastly, if you’re one part of the 30% still living in denial, don’t bother. You’ll waste your energy trying to discredit the book with me by showing evidence from Drudge Report, the Washington Times or anything owned by Murdoch.