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Attention Deficit Democracy

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It's probably a measure of the author's "attention deficit" thesis that many well-meaning folks mistake Bovard for a liberal because of his unsparing criticisms of the Bush administration. He's not. Instead he belongs to that vanishing school of thought known as traditional conservatism. The work serves as a reminder for true political conservatives-- I don't mean the empire-building, corporate cronies of the Bush administration-- and should come as a breath of fresh air to them.

The text argues vigorously for a minimalist state on the classic grounds that state power inevitably threatens precious individual liberty, while the only democratic check on the rise of a threatening "Leviathan" rests with a knowledgable citizenry. In Bovard's view, the problem with today's citizenry is they lack both an understanding of constitutional principles and a concern with protecting tthem. In short, the democracy suffers from attention deficit. Thus constitutional liberties are being forfeited to an ever-expanding state apparatus, particularly in the aftermath of 9-11.

The book's strength lies in detailing this abandonment, which Bovard executes with style and vigor. As a non-conservative who stands to lose the same rights, I'm glad to see the few remaining traditionalists stand up to the radicals who think that opposing gay marriage and abortion-- at the same time they override constitutional protections, run up huge war-making deficits, and meddle in the internal affairs of other nations-- are enough to merit the title of conservative.

Although there are assumptions readers (including myself) may take exception to, the factual evidence Bovard marshals remains unassailable thanks to follow-up disclosures on headlines of the day. Moreover, whatever the ultimate merits of a minimalist state in an age of corporate dominance and planetary decline, it's time for principled conservatives to stand alongside Bovard in defense of constitutional values. Happily, the book represents a forceful contribution to that effort.

In his latest offering James Bovard does an excellent job of proving that Murrow's warning has come to pass in no uncertain terms.

With his top notch research, an excellent blending of historical as well as up to the moment events; this writer has once again shown that to allow Washington to conduct unsupervised activities is to pass to our children a disgraceful legacy, along with a mortgage that they will never pay off.

Bovard shows THE BIG PICTURE is distracting the people from all of the components of its making. As well as how all of those components effect the lives of all Americans not only today, but for generations to come.

It is a very sobering read.

"Attention Deficit Democracy" addresses what Bovard sees as rising ignorance of the electorate, fear mongering tactics that permeate U.S. presidential elections, and our Messianic Democracy (long history of deceit and foreign manipulation in the name of spreading democracy). In Bovard's opinion "the will of the people" is often simply a measure of how many people fell for which lies, and/or were frightened by which advertisements.

The bulk of the book consists of a seemingly endless series of surveys showing American voters as uninformed, often with major consequences for rational voting. For example, a University of Maryland 10/04 poll concluded "It is clear that supporters of the president are more likely to have misperceptions (eg. linking Saddam to 9/11) than those who oppose him." Another survey found that each time new warnings of terrorist threats became public, Bush's approval rating rose an average 3%.

Clearly modern democracy and representative government are based on faith that the people can control what they do not understand - the myriad of often inter-locking issues of today. While Bovard does not present anything near a compelling case establishing that today's voters are less knowledgeable than their predecessors, it is clear that government complexity and involvement has grown by leaps and bounds. Thus, it does not require any great amount of analysis to conclude that being an informed citizen similarly requires a never-ending increase in learning what is happening. A few factoids are no longer enough; meanwhile, newspaper readership levels have declined from 60% in '92 to 40% in '02. (The significance of this finding, however, is unclear - obviously citizens could also be obtaining increased knowledge via TV and the Internet.) Nonetheless, assuming declining newspaper readership reflects NO INCREASE in citizen awareness, the result is "the will of the people" is an increasingly meaningless phrase.

Bovard skewers politicians from both parties, over the past 50+ years. However, without question Bush II bears the brunt of his often interesting criticisms and points. For example, days after 9/11, only 3% saw Saddam or Iraq as culprits; by 2/03 72% believed Hussein was personally involved. Similarly, by early '04 only 55% had fears of another terrorist attack; however, through adroit manipulation of the media by the FBI, administration officials (especially V.P. Cheney), and Homeland Security leadership - often simply rehashing old information - this was up to 64% by August. This increase was crucial to Bush's re-election since those seeing terrorism as the #1 issue voted almost 7:1 for Bush. (Meanwhile, piles of untranslated potential terrorist documents mounted, scandals in TSA and air marshall security arose, inadequate cargo screening, a porous border, etc. was largely ignored - critics were painted as traitors.

Bovard devotes a relatively long chapter to summarizing U.S. meddling in other nations' affairs - in the name of democracy. Tactics include CIA involvement, military support, and monetary support (eg. the National Endowment for Democracy - funded by the U.S. government, but laundered through other entities). Putting the Shah back in Iran ('53), supporting a military coup in Guatemala ('54), the Vietnam War, over-throwing Allende in Chile ('73) and Chavez in Venezuela ('02), spending $65+ million in the Ukraine '04 election, and interfering with early indigenous Iraqi political efforts after taking over the country were but a few of the examples - involving many Presidents and both parties.

Bovard's recommendations, however, were rather weak. Emphasizing "representative government (creating "less mass delusion" - somehow), and restoring the rule of law (almost laughable in today's climate of dubious spying, withholding information at will, enforcing tight party discipline to muscle support and stifle dissent, and packing the Supreme Court with supporters) were his two top ideas. To be honest, I don't have anything better to offer - other than we need to be re-thinking the appropriateness of our governmental system given the impossibility of acting as an informed electorate in our so-called democracy. Simply reforming lobbying abuses (not addressed by Bovard) is by no means sufficient.

Today is a good day I think to write about the successes and failures of American representative government, and it's been a long time since I've read a better survey of those failures than James Bovard's "Attention Deficit Democracy." This book is nothing less than, to borrow a phrase Bovard himself borrows from John Taylor, a "commission to overthrow political idolatry" -- which shows, of course, why so many strong feelings come to the fore when people read his writings.

Bovard's career is evident proof of the saying of Charles Beard that the quickest way to get yourself a reputation as a troublemaker and extremist is to go around saying the same things the Founders said in 1776. Bovard's problem is that he takes history seriously. He takes concepts and the meaning of words seriously. Most of all, he takes liberty seriously. He further places himself outside the pale when he uncompromisingly criticizes both Republicans and Democrats. When he took on President Clinton in book after book, it may have been easy enough to categorize Bovard as a "conservative." But now that he's giving President Bush the same treatment, what are we to do about him? Because clearly, there is no morally acceptable ground outside that staked out by the two "opposing" parties.

But enough sarcasm. In "Attention Deficit Democracy," Bovard is saying things that need to be said -- things which should be self-evident to any open-minded observer. Americans who still embrace the truisms of talk radio, the major newspapers and TV stations, and their sixth grade civics classrooms, will shudder at the author's disproving the trendy equation of "freedom" and "democracy" (in fact, they don't have any direct or necessary relationship at all), his stomping of the urban legend that "democracies never fight each other," and perhaps most of all, his sacrilegious suggestion that the people most to blame for the current state of affairs are the American people themselves. This isn't just a simple, Al Frankenish, "How could you let yourself be fooled by Bush?", but a much more fundamental questioning of people's understanding of how far away from true liberty we've really moved. Are we still a free country, just because we're given the chance to vote for new rulers every two, four, or six years?

James Bovard's recitation of the administration's "disassembling" (to use a Bushism) on torture made for deeply frustrating reading. His citing chapter and verse of all the elites who place "trust of government" as the highest of a citizen's obligations, was infuriating. And his attempt to show how "freedom" and "democracy" are in fact the answers to two, very different, questions was something that really needed to be said (or said again: I point the reader to "Liberty or Democracy: The Challenge of Our Time" [1952, reprinted 1993] by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn for an excellent primer on this topic). On the whole, this is an excellent book filled with excellent analysis. It's much easier to get outraged by him, or to ignore him, than it is to refute the fundamental truths he's laying out.

Bovard's last section, where he answers the inevitable "So what can we do about it?" question, struck me as a little thin relative to the strength of the rest of the book. But I suspect he included that chapter just to avoid the otherwise-inevitable criticisms of those who believe every political book needs to end with a twelve-point platform for fixing everything in the next five years. Personally, I think Bovard's analysis of the problem is right on, but I tend to doubt that things will ever be "fixable." We've fallen too far to ever reclaim that height, and that makes Independence Day a depressing holiday indeed.

You'll need to read this book if you want to gain a greater understanding of why Americans feel disempowered, don't vote, aren't involved in democracy in general, and seemingly don't care that their government is slowly increasing its tyranny over the populace and how the human lust for power is abusing the fundamentals of the Constitution.

I have mixed feelings about the book. To me, it has 3 voices.

The first voice, "Introduction", is amazingly well-written, and worth the purchase price alone. It summarizes the entire book's thesis: America is becoming an "elective dictatorship" where the voters elect officials and permit them to choose who will violate the laws and the Constitution. Whatever concepts we hold about Democracy, they are allusions to the past and used by modern leaders to fog our thinking about what is actually happening and what our government has become. We hold the most powerful leader of the world sinless when he knowlingly lies and does harm (wars); yet, would send any other person to prison if their fabrications did harm (e.g., CEO's lying about their product that eventually hurt citizens).

The second voice I'll call soundbites. Every couple of pages Bovard reduces a complex set of issues into a 15 word soundbite. These are sprinkled throughout the book, and are wonderfully concise and impactful. Delightful, in fact. If you ever needed to illuminate an argument when discussing politics, Bovard gives you plenty of ammunition. Reporters, journalists, historians, and copy editors will benefit. You could hang an entire 'infotainment' episode around one or two of these delicious zingers. Hosting a dinner party? Impress your friends by dropping a few of Bovard's soundbites into the conversation.

The third voice I'll call Google Journalism or Joogalism. Its the part that I don't care much for and yet is the bulk of the book. Bovard is the victim of the same problem of most current writers: fill the pages with endless factoids, each disconnected to the other, to prove a point that gets lost in minutia. These points are of value, yes. They are needed to illustrate and support an argument, yes. Yet it creates the very problem that the author (and many authors of today) are complaining about: people aren't involved. And no wonder--everywhere an American turns there is a firehose of disconnected pieces of information raining down on the them. These facts are great for those needing supporting evidence, but make lousy reading as a "story".

Overall, a great book and one you'll want to read if you want to understand how our nation is shifting political governance.

Mr. Bovard removes the pleasant veil that shelters American democratic system and lets us peek inside at the real deal. Great book, as the other contributions by the same author.

James Bovard's Attention Deficit Democracy is an engaging, articulate, and passionate expose of one of the major causes of America's loss of liberty, the American people's apathy, ignorance, and collusion with the power-grabbers. Bovard takes the American people to task, pointing out that we must take much of the responsibility for allowing the federal government to steal our rights over the last 100 years. The Spirit of 1776 is long gone; in it's place is a willful refusal to get involved in the hard work of keeping the federal government under control, and a willingness to give up hard-won freedoms to the Nanny State. Unleashing Leviathan results in we ourselves becoming leashed, and serving as no more than cannon fodder and cash cows for the powers-that-be. The cost of this apathy and ignorance in terms of lives lost, property stolen, and rights trampled is shown to be truly devastating, both here in these United States, and overseas. Bovard's book is a call to wake up; I only wish he had spent some time giving us his views on what can be done to turn things around.

James Bovard chronicles the evolution of American presidential politics to the state we suffer today. Executive power has eroded individual liberties. He examines the low bar for what passes as truth from governmental leaders to the gullible citizenry.

"Attention Deficit Democracy" is loaded with quotes from historical figures.
Like the quote on page 164 from Vin Weber- "We create the government that screws you, and then you're supposed to thank us for protecting you from it."

The presidents and other leaders lie and we act like it's to be expected. Terms like "political illiteracy", "blind trust" and "mass ignorance" all too often seem to fit the general voting public.

The chapter entitled "Messianic Democracy" was a brilliantly written history lesson on American foreign policy. A few examples were the CIA's aid in the military coup in Honduras of 1954 fueled by the interest of United Fruit Company in a dispute over compensation for land.
A more recent example is the extreme U.S. manipulation of the Iraqi elections.

Mr. Bovard examines the heavy influence of Leo Strauss' views on foreign policy via neo-conservatives. An enlightening quote from Shadia Drury's book notes that Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize that there is no morality and that there is only one natural right- the right of the superior to rule over the inferior." That's on page 96. That school of thought propelled the aggressive U.S. foreign policy position of preemptive war/invasion.

The author hit the nail on the head regarding 9/11. "The fact that numerous government agencies botched their duty to defend the American people became, in Bush's eyes, a failure of freedom itself." Page 236.

"Attention Deficit Democracy" drives home the uncomfortable reality that a lot of us (citizens) don't care about truth in politics or power grabs by the administration past and present. This is due in part because we suffer from blind trust, reduced expectations, or ignorance. Any deficit in attention by the voting public is subject to exploitation by political campaigns.

This is a very good book about current politics and how we as citizens need to be more attentive and return to the watchful attitude of the early Republic.

This essay on the negative side of American politics is the handbook for every citizen that votes and does not vote. This book does not favor the Right or the Left. You'll never be an informed voter until you've read James Bovard's masterpiece.

Bob Barr wrote the introduction to this great book.No matter what your political leanings, you've gotta read this book.

Heavily referenced material. For you lefties there's plenty of what was wrong with Bush. More than that though, it's what's wrong with Politics.No political bias here.

If you're tired of the same old corporate controlled politics and want to get back to the original forefathers vision for our country you gotta read these books.And maybe,just maybe,become a Libertarian! :)

Either way we're all in this together.We still have a chance to make it work.