Customer Reviews

Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change

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Those who still want Mike Gravel's original Citizen Power, but can't afford to pay over $200 for the few rare copies that are available, will be pleased with the new Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change. In some chapters, Senator Gravel has incorporated substantial excerpts from his original book and then updated his thoughts on each issue, often admitting that his position on a certain issue in the 1970s was naive and that he now views that issue with a mature mind. This is a refreshingly candid look at a presidential candidate's positions on key issues facing the American people today. Most importantly, however, is Chapter 2 and supplemental appendices about the National Initiative, which Senator Gravel and some of the nation's top constitutional scholars crafted to empower citizens as lawmakers; after all, lawmaking is the cornerstone of democracy. All subsequent chapters address how the National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D)would work to alleviate problems, such as healthcare and education.

Senator Gravel has produced an engaging book! He presents complex and difficult issues facing the US and the world in understandable prose and proposes solutions that call for transformational change. In response to a legislative process controlled by corporations and special interests Gravel proposes the National Initiative on Democracy that would empower the people to legislate through direct democracy in national referendums on issues. In response to ineffective global governance Gravel calls for a restructuring of the UN including an end to veto powers for the permanent members of the Security Council. I was delighted to see his position on American exceptionalism. Granted that we are #1 in the world in the numbers of people in our prisons, on many key measures such as education, healthcare we are far from being the best in the world. I was most pleased by the optimism of Mike Gravel's vision for the future of America in the world. He sees solutions to problems such as global warming, energy, and national security through greater cooperation with other countries. The beginning of his space policy statement on page 59 is particularly encouraging: "SPACE REPRESENTS A LIMITLESS FRONTIER for humankind. Laws modeled on the Law of the Sea need to be agreed upon to make energy, natural resources, and knowledge available in a manner that fosters greater cooperation, rather than greater competition, among all nations. In keeping with this spirit, space must not be militarized."

Mike Gravel, Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change 2/E (Authorhouse, 2008)

Thirty-seven years ago, Mike Gravel published the first edition of Citizen Power amidst the chaos of the Vietnam War. Then came 2008, and Mike Gravel's bid for the Presidency; in the intervening time, not a single thing Gravel had written about had gotten better. In fact, every last one of them had gotten demonstrably worse. What better time for a revamp and update of Citizen Power? The original, unfortunately, had lapsed out of print, and of course no major press wants to publish a book by a presidential candidate who doesn't actually have a shot at the Oval Office (John Hagelin's Manual for a Perfect Government, published when he was making his presidential bid, was published by Maharishi University of Management Press; Michael Badnarik's Good to Be King, published during his presidential bid, was published by Writers' Collective; you get the idea. Now compare the books written by Barack Obama during his presidential bid), so Gravel decided to go the POD route and publish the second edition of the book through Authorhouse. This usually sets off warning bells in my head, as the majority of POD releases I've read have been nightmares of spelling and grammar abuse. Perhaps it's because Gravel was working off a text that had previously been printed by a major publisher, but this one didn't seem to have quite as many mistakes (though they do exist here in larger quantities than one would expect from a major-press book) as is par for this particular course.

Citizen Power is about exactly what the title promises: putting the citizen back in the driver's seat in this country. It's a position we're supposed to have, and the founding fathers explicitly stated this; Gravel wastes no time in reminding us of George Washington's statement that "[t]he basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter the constitutions of government" (epigraph to Chapter 2) and describing how it is we're supposed to go about getting back in the driver's seat (it's called the Democratic Initiative, and reading about it alone is worth the price of admission here). The rest of the actual manuscript, which covers the first hundred forty or so pages of the book, spends a chapter at a time addressing one major problem with the current (as of the book's writing; GWB was in power) government, explains why politics as usual in Washington won't cut it (and, by extension, that the people need to be back in power in order to get real change accomplished), and points out possible solutions to said problems. The rest of the book's two hundred thirty-eight pages reprint the expected documents (the Democracy Initiative, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence), but cap it off with the charter of the United Nations, which I don't think I've seen before in a political book. (As a sidelight, it's a very interesting experience to re-read the Declaration of Independence in light of the past eight years of American government. Well worth doing if you haven't done so recently.)

Of course, the only way to find a politician who believes exactly the same things you do is to go into politics yourself (and even then it's an arguable proposition at best), and so you're bound to disagree with at least some of what Mike Gravel says in these pages. You may find he goes too far in some places, or not far enough in others, or that he's entirely off his head in a place or two. But one of the things that really impressed me about Mike Gravel over the course of his presidential campaign (and in the interests of full disclosure, when he garnered neither the Democratic nor the Libertarian presidential nomination, I wrote him in when voting for President in 2008) is how broad-based his appeal was. Hardcore liberals loved his virulent anti-war stance; moderate liberals were fond of his ideas on health care and the environment; conservatives loved his rabid attacks on big government and his Constitutionalism. (And I mean true conservatives, not these abhorrent neocons. Who'd want to appeal to them, anyway?) No matter who you are, really, unless you're a neocon (and the neocons are really a lost cause), there's a part of Mike Gravel's message that's bound to appeal to you. If you didn't take him seriously when he was running for President, pick this up, and maybe you'll start. If you did, and you don't already have this, you owe it to yourself. Citizen Power is very good stuff. *** ½

Mike Gravel's book, CITIZEN POWER, is extraordinary. His proposals are grounded in research, integrity and common sense. In CITIZEN POWER, Mike Gravel outlines problems that the average American Citizen faces and offers an optimistic and researched solution. CITIZEN POWER is an enjoyable and thought provoking book.

An eloquent and lucid political manifesto by an increasingly refreshing, honest and prudent politician.
Citizen Power showcases a myriad of power-to-the-people proposals, and sways from your politics as usual demagoguery, while Gravel's prose is filled with solemnity and earnestness, contrary to his political opponents.
The book's motif is the National Initiative for Democracy, a populist program that will enable ordinary citizens to become legislatures, moreover eliminating large bureaucracies and big government lapdogs.
An emphasis is brought upon the military-industrial complex and its draconian, unproductive results. Suggesting the ultimate disintegration of the latter, if not grave consequences will ensue
Gravel's proposals on education is most interesting, and offer an ingenious subsidiary, if utilized in orthodoxy, to our failing educational system.
The War on Drugs chapter was dismaying at least, and produced a sharp contempt for the activities our government continues to perpetuate.

I have probably forgotten important topics of this book, and my review is ultimately asymmetrical and lackluster. I can only recommend this fine book, so you can make your own judgments and discoveries.

I am really interested in Chapter 9 about crime and punishment. I fully believe that one should be punished for whatever crime was done, but someone that has been incarcerated for 30 years and has absolutely changed should deserve a chance in life. I'm speaking of my husband, We've written a book of our 23 yrs, a powerful, true story.
I only wish our law makers could understand and see some things differently.

Dutchess Taylor, Author of: The Devil's Playground and Redemption & Deliverance