56 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fireside Chat on the Cusp of History, March 29, 2009
This review is from: Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country (Hardcover)
Bill Greider has written a very good book, and a very needed book, about the dire situation our nation is facing. The timing of its appearance, given the curve of events, especially the public's outrage over the AIG bonuses, has made him smile, I'm sure, and seem just a bit prophetic, since he assigns a big role for growing citizen participation to build a new economy, and a "thicker" democracy. (For "the smile," see his Op-Ed in the Outlook section of the March 22, 2009 edition of the Washington Post: "Main Street is Fired Up. Does Obama Feel the Heat?" at [...]
It seems a lot of folks are calling for "Fireside Chats" these days, including NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who wants President Obama to level with the people over how tough the road ahead will be, but primarily to rally them behind the Secretary of the Treasury Geithner's Bailout II; others have called the President's recent appearance on the Jay Leno show a modern day "video" equivalent of the FDR original radio broadcasts, but this writer believes it is Bill Greider who has delivered a real Fireside Chat to the nation with his new book Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of our Country (Rodale).
To be a genuine Fireside Chat, whatever the format, success is a matter of both tone and content: a conversational, over-the-fence tone, and serious, society-shaking subject matter. Greider has done justice, and then some, to both aspects. His opening chapter, "Fair Warning," is nearly pitch perfect in putting the reader at ease that the matters which follow, grave as they are, will be understandable. And he's tough, but fair, on the nation's political leaders: "I have some hard things to say about our country. Beyond recession and financial crisis, we are in much deeper trouble than many people suppose or the authorities want to acknowledge...the political behavior I do not forgive is failing to give people fair warning...those who govern ought to tell people what's coming so they at least have a chance to get out of the way."
Yes, a chance "to get out of the way" would be nice for citizens, but they don't get off the hook so easily in this book, either. Ducking is not going to be enough. There won't be long vacations for anyone in our country, at least not for a while, given what is coming, and Greider wants to put citizens, and their morale, through a basic training course in political economy so they can become the "`third front' in the political power struggle, a counterforce to both government and the private interests, the two great poles of influence which have contested power in America for the past 100 years. During this great struggle, however, "Citizens became spectators, further alienated from participating in the decisions that govern their lives. To be heard in the halls of democracy, one has to hire a lobbyist. To influence the private decisions of corporations, one has to become a major shareholder. Many Americans, not surprisingly, have become passive and resigned to their powerlessness."
Now I am sure many leaders of public interest groups which try to engage citizens in achieving their organizations' goals would have some trouble with that statement. Greider is suggesting that we citizens need a little distance from both parties and from the intermediary institutions that try to bridge the gap between citizen and party. This is not being recommended as a permanent retreat from political engagement, however. Greider wants citizens to come up with their own new "formations." There are two political systems in the nation Greider tells us: the official one of the two parties and their intertwined interest groups which produce top-down agendas for the voters, and "The Other America," those who are not registered to either party, about a third of the voters, and whose voices are not being heard. He's hoping that they can eventually produce a modern day equivalent to the Populist movement of the 1890's, drawing their sustenance from the long flowing "Underground River" - the "deeper current in American life - the pulse of democratic promise." It's time to rethink the relationships and come back with new forms. Here's how he puts it:
I say this with sympathy, but many representative organizations operating in Washington, from organized labor to environmentalists, are caught in the middle and compromised by their proximity to power. Because they have a seat at the table with the insiders, major groups typically temper their agendas so they won't lose their access to powerful figures. As a practical matter, these representative groups censor out or edit the full-throated opinions and aspirations of their own rank and file. The people are, therefore, distanced from power by those they chose to speak for them.
POSTED: "CITIZENS KEEP OUT" (of Fed, Trade Policy)
Yet, if we think about it in the way Greider does, there is a lot of truth to those assertions. Do readers feel they can have any influence over the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, and its regional branches? Admittedly designed to be immune to congressional and presidential pressure, much less the "unwashed masses" of mere citizens, the Fed's policies have become terribly one-sided since the ascent of Alan Greenspan, according to Greider, and now there is very serious policy talk of giving the institution even greater power over economic matters. Bloomberg News, a business friendly, powerfully connected news service, has had its inquiries and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit shrugged off by the Fed; Bloomberg is just trying to find out where our tax money is going in the great Bailout. (Not until the thunderstorm of public anger over AIG bonuses led to a listing of its counterparties on March 15th did the Fed relent a bit - illustrating just what Greider is talking about for newly energized citizens' power...) And on another great issue of the past 30 years, globalization and trade, and the loss of American manufacturing jobs to cheap labor havens overseas, China especially, trade talks and trade agreements, perhaps more than any other great policy arena other than the conduct of the Fed, have been structured to keep citizens out - even the formal representatives of two very germane interests that should most certainly have a direct seat at the table: labor and the environment. We are all dependent on the state of, and nature of, our economy, and we are ostensibly the world's greatest democracy - so how come in two of its most important power arenas, we're effectively disenfranchised?
The Great Language Barrier
That's why, Greider tells us, he wrote this book in the way he did. In these two policy areas, think about the way the Washington establishment uses special, off-putting language to help keep citizens at bay. The Fed is famous for, among other things, "Fed speak," a combination of economic techno-talk and quasi-religious mysticism, one of the reasons Bill Greider's earlier book, in 1987 , was entitled Secrets of the Temple. In matters of globalization and "free-trade," we have been confronted with a long history of academic studies, very statistically oriented, demonstrating the "ironclad law" of comparative advantage working to everyone's benefit (its subsequent breakdown is presented in the Chapter called "Second Thoughts"), and a dogmatism against tariffs and trade barriers so intense, so "theological," that one of Greider's chapters on it is called "Blinded by Faith."
Greider has made a special effort to take on these very tough, but very important topics in an easy to understand writing style, and he has succeeded. (We'll look at what he says on them in greater detail below). In this task, he was consciously working to overcome the "language barrier" put up by the governing elite: "In plain and simple terms, I am a reporter - not an expert or puffed-up insider - and that is how I want to talk over Americans apprehensions about our future." The language barrier is both a symbol and a glaring example of something else: "...the great gulf between the authority of the governing experts and the rest of us..." a "crippling divide...far more damaging than the much-lamented partisan conflict between Democrats and Republicans." Greider believes that a lot could be done to effectively translate between the experts, the parties and the people - if the average citizen can master the home entertainment remote control (Greider has trouble, so do I) - then they ought to be able to understand economic policy, but "the governing classes often find it is more convenient not to be understood." It is however, "worse than that. The governing authorities, even many successful politicians, begin with a snide presumption that people are like children and can't handle the hard facts." Greider's right about this, and unfortunately, for the crucial matters at hand, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner fit the bill of that charge pretty well. Just try imagining Chairman Bernanke answering questions in a "citizens' forum" setting...and I've had my own two brief public arm-wrestling sessions with Larry Summers during "questions from the floor" time at two Washington think tank events, one at Brookings on the day Bear Stearns was going under...I felt like an impertinent student facing a teacher in a Charles Dickens novel...
How the Fed Turned Its Back on the People
Greider tells us that since the reign of Fed. Chairman Paul Volker, who brutally broke the back of inflation in the late 1970's and early 1980's, there has been a dramatic shift in the exercise of the supposedly balanced mandate the Fed is charged with carrying out: to fight inflation, and to pursue full employment. Especially so under the long tenure of Chairman Alan Greenspan. This shift...
Read more ›
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Hobo Philosopher, May 12, 2009
This review is from: Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country (Hardcover)
I have made it a point to read all of Mr. Greider's Books. I find him to be an honest interpreter of current events. I consider him my civics teacher. He has been all over the world and has a big overview of what is happening. He knows banking. He knows economics. He knows Washington politics. He knows world trade. He knows people. And he knows and respects all of us "little" regular folks. Most important of all he has and is concerned with moral character - right and wrong; fair and unfair - what the old school once called "Social Justice."
I was very surprised to read in this book that Mr. Greider was a product of a Republican upbringing. He states that if his back was put to the wall he would choose Democrat over Republican. I don't have to have my back to the wall to make the same choice - yet I find myself often as critical of both sides as Mr. Greider.
I think Mr. Greider has come to the age where he feels any beating around the bush to be a waste of his valuable time. In this book he is very open with regards to his motivation, his goals and his dreams for America.
He has covered the Washington political scene and found our elected representatives less than inspiring. He has covered lobbying and the moneyed interests and their hold on our system. He has written an exhausting book on the Federal Reserve. He has been hired to speak to bankers by the bankers. He has been warning of this economic and financial disaster for years. He has challenged the top economists on their principles - especially Free Trade and the Global economy. He has found little hope anywhere in the established system but yet he remains strong to his commitment to a personal optimism.
He compares his long and frustrating career to that of a bag lady standing on a corner somewhere in America, screeching to a crowd as they zoom by, unaware and unconcerned.
But who does he place his trust in if not the Fed, the president, the Senate, the Congress, the bankers, the CEOs and CFOs, the corporate giants, the international conglomerates, the boldest and brightest, the movers and shakers? Who is there left?
Mr. Greider places his faith in "we" the people - all the people and democracy. Democracy doesn't scare him. He loves it - the more the better.
He compares "we, the people" to an underground river. A river that rolls along beneath the surface. A river that is sometimes dry and sometimes a raging torrent. A river of people's varying opinions and ideas, a river of support, outrage and often society changing currents. Mr. Greider sees that river rising in America today. He wants to see it flood its caverns and fill our country with hope, change and, most of all, action.
In this book Mr. Greider cheers for an American Democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. He doesn't know how the people will do it. He doesn't know what they will actually do but in true optimist tradition he is hoping that today's underground river will swell into a deluge of change and moral economic character, true patriotism, and social justice. He wants to see a new focus on America and its people. Not isolationist but realistic and sensible - sensible to all of its citizens and not just the wealthy, the bankers, the stock brokers, and all the pointy-headed intellectuals and international investors.
When Mr. Greider says "Come Home, America" that is exactly what he means - Come Home America! Come home all of you Americans and bring your ingenuity, your inventive spirit, your investment capital, your love of your own, and let's rebuild this country into something that we all can be proud of as Americans.
Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher - Author of:
"The Eastpointer" Selections from award winning column.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
