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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Summary!, August 26, 2006
This review is from: Losing Our Democracy: How Bush, the Far Right and Big Business Are Betraying Americans For Power and Profit (Hardcover)
"Losing Our Democracy" begins with a wry observation: "Much has been written about Bush's war for democracy abroad, but what about his war on democracy at home?" Green goes on to observe that while Bushites may question evolutionary Darwinism, they love Social Darwinism. But because of imperfect information, oligopoly power, corruption, deception, laissez isn't always fair.
Republicans have been brilliant in marketing their brand. Per Thomas Frank: "Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. Vote to make our country strong again; receive deindustrialization. Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization." How do the Republicans do it? Serial manipulation of information has confused and misled millions of Americans. Then there's the disproportionate influence of corporate dollars (1% give move campaign dollars than the other 99% and receive 40% of all recent tax cuts). Another distortion is created by the fact that 45% of Americans (eg. low population Red states such as Wyoming) elect 55% of our Senators.
Gerrymandering (plus enhanced fundraising ability) results in 98% of House members being re-elected. Other abuses include the Republicans running Congress basically without Democrat input, threatening Republican members with primary opposition and lack of funding if they vote against the President (House members do so 84% of the time), holding votes without allowing members time to read the proposed bill, and totally rewriting bills in conference committee with little member input.
Green then goes on to list abuses in other areas. The 2005 "Consume Fairness Act" moved class actions from state to federal courts, resulting in them being much more likely to be thrown out as "unmanageable." Then there is corporate accounting fraud (Enron), grossly biased stock evaluators (Henry Blodget)
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Giving up essential freedom, is it really for security?, August 19, 2006
This review is from: Losing Our Democracy: How Bush, the Far Right and Big Business Are Betraying Americans For Power and Profit (Hardcover)
Mark Green touches upon how Bush is condemning the true notion of democracy in its birthplace while hypocritically proclaiming of his efforts to spread democracy to the rest of the world. The book is eloquently written and allows the readers to logically follow through Mark Green's reasoning of how Bush had sabotaged people's freedom in the US. Losing our democracy must be read if you want to know the current situation of our government and how it had led to the prevalence of cronyism in our country.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not just what, but why., December 26, 2007
Green neatly encapsulates the essential struggle we face as Americans, and sets a clear direction for what we need to do if America is to remain truly free. Many of his points will resonate with those made by authors like Thom Hartmann, and Green's perspective both pragmatic and compelling.
Reading this book I found it both frustrating and frightening how accepting greedy corporations have made us to the precursors of the destruction of our democracy. We are now a country that has been conditioned to accept with a disinterested shrug the change from representative democracy (one person, one vote) to "corporatocracy" (one dollar, one vote). We have co-mingled democracy (a political system) with capitalism (a form of economic organization). As citizens we've been weaned away from having a "say" to merely having a "voice" and are now, thanks to the power of corporate "free speech" well on the path to not being heard at all.
Read Green's book. He brings forth the simple truth that core American values (honesty, fairness, faith in facts and reason, tolerance, belief in the commons and the common good, preservation of nature and preserving for the future, and shared sacrifice for the well being of our fellow man (or woman)) are all being displaced by the one value that out of control global corporations and crony government can understand -- the dollar value.
If you're at all curious as to why after 9/11,the best presidential advice we received was that that we all "keep shopping" lest the terrorists win, this book is for you! Bravo, Mark Green.
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