Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country [Hardcover]

Thom Hartmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2010

In this new work, Thom Hartmann covers 11 straightforward solutions to America's current problems. At the core of each is a call to reclaim economic sovereignty and to wrest control of democracy back from the corporate powers that have hijacked both America and her citizens.

What's particularly unique about Hartmann's solutions is that all have been proven to work. Every single one of his 11 steps either was historically part of what built America’s greatness in the past (such as enforcing the Sherman Act and breaking up big corporations or returning to a tariff-based trade policy), or has worked well in other nations (like a national single-payer healthcare system —Medicare Part "E" for "Everybody"—or encouraging the growth of worker-owned cooperatives like the $6 billion Mondragon cooperative in Spain).

Hartmann's solutions are essentially nonpartisan. Virtually all have been promoted at one time or another in American history by both political parties, although today most (but not all) fall into the realm of "progressive solutions." Both Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan will find broad areas of agreement with this book.

From addressing the problem of a warming globe to the death of America's middle class to the loss of our essential liberties, Rebooting The American Dream shows how America can reclaim the vision of our Founders and the greatness we held both at home and abroad for over a century.
 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nationally-syndicated radio host and bestselling author Hartmann (Screwed) takes up his progressive cudgels once again. His theme this time: the need to turn back the clock 30 years and undo the legacy of Reaganomics. Turning the clock back further still, he recounts a story about how George Washington had to have an American suit specially made for his Inauguration because, even after the revolution, fine clothing (and much else) was still imported from Britain. Unlike many who argue the need for a return to protectionist policies, Harmann doesn't fault China for skirting rules of free trade, but rather applauds their successful adoption of Hamiltonian economics, which in his opinion made America great. While many of his 11 points are broadly accepted by progressives (a carbon tax, for instance) his take on corporate reform is unique. Not only does he support strict regulation of corporate lobbyists and disavow the belief that the First Amendment endows corporations with rights, he suggests the U.S. replace large corporations with cooperatives and adopt a shareholder-free "social-capital" model; profits not used for reinvestment would be divided between employees and the community, avoiding "the pitfalls of both modern capitalism and old-fashioned communism."
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About the Author

National radio host Thom Hartmann is the award-winning, best-selling author of fourteen books currently in print in more than a dozen languages on four continents. Hartmann is also an entrepreneur, an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics. The former executive director of a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and abused children, he has helped set up hospitals, schools, famine relief programs, and communities for orphaned or blind children in India, Africa, Australia, South America, Europe, Israel, Russia, and the United States. Thom is the host of a wildly popular national radio program on the Dial-Global network, which is broadcast during radio prime time on stations from coast-to-coast and on satellite radio.
 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; Reprint edition (October 11, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1605097063
• ISBN-13: 978-1605097060
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #575,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thom Hartmann, who started in radio in 1968, is also an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, an author, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics. The co-founder (with his wife, Louise) of The New England Salem Children's Village (1978) and The Hunter School (1997), he has led national innovations in the areas of residential treatment for abused children and private/public education for learning-disabled children. Hartmann is the four-time Project Censored Award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of nineteen books currently in print in over a dozen languages on five continents. He is the former executive director of a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and abused children, and has helped set up hospitals, famine relief programs, schools, and refugee centers in India, Uganda, Australia, Colombia, Russia, and the United States through the German-based Salem International program. Formerly rostered with the State of Vermont as a psychotherapist, founder of The Michigan Healing Arts Center, and licensed as an NLP Trainer by Richard Bandler (who wrote the foreword to one of Thom's books), he was the originator of the revolutionary "Hunter/Farmer Hypothesis" to understand the psychiatric condition known as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). A guest faculty member at Goddard College in Vermont, he also synthesized the "Younger/Older Culture model" for describing the underpinnings - and possible solutions - to the world's ecological and socio-political crises, suggesting that many of our problems are grounded in cultural "stories" which go back thousands of years. His most recent books are "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class," "The Edison Gene," "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call to Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical ideas, August 28, 2010

By 

Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

"Rebooting the American Dream" by progressive radio and TV host, entrepreneur, activist and author Thom Hartmann proposes how to restore American working class economic and political justice. Suggesting that America's proud industrial past is prologue to the future, Mr. Hartmann discusses the ideas and policies that are known to work if we can only find the wisdom and courage to act. Written with passion, intelligence and wry humor, Mr. Hartmann's accessible and empowering book should be appreciated by a wide audience.

Insprired by Alexander Hamilton's 11-point Plan for American Manufactures, Mr. Hartmann dedicates eleven chapters that touch on critical economic issues including tariffs, taxes, small business, banking, energy, immigration, and more. Mr. Hartmann finds that ever-increasing corporate control of the economy has led to concentrated ownership and wealth at the top while pushing the middle and lower classes of American workers towards the bottom. Drilling into each issue in detail, Mr. Hartmann discusses what policies need to change if we want everyone to participate in the American Dream, not just the few.

For example, Mr. Hartmann contends that stiff tariffs are critical to protecting the kinds of well-paying jobs that can only come from maintaining a strong domestic manufacturing base. On this point, Mr. Hartmann goes against the so-called free trade message that is relentlessly amplified by a media whose multinational corporate sponsors profit handsomely from their exploitation of world labor market disparities. In this light, Mr. Hartmann correctly and forcefully dismisses Thomas Friedman's well-known but erroneous 'flat' earth theory as "nonsense", siding instead with Hamilton and the dozens of other industrial countries around the world today including Germany, South Korea and China who have significantly raised their standards of living by supporting their respective home manufacturing industries.

However, Mr. Hartmann intends to do more than just inform. Trading on his signature radio and television sign-off, "Tag, you're it!" the author hopes that the information conveyed in his book will inspire readers to demand real change in government and accountability from big business. We need more people like Mr. Hartmann.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars High on Specifics..., September 7, 2010

By 

James Hiller (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country (Hardcover)

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... a quick read, and yet a little short on inspiration (more on that later). For the past several years, I have listened devotedly to Thom Hartmann. Broadcasting out of Oregon to a national audience, Hartmann has tried relentlessly to give voice to the un- and underrepresented in our country; battling corporate personhood and its unrelenting financial influence its billions of dollars has on our democracy, and correct the course our country has traveled over the past thirty years. One thing that I have admired about Hartmann is his desire to invite those who disagree with him on his radio program and debate important issues (Limbaugh and Beck, are you listening?). So it was with great excitement that I was offered a copy of his newest book, "Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country".

On the heels of his last book Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture (honestly, which I wasn't much inspired to finish), this is a much more practical and real book. Hartmann dissects issues of real importance to our country. Based on the work of Alexander Hamilton, who wrote an eleven step plan for building our country's industrial base, Hartmann takes his principles and places them in the forefront of our Republican shattered American economy. The first chapter alone discusses the hemorrhaging of American jobs due to loop holes and anti-protectionist laws that have opened up the world to American jobs but not American products. Just try and find something in stores that is American made. It's challenging. Other chapters in the book include rolling back Reagan's tax breaks on the rich, the rise and domination of corporate media, and the devastating effect of lobbyist influence on Congress. If you are a regular Hartmann listener, none of these topics are new to Hartmann.

Hartmann does an excellent job placing his arguments in an historical context, which personally resonates with me. He also backs up his arguments with facts and statistics (that I'm sure conservatives don't want to acknowledge). His chapters are short and quick reads, packed full of useful information for those of us wanting to challenge the current status quo. However, I removed one star for man of the chapters being someone impersonal. In an effort to make his points, sometimes Hartmann misses the human connection in these stories. However, the power of the book lies in the information, and it's presented clearly.

In fact, I can see using this book as a guide for writing letters to the editor, for blogs, or for anyone wanting to challenging conservative coworkers or family members who have "drank the Kool-Aid" and think that lower taxes for the rich, more tax breaks for oil companies, and now unlimited corporate spending for advertising in elections. Hartmann has opened the battle with a strong book, and I highly recommend reading it.

Like a previous reviewer said, will anyone in the Obama administration even read it?

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars But will Obama read it?, September 5, 2010

By 

Cecil Bothwell "Author of "Whale Falls: A... (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country (Hardcover)

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Thom Hartmann has delivered another lucid explanation of what's gone wrong in America in recent decades, and, as ever, he is brief and to the point. I read this latest in one sitting and came away with talking points for my own work and a renewed hope that change is possible.

Hartmann is unrelenting in his assertion that Reaganomics and Clintonomics have undone our nation, abetted by corporate interests and the Supreme Court. Globalization has beggared the U.S., crushing the middle class, moving manufacturing and corporate headquarters offshore, and further entrenching the super-rich. CEO pay in this country was at about the world standard before Reagan, some 30 times that of entry-level workers. Now it is routinely 500 times greater than the lowest, and sometimes 5,000 times that level.

The author demonstrates and explains why higher taxes have always raised wages and reduced the size of government and why unions are essential to worker rights. He shows why all of the other developed nations in the world have benefited from universal health care and shows that a simple majority in Congress could make Medicare available to anyone who wanted to join - and that it would be easily and immediately revenue neutral.

Only once does Hartmann slip back into the faith-based thinking that must have been part of his youth when he sideswipes "our belief in the supremacy of science." (He wandered off into magical thinking in one brief stretch of his otherwise thoughtful The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late). Blaming "our belief" in science for environmental damage is an unfortunate confusion of cause and effect, for which I nearly bumped this review down to four stars - but Hartmann is otherwise so good that I gave him a pass. We don't "believe" or "disbelieve" in science, or shouldn't. We accept or don't accept the results of repeated experiments, and it isn't science that dumps toxins in rivers or allows genetically modified species to go wild, it is public policy and, often, corporate greed at work.

Elsewise, Thom, good on you. And tomorrow, the revolution.