We the People: A Call to Take Back America [Paperback]

Thom Hartmann (Author), Gene Latimer (Editor), Paul Burke (Editor), Neil Cohn (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 2004

America faces its greatest threat since the Civil War. The worst fears of the Founders are being realized, as powerful corporate interests have taken over our culture and representative government. We the People now face a fundamental choice: take back our country ... or do nothing, and become victims of tyranny and empire.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Clear and compelling. Read it and act. -- David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World

Finally, the Bush Republicans get the long-form comic history book they deserve... -- Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media?

Hartmann is like America's Civics Teacher, telling us everything we need to know about what democracy really is. -- Marianne Williamson

Not only does this book tell you what’s really going on, it even draws you a picture of it. -- Jim Hightower

There's nothing childish or "cartoonish" about the ideas, strategies, and analysis in Thom Hartmann's brilliant book. -- Peter Coyote, actor

This book can empower young and old to take responsibility for the future of our world. -- Eric Utne

This is an excellent tool of popular education. All Americans should know what's in this book! -- Tom Hayden

Thom Hartmann's message for everyone should be part of the Western canon. Read this book for a jolt of illumination! -- Janeane Garofalo

We highly recommend the graphic non-fiction book, We the People: A Call to Take Back America. -- BuzzFlash.com, April 2004

We the People is the product of a brilliant and principled thinker. -- Ted Rall, author of 2024 and Gas War

About the Author

Thom Hartmann, our contemporary Thomas Paine, has done the hard work of researching and reading the documents that show how ordinary Americans have become second-class citizens -- overshadowed by the first-class "personhood" of corporations, their directors and officers, and the politicians they put in office. He reveals the hidden agendas of political corporatists who seek to bankrupt and "drown" our federal, state, and local governments in the process of taking total control.

Yet, thankfully, there is still time to halt the loss and restore many of our precious rights and freedoms. Hartmann points the way out of the peril -- in brilliant, down-to-earth fashion.

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: CoreWay Media (March 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882109384
• ISBN-13: 978-1882109388
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #516,100 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

106 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hartmann's Call for an American Revival, May 14, 2004

By 

William Hare (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: We the People: A Call to Take Back America (Paperback)

Thom Hartmann, a leading radio voice in progressive circles and a diligent writer promoting American values, has combined the hard-hitting, concise common sense message of populists Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins in a cartoon context reminiscent of the best of Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury." This approach enables readers to more readily absorb the important points encompassed by Hartmann in "We The People."

Hartmann is a scholar of early American history with a solid grounding of the philosophy of the Founding Fathers, which he effectively utilizes in drawing important differences and parallels between the early days of the Republic and now. A highlight of this informative work is his valuable insights comparing the Patriot Act of the Bush administration and the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the Federalists during the administration of President John Adams. Then, as now, attempts were made to squelch opposition as journalists fighing the principle of power immersed in the hands of the privileged few, and allying themselves with the new Democratic Party led by Thomas Jefferson, were arrested and put in jail. The Federalists sought to maintain the very monopolistic practices against which colonists rebelled with the Boston Tea Party, which was the first major act in breaking the stranglehold of Britain's East India Company.

Striking parallels emerge as Hartmann compares the current practices and long-term goals of the Republican right and previous forms of government such as Feudalism, German Nazism and Italian Fascism. While spokesperssons of the right recoil at the associatiion of such totalitarian practices alongisde what they term conservatism, Hartmann contends that Bush-styled Republicanism marks a strong departure from traditional conservative thought. He cites the stated goal of rightist tax advocate and stanch Bush ally Grover Norquist to "drown government in the bathtub." Hartmann notes that Feudalism, Nazism and Fascism bore the similarity of of merging cumulative corporate wealth with a central government. Norquist and other Bush disciples seek to destroy protections traditionally enjoyed by the citizenry, leaving them every bit as vulnerable to a government-corporate elite as were vassals in the Middle Ages.

A frightening corroboration of this viewpoint has been realized. Not that long ago the world's leading corporation was General Motors. Its employees enjoyed the benefits of a Union Shop promulgating safe and healthy work standards, along with a satisfactory minimum wage, medical care, sick leave, and retirement benefits. Currently the largest corporation is Walmart. Its economic dominion is exemplified by the temporary worker stripped of benefits. This enables an all-powerful employer to subject employees to long, burdensome word schedules devoid of the protections and benefits enjoyed by the General Motors work force.

Hartmann sounds another alarm bell in the face of a frightening current trend. In writing about the dangers of theocracies as manifested in the past, Hartmann warns us a about the dangerous trend in this direction as currently observed in the Bush presidency. The very messianic message carried by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to the German people concerning Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, which was destined to endure for a thousand years, is being delivered by Bush and his evangelical Christian base. Televangelist Pat Robertson recently stated that Bush was certain to win reelection "in a walk" because he is the handpicked emissary of God. Bush told Bob Woodward in an interview that, prior to invading Iraq, after he had been asked if he had requested advice from his father, who was president during the first Gulf War, he responded that he had sought counsel from his "other father," meaning God. With the Christian right so strongly anticipating Armageddon, a pervasive danger exists that entrenched evangelical beliefs will override efforts to achieve peaceful compromise in the Middle East and harness to most sophsticated nuclear weaponry alongside primitive religious beliefs.

Not only does Hartmann make a convincing case for political change and restoring America from a nation dominated by corporate elitism to the democratic tradition embodied by the principles of Jefferson, James Madison and Thomas Paine; he provides grass roots recommendations for citizens to coalesce toward their goal. He cites numerous organizations on the Internet and in America's cities, towns and villages that are dedicated to restoring traditional American democratic principles. As Hartmann notes, the prevailing corporate monolith must be effectively challenged with vigilant, intelligently focused citizen action, and cannot wait for direction in the traditional party structure. A new group of dedicated Americans needs to emerge in the twenty-first century and commit themselves to the restoration of democracy in the same tradition of the Founding Fathers of 1776.

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Putting Justice into the Picture, June 10, 2004

By 

Daniel Dennis (Brisbane, Queensland Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: We the People: A Call to Take Back America (Paperback)

This is a delightful work of art and advocacy by one of the most eloquent and thoughtful commentators on America's current direction. Mr Hatmann and colleagues have produced a superb document on how power is usurping justice and the common good in the age of corporative monopoly. Having heard the brilliant and articulate author on Australian radio speaking to issues raised in his "Unequal Protection", I had high expectations of this book. I wasn't disappointed. Complex issues are treated with intelligent simplicity,directness and respectful detail. Ingenious visuals capture the essence of the real issues facing a US gazing into the bottomless blue hole of pap television and syndicated media trivia while the noblest of America's traditions and commitments are carried off for re-wording or the junkyard. Reading this book is a pleasure and an education. For educators like me, it is a most valuable resource.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, Moving, An Important Must-Read, September 7, 2005

By 

Robert Kall "Rob Kall of Opednews.com" (Newtown, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: We the People: A Call to Take Back America (Paperback)

If you Haven't read a any of the Thom Hartmann Books, you are in for a real treat. Thom's Newest book, We The People: A Call To Take Back America," is simply must reading. It's not quite describable, but a cross between animated comic and Japanese anime art, but it's talking about all the political and democracy issues that Thom takes on so well-- corporate personhood, the right wing threat to democracy, selling off the commons, how the founders, particularly Jefferson, of America would have viewed today's situations....
I've reprinted just about every article Thom publishes lately, on my progressive. tough liberal website OpEdNews dot com, where I am editor publisher. His articles are always among the most popular. (They are usually first published on CommonDreams dot org.) If you know Thom's work, whether his brilliant books, Last Hours or Unequal Protection, or his OpEd articles, you'll want to be sure to get this newest book. You'll be very glad you did. If you're smart, you'll order two or three, since you're definitely going to want to pass them out to people you care about.

I don't think anyone discusses democracy, not any pundit or politician alive, than Thom Hartmann. He approaches his subject matters with vision, depth of history, compassion and intelligence. He says he comes from the "radical middle" and it's true. his positions are ones the average person agrees with-- filled with common sense and great wisdom.

You'll want to hide this book from your right wing relatives... just getting a look at it will be like a punch in the face, or... a flush of blood to the brain. But you'll want to get lots of copies to give to your friends. I'm getting a copy for each of my kids (23, 20 and 14.)

Frankly, when I heard that some of Thom's writing had been adapted to a comic format, I was skeptical. But it's been brilliantly done. The originally ideas that were in Thom's essays are actually improved upon by the creative imagination of his editors and illustrator-- Gene Latimer (Editor), Paul Burke (Editor), Neil Cohn (Illustrator.)

Don't think of this is a comic book. Think of it as a hyper-idea media document that will rivet your attention and move you to passion. This is a powerful book that will make a difference.

I know at least one person who has started a We The People Campaign, inspired by this book.