Governments

However, this book proves that there is a great social movement that ordinary people CAN , RIGHT NOW make a diffrence about

The history of Mexico, like the history of Latin America, is a history of pain, struggle, and exploitation.

Marcos shows us a movement that seeks to right some of the wrong, and leads a movement of the oldest of the old, the oppressed of the oppressed: Indigenous campesinos (farmers) of Southern Mexico. Where pictures of Jesus Christ stand right there alongside of.....Che Guevara.

A people that have been traditionally been treated like dirt, for lack of a better word, now taking an inspirational and highly moving stand and demand an end to exploitation and a better way of life.

Through their charismatic and briliant leader, Marcos, he tells us the story of the people known as Zapatistas and their struggle for dignity.

The dignity of a people no longer willing to tolerate centuries of injustice.

What human being cannot be moved by such extroadinary courage?

The analysis of Medicare in the 1990s, found in the current volume, is excellent. This is an ideal time to read or reread the book since Medicare program changes will face our new President and the newly elected or reelected members of our House of Representatives and Senate during 2001. This fall I read the second edition and found the book very informative and enjoyable.

If so, Theodore Marmor's reissue and revision of The Politics of Medicare is the book you want to pick up. There is no comparable book of its kind. Other scholars have studied Medicare's origins. Journalists trace the ebb and flow of contemporary Washington battles over Social Security and Medicare. But Marmor, a Yale professor and health policy guru, has written the definitive analysis of how the political battles waged over health insurance and Medicare from the 1940s onward powerfully shape the debate over the program to this day.

Wondering why Medicare, unlike almost all major private insurance plans, fails to cover most prescription drugs? The seeds of an answer may be found in the fears of 1960s legislators that the unpredictable cost of drugs could swamp the program at its outset. Unsure why medical expenditures took off in the 1960s and 1970s? Partly because doctors, who had led the charge against a government-sponsored social insurance program for the aged, benefited enormously from generous rules that were designed to assauge their fears about participation. Puzzled how Medicare became such a political hot potato after years of uninterrupted popularity? Marmor deftly shows how the Reagan administration reoriented widely-held fears about medical inflation into narrower fears about the supposedly unsustainable cost of public programs.

Another reason that this astute volume bears reading, or rereading: Marmor shows that elections can really matter. In the absence of the Democratic majority in Congress that emerged from the 1964 elections, passage of Medicare would have been delayed or forestalled altogether.

Within the cozy world of health policy analysts, Marmor is known for being a staunch proponent of national health insurance and a skeptic about the potential of HMOs and different forms of "managed competition" to control health costs and delivery quality care. His convictions enliven the text rather than detracting from its rigorous logic. This is a book that anyone interested in the politics of health care, and in American politics in general, will appreciate.

One thing alone mars this otherwise impressive book: its packaging. Sadly, any seven-year old with access to Microsoft Excel could have improved on the volume's rudimentary and unappealing charts and graphics. But the reader shouldn't let this superficial flaw detract from Marmor's important and unusually well-written book.

He ignores the distinctions between "decriminalization" and "legalization", and lumps all "legalizers" into a single category, as not being "good enough". He does not seem to realize that there is a wide spectrum of beliefs on drugs, ranging from his position, to the position that all drugs should be banned everywhere.

He is uncompromising, and this is politically defeating. Nonetheless, his position is admirable, and his idea of drugs as a "right" similiar to all other "rights" bandied about in political discourse today, is a good one.

Nice philosophy, and one I wish more accepted it, but he's too radical for today's politicians, who are still in the dark ages of social medicine.

Fear of people committing suicide easily, is Szasz's main hypothesis for why we regulate prescription and illicit drugs the way we do in America today.

This book is good for convincing one that drugs should be legalized, but it is no help for accomplishing that feat politically.

The book's most striking charge (a correct one, at that!) is that a fundamental tyranny overtook this nation about
90 years ago when "Americans" lost their property rights over their own bodies--all in the name of governmentally-controlled "truth in advertising" for drug sales.

However, this "seemingly benign" governmental goal created untold danger for the very people it was meant to
protect. Szasz rightfully puts America's so-called "drug problem" in proper perspective by suggesting that the
admonition "buyer beware" should have sufficed--for drugs, as for almost everything else.

In the most general terms, this book demonstrates that there are no shortcuts to a thorough-going approach to American Liberty and Freedom. Dr. Szasz very clearly, and effectively, corrects those who claim that drug laws be summarily repealed for any reasons other than their moral unacceptability in a free state.

Making proper analogy to the wrongful justification of the slavery of blacks in America (owing to their mischaracterization as property), Szasz makes it clear that the infringement of property rights (both of your body, and substances you might possess) lies at the heart of America's despotic and tyrannical so-called "War on Drugs."

Although he does not (if memory serves me correctly) directly cite the 9th Amendment in defense of all those who would fight this indigenous, governmentally-sponsored terrorism, he could have:

"THE ENUMERATION OF CERTAIN RIGHTS, IN THE CONSTITUTION, SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE."

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms, remedy is set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is nature's manure." Thomas Jefferson

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The War on Drugs, as Dr. Szasz so carefully shows, is nothing less than a Jihad, a Holy War waged by the forces of reaction and restriction in our society against all those who think that there should be peaceful choice, or self-ownership, or genuine free thought. And like all Holy Wars, this one permits the worst atrocities to be visited on the unbelieving because they are not just wrong - they are evil.

Like many libertarians, Dr. Szasz has little use for compromise; in this case, by those who favor "decriminalization" or "medicalization" of psychoactive drugs. Such people, the author shows, will only end up replacing the current Ayatollahs (cops and ex-generals) with a new Inquisition lead by doctors and psychologists. In the world of physician-monitored drug usage, instead of being evil, anyone who wants to alter his or her own mood will be labeled as "sick" - and instead of being sent to jail, they will be forced into "treatment".

In trying to think of some literary comparison to "Our Right to Drugs", I can only think of Plato's records of certain iconoclastic dialogues about ancient Athenian closemindedness. Truely, Dr. Szasz is our Socrates.

She provides thoughtful, non-partisan analysis (rare in this age of personal commentary) of political advertisements. She discusses what worked, what didn't and why in a clear, thought-provoking yet easy to read manner.

Some of her best work. If you are interested in advertising or politics this book is a must have.

Anderson often pumped out scandalous drivel in which he conspicuously cast himself as the central figure. It could be speculated that if Anderson had not been such a successful publicity hound, he would have become a serial killer obsessed with newspaper clippings and broadcast reports of his crimes. Yet a decent and moral man emerges in this account of a colorful life.

Although several of Anderson's more convoluted conspiracy theories are rehashed (the JFK assassination chapter is incomprehensible), the book is mostly solid and an enjoyable read. Early chapters devoted to Anderson's boyhood in Depression-era Utah and his World War II adventures in China are excellent.

Anderson's running battle with the Nixon Administration, and his seething rage at what he saw as Jimmy Carter's hypocrisy and total incompetence, reveal a righteous indignation that is simultaneously tedious and fascinating. While he rightly condemns the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover, and even digs through garbage bins for dirt on the late FBI director, Anderson also is objective enough to admit the G-man never politicized his agency.

Anderson makes some very insightful observations. For example, he shares his fear that former Soviet scientists might one day assist rogue Islamic states. Written well before 2001, this and much more speculation about the aftermath of the Cold War proves well-founded.

The most surprising aspect of Peace, War and Politics is Anderson's self-deprecating humor. When potential sources offer juicy details for cash, Anderson humorously remembers he didn't have the funds to pay for them, and ethics were a secondary consideration. In addition to himself, Anderson reports on the foibles and strengths of his poorly paid interns and associates. Many like Brit Hume went on to become prominent reporters and broadcasters. The degree to which Anderson acknowledges these young, underpaid muckrakers is as admirable as it is surprising. Anderson also turns the spotlight onto a hypocritical national media that shunned him yet often followed his lead.

The highlight of the book is a very brief chapter about the return of General Anthony McAuliffe, whom Anderson describes as the most decent person he ever met, to a hero's welcome in Bastogne. Gen. McAuliffe is remembered for his reply "nuts" to a Nazi demand that he surrender his 101st Airborne troops and the Belgian town they defended during the Battle of the Bulge. McAuliffe tells Anderson that he "never cared " for General George Patton after Patton surveyed the frozen enemy bodies at Bastogne and commented "these are the types of Germans I like to see." McAuliffe, who commanded the troops who killed the soldiers, said the dead were mostly boys like the Americans who fought against them.

Given such humanistic insight into people, it is apparent Anderson never wet the bed into his late 20's, engaged in pyromania, tortured small animals in his youth, or fantasized about serial murder. No, if he hadn't become a muckraker, Jack Anderson very well could have been a Mormon church official albeit a very opinionated and self-absorbed one.

Before proceeding to the history of Populism, Goodwyn begins his book by introducing his "sequential process of democratic movement-building:" forming, recruiting, educating, and politicizing. (xviii) It is this theory of building and maintaining a movement culture, which provides the outline for Goodwyn's history. For Goodwyn, the movement successfully formed, recruited, and educated a large body of supporters. However, in politicizing, the movement failed to maintain its educational program and cooperative institutions, thereby opening the way for Silverites and Fusionists while losing its movement culture that attracted and held the base supporters.

Throughout the book Goodwyn centers Populism in the Farmers' Alliance of Texas and sees Charles Macune and William Lamb as the movement's unofficial leaders. In response to increasing poverty, drastically reduced farm prices, and, most importantly, the centralization of power and resources, the Farmers' Alliance sprung forth from communities in central Texas as a way for tenants, sharecroppers, and small farmers to educate themselves about politics, economics, and agriculture. Building membership and loyalty through cooperatives stores and the joint marketing of crops, the Alliance expanded across the South and Midwest through a phalanx of itinerant lecturers spreading the group's message. As their cooperatives fell victim to the ongoing economic recession, Charles Macune developed a federal sub-treasury plan that would create a fiat currency for farmers, essentially issuing greenbacks as loans backed by the harvest. While the sub-treasury never came to fruition, Goodwyn defines true Populists as unaligned supporters of the plan and members of the Farmers' Alliance. Consequently for Goodwyn, everyone else falls under the 'shadow' movement of Silverites and Fusionists. With this conception of Populism, Goodwyn locates the movement's demise not in the failure of Bryan's campaign, but in the People's Party support of the free silver Democratic ticket.

Goodwyn attempts a major reinterpretation of the Populist movement and largely succeeds by marginalizing the 'shadow' movement. Furthermore, his detailed analysis of Populism's development posits a truly democratic movement of common folk united by a shared set of concerns. By tying the rise and fall of Populism to his movement theory, Goodwyn provides a tremendously useful framework for understanding the broad implications, successes, and failures of the movement. While his reinterpretation can not be overemphasized, his book falls short by not paying more attention to the 'shadow' movement in the West and Midwest. The 'shadow' movement of free silver and fusion was an important and influential component of Populism; by not giving it attention, Goodwyn tells only half the story. Finally, Goodwyn's analysis of Populism could have benefited from talking more about race. Despite the connection with the Colored Farmers' Alliance, at its heart, Populism was based on white supremacy, deeply problematizing Goodwyn's eulogy of Populism as the last truly democratic American social movement.

The small farmers in western Texas in the 1880s recognized that the economic cards were stacked against them. The crop lien system and the "furnishing" merchant, the exorbitant prices paid for goods combined with low prices paid for cash crops, and the price gouging of railroads - all of these inspired some farmers to begin forming local alliances that would try to use cooperative methods to bypass those powerful interests that placed farmers in economic thralldom. Lecturers that spread across the South, and even westward and northward, drew upon close-knit farming community ties to eventually establish some 40,000 "sub-alliances" involving two million people, all finally part of a National Farmers Alliance. Through local trade stores, warehouses, and state exchanges, these sub-alliances attempted to buy and sell in bulk. But these efforts met with varying and limited success. Banking interests, grain elevator operators, and stockyards, among others, refused to deal with these farming groups, to accept their notes based on their cash crops and land.

It is hardly surprising, given their radical critique of economic interests, that agrarian organizers would turn to political action to seek redress for farmer grievances. Yet the turn to politics was a highly complicating development for agrarian reform. The agrarian platform was highly radical for the times involving such issues as land reform, labor rights, government ownership and control of transportation and communication, and banking and currency reform with the elimination of the gold standard. But the hold of generational allegiances to the Democratic and Republican parties prevented many farmers from shifting to independent politics despite the fact that their traditional parties were resolutely opposed to many of the farmers' measures. Attempts at reform through the traditional parties were met by cooptation and demagoguery.

The People's Party was formed at Omaha in July, 1892. The party's platform was the agrarian platform containing not only the National Alliance's sub-treasury plan, which was a plan for the issuance of greenbacks, but also calling for the free coinage of silver, both planks having the effect of increasing the money supply. Electoral success was limited. The Democratic Party through coopting of the silver issue and flagrant electoral fraud was able to defeat the Populists throughout the South, where they had their greatest support. In 1896 the People's Party through pre-convention intrigue actually nominated a staunch silver Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, for president, thus essentially ending the Populist movement. According to the author, Populism had become a "shadow" movement, a mere shell of its former orientation.

For the author, democratic mass movements that take issue with core aspects of society face almost insurmountable odds. In the first place, there are the assumptions that the "system" works, that the system contains mechanisms for continual progress and for overcoming problems. In fact, there exists an entire school of thought among historians that contends that the Populists were cranks unwilling to accept social progress and sought only to maintain an antiquated way of life. That school of thought is most closely associated with historian Richard Hofstadter. However, the author finds that the Populists' grievances were real enough while admitting the difficulties of overcoming the received culture. In addition, the author contends that the hierarchical nature of social structures and the accompanying deferential behavior make independent thought and action exceedingly difficult.

Genuine mass movements cannot be top-down driven. The formation of a mass movement that can achieve political viability must proceed from the ground up. Key to any such movement is the establishment of an independent institution that through the participation of its members develops an ideology and strategy that counters prevailing authority. The counter organization must educate and recruit new adherents. The agrarian movement was based on the sub-alliances and their cooperative ventures and achieved extensive recruitment and education through a lecturing system. The politicization step is often difficult to take and sustain because member activism takes on an indirect element in that it is geared to electoral success allowing party elites to then fully engage in the governmental process. Populism was ultimately unable to successfully take the political step.

The author suggests that the failures of Populism essentially defined the boundaries of the possible in fundamentally changing basic structures of American culture. First Progressivism and then liberalism all operated on a basis of incremental reform. In other words, the system works. The policies forming the Federal Reserve, allowing the constant rise of farm tenantry, and permitting the continued centralization and rise in influence of corporations all rejected or minimized the scope of the Populist program.

This book is a short form of the author's complete work, "The Democratic Promise." At times the book takes on the feel of an overview. For example, it would have been interesting to see far more details concerning the actually workings of the various cooperative efforts at the sub-alliance level. And following the twin threads of the Alliance and the People's Party across many states and conventions over a ten year period can be a little sketchy.

The author's insights into forming mass democratic movements and mounting cultural challenges are outstanding. Those insights add to the understanding of Populism. It should give anyone pause when considering the ability of modern movements to impact the status quo.

Unlike most Austrian school economists, Rothbard was an anarchist. In fact, he was the twentieth century's seminal figure in anarcho-capitalist thought. This means that Rothbard thought that not only roads and the like, but also national defense and courts could be provided without a state. (See his Society Without a State in the Libertarian Reader, ed. Machan, for a succinct presentation of his views.)

Rothbard starts out this work with a discussion of various types of government intervention in the economy. He divides them into three types: autistic (violent crime), triangular (tariffs, wage and price controls, licensing, etc.)and binary intervention (taxation and government spending). Following this is a discussion of antimarket ethics. There isn't an aspect of government intervention in the economy that escapes Rothbard's scalpel. As a whole, this is certainly an outstanding book. Take Rothbard's discussion of taxation. Many "right wing" economists support the sales tax on the ground that it doesn't discourage savings and investment. But it reduces people's income and thereby reduces savings and investment. It is a tax on income. [pp. 92-93.]

My main problem with this work is the sometimes simplistic discussion of complex problems and the leaps in logic. (I've discussed this is my review of The Ethics of Liberty.) Take for example the issue of immigration laws. "The advocate of immigration laws . . . really fears, therefore, is not so much immigration as any population growth. To be consistent, therefore, he would have to advocate compulsory birth control, to slow down the rate of population growth desired by individual parents." [p. 55.] Even in light of the entire 2 page discussion of immigration laws, I don't see how this follows. In this (and some other areas) the discussion is narrowly economic. Aren't there good reasons to restrict the type of immigrants? For example, if you have a society that is devoted to individual freedom and responsibility, isn't it wise to prevent immigration from those countries that don't support freedom?

If you want to know the essence of Rothbard, purchase this work; Man, Economy, and State; The Ethics of Liberty; and the Logic of Action.

Ultimately, however, the book holds Bush to standards he would find alien, and charges him with inconsistency where he would no doubt insist there is none. Not everyone will be converted, not withstanding Singer's references early and late in the book to rational argument and universal standards.

The first 200 of the 225 pages take us on a tour of Bush's ethical pronouncements and behavior, in search of consistency or meaning. This is extremely well done, and each section constitutes a perfect primer on what is wrong with this president and why we need to vote him out.

Predictably, the contradictions are legion and the findings of hypocrisy plentiful. At times, I wish Singer had focused less on Bush's hypocrisy than on the damage done by his behavior.

The one instance in which Singer goes beyond commonly accepted standards to critique an ethical problem in Bush's behavior that most Americans would let pass comes when he suggests that Bush's religious habits of thought constitute a handicap for someone in a position requiring a questioning and discerning mind. Singer suggests that someone who bases his beliefs on faith may not be ideally qualified for a position of power.

Of course every other American president ever elected has been a theist, or at least a deist, or at least has professed to be. But Bush is especially clear about connecting his religion to his decision-making process. I find it credible that Bush's habits of faith deserve the credit Greg Thielmann, a proliferation expert who worked for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, gives them when he says, "This administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude: 'We know the answers, give us the intelligence to support those answers.'"

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 200 pages of Singer's book, although I longed for some development of what Singer thinks Bush's intentions actually are and whether he thinks Bush is a habitual liar as well as a failed utilitarian. The last 25 pages provided a disappointing analysis.

Singer shows in this final chapter that Bush is not consistently basing his decisions on concern for individual rights or on utilitarian calculations or on Christianity. He then suggests, in what seems to me a major cop-out, that Bush uses an "intuitive ethic" and "follows his instincts." But this tells us nothing about where those "instincts" came from or what they look like or which are stronger than others. It gives us no indication of when Bush is telling us his honest motivations and when he is hiding them. Nor does it explain patterns in Bush's behavior, such as his almost consistent favoritism toward the extremely wealthy and those who have given him money.

But Singer isn't through. He goes on to argue that Bush strikes people who meet him as honest and good, and that Bush must either be a tremendous actor when he lies or (what Singer finds more probable) he must be the ignorant puppet of right-wing conspirators. Singer argues that when Bush, for example, claims that Saddam Hussein wouldn't let inspectors into Iraq it demonstrates that Bush "can hardly have had a firm grasp on the situation that he was supposedly directing." Singer (mustering all the nuance of Bush's "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists.") writes on the final page of the book: "When Bush speaks about ethics, he is either sincere or he is insincere."

But it's just not that simple. When Bush invents a fiction about Hussein not letting inspectors in, he knows that he and a servile corporate media have the power to rewrite history. At the same time, to some limited extent, he undoubtedly believes what he is saying. He is coached by his intellectual superiors, and he takes his statements seriously, but at the same time he knows which topics to avoid, when to change the conversation, and how to hedge on the hard points. He does occasional interviews, after all. He doesn't just read speeches. People (including Bush) are far, far more complex than Singer gives them credit for.

The simple-minded conclusion to this book is especially surprising given Singer's critique of religion in the same book. Singer understands that Bush is a sincere Christian, and even faults him for it. Singer also understands that Bush is not consistently a Christian. Yet, Singer does not piece together the fact that Bush's beliefs carry varying DEGREES of sincerity.

When people struggle with trying to "have faith," they are choosing, as Blaise Pascal did openly, to believe something. And this phenomenon is not unique to religion. We choose to believe what we want to believe quite often and often fairly consciously. Some are able to persuade themselves of their belief in paradise to the extent that they will fly airplanes into buildings. Others are able, with a degree of honesty, to say they believe in Heaven, while still beign terrified of death. There is no black and white here. We cannot say that Bush is either sincere or insincere, either a brilliantly handled moron or an acting genius.

Bush is a liar who to various degrees has convinced himself of his various lies. This means that he is a human being who can be held responsible for his actions and who could conceivably be persuaded to change his ways. He is not purely a puppet whose imperialistic oil baron handlers could be seamlessly replaced by environmentally sensitive socialist handlers. Nor does he quite realize the implications of everything he says - including the ethical incoherence of his positions, something that Singer's book would reveal to him - whether or not he'd need to get someone to read it to him aloud.

The book reveals Bush's inconsistency and mistakes with more clarity and insight than any major newspaper or magazine, it holds Bush accountable for his failings in the economy, the the environment, Afghanistan, Iraq, and just about everything else.

This book is essential for a real look at George W. Bush's presidency. John Kerry would do well to read it.

With each section written by a different contributor, there is bound to be some unevenness of style and tone, and there is. Generally, each presentation is scholarly and disinterested--although by no means dry--and free from excessive praise or condemnation, but for two exceptions that somewhat detract from the work. The most egregious of these is the section on Franklin Pierce, which is filled with personal gibes and, to a much lesser degree, the section on Calvin Coolidge. This is particularly surprising in light of the fact that such controversial figures as Andrew Johnson, Warren G. Harding and even Richard Nixon have been handled so professionally. But otherwise there is little to fault.

With only 15 to 20 pages devoted to each administration, obviously many difficult decisions had to be made on what material to include and exclude. Yet, it is the insight that went into these decisions that is one of the high points of this book; indeed, there is more than enough material to satisy most history buffs. However, those looking for obscure facts or trivia about each man, except when such details are directly relevant to the central issues of the time, are best advised to consult full-length biographies. Extensive references, including a list of such biographies, have been provided at the end of each section.

A must for any presidential history buff.