Governments

The main theme of the End of Politics is that the US despite a history of citizen participation has become a de-politicized culture, especially so over the last two decades, partly as a result of an ever-increasing penetration and transformation of American society by enormous corporations, most noticeably media giants. In lieu of genuine politics the American public is treated to the corporate media's orchestrated political charade that sidesteps serious social issues. The media, as the public relations tool for corporate America, devalues politics and panders to an historical anti-statism by its incessant focus on scandal, corruption, and bureaucratic ineffectualness. While big government is critiqued, the impact of big, trans-national corporations on society never makes it to the table for discussion.

I contend that the author overstates the ideological commitment to democracy in the past among the general citizenry. He acknowledges that the liberal-capitalistic order has always operated on the principles of free markets and individualism and minimal governmental interference in the economy. The challenge of the Knights of Labor, the Populists, and the Socialists was the last time that the working class in America acted politically against the economic order. The fact that urban-based political machines in the mid-twentieth century were able to orchestrate get-out-the vote efforts among urban ethnics and union members over bread and butter issues is not evidence of great political insight. Many of those voters and their children are now suburbanites and quite content with their privatized lifestyles of television viewing and mega-mall shopping, a situation that the corporate order is only too happy to exploit.

The author devotes considerable space to examining various localized organizations or orientations such as environmentalism, new-ageism, therapeutic fads, rural militias, and postmodern intellectualism for their relevance to political activism. He concludes that the withdrawal from the general public sphere, an enclave mentality, or the reliance on the transforming power of new consciousness give hegemonic elites even more space in which to operate.

Though I rate the book at five stars, it is at times tedious and repetitious but it does add to the debate concerning the viability of politics in the US. The author, while focusing on the depoliticization of the culture, finds some hope in the inherent contradictions of capitalist-liberalism. The political charade that is foisted on the American public does contain the pretense of participation that could grow in ways that would be distressing to hegemonic elites.

The End Of Politics: Corporate Power And The Decline Of The Public Sphere takes an in-depth examination social and cultural trends over the past twenty years which have resulted in a narrowing public discourse and a diminished ability of ordinary citizens to participate in the democratic process. The End Of Politics persuasively demonstrates how social and economic policies initiated during the Reagan presidency and expanded by subsequent administrations have closed political spaces previously opened by civil rights, feminist, and 1960s "New Left" movements. Author Carl Boggs traces the various ways both the right and the more recent left have helped bring us to the point where fewer Americans today bother to vote than at any time in our political history, that money influences elections more than ever before, and large segments of the population no longer believe that government is capable of improving their lives. The End Of Politics takes particular aim at economic globalization and the way large corporations have been allowed to influence all areas of public life, intensifying people's sense of disempowerment and accelerating the "triumph of antipolitics". The End Of Politics is highly recommended, essential reading for all political science students, political professionals, and anyone with an interest in defending and preserving the American political system of citizen participation in the governance of the country.

This is another in a growing wave of anti-affirmative action books. It is also one of the best.

It focuses on the twisted history of affirmative action and how the original purpose of the civil rights movement was respect for individual liberty without the "group rights" philisophy intrinsic in affirmative action.

Bureaucrats looking for short cuts and easy solutions pushed affirmative action - without democratic legislative approval. Minority groups behaved as anyone receiving a state-sponsored benefit does - they adopted the "philosophy" and began to protect their newly discovered "rights". The fact that these "rights" had no legal basis and questionable pedigree in the cast and race-obsessed systems of India, Malaysia and Yugoslavia seemed of little consequence at the time. The term "Balkanisation" (a sad relic of Old World ethnic hatred) now has a disturbing echo in the affirmative action policies of the New World.

Other reviewers may argue that affirmative action policies cannot be "unjust" because, although discriminatory, they are not designed to humiliate or alienate whites - only to benefit that amorphous group called "underrepresented minorities". The argument turns to dust when it is realised the biggest losers in the affirmative action contest are Asians. But no one wants that little secret revealed.

The fatal flaw in Terry Eastland's book is his interpretation of Justice John Marshall Harlan's famous dissent in the case Plessy v. Ferguson. Indeed, this is the same flaw that can be found in the arguments many of the opponents of affirmative action.

Astonishingly, Mr. Eastland's book refers to Justice John Marshall Harlan as Justice John Paul Harlan.

Mr. Eastland argues that Justice Harlan, in his dissent in Plessy, wrote "that government should not have the authority to engage in racial regulation of any kind." Mr. Eastland uses Justice Harlan's now famous statement "Our constitution (sic) is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens" to build a case that affirmative action violates our Constitution. Mr. Eastland, along with other opponents of affirmative action is mistaken. Contrary to the assertions of Mr. Eastland affirmative action respects Justice Harlan's "color-blind" Constitution. Like other opponents of affirmative action, such as Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom who in their book, America in Black and White, have the same flaw in their argument, Mr. Eastland misunderstands Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy.

Plessy v. Ferguson was the Supreme Court case decided in 1896 which upheld the 'separate but equal' doctrine. It was this doctrine that formed the Constitutional justification for the set of racial laws known as Jim Crow. The case arose as a result of a Louisiana law which required equal but separate accommodations aboard passenger trains for the black and white races. Justice Harlan was the only Supreme Court Justice to dissent in the Plessy case.

Justice Harlan made it very clear in his dissent that he opposed Louisiana's law because it was "conceived in hostility to, and enacted for the purpose of humiliating, citizens of the United States of a particular race." Justice Harlan acknowledged that the white race was the dominant race in wealth and in power. This dominance, Justice Harlan noted, did not give the white race a superior position with regard to the rights protected by the Constitution. The Constitution, according to Justice Harlan, recognizes "no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no cast here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved."

Justice Harlan did not object to the Louisiana law because it recognized the social, political, and cultural reality of race. Justice Harlan found the Louisiana law contrary to our Constitution because the action of the Louisiana legislature proceeded, according to Justice Harlan, "on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens?" Justice Harlan's "color-blind" Constitution is "color-blind" precisely because it recognizes "every right that inheres in civil freedom, and of the equality before the law of all citizens of the United States without regard to race." Thus, Justice Harlan argued, laws that would allow individuals of one race to degrade and put into an inferior position individuals of another race notwithstanding any inequalities in the actual social, political, and economic positions of these individuals, would be unconstitutional.

Regarding affirmative action the issue is whether these programs conform to or violate Justice Harlan's "color-blind" Constitution. To find out, I have formulated the following questions that are based on the reasons Justice Harlan used in finding that the Louisiana law violated the principles of the "color-blind" Constitution. The words in quotation marks are the words used by Justice Harlan in his Plessy dissent.

Are affirmative action programs "conceived in hostility to" the white race?

Are affirmative action programs "enacted for the purpose of humiliating" the white race?

Are the effects of an affirmative action program such that it "practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon" whites?

Do affirmative action programs proceed on the belief that white "citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed" in our schools of medicine and law?

Do affirmative action programs violate any "right that inheres in civil freedom" and deny "the equality before the law of all citizens of the United States without regard to race?"

The answers to these questions are no.

Affirmative action, therefore, conforms to the principle of the "color-blind" Constitution and does not violate the rights of whites. Mr. Eastland and the other opponents of affirmative action are seriously mistaken when they insist otherwise. I agree with the other reviewers, such as Linda Chavez, who note that "Terry Eastland puts forth the best argument to date" for opposing affirmative action. But I have shown that this argument, though it is the best that the opponents of affirmative action can make, is fatally flawed.

I liked this book because it shows there are still some economists who can write clearly about issues in the real world without geting bogged down in jargon or hung up on abstract theories. This is not a casual read, but the analysis and writing are very clear and accessable to any intelligent person who might be interested in world hunger, food security or food trade issues. It was also nice to see a university press willing to include photos taken by Sebastiao Salgado, who I think is the world's gretest living photographer.

As a student of international health policy, I found this book contributed greatly to developing my own perspective on the plight of global hunger and the issues surrounding food security policy. It was an interesting read, easy to comprehend, and very well written. I recommend it not only to students, but anyone with a desire to become more aware of the important issues regarding the world's hunger. 5 stars!

Professor Cole writes an excellent book, hitting many points that are usually left out. He examines the way Arabs and Muslims are being treated today post-9/11 and parallels it with our nation's past abuses of foreigners, bringing in examples of the Japanese internment during WWII and many others. Professor Cole is dead on when he writes about the loss of legitimacy faced by law enforcement in the Muslim community, stepping into a mosque shows it to be quite evident. Cole's analysis of what the United States should be doing to make our country safer rather than an indiscriminate dragnet of immigrants shows the professor's wisdom. This book was recommended to me by Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, an expert in his field...a recommendation that I would like to pass on.

David Cole has authored a masterful and compelling book about the discriminatory and abusive treatment of non-citizens in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act, and the Bush Administration's resort to the modern-day version of W.W.I Palmer Raids. A distinguished Georgetown University Law Center Professor, David Cole writes with a lucidity and command of facts that makes this major work on civil liberties in time of crisis such a powerful indictment of the federal government's Unamerican-like disrespect for the Constitution and laws. The author's use of historical antecedents shows that we have not really learned many valuable lessons from our checkered history of shortchaning individual rights in time of war and national emergency. That so few of the thousands of immigrants rounded up by the Justice Department's indiscriminate dragnet were in fact guilty of any criminal conduct(much less terrorist activities)exposes Attorney General John Ashcroft's craven pandering to public fear and hysteria. Co-author of the outstanding book "Terrorism and The Constitution," Professor Cole warns that American citizens should care deeply about what happens to non-citizen residents who are our neighbors and co-workers. Why? Because it is only a short step for the government to rationalize the abuse of the rights of citizens in the same ways that it has oppressed non-citzens--all in the name of national security. For proof, all you need to note is President Bush's illegal detention without charges, counsel or trial of two American citizens suspected of terrorist associations (Hamdi and Padilla)for almost two years. Everyone who cares about striking a proper balance between civil liberties and national security should read "Enemy Aliens."

This is a refreshing, multi-disciplinary study that highlights the importance of firms, governments and international institutions in the regional and global marketplace. The authors, who draw on the disciplines of management, economics, political science and law, develop a model of complex institutional responsiveness based on an array of innovative firm strategies that have been implemented through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to overcome environmental regulatory protectionism. Based on an analysis of trade-environment disputes in North America from 1980 to the present, the authors examined 24 leading case studies (of 84 relevant cases) and conducted 230 confidential interviews with senior executives and officials in governments, environmental groups and research centres. The cases focus on firms that have sought to benefit from environmental regulatory protection from free market competition (e.g. in agriculture, forestry and fishery) and on firms that have sought to defend themselves against this type of regulatory shelter (e.g. in automobiles and chemicals). Three fascinating and highly detailed cases on fuel, agriculture and the automotive industry are analysed through their complex institutional responsiveness model for which five levels of environmental regulation that can affect four types of firms are identified. Three major findings are presented in this pioneering work. First, NAFTA's environmental institutions benefit the regional ecology and all North American firms through increased competitiveness and better market access. Second, complex institutional responsiveness helps to explain the firm's political strategy in the face of the rising incidence of trade-environment friction within NAFTA (and on a global scale). Third, a NAFTA community of stakeholders is emerging from the firm's varied responses to highly complex issues, but there is still much to be done on a policy level to broaden and deepen this community.

Another important work by the Rugman, Kirton and Soloway trio. Building on their earlier writings, in this collection the focus is largely on the business impact of the environmental side agreements. These side agreements could form an important model for future treaties, so they are worthy of the close and careful study given here. This is a vital resource for a broad range of scholars and practicioners.

Trudeauites search no more! In this small book, you'll find all of Trudeaus quotes and thoughts, culled from thousands of pages of materials. They are grouped by relevant section (Quebec sovereignty, etc) and the quotes used make great conversation starters. Love Trudeau or hate him, this book gives both sides plenty of ammo.

"The Essential Trudeau" is a well crafted novel that manages to amalgamate all of Trudeau's views on politics into one pocketbook sized novel. What made it very interesting was its ability to seize the reader with it simplicity. Unlike most other political books, this one manages to use language that can be understood by the youngest of Trudeauites. Pierre Trudeau himself contributes to the novel by adding new information on his views and justification for past political decisions while he was in office. This is a very brave book that looks at the views of a man considered to be Canada's most influential Prime Minister. An entire range of topics are covered in this book, including "The state of Quebec nationalism" and "The Role of the state". I highly recomend this novel, as it presents the views of a man who will go down in history as a true liberal.

"The Evolving Bargain" illustrates through vivid examples that when deregulation takes effect in an industry, it's not like an on/off light switch: total government control vs. no government control. Rather, it's more like a dimmer switch with the level of government participation linked to a number of factors, including the essentialness of the service.

A company can lower the dimmer switch by satisfying what often is a broad range of constituencies. To accomplish this may mean building a management team of diverse backgrounds.

"Evolving Bargain" states the case that public and government relations may be as important business functions as marketing, sales, and operations, especially in the crucial first years of deregulation.

I highly recommend this book to anyone experiencing the effects of deregulation. Living in California, deregulation graces our newspapers daily--many times with a one-sided view. But this book takes a difficult subject and explains the implications of deregulation clearly and concisely. The author not only addresses deregulation in the utilities industries, but he talks about telecommunications and airlines as well. With historical data and rich examples of companies worldwide, The Evolving Bargain is a wonderful and interesting read.

David Kyvig's book "Explicit and Authentics Acts" covers the formal attempts to change the U.S. Constitution. It is packed with information from every era from the Articles of Confederation to the 1990's. Kyvig demonstrates how a national consensus must emerge before Constitutional change can become a reality and that changes which are not codified in the Constitution are rarely lasting. This is a work of stunning research and erudition. Although there are no deep or brilliant insights to be found here, the depth and scope and the judicious nature of the scholarship make this a must read for anyone who considers himself to be well informed on Constitutional history.

This great book and Great Expectations: The U.S. 1945-1974, by James T. Patterson, were the co-winners of the 1997 Bancroft History Prize. I found everything in this book good reading and I learned a lot I did not know about the 27 amendments to the US Constitution. Congress has proposed 33 amendmants to the Constitution, and 27 have been accepted by the requisite number of states and so were added to the Constitution. The research done to write this book is awesome. I found this book a much better book than the co-winner of the Bancroft Prize merely because this book told me so much more than I knew before I read it.

David is insightful, objective and clear in his articulation. This is an important book, both for its unique insight into the psychology of the Presidency but also how human nature plays a huge part in simply managing pressures of the office. For those interested in current history but consistently mistrustful of the spin control and bi-partisan nature of what the press feed to the public, this will be a gratifying read. Appropriate for students of management, pyschology and the role of the CEO.

What a clear, easy to comprehend recap of some of the most interesting and still challenging times in our recent past.

I would love to give to my friends as gifts, but it doesn't come in CD form only tapes. Will it be available in CDs in the near future?

Thanks for responding.

I recommmend this book for readers young and old. Straight up facts and things I never new. Wonderful read!

This is the definitive overview of the most important crimes of the twentieth century. It's rippin'.