The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule
by Thomas Frank
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.99 You Save: $23.01 (92%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.05 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule
Book Review: It's A Republic If You Can Keep It
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a still unfolding story, a story about Americans waking up one day to find they have no rights, no living wage, and no liberties because the country was being changed into a plutocracy and they didn't even know it. That is what Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas" contends in this frightening story of America's path to its own destruction for the benefit of the few.
According to Frank, it began with the rebirth of conservatism after the last New Deal president left office, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Their goals were to create a market place that was unregulated and unfettered with safety practices, consumer protections, or tax burdens. This meant taking over government, dismantling it agency by agency, selling its functions to private investors, and marketing their whole plan to a somnambulistic and apathetic public. They have made great strides in taking over what they despise and blaming it when it fails.
The 1980's saw the rise of the Young Americans for Freedom and the Jack Abramoff's and the Karl Rove's who were committed to advancing this agenda by any means necessary. They made powerful friends, were elected to office, became lobbyists and were successful in getting contributors.
The next step was transforming government in two ways: selling it to private industry and appointing people to positions of power who were incompetent or bent on destroying it. People like John Bolton became America's ambassador to the very symbol he hated, and Elaine Chao to head the Department of Labor. She would advise employers that they could avoid paying their employees overtime by designating them as managers.
The real tour de force is the marketing campaign that Grover Norquist planned in detail years ago and refined ever since. It was important to point out government's incompetence, that private industry was far more productive, that the collapsing economy was due to government interference, not Wall Street greed. It was overregulation not a lack of regulation that contributed to the collapse. Seeking a fair wage now became class warfare. Under the pretense of protecting the citizen from shady trial lawyers from are the "cause of jury awards" that cause the increase of costs, these conservatives are really protecting the corporations from lawsuits and limiting the constitutional rights of the consumer. While the Republicans were reducing taxes and running up the debt, they were saying how it would stimulate the economy. The debt has only become a measure of fiscal irresponsibility when the Democrats are in power. Then, when austerity is called for, the debt becomes of paramount importance and the best form of debt reduction is elimination of entitlement programs. Mr. Frank believes that even social security is still not safe from the clutches of these zealots. Congress now dances to the tune of corporate interests and contributions, not of their constituents. They intend to remove our protections, and widen the gap between those who have and those who don't.
Mr. Frank's arguments are factual and powerfully presented. Seventy-four pages of notes add credibility to his argument. His writing style is persuasive and his presentation is easy to follow.
If things continue as they do, the Capitol Dome may not be the most dominant feature of the D. C. landscape. It might just be the Golden Arches.
Benjamin Franklin answered, when asked what kind of government we would have said, "It's a republic if you can keep it."
Also Recommended:
Klein, Naomi, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company, New York, NY. 2007. First Edition.
Wolf, Naomi, "The End of America, Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot." Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007.
Johnston, David Cay, "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill." Penguin Books, 2008. This is how the wealthy have used their power to get the government to subsidize their economic agenda. It is highly recommended.
Johnston, David Cay, "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--And Cheat Everybody Else." Penguin Books, 2003. The subtitle says it all. Even though it is six years old, it still compliments this book enormously. Highly Recommended.
Leopold, Les, "The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity--and What We Can Do About It."
Mencimer, Stephanie, "Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and Their Corporate Allies Are Taking Away Your Rights to Sue." Free Press, 2006.
Mann & Ornstein, "The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America, and How to Get it Back on Track." Oxford University Press, USA, 2006.
Book Review: Thomas Frank did his homework
Summary: 4 Stars
With the likelihood of a close election coming up, undecided voters should read THE WRECKING CREW, by the author of WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS. But will they? Considered the muddied state of political writing (conservatives even have their own book club) that's certainly not a given. So, is Thomas Frank just another liberal or is he an investigative journalist? There are a few hints that he's the latter. He's got a blurb from George Will for one thing, and there are no less than seventy-two pages of footnotes, including an interview with Grover Norquist, one of the prime-movers of the neo-con movement.
Frank spends a great deal of space talking about conservative lobbyists. Jack Abramoff's name is probably mentioned more than anyone else`s. Neo-cons were outraged that big business would often hire liberal lobbyists to do their bidding and so they decided to try to "defund" traditional sources of democratic income, mainly through rendering such liberal stalwarts as the American labor movement irrelevant. When they took office they set about trying to ruin the Washington civil service by reducing salaries and by giving jobs to young conservatives with few qualifications. Suddenly the FEMA debacle in New Orleans makes a little more sense. The idea behind this was to make the bloated, incompetent government anathema to the voting public. Conservatives have always believed in the free market as a cure for everything (trickle down, supply-side economics), which would mean as little government as possible.
Frank reaches back to the Reagan revolution to show the underpinnings of the movement. At first neo-cons appealed to the anti-communist sentiment. They even sided with South Africa's Apartheid government, mainly because of their anti-communist bent, also because of their support for big business. Abramoff (who is now doing four years in prison) was involved there as well. Later, when Soviet Union came tumbling down, their focus switched to Islamic terrorism. It seems clear that in order for conservatism to survive there must be an evil empire or an evil liberal party to combat, which makes one wonder why they want to ruin the democratics. Who would they blame for conservative mistakes? One reviewer even blames FDR for the Depression.
A telling statistic is the percentage of the national debt just three Republican presidents are responsible for. Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II contributed 70% and rising. Frank says it's no accident. The bigger the national debt the more incompetent government looks and the more likely voters would agree to such conservative tenets as deregulating, privatizing, and cutting spending. Reagan blamed the democrats for his huge debt as well. John Maynard Keynes "pump priming" during the Depression was the first instance of deficit spending, but Keynes would hardly have gone as far as the conservatives.
Neo-cons also seem intent on flooding the government with young evangelical warriors. Monica Goodling, a graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School, helped fire US attorneys who didn't meet the conservative litmus test. According to Frank, there are 150 Regent grads working for the Bush administration, plus others from Patrick Henry College, whose expressed purpose is to train young zealots to run for office.
Privatization is another rung on the conservative ladder. In Iraq, no-bid contracts were handed out to such firms as Halliburton and Blackwater to do jobs the army once did itself. The problem with that is that there is little oversight. Not too surprisingly, "a favorite conservative tactic has been to shut down offices that supervise the outsourced operations." Billions went missing.
More and more congressman are going into lobbying after they leave office as well. "Fully 43 percent of the senators and representatives who have left Congress since 1998 have become lobbyists . . . Up from 9 percent in the seventies." The biggest fish in the pond is former majority leader Trent Lott. Almost half the freshman congressman to leave Congress after the Gingrich massacre have become lobbyists.
Towards the end of the book, Frank outlines Grover Norquist's plan, which Bush II has tried mightily to implement: tort reform, which will cost trial lawyers millions in lost income; crushing labor unions with strategic expansion of NAFTA; school vouchers, which would take away 2.1 National Education Association precinct workers for the democratic party; reforming HUD and the Department of Education which would "cut off funds to `big city machines`; and finally privatization of social security, which would make everyone a share-holder and render the democratic party "a dead man walking."
Book Review: A Depressingly Compelling Review of Conservatives' Philosophy of Government in Practice
Summary: 5 Stars
Following up on his masterly examination of the paradox under which Red Staters consistently vote Republican against their own economic self-interest (WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?), Thomas Frank sets out to trace the present-day conservative Republican approach to government in THE WRECKING CREW. What he demonstrates is deeply disturbing even though it has remained on display virtually every day of the entire Bush II administration.
According to Frank, the conservative worldview is totally committed to "the ideal of laissez faire, meaning minimal government interference in the marketplace, along with hostility to taxation, regulation, organized labor, state ownership, and all the business community's other enemies. "The conservative movement promotes the interests of business exclusively over all else in accordance with the motto, "More business in government, less government in business." So-called "big government," also tagged as the liberal state, is the enemy; in fact, virtually all government is the enemy, other than the national defense.
Mr. Frank follows the conservative movement from the turn of the Twentieth Century through the Depression and New Deal, focusing most heavily on the movement's rebirth under Ronald Reagan and on into the new millennium. Along the way, he discusses the growth of lobbying as a major force in converting the nation's capital into a massive feeding ground for corporate special interests. Frank also highlights the manner in which conservatives have repeatedly run the country into huge spending deficits in order to "defund the left" while simultaneously politicizing government management positions by favoring ideology over competence. The end result under Republican conservative stewardship is government that demonstrates itself as ineffectual and incompetent, offering but further proof that big government is inherently incapable of working and needs to be outsourced to private, professional concerns who can do the job correctly (and then inevitably failing to do so).
THE WRECKING CREW is filled with fascinating side observations, such as its note that the movement has always lionized bullies, from Joe McCarthy to Bill O'Reilly, from Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay to George Allen and Michelle Malkin (whom Frank describes hilariously as "a pundit with the appearance of a Bratz doll but the soul of Chucky"). The book's most effective and outrage-generating section has to be its chapter on the Marianas Island of Saipan. Frank casts Saipan, with all its corruption, nepotism, income inequity, slave labor sweatshops, and local political control exercised in the name of big business as the perfect and ultimate model of the conservative movement ideal, a truly horrific prospect. He also notes, properly, that the morass that is today's Iraq is equally a product of the attempt to force fit these same free market ideals to a foreign country, implemented (so the Bush Administration hoped) by inexperienced, wet-behind-the-ears young idealogues, home-schooled ultra-Christians with college degrees from the likes of Patrick Henry College, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, and Pat Robertson's Regent University. Saipan and Iraq constituted "laboratories of liberty," modern-day "capitalists' dreams" whose realizations are (or at least should be) shameful American nightmares.
There is little good news in THE WRECKING CREW. Author Frank shows that our national government has been hollowed out under Republican conservative control, savaged into an ineffectual husk. Furthermore, he illustrates clearly that this was no mistake, that it is part of a deliberate process not just to privatize government and eradicate government regulation but to make these changes permanent by destroying the liberal left (and with it, of course, the Democratic Party). Frank demonstrates well that present day politics has truly become, to invert von Clausiwitz's famous maxim, "a continuation of war by other means." Regrettably, one side of the battle continues to play the game as politics, as elections won or lost and citizens swayed or not, while the other side approaches it as an act of war, a no-holds-barred contest in which the only goal is the complete and utter destruction of the other side.
THE WRECKING CREW is compelling and informative even as it paints a bleak picture of an America being driven rightward and increasingly toward the excesses and inequities of the pre-New Deal era. We all know how that era ended in October, 1929.
Book Review: Outstanding and Very Timely!
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Wrecking Crew" starts out slowly and then builds to a steady revelation of conservative secrets and travesties. It is a "Must Read" for all those interested in good government.
Conservatives see government as meddling in the market - a force of godlike omniscience; their aim is to ensure government impotence. Liberals, on the other hand, see markets as unstable and needing control by organized intelligence.
Conservatism's recent triumphs began with the discovery of the enormous profits possible from business support for conservative activism, especially direct mail. Unfortunately, accuracy was not an issue. A second major benefit came from Howard Phillips "defund the left" doctrine, augmented by "fund the right" - faith-based organizations, private contractors with the right politics and the clients of favored lobbyists.
The tendency of government workers to join unions makes them even more detestable to conservatives. Now far more people work under contracts than are directly employed by the federal government. A favorite conservative tactic has been to shut down offices that supervise outsourced operations, or even outsourcing the activity.
Running on a platform that government is "part of the problem" does not attract good people, thus generating a self-fulfilling prophesy. This is reinforced by holding down salaries. Alternatively, private government contractors return the favor by political donations, while no-bid contracts negate the principal of competition leading to improved performance.
The "revolving door" from government worker to industry is another major problem. Republicans in 1995 discontinued record-keeping on the topic. However, one study found that 43% of Congresspeople leaving office since 1998 have become lobbyists, up from 9% in the 1970s.
Putting those opposed to a unit's mission in charge of it helps negate the intended value, without creating the clamor that abolishment would; it also makes it more more difficult for supporters to reassign its role. Ensuing actions include stripping agency worker supporters of authority, spying on them to find reason for firing, alleging "fat" in the unit, delegating enforcement to those being regulated, and reducing enforcement staff.
Lobbying, think-tank subsidies, slanted pundits and journalists have been enriched by the conservative wave. In 2004 a group of the nation's largest corporations paid a K Street firm $1.6 million for tiny modification of the tax code. The result was they saved $100 billion - about a 6 million percent ROI.
Corruption is a subject conservatives think they understand well - they simply locate it somewhere in the liberal state, in areas such as mass transit, FTC and FDA supervision, etc.
Grover Norquist, a conservative leader, asserts that wasteful earmarks are useful because they help destroy faith in government, and consequently its support. Thus, government failures (eg. Katrina) fuel conservatives, even when caused by conservative bungling. Norquist also supports undermining trial lawyers (traditional Democrat supporters) via tort reform, crushing unions with a paycheck protection measure, expanding NAFTA to force Teamsters to compete with Mexican drivers, vouchers to weaken the NEA, and privatizing Social Security.
Privatizing Social Security would also help defund government operations, propel the federal deficit into the stratosphere, and create massive Wall St. profits. In addition, this would provide strength to undermine minimum wage laws, safer food, etc. as these expenses would be seen as undermining the health of retirees' portfolios.
Increasing the federal deficit furthers spending cuts and greater privatization; this outcome is sold through the false promises of supply-side economics, and further increases cynicism vs. government.
Finally, we also learn that growing income inequality undermines democracy and the ability to reform these Republican actions.
Book Review: Exposing the Deliberate Mismanagement of a Flawed Political Philosophy
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew has been like finding a key piece to a jigsaw puzzle. My other research led me to believe the things Frank writes about were going on. Frank provides the proof without having to do the first hand research.
In a nutshell, Frank proves the Republican/Conservative approach to governing is not to govern at all. If you are someone who believes there is essentially no difference between the two major US political parties, then this book will change your mind.
My personal preference is I want to vote for a political party whose approach is to govern by balancing the interests of all parties concerned. This approach, to me, is more likely to produce effective and efficient government. In other words, the party might have a preference for one group over another, but the party operates on the premise it will be more likely to be re-elected if it shows itself to be even handed.
Republicans/Conservatives take an entirely different approach. According to Frank's book, Republicans govern only to benefit business and their supporters, not the public as a whole. More on this thought in a moment.
Having recommended in my own book independent voters make contributions to both parties in order to see what each party says about the other, I was especially interested in Frank's description of conservative direct mail fund raising and its enabling of the physical (not intellectual) growth of what passes for conservatism. Frank describes the origins of that phenomenon and how the money is used not just for political purposes but also to feather the nests of those who conduct the operations.
Frank also does a marvelous job of describing the origins and driving philosophies of people such as Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Tom Delay and the creation of the intensive lobbying efforts enabled by those flawed philosophies.
Some prime elements of that flawed philosophy include the following. Govern on behalf of business and your campaign contributors at the expense of the public at large, rather than balancing the interests of all. Hollow out and suppress the activities of regulatory agencies by putting political appointees in place who will to keep the agencies from doing their jobs. Reward your campaign contributors by outsourcing more and more government functions and awarding the contracts to your contributors. Incur excessive amounts of debt so the government will be forced to shrink and push off its welfare and education programs to churches (or at least that is the whispered plan with a wink. Whether such a plan was actually intended to be supported is debatable.)
Show me some examples, you say? How about failure to regulate financial markets to prevent either the speculation in oil prices or the sub-prime meltdown? How about passing drug legislation without negotiation requirements or credit card bills written by credit card companies? How about FEMA and "Heckuva job, Brownie"? How about Monica Goodling (a graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University) using political litmus tests for attorneys to work for the Justice Department? How about no-bid contracts to Halliburton and using Blackwater mercenaries?
I also liked Frank's cataloging of something I've heard before. If a conservative politician fails to govern well, conservatives will blame not the flawed philosophy. Instead, conservatives will say of the politician that he/she was not a "true conservative".
Overall, I shake my head at the lack of perspective of the people expressing these philosophies. They are like people who complain about the mess the mud between the logs of the log cabin makes inside the cabin, never realizing the purpose of the mud and the damage removing the mud will create.
Thanks to The Wrecking Crew, the flaws of this philosophy have never been more evident.