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Comprende il nome: Stanley B. Greenberg

Opere di Stanley B. Greenberg

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Doubtless you’ve been wondering what’s going on in American politics, our Congress, our state governments and the Republican Party. Greenberg offers many answers in America Ascendant.
He expects we are witnessing the slow unraveling of what ails our body politic: civil dysfunction, the concentration of greed/power/wealth, the conspicuously parochial Republican/conservative/rightwing points of view, and the blatant bigotry that too often masks itself with dissembling, righteous talk of “traditional” American “values” like self-reliance, commitment to family, Jeffersonian “small government” and religious faith. Greenberg expects that better days are coming, but he cautions that the process will be achingly and devastatingly slow.
His essential message is that America is inexorably becoming a less white and more diverse nation—most abundantly, a nation of immigrants, and a nation undeniably represented by young generations of folks who are tolerant and happy to live their lives with culturally and racially and sexually diverse friends, lovers, marriage partners, neighbors and coworkers—the folks who consciously wish to live their lives unfettered by the domination of a select few with great wealth and great power.
To those of us who have struggled to understand the motivations and fears and dreams of the folks who support the divisive and hurtful and dangerous and self-interested antics of so many politicians, Greenberg offers much more understanding than I have encountered from any other source.
What he says is not pretty. His book suggests that a good outcome is possible.
I want to believe Greenberg’s message.
More on my blogs:
http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/
http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/
http://magisterlibrorum.blogspot.com/
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Segnalato
rsubber | Jan 30, 2016 |
Stanley Greenberg has written a deeply researched, extensively footnoted, highly readable indictment of our current political state, and we should be humbly grateful for it.

From the preface, where he observes the press "...prefers the politics of character...." to reporting anything of substance, to the afterword, in which he presents the two scenarios he developed in the previous 300 pages to his focus groups, Greenberg holds very few cows sacred and presents a relatively even-handed treatment of the current political deadlock.

However, I give you fair warning: If you, the reader, are not of the liberal persuasion, this book may irritate the starch out of you. Remember, I said "relatively even-handed." Also remember, I'm a liberal.

Greenberg starts out with a short review of the last 200 years of political history, showing us that one-party domination is the rule rather than the exception. He devotes much attention to the last fifty years, in which no party has dominated, and even greater attention to the last 25, from the Reagan Revolution in 1980 to the bitterly contested and still controversial 2000 brouhaha, and on to the beginnings of the 2004 campaign. (Incidentally, I was reading the section on President Reagan when he died and for the first few days of our national mourning period. I was struck by irony: the facts in Greenberg's work versus the hyperbole issuing from every talking head on television.) Greenberg's liberal bias is highly evident in this section: he is far too easy on President Clinton. I laughed out loud at "...[he] advanced his proposals for gays to serve in the military, thus dramatically illustrating the breadth of the principle for America's ever-expanding rights." Oh, puh-leeze. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy was hardly a milestone in civil rights.

The author goes on to discuss the makeup of each party's core voters, or base; to present hypothetical, occasionally foul-mouthed, and often amusing "secret planning sessions" in which potential party strategies are plotted; and in the final sections, to propose a plan for each party to break the deadlock and pull the majority of voters in line with its political views. Footnotes and graphs and "chalk talk" illustrations abound throughout.

Greenberg writes in clear lucid prose, plainly setting out his premise while using minimal political jargon. While the book is meaty and dense with facts, the only dry thing about it is Greenberg's somewhat sardonic wit. It is a surprisingly funny book which should be read by every voter, regardless of political party.
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Segnalato
avanta7 | Apr 3, 2009 |

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Statistiche

Opere
10
Utenti
193
Popolarità
#113,337
Voto
½ 3.7
Recensioni
2
ISBN
27

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