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Title: Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America by Walter Karp, Lewis Lapham ISBN: 1-879957-13-2 Publisher: Franklin Square Pr Pub. Date: January, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Best book about politics ever written
Comment: I learned more from this book then I did in all the classes I was required to obtain my political science degree. The main premise of the book is that the Republican and Democratic party leaders collude to keep power, often by not contesting elections that could easily be won with any money or effort expended. A quick example from 25 years after the book's publication should suffice to verify Karp's thesis.In the state of Florida in 1998, half of the congressional seats were not even contested (several other "contests" simply have write-in candidates with zero chance of winning). This was despite the fact that both parties knew winning an extra seat or two might well determine who controlled the next Congress. Unfortunately, this fact is overlooked by not only the public, but all of the so-called experts on TV. Right now, the public perception still is that the parties fight like dogs to win elections at all possible costs. Karp sees what the pundits oftoday can't; namely, the goal of party leaders is to maintain control of their organizations,not to win elections. One quote from former Democratic speaker Sam Rayburn demonstrates this principle;when faced with a coming landslide for his party and a gain of many seats for his party,he ruefully says :"I'd just as soon not have that many Democrats, they'll be difficult to control." This is the shocking but real story of how politics in America really works. A truly indispensable work.
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Rating: 5
Summary: Down With Despotism
Comment: Karp not only pulls back the curtain on the evils of partisan politics, but goes on to propose a Jeffersonian style of self-government. Some of my favorite analysis from this book includes the following:
* Party oligarchs and their Cold War statism highlights his "principle of waste."
* A State inherently tends toward collusion and monopoly-granting, and therefore expansion, and this necessarily leads to war.
* Special privilege is in direct odds with liberty and self-rule, and only serves to further entrench a ruling political elite. And this he says, is a result of the "Hamiltonian tradition."
* Political ideology necessarily takes the form of the ruling bureaucracy.
*Decentralization [and hence, secession] is the key to breaking the back of the Hamiltonian system.
Karp, a revisionist historian, takes on such sacred cows as FDR, Wilson, Johnson, McKinley, Hamilton, and trade unions (gasp!). It's one of the best books ever on raw political machinations.
Rating: 5
Summary: The only great book I know about modern American politics
Comment: For me, the major impression left by this book was it's massive originality. Every page was the equivalent of opening your lunchbox in expectation of the usual bologna sandwich, and finding instead a skyscraper, the Hope diamond, or Elvis' twitching torso. Karp looks at the theories of American politics and attempts to overturn every accepted explanation, always suggesting complex, subtle and powerful alternatives. Whether he succeeds or not you can judge for yourself, but he somehow manages to be always unique on ground previously trodden by so many feet. Yet, he isn't merely a contrarian. His intricate theory retains remarkable consistensy throughout this book and his other three books on politics.
The previous reviewer sums up one of the books main ideas very well. Another argument of the book is that power in America is almost totally monopolized by the two parties -- contrary to most opinion today which seeks to blame anyone and everyone for our problems except the most obvious suspects, the politicians who pass laws and frustrate reform. Since so many pundits blame either the "liberal media elite" or monopolistic corporations for our woes, Karp details the ways in which both groups are under the complete domination of the two parties (his analysis of the media is part of a separate book _Buried Alive_). As Karp points out, the idea isn't new. Madison, Jefferson, Washington, et. al. shouted until they were hoarse about the necessity of zealously watching politicians and rulers. They had little if any concern about journalists, manufacturers and bankers, except insofar as they might become willing tools for would-be despots and oligarchs. But no one except Karp has thoroughly explored the implications of this founding belief in the modern political context.
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Title: The Politics of War: The Story of Two Wars Which Altered Forever the Political Life of the American Republic 1890-1920 by Walter Karp, Lewis Lapham ISBN: 1879957558 Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Liberty Under Siege: American Politics 1976-1988 by Walter Karp, Lewis Lapham ISBN: 1879957116 Publisher: Franklin Square Pr Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Sorrows of Empire : Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [The American Empire Project ] by Chalmers Johnson ISBN: 0805070044 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Middle Mind : Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves by Curtis White ISBN: 0060524367 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 14 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Waiting for the Barbarians by Lewis H. Lapham, Lewis H. Lapman ISBN: 1859848826 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: November, 1997 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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