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Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:55 +0000

A searing attack on the Democrats from one of today’s most engaging political voices, and an incisive strategy for victory over the Republican party

Air America Radio host, Laura Flanders, the best-selling author of “Bushwomen,” believes there are no such things as “red” and “blue” states. Even in the most surprising places, she’s finding progressive change. From Vermont to Salt Lake City to Las Vegas’s famous Strip, she journeys through the heartland USA and discovers a simple truth : people don’t vote for the GOP because Republicans represent their interests; they vote Republican because Democrats barely field a team.

Adamant, opinionated, funny, and always engaging, Flanders chronicles what she’s learned from scores of voters and activists-about how change is happening in Main St. USA, even if it rarely catches the attention of the so-called mainstream media. Mormons defending women’s rights, casino owners teaming up with waitresses to raise the minimum wage; blue collar construction workers and lesbian mothers working together to make their workplaces safer and more secure for all. Flanders finds young, supposedly “alienated” Americans, who are driving scores of new voters to the polls.

Fiery polemic, assured narrative, and acute political commentary, Blue Grit will be crucial reading for everyone interested in the future of the Democrats, and this country. Based on Flanders’ bottom-up style of journalism, it tells a story of good news : progressives are coming after the conservative establishment with new talent, new ideas, newmedia and new cash, and they have their sights set on building a new progressive movement, whether the Democratic Party is ready or not.

The Peculiar Democracy: Southern Democrats in Peace and Civil War

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:53 +0000

Too often, Wallace Hettle points out, studies of politics in the nineteenth-century South reinforce a view of the Democratic Party that is frozen in time on the eve of Fort Sumter–a deceptively high point of white racial solidarity. Avoiding such a “Civil War synthesis,” The Peculiar Democracy illuminates the link between the Jacksonian political culture that dominated antebellum debate and the notorious infighting of the Confederacy. Hettle shows that war was the greatest test of populist Democratic Party rhetoric that emphasized the shared interests of white men, slaveholder and nonslaveholder alike.

The Peculiar Democracy analyzes antebellum politics in terms of the connections between slavery, manhood, and the legacies of Jefferson and Jackson. It then looks at the secession crisis through the anxieties felt by Democratic politicians who claimed concern for the interests of both slaveholders and nonslaveholders. At the heart of the book is a collective biography of five individuals whose stories highlight the limitations of democratic political culture in a society dominated by the “peculiar institution.” Through narratives informed by recent scholarship on gender, honor, class, and the law, Hettle profiles South Carolina’s Francis W. Pickens, Georgia’s Joseph Brown, Alabama’s Jeremiah Clemens, Virginia’s John Rutherfoord, and Mississippi’s Jefferson Davis.

The Civil War stories presented in The Peculiar Democracy illuminate the political and sometimes personal tragedy of men torn between a political culture based on egalitarian rhetoric and the wartime imperatives to defend slavery.

Living with Hitler: Liberal Democrats in the Third Reich

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:51 +0000

This book addresses key questions about liberal democrats and their activities in Germany from 1933 to the end of the Nazi regime. While it is commonly assumed that liberals fled their homeland at the first sign of jackboots, in reality most stayed. Some even thrived under Hitler, personally as well as professionally. Historian Eric Kurlander examines the motivations, hopes, and fears of liberal democratsÂ—Germans who best exemplified the middle-class progressivism of the Weimar RepublicÂ—to discover why so few resisted and so many embraced elements of the Third Reich.

German liberalism was not only the opponent and victim of National Socialism, Kurlander suggests, but in some ways its ideological and sociological antecedent. That liberalism could be both has crucial implications for understanding the genesis of authoritarian regimes everywhere. Indeed, Weimar democratsâ€™ prolonged reluctance to oppose the regime demonstrates how easily a liberal democracy may gradually succumb to fascism.

The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans (Chicago Studies in American Politics)

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:42 +0000

As Washington elites drifted toward ideological poles over the past few decades, did ordinary Americans follow their lead? In The Partisan Sort, Matthew Levendusky reveals that we have responded to this trendâ€”but not, for the most part, by becoming more extreme ourselves. While polarization has filtered down to a small minority of voters, it also has had the more significant effect of reconfiguring the way we sort ourselves into political parties.

In a marked realignment since the 1970sâ€”when partisan affiliation did not depend on ideology and both major parties had strong liberal and conservative factionsâ€”liberals today overwhelmingly identify with Democrats, as conservatives do with Republicans. This â€œsorting,â€ Levendusky contends, results directly from the increasingly polarized terms in which political leaders define their parties. Exploring its far-reaching implications for the American political landscape, he demonstrates that sorting makes voters more loyally partisan, allowing campaigns to focus more attention on mobilizing committed supporters. Ultimately, Levendusky concludes, this new link between party and ideology represents a sea change in American politics.

Legacy Of The Prophet: Despots, Democrats, And The New Politics Of Islam

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:37 +0000

Now available in paperback, Legacy of the Prophetis a sweeping, first-person account of the transformation in the style and message of Islamic politics at the beginning of the twenty-first century. As terrorism floods our headlines, this book offers a rare but much-needed counterpoint : it shows that Islamic activists have increasingly renounced violence in order to form political parties, engage in grass-roots work, and enter into civil society to bring about peaceful reform in their authoritarian societies. Drawing on his years of reporting in more than a dozen countries of the Muslim world, Anthony Shadid charts the way in which the adolescence of yesterdayâ€™s Islamic militants is yielding to the maturity of todayâ€™s activists. Through personal interviews and extensive travel, he chronicles that new generation, which is finding a more realistic and potentially more successful future through democratic politics. Complete with a new introduction, Legacy of the Prophetpromises to redefine the debate over the future of political Islam.

Why we need a Third Party. Tea Party Solutions for America, what Democrats and Republicans refuse to do.

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:33 +0000

If you are a Democrat or a Republican you will be very afraid of this book. This book represents your worst nightmare, a Third Party with real solutions. If you are an Independent or a member of the Tea Party you are going to love this book. Now when Democrats or Republicans ask â€œwhat is the Tea Party plan?â€ You can proudly tell them the “Tea Party solutions in this book.”

There is none of that two party compassionate conservative socialist hope and change double speak in this book. There is nothing but straight talk in this book, more so than most of you are use to. Even if you are a Democrat or a Republican you will find solutions in this book that you like. The problem is you wonâ€™t be able to get passed the solutions you donâ€™t like.

–C. Thomas Payne

From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans: Florida and Its Politics since 1940

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:04:07 +0000

Likely to raise hackles among Democrats and Republicans alike, this dynamic history of modern Florida argues that the Sunshine State has become the political and demographic future of the nation. David Colburn reveals how Florida gradually abandoned the traditions of race and personality that linked it to the Democratic Party. The book focuses particularly on the population growth and chaotic gubernatorial politics that altered the state from 1940, when it was a sleepy impoverished southern outpost, to the present and the emergence of a dominant Republican Party.

In the twenty-first century, Colburn says, Florida is a dynamic, highly partisan, largely conservative state at the cultural, social, and economic intersection of the Western Hemisphere. But the transition hasn’t been entirely felicitous. Allegations abound that the state is a “banana republic” favoring the wealthy, a piece of paradise that embraces “immigrants, natives, seniors, rednecks, evangelicals, and yes, flim-flam artists and mobile home salesmen. All of whom came to the state looking for ways to improve their lot in life.”

Colburn depicts the state’s colorful governors at the center of every postwar development from Cracker to Sun Belt politics, from segregation to integration, from boosterism and modernization to economic and environmental crises. As the story of one of the most influential states in the nation, the book redefines Florida politics.

Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:04:01 +0000

Praise for Heads In the Sand

“A very serious, thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.”
â€”Ezra Klein, staff writer at The American Prospect

“Matt Yglesias is one of the smartest voices in the blogosphere. He knows a lot about politics, a lot about foreign policy, and, crucially, is unusually shrewd in understanding how they interact. Here’s hoping that his new book will introduce him to an even wider audience. Once you discover him, you’ll be hooked.”
â€”E. J. Dionne, author of Souled Out : Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right and Why Americans Hate Politics

“Matthew Yglesias is one of a handful of bloggers that I make a point of reading every day. Heads in the Sand is a smart, vital book that urges Democrats to stop evading the foreign-policy debate and to embrace the old principles of international liberalism–to be right and also to win.”
â€”Fred Kaplan, author of Daydream Believers : How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power

“Reading foreign policy tomes is seldom included among life’s pleasures, but Yglesias has concocted a startling exception. Heads in the Sand is not just a razor-sharp analysis cum narrative of the politics of national security in general and the Iraq war in particular, it’s also an enthralling and often very funny piece of writing. Though he administers strong antidotes to the haplessness of his fellow Democrats and liberals, there’s more than a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.”
â€”Hendrik Hertzberg, Senior Editor, The New Yorker, and author of Politics : Observations and Arguments

Fast-rising political commentator Matthew Yglesias reveals the wrong-headed foreign policy stance of conservatives, neocons, and the Republican Party for what it isâ€”aggressive nationalism. Writing with wit, passion, and keen insight, Yglesias reminds us of the rich tradition of liberal internationalism that, developed by Democrats, was used with great success by both Democratic and Republican administrations for more than fifty years. He provides a starting point for politicians, policymakers, pundits, and citizens alike to return America to its role as leader of a peace-loving and cooperative international community.

Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run ‘em Out

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:04:00 +0000

Like a newly discovered treasure map offering a path to buried riches, Foxes in the Henhouse is a hard-hitting political blueprint for how the Democrats can win again in the South and rural America. The authors document the Republicans’ rise in the South and Midwest, expose the hypocrisy that marked their ascent, and offer a take-no-prisoners plan to kick them out.

The authors know of what they speak. “Rural strategists” Steve Jarding and Dave “Mudcat” Saunders are famous for securing Democratic victories in places they shouldn’t have — most notably in Mark Warner’s successful run for governor of Virginia, a campaign that wasn’t afraid to use bluegrass concerts and NASCAR to get the message out.

When George W. Bush swept the South clean in 2004, it was the final insult to Jarding and Saunders, two self-proclaimed “bubbas” on a mission to convince their fellow southerners and rural Americans that the GOP’s claim of representing “values,” patriotism, the sportsmen, and fiscal conservatism is a disastrous farce. In addition to exposing the lies behind the gradual Republican invasion of the hinterland that began in the 1960s, they offer some surprisingly simple strategies for Democrats to capture each of these issues. Among other things, Jarding and Saunders urge Democrats to

â€¢ Quit turning their noses up at the culture of rural America and talk to people where they live

â€¢ Learn how to count when going after votes

â€¢ Show some passion and retaliate when Republicans assassinate their characters

Packed with meticulous and shocking research findings; blunt, laugh-out-loud language; and merciless assaults on George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill O’Reilly, and plenty of other right-wing charlatans, Foxes in the Henhouse is a must-read and will be one of the most talked-about books of the year and for election cycles to come.

Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:03:57 +0000

Author : Thomas F. Schaller
Binding : Paperback
DeweyDecimalNumber : 324
Format : Bargain Price
Label : Simon & Schuster
Languages :
ListPrice :
Manufacturer : Simon & Schuster
NumberOfItems : 1
NumberOfPages : 352
PackageDimensions :
ProductGroup : Book
ProductTypeName : ABIS_BOOK
PublicationDate : 2008-01-01
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
Studio : Simon & Schuster
Title : Whistling Past Dixie : How Democrats Can Win Without the South