Rating: 
Summary: Pax!
Review: Although Jim Hightower doesn't document as well as some, this same information has been well and thoroughly itemized and documented elsewhere. And, although his is not the best book on the subject, Hightower is indeed correct: we, the people, have lost control of our own country. Remember "Of the people, by the people, FOR the people?" We would do well to pay attention before it's too late. However, in reading the reviews on Amazon, which I generally find quite helpful, I have noticed an odd thing. So many Righties, Bushies, Conservatives (sorry, I don't know what they are calling themselves these days) apparently become sputteringly incoherent with rage upon reading (or, in some cases, obviously NOT reading) something they disagree with. They attack like enraged and starving Yahoos in hilariously illiterate, fortunately short, and usually vulgar little outpourings of spleen. I mean, really, is this necessary?
Rating:
Summary: The Truth
Review: Why do all of the individuals who write reviews of politically related literature automatically despise or praise a novel because of its ideological leaning. Here is my suggestion, READ THE BOOK! Then, after reading cover to cover, right an intelligent and articulate response solely based on the novel itself. Far too many of you just see this as a liberal book or a conservative book and automatically write reviews of animosity or of the highest admiration. All of you should read the book, and then make an educated response on your thoughts of the book. And, from my personal experience, this book will definitely make you think twice about the current administration, whether you are a conservative or a liberal. Jim Hightower makes some interesting and empirically tangible conclusions that deserve your attention, no matter which ideology you choose to follow. This book does not resemble those of Michael Moore or Al Franken, it is strictly based on various claims, while also containing ample evidence to back up those claims. Please read this book, and then make your own conclusions about our current political environment.
Rating: 
Summary: What a piece of garbage....
Review: Jim Hightower basically echoes the crap spewed from the mouth of Michael Moore, which is boiled done to a nasty mess of lies and more lies. Don't waste your time on this, or the Democratic party... They can't even stop stabbing eachother in the back long enough to figure out what America and it's people really stand for. Go get yourself a copy of Glenn Beck's 'The Real America.' It will inspire you, not attempt to make you bitter and hate the land you live in and the governing leadership. So stop making the socialist party members' pockets' fatter, and start supporting what's right and just. Oh, and don't read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Everything that comes out of Texas is not all bad
Review: Jim Hightower, dose not just inform you at whats going on in America. He inspires you to do something about.. A great book.
Rating:
Summary: Skip the 1-2 star reviews
Review: Those are the shills at work. They claim its liberal Rhetoric when in fat Jim slams all the politicians. As it should be. Hightower tells it exacly like it is. Corporations and politics rule the masses. Been that way since that court ruling in late 1800's that defined a corporation as a person. Great ideas in the book on how WE THE PEOPLE can fight back.
Rating:
Summary: A Gentleman of the Old Southern School
Review: I am a Texan by birth. Growing up in a family where politics were discussed nightly at the dinner table, I learned that according to my Mom, Franklin Roosevelt was a saint and I only remember my father arguing against any point she might make. I never recall the words "Bush." Suddenly out of the night sky, "Bush" appeared suddenly, running for office saying "Bush" was a Texan. Then there is a "Bush" who is suddenly a Floridian--do you suppose Bush citizens are like mushrooms? Springing up overnight to fertilize lowly cultures with their visionary capitalism? Texas used to be a well-educated Democratic (though somewhat conservative) state until the "Shrubs" appeared because Texas wisely used a lot of their oil money to fund higher education. When the "Shurbs" appeared, things changed. Yokels just don't know how to combat Rovers and Shrubs although we fight the overgrowth of underbrush daily, both physically and politically. Hightower was how Texas used to be and how maybe someday it will be again--intelligent, honest, and able to look at reality without flinching. I read Hightower's book concurrently with another very important book called "Bush's Brain." It is a story of how the Bushes took over Texas and how Rove did it. It was remarkable to me to learn in "Bush's Brain" that Rove essentially destroyed Hightower's political future (his capacity to earn his living). I don't know about you, but when someone tries to kill me by destroying my capacity to feed myself, I get downright onery and even insulting!!! Jim Hightower's book, given this knowledge, makes him the most remarkable human being I have ever known. To have a brilliant man's political career so ruthlessly destroyed by a total scoundrel and still to have the objective reasoning capacity and supreme humor that he maintains is beyond extraordinary. I really love this man! Jim Hightower's loss as Agriculture Commissioner of Texas due to Rove's Watergate-type tactics was a horrible loss for the nation as Jim Hightower as Agriculture Commissioner of Texas was the beginning of protecting ground drinking water by peddling back on pesticide and herbicide use. This is where we lost our nation. Rove was like a mold that got its start in Texas (a slice of the bread) and spread through the United States (the whole loaf). I think Hightower's book should be on the required reading list for all educational establishments and citizens of the world. He explicitly delineates how our democracy failed and what we need to do to get it back. If you haven't read this book and "Bush's Brain", don't even talk to me--you are illiterate and not worth talking to.
Rating: 
Summary: Quirky and interesting ideas, but no bibliography!!!!
Review: GRRRRR! I hate when these political "experts" write an entire book without sources. Basically this is one big liberal rant...come one no matter right or left...SOURCES are a must!
Rating:
Summary: Save Your Money...
Review: This book says nothing new, the same ole stale liberal rhetoric based on emotion rather than fact. No one has stolen the country, Liberal policies don't work and are being rejected all over the country. I like the Liberal look at the title, they've stolen our country... they, as in Republicans, who have no place in "our Liberal" society....oh the times are a changin!
Socialism is on the way out,...thankfully!
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Angry book shows the way to recapture Real Democracy!
Review: OK, so you're sitting there feeling helpless that "BushCo" (that corporate monster that now inhabits the White House) has raised close to $100 million in donations to its Presidential campaign, is literally in the back pockets of nearly every Fortune 500 company in this country and thus has access to its money, has Big Oil on its side and seems virtually untouchable with the
might and power it has accumulated in its greedy quest to inhabit the White House for another four years, right? As in, OK, this is one big helluva David and Goliath type of thing. How on earth can We The People topple someone who has become almost a dictator with every moneyed and powerful entity on his side and probably more power than any President since this country came into existence? Well, sit yourself down in your favourite comfy chair or couch, pour a nice hot cup of reality tea and read this book. Jim Hightower shows us the way, the very REALISTIC way, that We The People can take back our Government from the greedy minions of "BushCo" who would subvert the very foundations that the Founding Fathers laid forth for posterity. It's called, "Grass Roots", and it's a very powerful weapon that "BushCo" can't stop, given enough of a juggernaut by We The People. Gather round the kitchen table and listen to Jim Hightower tell you of very REAL success stories of Real People like you and like me who defeated Big Corporations (read that, Big Money) using grass roots organising and a bit of moxey and a
hell of a lot of anger. You know the one beautiful thing about Americans? We may seem, at times, to just sit there and take it: OK, now, shut up, go shop and spend that tax break we gave you, oh, and don't question us, we know what we're doing, so just move along, move along. Well, Americans are a rebellious bunch, as has been proven by our history, and eventually, they wise up to the Fat Cats and rise up against them and defeat them. It's happened time and again throughout our history. And it's beginning to happen again. Big Money, Fat Cats, Corporate Raiders and all those evildoers would have you go spend your money at Wal-Mart and thus shut down all of your local businesses due to what they call "predatory pricing" (just drive
through the east side of my home town of Kent, Ohio, and see what our Wal-Mart did to our locally owned businesses! It's a wasteland of empty buildings out there!). They would have you continue to feed the system of slave labour in China, where workers (often women and children) are forced to work sometimes 20 hour workdays for mere pennies a day. I dunno about you, but this seems like slavery to me. But gee, how DOES Wal-Mart keep its prices so low, anyway? Wanna know how? Read this book. It will shock you into never wanting to buy another thing from anyone whose products are produced in overseas sweat
shops, among many of the indictments against Wal-Mart in this funny, angry book. They would dump toxic waste wherever they please, not caring that it could sicken you and yours, raid your retirement funds and give themselves multi-billion dollar bonuses and live high off the hog while you struggle to pay your basic bills, and laugh all the way to the bank when their Corporations go belly-up like a dead fish on a Lake Erie beach, throwing your friends and neighbours out of work and scrambling to figure out what to
do now that they have no retirement funds. Sure, this book will make you plenty mad when you read it, but you'll laugh yourself silly and have fun at the same time! But Hightower also gives an inspiring road map back to real Democracy, the way our Founding Fathers meant it to be. You'll find out how ordinary citizens complaining around kitchen tables over coffee learned to muster their resources and hold Big
Money and Big Corporations accountable and defeat their attempts to ruin their communities. READ THIS BOOK! ... Tell your friends! Tell your family! Tell your co-workers! Tell people at your church, synagogue and mosque! Tell them that YES! We CAN defeat "BushCo" and bring back the Democracy of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe! And moreover, we CAN create a fair, just and sustainable world for our children, grandchildren and future generations. (And I'm not just talking about the
good ol' US of A, either!) Thanks. Now, go read! :-) And when you're done, get out there and start organising! Do it for yourself, do it for your children, do it for the future of your country! Don't let Corporate raiders and white collar criminals spend another four years looting your towns, your banks, your retirements funds and spewing toxic waste along the way, all the while laughing their way to the bank while you stand there with a pink slip and no retirement funds, a hapless victim of these greedy and soulless minions. GRASS ROOTS LIVES!!!
Rating:
Summary: Telling it like it is!
Review: Hightower may not be right about everything. But Kleptocrats is almost too kind a word for the croops that George Bush brought into office. I can't imagine what the right wing loonies would have done had Clinton started a war and then gave out tens of billions in profits to a company he controlled and another than is intimately connected to his party. That's Halliburton and Bechtel, both crony companies of this White House and, yes, Bush did wag the dog. People from outside Texas have heard so much from Texas idiots, it sometimes seems as if there's no intelligent life there. Just this grasping, greedy need for power and to do as much damage to other parts of the country as possible. Hightower is proof, along with people like Molly Ivins, that there are still people in Texas in who can think independently. No, they don't goose step down the strasser with the other crytofascists who use the catchall term, "conservative" to disguise their true nuttiness ... and just how much they actually despise American freedoms and beliefs. The people Hightower is talking about would lock up George Washington and most of the other founding fathers. My god, they were revolutionaries who wanted sweeping changes. What a crazy liberal notion. But then to the extent there was support for the United States from Britain during the Revolution, it was the liberals. Conservatives wanted to keep their boot right on our necks. So do the Kleptocrats.
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