What Would Jefferson Do?

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Summary: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Jeffersonian Democracy
Review: I have got to believe Thomas Jefferson would be the first to laugh at the foreword he supposedly wrote for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction". Our third President purportedly asserts "You moderns have a tendency to worship at the altar of the Fathers," but "he" ends with a vital description of the Constitution as "a living document based on principles that transcended the times we lived in...a blueprint for a system to endure." Well put, as Jefferson was a true Renaissance man, a constant inventor and unequivocally a founding father in the history of democracy in this country. His ideal for the way this country should be run is as relevant now as it was back then, and I'm so glad Thom Hartmann's comprehensive and eminently readable book vouches for that fact in lucid terms. At a time when the Bush administration flagrantly disregards the Constitution and the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, Hartmann reminds us that we were founded on noble and then innovative principles that once protected the civil rights of its citizenry.

More than coincidentally, Hartmann focuses on why we so clearly need to separate church and state and the reasons why Jefferson was so passionate about this issue from witnessing the ramifications of a tyrannical clergy in England. In his day, there was a powerful movement to make the Ten Commandments the basis of American law, but Jefferson recognized how easily the alliance between church and state in England has led to unprecedented fraud among the judges who were appointed to uphold it. Clearly, the conservative right has been amassing power in more subtle ways today but to the same inevitable conclusions. Jefferson's thoughts on freedom of speech turn out to be equally prophetic, as Hartmann explains that fairness and accuracy in reporting has been torpedoed by the major broadcasting companies more interested in their bottom line than upholding government regulations on speech. The author is particularly effective in responding to the ideals set forth by the conservative movement, as articulated, for example, in Russell Kirk's seminal work, "The Conservative Mind". One of Kirk's claims is that a right to property is a prerequisite to freedom, because without property other rights are meaningless. Hartmann rightfully claims property to be the result of other more basic rights since Kirk's logic builds in a financial value that produces inequity in its foundation. This is a terrific history book made relevant by Hartmann's intensive data collection and insightful observations. It will motivate you to do what you can to uphold the democratic principles that were meant to ensure us civil liberties and individual freedoms. Strongly recommended.

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Summary: Jefferson Would Be Proud
Review: In 1816, Thomas Jefferson expressed the following: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

Thom Hartmann's latest book, What Would Jefferson Do?, has followed in the finest tradition of this Jeffersonian statement. Mr. Hartmann has painted an extremely accurate and informative picture of contemporary American society. His writing has allowed us to step back in time to re-examine the democratic cradle from which our nation emerged and vividly see how many aspects of our 21st century culture are at odds with our nation's founding principles.

Mr. Hartman takes on the tough questions of today's America, jobs, education, healthcare, taxes, tariffs, the environment and a shrinking middle class. This list only scratches the surface.

Interwoven into Mr. Hartmann's commentary of our present day society are numerous quotes, thoughts and inspirations by the men that founded this nation and how their ideals can and still do apply to the model of American democracy presented to the world so long ago.

What Would Jefferson Do? asserts that democracy is truly man's natural political state, that men and women are capable of governing themselves through mutual cooperation, understanding and compassion.

Mr. Hartmann also asserts that democracy has been lost in the past and can be again unless we, the American people, remain on constant vigil against those that would rob us of our birth right as Americans.

Mr. Hartmann's book serves as a source of information, inspiration, warning and possible solutions to many of our current social problems. It is well worth the reading.

I have always believed that the finest tribute that could be paid to a book is to say that book opened my mind and made me think. Well, What Would Jefferson Do? sure got me thinking.



Rating:
Summary: The Founders were Amazing!!
Review: This book is a breath of fresh air in a cynical, ill-informed country. It renewed my absolute awe of the Founders -- what they were up against, the debates they had, the inevitable compromises, and the incredible, living document they came up with -- our Constitution. It makes me feel somewhat ashamed at how lazy and complacent the American electorate has become. Are we even up to the task of defending American democrary? Do people even know what it is? Or what it has become?

This book should be required reading for every citizen. We have a lot of work ahead if we are to regain our democracy. Even for a die-hard idealist, I did find some of his prescriptions to be overly optimistic. But vision is something we need right now!

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Summary: Clear; Concise; Captivating
Review: This is an amazing book that could possibly be wrongly titled. It's a great title for the last chapter, and may have been the inspiration for the book, but not really the best suited title. This book encompasses so many truly democratic issues. It redefines our history and relates it with our country today. It touches on a vast number of topics that help define a truly worthy cause to be an active American citizen. This is a inspirational read for any patriot. Learn from the past and gain a clearer perspective of today and tomorrow with this book from Thom Hartmann.

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Summary: A Clarion Call to a New American Revolution
Review: Thom Hartmann, with his impeccable research and unique insight, has brought to life the founders and framers of this fragile experiment in democracy called the United States of America, particularly Thomas Jefferson. Relying often on their own words, in both famous texts and little known letters, Hartmann reveals the intention of those who wrested freedom from tyranny and unmasks the myths of nationhood that we have too often accepted as truth.

Comparing and contrasting our history with the present political moment, Hartmann offers a stunning critique of the "new feudalism" foisted on us by corporate wealth and the illegitimate insinuation of religious dogma into our political life.

And, most importantly, Hartmann concludes by calling us to awaken and assume responsibility, once again, to pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to restore to America the democracy which is our natural state and cultural heritage.

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Summary: Telling The Real Story About Thomas Jefferson
Review: When I was first becoming politically active and living in Southern California, which was then an exciting if erratic "57 varieties" political stomping ground, I curiously visited the leading right wing bookstore in the area, located in Hollywood behind the insurance office of the man who ran it fervently with his wife. I often wondered how he could make any money in the insurance office due to its neglect in favor of concentrating on the activist bookstore.

There was a sign that always remained, while others, often posters concerning political campaigns that came and went, was one that read:

"If Jefferson and Franklin were living today they would be regular customers of this bookstore."

The right for years has sought to co-opt the Founding Fathers, particularly the great spokesman for liberty who penned America's Bill of Rights, Thomas Jefferson, as one of their own. If a liberal dared to quote Jefferson, a right-winger would smirk and say, "Have you ever read Jefferson? You liberals want big government. Jefferson stood for limited government. He wanted to extend individual liberty, not create a gigantic bureaucracy like you people do."

Thom Hartmann has done an adroit job of puncturing this right wing myth in his thoughtful and energetically researched work, "What Would Jefferson Have Done?" The principle launching point that draws the distinction between what the right has long proclaimed and the reality of Jefferson's beliefs is the period and circumstances under which Jefferson and the Founding Fathers who synergized with him, towering giants such as Benjamin Franklin and James Madison, lived and functioned.

It was Hartmann who authored the thoughtful work "Unequal Protection," and this book segues snugly into the same ideological framework. A major element of concern in the time of Jefferson and Franklin, which remains increasingly prevalent today, is the existence and robust operation of the corporation. In "Unequal Protection" Hartmann traced the road traveled in the post-Civil War nineteenth century to eventually succeed in legally constructing an important governing principle of the corporation as a fictitious person, investing it thereby with gargantuan powers unforeseen by the citizenry at the time of America's creation.

Hartmann reveals that Jefferson sought to expand rights of the average citizen, putting him thereby in the liberal or progressive ideological camp rather than that of the doctrinaire rightists who for so long have insisted that he was one of them. At the time of the country's beginnings Jefferson and other exponents of individual liberty were successful in fighting for limitations of time and scope on corporations, recognizing that they were, if unchecked, gigantic octopus-like instruments that would suffocate democracy.

Thom Hartmann fine-tunes his arguments by jumping back and forth between the America of Jefferson and the one emerging today. It was Jefferson, he notes, who opposed Alexander Hamilton's efforts to create a highly expansive national bank, which he saw as a dangerous instrument of control.

When he campaigned for the presidency the High Federalists who linked themselves to the early economic establishment fought Jefferson tenaciously, referring to him as "an atheist" and denouncing him for his suspected affair with his beautiful young slave Sally Hemings. It has been ultimately revealed through DNA evidence that Jefferson had fathered children by Hemings. Jefferson's bitter opponents sought to destroy him politically through his association with Hemings because they feared his steadfast opposition to their corporate designs.

When Hartmann moves the fight over corporate dominance and correlative diminution of the rights of average citizens he shows how the Alexander Hamiltons of yesteryear have become the Grover Norquists of today. He demonstrates how the fixation is the same, whether dealing with Hamilton's vision of a national bank or the so-called free trade agreements that high-powered lobbyists rush through Congress.

Hartmann's book provides readers with the best of both worlds. He gives us a picture of the battles fought by Jefferson and his allies in early America and reveals how these same issues are being tenaciously fought over today.

"What Would Jefferson Do?" reminds us once more of the validity of the old saying, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Hartmann believes that with proper vigilance, Americans today can turn back the same challenges Jefferson fought to surmount in the nation's formative early period.

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Summary: Brilliant, Inspiring, this Book Touches the Heart
Review: Yes, this is a book about government, about history. Yet over and over again, I felt my heart touched, and on a few occassions, tears welling in my eyes. Thom Hartmann has, by a strange accident of fate, become an extraordinary Jefferson scholar. When you combine the visionary mind of Rennaisance man Thom Hartmann with the revolutionary genius of an earlier Tom-- Thomas Jefferson, you get a book that wakes you up and gets you thinking about what you can do, what the nation and the world need to do to stop the founders of America from turning in their graves and stop the nation's turn toward decreased rights, liberties and freedom.

If you read political books, this is one you don't want to miss. Hartmann may not be as recognizable a name as some, but his ideas stand at least as tall, with the added strength of a unique vision that spans the centuries past and the centuries to come. This is a book that will become a classic people will read 50, even 100 years from now.

Hartmann is also one of the smartest, most informed talk show hosts in America today. He's been ranked among the top 100 in the business. His show can be called liberal, progressive, yet it is civil without nastiness. He says it is aimed at the radical middle.