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Summary: Welcome to Anatomy of American Politics 101, with Dr. Lind
Review: "The Republicans have a problem. The economic program of American Conservatives, if enacted in its entirety, would devastate the middle class while helping the American overclass. Income would be redistributed upward, while taxes would be redistributed downward.... How can conservatives expect to win votes for an economic program so inimical to the middle class? The answer is they cannot--and they know it. Therefore, most conservative ideologues... have done their best to change the subject from the economy to what they like to call, 'the culture'..."
Michael Lind
UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From Chapter Five, "Whistling Dixie" My copy of this book is looking more and more as if I am studying for a final exam based on its contents; every other paragraph of every chapter is a ten-megaton bomb of an aphorism worth quoting. "Perhaps however, my statement of the problem is mistaken. The question was, 'Why have there been no world-class American conservative intellectuals?' when it should have been "Why are there so FEW American conservative intellectuals [emphasis mine]?" By intellectuals I do not mean propagandists or causists, who provide the party faithful with the party line on the subjects of the day. I mean independent thinkers, who may be "conservative" or "liberal" or "libertarian" or "socialist" in terms of their basic principles, but who are free to draw their own conclusions without looking over their shoulders and fearing punishment for heterodoxy..." "If further proof is needed for my contention that much of today's conservative political theory is merely Marxism with the substitution of "bourgeois" for "proletariat" and "culture" for "class," it can be found in Joyce's call for enlisting art and literature in the service of Republican conservatism, a program that is indistinguishable, except in its content, from the aesthetic orthodoxy of American communities during the 1920's and 1930's...the literary and artistic techniques used by communists and fascists alike would be adopted to disseminate conservative ideology...For the time being, it seems, Americans will have to be content with the work of conservative public policy intellectuals." Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From Chapter 3: "The Triangular Trade: How the Conservative Movement Works" Michael Lind's detailed analysis of the overall psyche and political agenda of the power brokers of the Conservative movement in modern America is beyond prescient, beyond clear--and beyond frightening. It's also beyond superlatives. "The resemblance between Marxism and the classical liberal economic utopianism of the American right is a family resemblance. Marxism and free-market fundamentalism are squabbling twins, the offspring of the Enlightenment's naive belief in inevitable progress.... In the former communist countries, the high priests of economic dogma were the Marxist dialecticians; in the United States and Britain (though not in Japan or continental Europe), neoclassical economists serve as guardians of the orthodoxy, promising "scientific" approaches to economic progress...Today's American conservatives, however, have adopted free-market fundamentalism, in its crudest forms, as their political religion." Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From Chapter Ten: "Soaking the Middle: The Conservative Class War Against Wage-earning Americans" "American conservatism, then, is a countercommunism that replicates, down to rather precise details of organization and theory, the communism that it opposes..." Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISM
Chapter Ten
Soaking the Middle: The Conservative Class War Against Wage-Earning Americans What Alice Miller is to psychology, Michael Lind has become to American Politics. Michael Lind's UP FROM CONSERVATISM uncovers the intellectual nerve center and primitive philosophical foundation for much of the dialectical arguments about virtually anything in culture today on both sides of the political fence, from the validity of Afrocentrism to the very existence of privacy and independent thought in our increasingly technologically fascist modern society--and the consequences of their gradual disappearance. "...Today, having hijacked the Republican Party, [the leaders of the Conservative Right have become] 'radicals', seeking, in alliance with multinational corporate elite, to dismantle the New Deal [of FDR] and to impose their peculiar "New South" vision of the United States as a low wage, low tax, low regulation economy in which economic segregation replaces formal legal segregation not merely in their native region but in the country as a whole." From Chapter Five: "Whistling Dixie" This book is to the future of American politics and culture what Martin Luther's original Theses, nailed to the cathedral walls in the 17th century is to the history of Protestantism. "The parallel between [anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist of the 1930's Father] Coughlin and [Pat] Robertson breaks down in one respect to be sure: Father Coughlin was soon silenced by the Catholic Church and politically disgraced. Robertson, after expressing almost indistinguishable views in almost identical language, continues to be defended by conservative intellectuals, including the leading Jewish conservatives... a leading conservative editor with whom I was...on cordial terms...replied: 'Of course [i.e. The Christian Coalition]'re mad, but we need their votes.'" With all the irony of Shakespeare and the fright power of Stephen King, it reads like the perfect combination of a masterfully written textbook and a beautifully crafted novel. This is clear cut political and cultural analysis at its finest, with brilliant, erudite ideas expressed in the most common sense language. A truly important book.
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Summary: Oh goodness....
Review: As a feminist I am not inclined to like any of Lind's silly jabberings, but I have to say that I am really disgusted with his appropriation of the original title (Up From Slavery), even if he got it by way of William Fabuckly. While many of us are on the front lines, assisting Women and minorities combat the white male eurocentric paradigms of tyranny and hatred, people like Lind are getting attention for himself for simply being a white male who got tired of conservatism-as-usual. Oh well, there are so many other transgressive and courageous voices out there, why waste time on Lind? Because he's a little less right-winged than Bob Dole? Give me a break....
Rating:
Summary: Generally good, but could've used a few rewrites.
Review: Coming from a family of conservative Southern Democrats, I've been looking for a book like this for a long time. Lind's writing style really does need some work - most of this book gives the impression of being rather hastily composed, and it could've benefited from a more heavy-handed editor. Still, you can't fault Lind for his ideas, which are generally right on. He does a good job of explaining the political frustration of many average Americans: their basic conservatism makes them wary of the weirdo left, but also causes them to be disgusted by the reactionary radicalism which passes for "conservatism" in modern American political discourse. Good job, but next time, polish up that writing a little more, Mike...
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Summary: The contradictions of the American right
Review: Excellent book. Lind delineates quite accurately the contradictions and inconsistancies of the American right. Good expose on the Christian coalition and Pat Robertson and the role of money, ideas, foundation subsidies and party policy.
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Summary: This book, hopefully, predicts where U.S. politics is going
Review: Granted, this book is not an easy read, but it is well worth the effort. It lays out what has been lacking as a political choice for voters over the last quarter of a century: centrism in the tradition of FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. This book is not only critical of the radical right, it is also critical of the left and the lukewarm conservatism of Clinton. He predicts, and I sincerely hope he is right, there will be a re-emergence of the sort of centrism the country enjoyed from 1933 to the early 70's--as odd as that may sound--in the decades ahead. If you believe the radical right and the loony left are not representing the best interests of the vast majority of Americans, you will find this book compelling.
Rating:
Summary: This book, hopefully, predicts where U.S. politics is going
Review: Granted, this book is not an easy read, but it is well worth the effort. It lays out what has been lacking as a political choice for voters over the last quarter of a century: centrism in the tradition of FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. This book is not only critical of the radical right, it is also critical of the left and the lukewarm conservatism of Clinton. He predicts, and I sincerely hope he is right, there will be a re-emergence of the sort of centrism the country enjoyed from 1933 to the early 70's--as odd as that may sound--in the decades ahead. If you believe the radical right and the loony left are not representing the best interests of the vast majority of Americans, you will find this book compelling.
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Summary: Time has disproven Lind's nonsense.
Review: I actually read this book several years ago when it was first released. At the time, I was a little bit skeptical about the veracity of some of Lind's claims. Is the modern day conservative movement really anti-Semitic? Is race still the main underlying force behind America's rather stark turn to the political right over the last decade? I doubted him then - though I also had my skepticisms about Pat Robertson, etal - and I laugh at him today. The defection of Pat Buchanan to the Reform Party in the midst of the 2000 Presidential Campaign was a subtle, but important moment in the history of American conservatism. Lind's theories would indicate that Buchanan's race-baiting (which, frankly, is something more often practiced by the left than the right) would successfully woo hoards of conservatives away from the Republican party. The theories advanced in this book would Yet, I opened my newpaper today and saw that Buchanan - armed with $13 million in campaign money - is polling at 1% in the 2000 race. George W. Bush, who has given speeches in Spanish and who spoke to the NAACP and is promising powerful offices to the likes of Colin Powell and Conde Rice, is in a dead heat with Al Gore and has the full backing of America's conservatives. Lind fails to identify the real undercurrents of the conservative movement. It's not race. It isn't religion. It isn't homophobia. Despite Lind's claims to the contrary, conservatives strive for complete color-blindness. The conservative movement champions less government and more individual freedom. It really is that simple and I wonder how a concept that easy to understand eluded Lind in his years of being a "conservative."
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Summary: Well-intended, but flawed.
Review: I began reading this book with great anticipation, intrigued by Lind's call for a revival of old-fashioned populist/centrist "vital center" liberalism, a position that has almost completely disappeared from the radar screens of the nation's political and media elites. For the most part, Lind delivers; his comments regarding the professional-managerial overclass are right on the money, and go a long way toward explaining the current political "consensus" that combines cultural liberalism and economic conservatism, both of which are a slap in the face to the working and lower-middle classes, black and white alike. Similarly the usefulness of leftist "multiculturalism" and identity politics as useful tools for that same overclass are given much-needed exposure. However, his belief that the so-called "culture war" is purely a right-wing fabrication betrays a misunderstanding of the depths of people's convictions regarding issues like abortion, sexual morality, drug abuse, careerism, and materialism. While conservatives (and more than a few liberals) have proven adept at exploiting these convictions for political gain, they didn't invent them from scratch. Indeed, for all his jeremaids against overclass elitism, Lind himself seems oddly unwilling to recognize the validity or authenticity of cultural populism, dismissing it as the exclusive province of crackpot fundamentalists a la Pat Robertson. (A more thoughtful consideration of these concerns can be found in the works of Christopher Lasch i.e. "The Revolt Of The Elites." Despite this reservation, however, I found this book to present a compelling case for political reform, and more than worthwhile for the millions of us who are relatively lacking in wealth and privelege and dare to assert that we have a voice too.
Rating:
Summary: Well-intended, but flawed.
Review: I began reading this book with great anticipation, intrigued by Lind's call for a revival of old-fashioned populist/centrist "vital center" liberalism, a position that has almost completely disappeared from the radar screens of the nation's political and media elites. For the most part, Lind delivers; his comments regarding the professional-managerial overclass are right on the money, and go a long way toward explaining the current political "consensus" that combines cultural liberalism and economic conservatism, both of which are a slap in the face to the working and lower-middle classes, black and white alike. Similarly the usefulness of leftist "multiculturalism" and identity politics as useful tools for that same overclass are given much-needed exposure. However, his belief that the so-called "culture war" is purely a right-wing fabrication betrays a misunderstanding of the depths of people's convictions regarding issues like abortion, sexual morality, drug abuse, careerism, and materialism. While conservatives (and more than a few liberals) have proven adept at exploiting these convictions for political gain, they didn't invent them from scratch. Indeed, for all his jeremaids against overclass elitism, Lind himself seems oddly unwilling to recognize the validity or authenticity of cultural populism, dismissing it as the exclusive province of crackpot fundamentalists a la Pat Robertson. (A more thoughtful consideration of these concerns can be found in the works of Christopher Lasch i.e. "The Revolt Of The Elites." Despite this reservation, however, I found this book to present a compelling case for political reform, and more than worthwhile for the millions of us who are relatively lacking in wealth and privelege and dare to assert that we have a voice too.
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Summary: ummmmmm.....not sure
Review: I have only browsed this book...never actually read it...but I did read his commentary on the so-called "revival of racism on the right" section. He commented on three books that supposedly supported his thesis that the right is and always will be a bunch of racists. It was so obvious that he hadn't even taken the time to read ANY SINGLE ONE of these books: The Bell Curve, The End of Racism, and Alien Nation. I saw Lind on C-Span the other day talking about Barry Goldwater's death and he made a pretty good attempt at presenting himself as an objective, intellectual student of the evolution of conservatism - no doubt he fancies himself as such. But intellectual or not, Lind either purposefully misrepresented these books (knowing full well none of his readers would question his assesment); read what OTHERS had written about the books (who, by the way, hadn't read them either); or browsed the books a little having already decided what to write about them on the basis of reviews by people who hadn't read the books either. Anyway, I figure if Lind holds himself to standards such as these, his book isn't worth reading unless your just interested in listening to some left-wing rhetoric. Shouldn't we be holding our respected journalists to higher standards?
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