Collected Miscellany

The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream

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–>Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861

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Abraham Lincoln first demonstrated his determination and leadership in the Great Secession Winter — the four months between his election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861 — when he rejected compromises urged on him by Republicans and Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, that might have preserved the Union a little longer but would have enshrined slavery for generations. Though Lincoln has been criticized by many historians for failing to appreciate the severity of the secession crisis that greeted his victory, Harold Holzer shows that the presidentelect waged a shrewd and complex campaign to prevent the expansion of slavery while vainly trying to limit secession to a few Deep South states.

During this most dangerous White House transition in American history, the country had two presidents: one powerless (the president-elect, possessing no constitutional authority), the other paralyzed (the incumbent who refused to act). Through limited, brilliantly timed and crafted public statements, determined private letters, tough political pressure, and personal persuasion, Lincoln guaranteed the integrity of the American political process of majority rule, sounded the death knell of slavery, and transformed not only his own image but that of the presidency, even while makinginevitable the war that would be necessary to make these achievements permanent.

Lincoln President-Elect is the first book to concentrate on Lincoln’s public stance and private agony during these months and on the momentous consequences when he first demonstrated his determination and leadership. Holzer recasts Lincoln from an isolated prairie politician yet to establish his greatness, to a skillful shaper of men and opinion and an immovable friend of freedom at a decisive moment when allegiance to the founding credo “all men are created equal” might well have been sacrificed.

–> Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses

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Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.

Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.

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For a variety of reasons I never got around to reviewing a number of books I read last year.  As a way to catch up I thought I would post “Quick Takes” that give a brief description and some comments.  The first is below.

There are two things about A Bound Man by Shelby Steele that are worth mentioning.  One, its core isn’t really about Barack Obama the politician so much as his cultural significance and the lens it provides for race relations in this country.

If you have read Steele’s previous work his analysis won’t be new to you.  But I found it absolutely fascinating and incredibly insightful.

Steele outlines how African-American leaders fall into two rough categories: bargainer and challenger.  Bargainers “grant whites the innocence and moral authority they need in return for their goodwill and generosity.”  While challengers “presume whites to be guilty of racism in the same way that bargainers presume them innocent-as a strategic manipulation” and put whites “in the position of having to chase after their racial innocence.”

Bill Cosby, Collin Powell, and Oprah Winfrey are classic bargainers and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are  challengers.  And Steele argues Obama is a bargainer; in fact, the Oprah of politics if you will.  And it is this fact that explains in large part his incredible success while shedding light on the state of race relations today.

The second point worth noting, is the now problematic subtitle “Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win”.  Steele says he didn’t come up with the subtitle and didn’t believe the claim.  Nonetheless, that aspect of the book outlines an interesting dynamic between Obama and the African-American community that is worth thinking about even if it seems outdated today.  I have a theory about what happened to change the dynamic but that is a “whole ‘nother ball of wax” as they say.

Regardless of whether you are an Obama supporter, agree with Steele’s thesis, I think this slim book is well worth a read.  It presents a fascinating way to look at the issue of race in our country and how it became tied up with presidential politics.

–> Welcome to Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn’t Work by James Delingpole

From the Inside Flap

If the election of Barack Obama fills you with dread rather than elation, you’re not alone; in fact, pull up a chair next to James Delingpole who has seen this all before and knows exactly where America is heading: into a morass of sprawling government that will slowly start suffocating our economy, our liberties, and our culture. You might as well call it socialism, he says, because that’s what it is. In Britain it came in under the smiling face of Tony Blair and has left the British bulldog castrated, whimpering, and sick; in America it’s coming under the vibrant, youthful guise of Barack Obama. But the result will be the same: the brave, independent American eagle will become the American turkey, oven-basted by the nanny state of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

[. . .]

Hilarious, witty, impassioned, and perceptive, Welcome to Obamaland will have you laughing through your tears and taking courage from the eternal truth of conservative convictions.

–> The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chavez and the War Against America by Douglas Schoen and Michael Rowan

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The American government has shrugged off South American politics for nearly forty years. In the meantime, our neighbor to the south has grown into an unprecedented threat. Hugo Chávez, the current president of Venezuela and a self-proclaimed enemy of the United States, commands what even Osama bin Laden only dreams of — but few Americans see him as a true danger to this country. This book argues that we should.
Chávez has the means and the motivation to harm the United States in a way that few other countries can, and he has declared an “asymmetric war” against America. He runs a sovereign nation that is the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. He enjoys annual windfall oil profits that equal the net worth of Bill Gates. He has more modern weapons than anyone in Latin America. He has strategic alliances with Iran, North Korea, and other enemies of America, yet he has duped many Americans — from influential political and cultural leaders to ordinary citizens who benefit from his oil largess through his state-owned oil company — into believing that he is a friend.

Drawing on two decades of experience working at the highest level of Venezuelan and American politics, Schoen and Rowan go behind the scenes to examine Chávez’s efforts to subvert both the American economy and his own country’s stability. Not only did he help drive the price of oil from ten dollars a barrel to more than a hundred dollars a barrel, he’s sponsored and become increasingly involved in civilian massacres, drug running, money laundering, nuclear weapons proliferation, and terrorist training.

Cover via Amazon

You know what they say about good intentions and that makes me nervous because I so often have them only to see them fail.

As is almost always the case, I have once again bitten off more than I can chew.  There are simply far too many non-fiction books that I want to read.  I try to limit my choices but even so I end up feeling hopelessly behind.

In one particular case, I had high hope of reading Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and writing an insightful essay encompassing the MLK holiday, the inauguration, and history.

Alas, it was not to be.  The book has been buried int he TBR pile as I struggle to find time and energy to read the stack of non-fiction I have committed to.  I still plan to read it, but I missed the chance to connect to the events of the day (something I have never been any good at anyways).

But I thought I would make note of the book in case any of my good readers were not aware of it.  So you read it and I will read it and we can discuss it.  Or if anyone has already read it, please leave a comment or send me a link to your review.