|
Metropolitan
Hardcover
$25.00
Available August 5
pre-order today
Audio Book CD
$39.95
Available August 5
pre-order today
|
Thomas Frank Reading & Signing
August 21, 2008, 7:00 p.m. @ Watermark
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule
Thomas Frank is the
author of What’s the Matter With Kansas? and One Market Under God.
The founding editor of The Baffler and a contributing editor at
Harper’s, Frank has received a Lannan award and been a guest columnist
for The New York Times. The Wrecking Crew recently received a
starred review from both Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus. Here
they are...
¶Starred
review from Publisher’s Weekly, May 26, 2008.
Republican misrule and mistaken policy is the intended fulfillment of
conservative antigovernment ideology, argues this scintillating j'
accuse. Frank (What's the Matter with Kansas?) surveys what he
regards as the hallmarks of conservative control of Washington: a government
hobbled by budget deficits, disgraced by scandals, downsized, outsourced,
hollowed out and sold off to corporate interests and thus made incapable of
meeting its basic responsibilities. The results of this "political
vandalism," he contends, is a perverse propaganda triumph for conservatives
, who point with gleeful cynicism to the shambles they make of government as
proof that government can't do anything right. Frank presents a scathing
recap of Republican mismanagement and corruption, from the Hurricane Katrine
debacle to the depredations of Jack Abramoff, and combines it with a shrewd
dissection of the theories of conservative ideologues who call for and
celebrate the sabotaging of the state. Writing with a barbed wit and finely
controlled anger, he skewers such juicy targets as libertarian strategist
Grover Norquist and Michelle Malkin, "a pundit with the appearance of a
Bratz doll but the soul of Chucky." One of the sharpest political
commentators around, Frank is required reading for every concerned citizen.
¶Starred
review from Kirkus, June 1, 2008.
A refreshingly
no-holds-barred exegesis on the naked cynicism of conservatism in
America by The Baffler
founder and political observer Frank (What’s
the Matter with Kansas?, 2004, etc.)
When conservatives rule,
all hell breaks loose, the author amply demonstrates in this muckraking,
well-reasoned account. The concept of a conservative state is not new,
he writes: Business largely laid the foundation of this country and
developed a steadfast commitment to the ideal of laissez-faire, as well
as hostility to taxation, regulation, organized labor and state
ownership. Since the Reagan revolution, however, and especially since
George W. Bush came to office, the conservative pattern of deregulation,
tax cuts, privatization and outsourcing has massively enriched “everyone
who grabbed as the government handed off its essential responsibilities
to the private sector.” Despite holding executive or legislative power
over the last 28 years, conservatives champion themselves as insurgent
outsiders, notes Frank; yet Washington has become a developers’ and
lobbyists’ city, grown hugely affluent by tearing down the government.
The author traces conservatism’s triumph through two innovations: the
“adversarial fantasy” (see above) and the fantastic potential for
turning politics into a source of profit (e.g., direct mail and Iran
Contra). The right’s fortunes depend on robust public cynicism toward
government, so conservatives fill the bureaucracy with cronies, hacks,
partisans and creationists, ensuring lousy management and little or no
regulatory enforcement. Frank’s look at how conservatism mimics its
enemies—the federal government is now bigger, not smaller—is hilariously
spooky, as is his chapter on lobbyists, “City of Bought Men.” Clear-eyed
and occasionally sarcastic, he offers examples of such howlers as
conservatives’ rationalization of apartheid in South Africa, the
depredations of Angolan guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi, labor
exploitation in Saipan and the right’s blatant goal to defund and
destroy the pillars of liberalism.
A
forceful argument that resurrecting equitable, intelligent government
starts with understanding how the present plutocracy came about.
-
During one of Frank’s
past visits to Watermark, a tornado was spotted 5 miles to the south of the
store. Not one person in the standing-room-only crowd took up our offer to
retreat to the basement.
4701
East Douglas/Wichita, Kansas 67218/(316) 682-1181
Hours:
Monday
- Friday: 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. (Cafe opens at 7:00 a.m.)
Saturday:
10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. (Cafe opens at 7:00 a.m.)
Sunday:
Noon - 5:00 p.m.
|
