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Gran Leon Books - The Plan: Big Ideas for America
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List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $15.96
Your Save: $ 3.99 ( 20% )
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Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 324.2736
EAN: 9781586484125
ISBN: 1586484125
Label: PublicAffairs
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2006-08-15
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Studio: PublicAffairs
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Plan offers a bold vision of what America can be. It shows the way for both parties to move beyond the old political arguments and make progress for the American people. And it offers an innovative agenda for America – with ideas that address the nation’s most pressing challenges by doing more for Americans and asking Americans to do more for their country in return. Each of these ideas offers a clean break with the status quo, yet all are positive, practical, and can be put into action right away. Built on the authors’ firm beliefs that politicians owe the people real answers, that citizenship is a responsibility, not an entitlement program, and that the Democratic Party succeeds when America succeeds, the highly anticipated Plan delivers, challenges, and inspires.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: ignorance warps understanding
Comment: The two authors are Clinton democrats who wrote their book as part of the 2006 campaign to elect democrats to the Congress. They suggest eight big ideas,namely, universal citizen service in a non-military organization, universal college access, universal retirement savings, universal children's health care, fiscal responsibility and an end to corporate welfare, tax reform to help those who aren't wealthy to build wealth, a new strategy to win the war on terror, and a hybrid economy that cuts America's gasoline use in half. Their proposals deserve objective, non-partisan Congressional debate.
In light of the major economic crisis that has since occurred, their new book, scheduled for release on January 5, 2009, probably includes and expands upon the content of this earlier one. It will be interesting to see the extent to which they are willing to reverse the policies that not only caused the crisis, but will also make it impossible for their big ideas to succeed. Both books must be read, if their ideas are to be intelligently evaluated. For a short statement of the policies I refer to, read Congressman Ron Paul's address to the House of Representatives on Novembrer 20, 2008, which is titled on the internet as "The Austrians Were Right." For a broader presentation of the policies, I recommend Addison Wiggin's "the demise of the dollar." The battle is on! Wake up America.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: The Plan was a true disappointment, just another extremely partisan book. I was really hoping to read a logical, fact based book to understand the direction the authors' wanted to take the country in addition to the reasons why. Unfortunately, The Plan only offers more political rhetoric with a tremendous amount of Bush bashing and Democratic feel-good commentary designed to stir your emotions rather than lay a foundation for real change. Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Reed twist and skew information to lead the reader toward their partisan agenda. It doesn't appear that these gentlemen are interested in getting to the root of the problem. They only want to blame the other party and push their big ideas on America.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Raised to a Four Against the Extremist Reviews
Comment: 20081214 DEPARTED AMAZON WITH OUTRAGE OVER THE MANIPULATION OF VOTES.
The extremist republican reviews are dismally childish. I am an estranged moderate Republican leaning Libertarian, and the authors lose one star for mis-reading Lincoln as a model, and a second for lacking a strategic or analytic foundation for actually governing but I restore the latter for balance. The plan as proposed is a good one, but is less than one third of what we need in the policy arena, and completely avoids the four reforms that are essential: Electoral Reform, Governance Reform, Intelligence Reform, and National Security Reform.
The authors are way too facile in blaming everything on Reagan and then on the Bush-Cheney regime, but they carefully avoid pointing out that Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) screwed over the entire country with his complete deregulation of the financial industry (derivatives as fantasy cash), and that once the Clintonites discovered this, they chose to ride the wave and profit rather than acting in the public interest. They also fail to point out that Rubin was a mini-me version of Paulson, and both think only of Wall Street, not of home owners and the workers.
I am especially angry that the word "impeachment" does not appear in this book. The authors choose to ignore the 25 documented impeachable offenses by Dick Cheney, or the 935 documented lies told to the public by the Bush-Cheney regime, and they are especially disingenuous in failing to observe that Congress as a whole abdicated its Article 1 responsibilities to balance the power of the executive, or that Nancy Pelosi led the Democrats to new lows in being abject doormats--the authors could learn from Senator Robert Byrd in intellect, and Representative Cynthia McKinney in integral consciousness.
I am heartened as I move in to the plan to note that the authors see the reality that human capital needs completely different forms of nurturing than financial capital, but I am troubled by their obliviousness throughout the book to the fact that we are in the information age, and any Congress, any Executive, that does not move to create a Smart Nation is on death row..."walking dead man."
Here is the plan with brief commentary, followed by ten books the authors do not mention that go a great deal further on what needs to be done.
Universal Citizen Service: three months basic training, civil defense preparation, and community service. Wonk won on this one. What we really need is 2 years (enlisted) four years (officer), common basic training for all (every citizen a qualified militia with a non-negotiable right to bear arms outside any organized unit), then split into three paths of choice: Armed Services, Peace Corps, America Corps. Immigrants regardless of age serve two years domestically.
Universal College Access: Democratic fluff. Neither all Americans, nor the five billion poor, have time to spend 18-22 years sitting passively for a really idiotic didactic (one way) form of instruction. What we really need is infinite flexibility and access to all information in all languages all the time, including call centers in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, all capable of helping anyone with an answer "one cell call at a time." These two authors mean well, but they are oblivious to where information technology is now or is going to be within three years.
Universal Children's Health Care. Annoying. Like offering apple pie, but you have to bring your own plate and fork. A proper reform of health care must recognize that healthy life style is 60% of the solution (tax the bejesus out of fast food and other noxious foods and beverages); that a healthy environment is 20% of the solution (mandate safe water and clean uncontaminated air in buildings, airplanes, etcetera); full public knowledge of natural cures (e.g. banana oil to stop breast cancer) is 10% of the answer--and non-wasteful remediation is the last 10% of the answer. PriceWaterHouseCoopers has documented that 50% of the money we spend on the latter now (which is 95% of the government sanctioned health program) is WASTE). I may have missed this, but the authors also appear to avoid dealing with the reality that we can wipe out the future unfunded obligations in Medicare by reducing costs to the 1% of what is charged now based on bribery of both parties by the pharmaceutical companies.
Fiscal responsibility and an end to corporate welfare. Nice platitudes. I would be more impressed if they spoke of ending personal income taxes, introducing a plan to destroy the Federal Reserve while using the Tobin and other taxes on financial transactions. While they are at it they can end all government programs not specifically approved by the 50 United STATES of America.
New Strategy to Win the War on Error (chuckling--that was a typo, should be War on Terror, but it is so apropos I leave it in). The authors are lacking in a deep understanding of the pathologies that characterize every aspect of national and homeland security, and evidently oblivious to the fact that we spend $60-75 billion a year on intelligence that gets us only the 4% we can steal (I quote General Tony Zinni). They are totally on target in describing the Department of Homeland Security as its own worst enemy, and I hope it gets abolished. See the books below for better answers.
The Hybrid Economy. I like this chapter a lot. Here they are in their comfort zone, and despite the brevity and lack of detail that characterizes the book as a whole, here I sense a deeper appreciation and a commensurately greater credibility. However, the authors both have a lot to learn about strategic analytics and creating a balanced budget, and I wish them well. I have no doubt they will exercise power with good intentions, but I have to question just how well informed they will be--by all indications from early days of the Obama Transition, outside of a couple of token Republicans, no one outside the two-party crime system is being listened to nor considered for meaningful integration.
Here are books they do not cite that I recommend:
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Scary Bolshevik Socialist...You Name It
Comment: This guy is now Obama's Chief of Staff. The two together want to implement a "Civilian Defense Force" that's "just as big, just as powerful, and just as well funded as the US military." Hello, America. This is the land where individual liberty is cherished and safeguarded by the Constitution...a land where we purposely limited the powers of the federal government. Communists/socialists have fellowship on collectivism and elevating the worker to icon status...Americans have fellowship on their liberty and defending themselves from tyrrany...which is just what they are proposing, tyrrany
Customer Rating:
Summary: Obama Chief of Staff-WTF?!
Comment: This is guys is Obamas Chief of Staff a neocon warmongering socialist. Read this book to understand what Obama and Rahm have planned for America.
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