Bob
07-09-2014, 08:50 PM
America, Imagine a world without her ... hot selling book
Sales were slow at COSTCO stores and the word got out they pulled books from the shelves to return them.
Suddenly sales got red hot so now COSTCO is restocking the shelves.
http://www.amazon.com/America-Imagine-World-without-Her/dp/162157203X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404956886&sr=1-1&keywords=dinesh
By
Craig Matteson (http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AUHG8KSHI529U/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp) (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AUHG8KSHI529U/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview)
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#TR) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#HF) (REAL NAME) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#RN)
This review is from: America: Imagine a World without Her (Hardcover)
Let's get it right out of the way. While his critics will use his legal troubles against him, the arguments and evidence in this book (and the movie) should stand on their own. I think they are solid and stand up powerfully. Remember, when you have the facts, you argue the facts. When you don't have the facts, you argue the law, and when you don't have the facts or the law on your side, you attack the person. When you hear his opponents bad mouthing Dinesh D'Souza personally, you know they do not have an argument to make. This is why you hear politicians trying to turn themselves into victims of personal attacks because it serves to deflect the serious arguments being made against their policies and actions in office. Be alert, my friends. Be alert!
The idea of this book isn't that America is about to disappear any time soon, but rather that we are in the middle of a fundamental transformation so profound and severe that it changes what America is and her place in the world. Essentially, the country will have the same name, but the new management has transformed it from its traditional principles to radically new ideas completely disconnected from and antithetical to those of its founding and history. I think we can see this clearly. Of course, if you like the new ideas, you think it is a wonderful thing. If, like me, you despise the new ideas and revere the founding and traditions, you are horrified by what is taking place. But that it is taking place seems obvious and not debatable to me. How about you?
He sets up the argument that the end of American Civilization is the end of Western Civilization since Europe is already in thrall to the Left and Socialist ideals. He points out that the external threats we see to America are not the real problem, but the replacement of our Constitution and our Founding principles with these new ideals. And what are they? He uses as an illustrative point the view of America held by two influential Frenchmen. For the Founding we get the case made about what America was by Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous and important book "Democracy in America". And for the new ideas that are rapidly replacing our Founding we get Michel Foucault, whom the author knew when he was a student at Dartmouth and Foucault was a teacher there. One is an ideology of action, energy, confidence, liberty, and real progress. The other is a political ideology of power, government, resentment, dependence, and futility. America used to be about leaving the country richer for the next generation. Present America is about spending the livelihood of generations yet unborn and sticking them with the tab.
As Madison, Jefferson, Washington, and all our Founders understood, government is necessary and useful for some things. But it is oppression and must be limited and contained and used properly as a fire can be used to heat the home and cook food. Left to itself, government will, like a fire let out of control, consume everything and destroy the entire house and destroy the lives of the people who used to inhabit the home. How many times do we have to relearn the lesson that men and women are not angels and will misuse power for their own purposes if left without constraint?
We also get to see how Obama was raised by Leftists, sought out Leftists, was educated by Socialists and Communists, and has friendships with radicals such as Bill Ayers, Edward Said, Robert Mangabeira Unger, and Jeremiah Wright. There are many others. D'Souza also recounts his own conversation with Allen Ginsberg while at Dartmouth and how this influence sprang from the same anti-Founding Socialism that Obama drank deeply from while growing up. Their basic belief is that America obtained all its riches by stealing it from others and that it must be dismantled and the wealth returned. America's moral guilt is otherwise irredeemable. We must retreat from the world stage and allow others to take center stage and assert their values (whatever those may be). And anything done in the service of making that happen is justifiable and "true" no matter who it conflicts with trivialities like facts and historical truth. Ideology is all that matters and the power to implement it constitutes all that is true.
We are introduced to Saul Alinsky, his principles and methods, and how they influence not just Obama, but the Clintons and all their associates on the far Left today. As the author points out: the commonplace is that if we elect Hillary in 2016 we get Bill. But we also get Saul and all his baggage, as well.
D'Souza also examines the very effective tool used today; especially in our schools, universities, and in our mass media. It is the idea that our values today are suitable for judging all previous eras (as if the future will have the same values we hold and will not misunderstand and misjudge us as we do those in the past). Of course, they teach the idea that we "stole" America from its original inhabitants. The role of conquest among all peoples and nations is never taught and usually condemned only in Europe and especially by America. D'Souza demonstrates the tribal wars and extinctions of people and tribes among the Native Americans at the hands of other Native Americans. Of course, they did not view themselves as one people. They engaged in brutal attacks on each other and engaged in continual dispossession of the lands and lives of other groups. They were anything but the peaceful philosopher innocents of the Leftist imagination. The same is true of the Southwest and Far Western United States and our wars with Mexico. The land became part of America, but the property rights of Mexicans were recognized and formerly Mexican residents became American citizens. Nor did the vast majority of these newly minted Americans seek to leave their new country and return to Mexico.
D'Souza also examines the horrors of slavery and the idea of reparations and colonization (separating the former slaves to another country of their own) at the time immediately following the Civil War. Frederick Douglass was among those who rejected both. He wanted his people to stand on their own two legs and no longer to be dependent on the white man or the government for protection different from any other citizen. Frederick Douglass understood that America was founded by white men, but refused to see it as a white man's country. So we should today. The author also has a chapter comparing the ideals espoused by Douglass and Booker T. Washington compared to those of the modern Civil Rights leaders from DuBois through the NAACP and Michael Eric Dyson. He notes that Martin Luther King thanks Thomas Jefferson for providing the moral basis for the liberty and rights of all citizens, including blacks.
This book also contains a spirited defense of the virtue of prosperity and the morality of free markets. He shoots down the notions of America as an exploitive evil empire oppressing all but the elite. Along the way he also criticizes the present day GOP for being so inept in its espousing these principles. D'Souza sees exploitation of the poor and labor by Progressives and their bureaucracies than by the freedom to work and thrive by your own hard work and wits. It is government cronyism that stifles economic growth and freezes out competition from smaller businesses and the formation of new businesses. He points the finger at modern redistributionist government as the biggest thief of all. Not only in the direct appropriation of dollars from the politically unfavored to the politically favored, but through massive and expensive and freedom destroying regulation.
Moreover, he sees this ever larger more intrusive government as a prison. He refers to the American Panopticon; referring to prison design by Jeremy Bentham where the prisoners where kept under constant observation. It is a design that has rarely been used. However, with today's technology, oppressive laws, regulations, and ever more demanding government, we are all living in a prison of our government's making in order to be kept "safe". This capitulation to central authority demonstrates how we are losing our way as a nation and losing our will to resist this loss of freedom and liberty.
D'Souza ends by reminding us that decline is a choice, not an inevitability.
I really like this book. My one quibble is that I think D'Souza at times dresses up his arguments with biasing detail such as discussing Foucault's homosexuality and penchant for sex with strangers and teenage boys. How does this help the core idea he is trying to make? And it invites opponents to resist with side arguments of their own. He does this kind of argument by defaming a few times and while always true, they seem a bit cheap to me. But the sensationalism probably helps sell more books and tickets. Oh, well. Still, it is a good book. I recommend that you get it and read it.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI
Sales were slow at COSTCO stores and the word got out they pulled books from the shelves to return them.
Suddenly sales got red hot so now COSTCO is restocking the shelves.
http://www.amazon.com/America-Imagine-World-without-Her/dp/162157203X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404956886&sr=1-1&keywords=dinesh
By
Craig Matteson (http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AUHG8KSHI529U/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp) (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AUHG8KSHI529U/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview)
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#TR) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#HF) (REAL NAME) (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=cm_rn_bdg_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14279681&pop-up=1#RN)
This review is from: America: Imagine a World without Her (Hardcover)
Let's get it right out of the way. While his critics will use his legal troubles against him, the arguments and evidence in this book (and the movie) should stand on their own. I think they are solid and stand up powerfully. Remember, when you have the facts, you argue the facts. When you don't have the facts, you argue the law, and when you don't have the facts or the law on your side, you attack the person. When you hear his opponents bad mouthing Dinesh D'Souza personally, you know they do not have an argument to make. This is why you hear politicians trying to turn themselves into victims of personal attacks because it serves to deflect the serious arguments being made against their policies and actions in office. Be alert, my friends. Be alert!
The idea of this book isn't that America is about to disappear any time soon, but rather that we are in the middle of a fundamental transformation so profound and severe that it changes what America is and her place in the world. Essentially, the country will have the same name, but the new management has transformed it from its traditional principles to radically new ideas completely disconnected from and antithetical to those of its founding and history. I think we can see this clearly. Of course, if you like the new ideas, you think it is a wonderful thing. If, like me, you despise the new ideas and revere the founding and traditions, you are horrified by what is taking place. But that it is taking place seems obvious and not debatable to me. How about you?
He sets up the argument that the end of American Civilization is the end of Western Civilization since Europe is already in thrall to the Left and Socialist ideals. He points out that the external threats we see to America are not the real problem, but the replacement of our Constitution and our Founding principles with these new ideals. And what are they? He uses as an illustrative point the view of America held by two influential Frenchmen. For the Founding we get the case made about what America was by Alexis de Tocqueville in his famous and important book "Democracy in America". And for the new ideas that are rapidly replacing our Founding we get Michel Foucault, whom the author knew when he was a student at Dartmouth and Foucault was a teacher there. One is an ideology of action, energy, confidence, liberty, and real progress. The other is a political ideology of power, government, resentment, dependence, and futility. America used to be about leaving the country richer for the next generation. Present America is about spending the livelihood of generations yet unborn and sticking them with the tab.
As Madison, Jefferson, Washington, and all our Founders understood, government is necessary and useful for some things. But it is oppression and must be limited and contained and used properly as a fire can be used to heat the home and cook food. Left to itself, government will, like a fire let out of control, consume everything and destroy the entire house and destroy the lives of the people who used to inhabit the home. How many times do we have to relearn the lesson that men and women are not angels and will misuse power for their own purposes if left without constraint?
We also get to see how Obama was raised by Leftists, sought out Leftists, was educated by Socialists and Communists, and has friendships with radicals such as Bill Ayers, Edward Said, Robert Mangabeira Unger, and Jeremiah Wright. There are many others. D'Souza also recounts his own conversation with Allen Ginsberg while at Dartmouth and how this influence sprang from the same anti-Founding Socialism that Obama drank deeply from while growing up. Their basic belief is that America obtained all its riches by stealing it from others and that it must be dismantled and the wealth returned. America's moral guilt is otherwise irredeemable. We must retreat from the world stage and allow others to take center stage and assert their values (whatever those may be). And anything done in the service of making that happen is justifiable and "true" no matter who it conflicts with trivialities like facts and historical truth. Ideology is all that matters and the power to implement it constitutes all that is true.
We are introduced to Saul Alinsky, his principles and methods, and how they influence not just Obama, but the Clintons and all their associates on the far Left today. As the author points out: the commonplace is that if we elect Hillary in 2016 we get Bill. But we also get Saul and all his baggage, as well.
D'Souza also examines the very effective tool used today; especially in our schools, universities, and in our mass media. It is the idea that our values today are suitable for judging all previous eras (as if the future will have the same values we hold and will not misunderstand and misjudge us as we do those in the past). Of course, they teach the idea that we "stole" America from its original inhabitants. The role of conquest among all peoples and nations is never taught and usually condemned only in Europe and especially by America. D'Souza demonstrates the tribal wars and extinctions of people and tribes among the Native Americans at the hands of other Native Americans. Of course, they did not view themselves as one people. They engaged in brutal attacks on each other and engaged in continual dispossession of the lands and lives of other groups. They were anything but the peaceful philosopher innocents of the Leftist imagination. The same is true of the Southwest and Far Western United States and our wars with Mexico. The land became part of America, but the property rights of Mexicans were recognized and formerly Mexican residents became American citizens. Nor did the vast majority of these newly minted Americans seek to leave their new country and return to Mexico.
D'Souza also examines the horrors of slavery and the idea of reparations and colonization (separating the former slaves to another country of their own) at the time immediately following the Civil War. Frederick Douglass was among those who rejected both. He wanted his people to stand on their own two legs and no longer to be dependent on the white man or the government for protection different from any other citizen. Frederick Douglass understood that America was founded by white men, but refused to see it as a white man's country. So we should today. The author also has a chapter comparing the ideals espoused by Douglass and Booker T. Washington compared to those of the modern Civil Rights leaders from DuBois through the NAACP and Michael Eric Dyson. He notes that Martin Luther King thanks Thomas Jefferson for providing the moral basis for the liberty and rights of all citizens, including blacks.
This book also contains a spirited defense of the virtue of prosperity and the morality of free markets. He shoots down the notions of America as an exploitive evil empire oppressing all but the elite. Along the way he also criticizes the present day GOP for being so inept in its espousing these principles. D'Souza sees exploitation of the poor and labor by Progressives and their bureaucracies than by the freedom to work and thrive by your own hard work and wits. It is government cronyism that stifles economic growth and freezes out competition from smaller businesses and the formation of new businesses. He points the finger at modern redistributionist government as the biggest thief of all. Not only in the direct appropriation of dollars from the politically unfavored to the politically favored, but through massive and expensive and freedom destroying regulation.
Moreover, he sees this ever larger more intrusive government as a prison. He refers to the American Panopticon; referring to prison design by Jeremy Bentham where the prisoners where kept under constant observation. It is a design that has rarely been used. However, with today's technology, oppressive laws, regulations, and ever more demanding government, we are all living in a prison of our government's making in order to be kept "safe". This capitulation to central authority demonstrates how we are losing our way as a nation and losing our will to resist this loss of freedom and liberty.
D'Souza ends by reminding us that decline is a choice, not an inevitability.
I really like this book. My one quibble is that I think D'Souza at times dresses up his arguments with biasing detail such as discussing Foucault's homosexuality and penchant for sex with strangers and teenage boys. How does this help the core idea he is trying to make? And it invites opponents to resist with side arguments of their own. He does this kind of argument by defaming a few times and while always true, they seem a bit cheap to me. But the sensationalism probably helps sell more books and tickets. Oh, well. Still, it is a good book. I recommend that you get it and read it.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI