An account of "Billionaires for Bush" is followed by an account of misguided (by the book's own advice) healthcare groups "succeeding" in finding some target other than the Democrats in power in Washington to protest, which is followed by another account of random protesters of Bush. I was a big fan and participant in Billionaires for Bush, but when -- in 2008 -- I asked them why in the world they were shutting down rather than evolving into Oligarchs for Obama they never gave me a straight answer.
Oddly missing from the book's advice for activist organizing is any
warning about the corrupting influence of large, well-funded groups or
of partisan politics.
Note that this is a book that dares to go
after capitalism and many basic assumptions in our society, a society in
which most people already condemn elected officials of both major
political parties, so it would be at least a challenge to make a case
that criticizing Obama's corruption would have somehow closed the book
off to many of its potential readers.
I would also quibble with the happiness of the book's introduction which says:
But the same introduction also says:
"Through the last decade, though we've lost ground on climate, civil liberties, labor rights, and so many other fronts, we've also seen incredible flourishing of creativity and tactical innovation in our movements, both in the streets and online."
That is an extremely odd sentence. Logically, it could be rewritten:
"Through the last decade, though we've seen incredible flourishing of creativity and tactical innovation in our movements, both in the streets and online, we've also lost ground on climate, civil liberties, labor rights, and so many other fronts."
We are losing. We are losing badly and we're pretty darn close to Game Over. And yet we have seen small victories and hints at the possibility of larger ones. We have learned what tactics work better than others. In my view, there's not much more useful that anyone could do than to learn from this book, and with independent analysis, as the authors themselves would recommend, go forth and do likewise.
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