A fine trip through a rambunctious, productive, provocative and well-lived life.
The personal and political chronicle of the witty, eloquent liberal scourge who never let left or right get in his way.
The late journalist Cockburn (Guillotined: Being a Summary Broadside Against the Corruption of the English Language, 2012, etc.), who died in 2012, was a rare bird in the opinion business: unpredictable yet consistent in his approach to power. Whether writing for the Nation, Village Voice or the newsletter CounterPunch (which he co-founded), he was always the proud son of a family where Marxism was the dominant faith, authority was the enemy, and revolt was the answer. He found Barack Obama “slithery” as a candidate and hopeless as president. He held Rupert Murdoch and the New York Times in equal contempt and regarded Christopher Hitchens as a publicity hound. He was no respecter of party platforms, hating in more or less equal measures the Iraq War, vegetarianism, gun control, abortion, the whole idea of global warming and any police officer who gave him a ticket. He didn’t mind taking sides when he had to and happily helped destroy the re-election campaign of South Dakota Republican Sen. Larry Pressler. (“I am responsible for the Democratic majority in the Senate,” he later crowed. “Take that, you work-within-the-system types!”) He found common ground with anyone who fights the power, including Julian Assange, Ron Paul, and the tea party and Occupy movements. Cockburn loved America but thought it fascist; the killing of Osama bin Laden was an act of “brute, lawless, lethal force.” He could get sentimental about the death of old friends but kept mum about his own approaching demise. Instead, he went out in typical style, railing against the military-industrial complex.
A fine trip through a rambunctious, productive, provocative and well-lived life.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78168-119-0
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Readers would do well to heed the dark warning that this book conveys.
The nameless resister inside the White House speaks.
“The character of one man has widened the chasms of American political division,” writes Anonymous. Indeed. The Trump years will not be remembered well—not by voters, not by history since the man in charge “couldn’t focus on governing, and he was prone to abuses of power, from ill-conceived schemes to punish his political rivals to a propensity for undermining vital American institutions.” Given all that, writes the author, and given Trump’s bizarre behavior and well-known grudges—e.g., he ordered that federal flags be raised to full staff only a day after John McCain died, an act that insiders warned him would be construed as petty—it was only patriotic to try to save the country from the man even as the resistance movement within the West Wing simultaneously tried to save Trump’s presidency. However, that they tried did not mean they succeeded: The warning of the title consists in large part of an extended observation that Trump has removed the very people most capable of guiding him to correct action, and the “reasonable professionals” are becoming ever fewer in the absence of John Kelly and others. So unwilling are those professionals to taint their reputations by serving Trump, in fact, that many critical government posts are filled by “acting” secretaries, directors, and so forth. And those insiders abetting Trump are shrinking in number even as Trump stumbles from point to point, declaring victory over the Islamic State group (“People are going to fucking die because of this,” said one top aide) and denouncing the legitimacy of the process that is now grinding toward impeachment. However, writes the author, removal from office is not the answer, not least because Trump may not leave without trying to stir up a civil war. Voting him out is the only solution, writes Anonymous; meanwhile, we’re stuck with a president whose acts, by the resisters’ reckoning, are equal parts stupid, illegal, or impossible to enact.
Readers would do well to heed the dark warning that this book conveys.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1846-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Though cheerleading occasionally grates, Plouffe offers good fodder for readers willing to put in the effort and follow his...
Barack Obama’s former campaign manager and senior adviser weighs in on what it will take to defeat Donald Trump and repair some of the damage caused by the previous election’s “historically disturbing and perhaps democracy-destroying outcome.”
Plouffe (The Audacity To Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory, 2009) managed Obama’s successful campaigns in 2008 and 2012. His unsurprising goal in 2020 is to take down Trump, and he provides a detailed guide for every American to become involved beyond just voting. Where the author is not offering specific suggestions for individual involvement, he engages in optimistic encouragement to put readers in the mindset to entertain his suggestions. Plouffe wisely realizes that many potential readers feel beaten down by the relentlessness of Trump’s improper behavior and misguided policies, so there is plenty of motivational exhortation that highly motivated readers might find unnecessary. When he turns to voting statistics, he’s on solid ground. Plouffe expresses certainty that Trump will face opposition from at least 65 million voters in the 2020 election. One of the author’s goals is to increase that number to somewhere between 70 and 75 million, which would be enough to win not only the popular votes for the Democratic Party nominee, but also the Electoral College by a comfortable margin. Some of that increased number can be achieved by increasing the percentage of citizens who vote, with additional gains from voters who vote for the Democratic nominee rather than symbolically supporting a third-party candidate. Plouffe also feels optimistic about persuading Obama supporters who—perhaps surprisingly—voted for Trump in 2016. As for individual involvement prior to November, the author favors direct action. Door-to-door canvassing is his favorite method, but he offers alternatives for those who cannot or will not take their opinions to the streets, including campaigning via social media. And while the author would love to change the Electoral College, he wisely tells readers they must live with it again this time around.
Though cheerleading occasionally grates, Plouffe offers good fodder for readers willing to put in the effort and follow his advice.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7949-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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