Download or read book Delusional Democracy written by Joel S. Hirschhorn and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American democracy is crumbling, but if citizens take back their sovereign power it can be fixed.
Download or read book Democratic Delusions written by Richard J. Ellis and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is becoming common in many states: the opportunity to reclaim government from politicians by simply signing a petition to put an initiative on the ballot and then voting for it. Isn't this what America ought to be about? Proposition 13 in California's 1978 election paved the way; the past decade saw more than 450 such actions; now in many states direct legislation dominates the political agenda and defines political—and public-opinion. While this may appear to be democracy in action, Richard Ellis warns us that the initiative process may be putting democracy at risk. In Democratic Delusions he offers a critical analysis of the statewide initiative process in the United States, challenging readers to look beyond populist rhetoric and face political reality. Through engaging prose and illuminating (and often amusing) anecdotes, Ellis shows readers the "dark side" of direct democracy—specifically the undemocratic consequences that result from relying too heavily on the initiative process. He provides historic context to the development of initiatives-from their Populist and Progress roots to their accelerated use in recent decades-and shows the differences between initiative processes in the states that use them. Most important, while acknowledging the positive contribution of initiatives, Ellis shows that there are reasons to use them carefully and sparingly: ill-considered initiatives can subvert normal legislative checks and balances, undermine the deliberative process, and even threaten the rights of minority groups through state-sanctioned measures. Today's initiative process, Ellis warns, is dominated not by ordinary citizens but by politicians, perennial activists, wealthy interests, and well-oiled machines. Deliberately misleading language on the ballot confuses voters and influences election results. And because many initiatives are challenged in the courts, these ostensibly democratic procedures have now put legislation in the hands of the judiciary. Throughout his book he cites examples drawn from states in which initiatives are used intensively—Oregon, California, Colorado, Washington, and Arizona-as well as others in which their use has increased in recent years. Undoing mistakes enacted by initiative can be more difficult than correcting errors of legislatures. As voters prepare to consider the host of initiatives that will be offered in the 2002 elections, this book can help put those efforts in a clearer light. Democratic Delusions urges moderation, attempting to teach citizens to be at least as skeptical of the initiative process as they are of the legislative process—and to appreciate the enduring value of the representative institutions they seek to circumvent.
Download or read book Comic Cure for Delusional Democracy written by Gene Fendt and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-07-16 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how the discussion of Platos' Republic is a comic mimetic cure for civic and psychic delusion. Plato creates such pharmaka, or noble lies, for reasons enunciated by Socrates within the discussion, but this indicates Plato must think his readers are in the position of needing the catharses such fictions produce. Socrates' interlocutors must be like us. Since cities are like souls, and souls come to be as they are through mimesis of desires, dreams, actions and thought patterns in the city, we should expect that political theorizing often suffers from madness as well. It does. Gene Fendt shows how contemporary political (and psychological) theory still suffers from the same delusion Socrates' interlocutors reveal in their discussion: a dream of autarchia called possessive individualism. Plato has good reason to think that only a mimetic, rather than a rational and philosophical, cure can work. Against many standard readings, Comic Cure for Delusional Democracy shows that the Republic itself is a defense of poetry; that kallipolis cannot be the best city and is not Socrates' ideal; that there are six forms of regime, not five; and that the true philosopher should not be unhappy to go back down into Plato's cave.
Download or read book Democracy and Delusion written by Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many common political arguments come pre-packaged in an old and dusty box - but the self-evident truths are not, in fact, so indisputable. Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh sets out to dismantle that box. He argues that free education is far from impossible, the ANC's liberation narrative is too idyllic to swallow, land reform is not the first step to chaos, and the media is not free. A fresh perspective on South African politics.
Download or read book The Net Delusion written by Evgeny Morozov and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The revolution will be Twittered!" declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire? In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder -- not easier -- to promote democracy. Buzzwords like "21st-century statecraft" sound good in PowerPoint presentations, but the reality is that "digital diplomacy" requires just as much oversight and consideration as any other kind of diplomacy. Marshaling compelling evidence, Morozov shows why we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of "Internet freedom" might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.
Download or read book The Great Delusion written by John J. Mearsheimer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build international institutions. The policy of remaking the world in America's image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has become a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony--the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended--is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad. The Great Delusion is a lucid and compelling work of the first importance for scholars, policymakers, and everyone interested in the future of American foreign policy.
Download or read book The Inclusion Delusion written by Aislinn O'Donnell and published by Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that in order to develop just and inclusive institutions, particularly within the education system, we must begin from the standpoint of those who feel silenced, marginalised and excluded. It makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about how institutions need to change if they are to become genuinely inclusive.
Download or read book Imperial Delusions written by Carl Boggs and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this hard-hitting critique, Carl Boggs argues that the United States is dominated by a new militarism, one that has become more potent and menacing since 9/11. He skillfully explores the origins and development of this new militarism and show its devastating effects on American society.
Download or read book The Diversity Delusion written by Heather Mac Donald and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the New York Times bestselling author: a provocative account of the attack on the humanities, the rise of intolerance, and the erosion of serious learning America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton? Oppressive. American history? Tyranny. Professors correcting grammar and spelling, or employers hiring by merit? Racist and sexist. Students emerge into the working world believing that human beings are defined by their skin color, gender, and sexual preference, and that oppression based on these characteristics is the American experience. Speech that challenges these campus orthodoxies is silenced with brute force. The Diversity Delusion argues that the root of this problem is the belief in America’s endemic racism and sexism, a belief that has engendered a metastasizing diversity bureaucracy in society and academia. Diversity commissars denounce meritocratic standards as discriminatory, enforce hiring quotas, and teach students and adults alike to think of themselves as perpetual victims. From #MeToo mania that blurs flirtations with criminal acts, to implicit bias and diversity compliance training that sees racism in every interaction, Heather Mac Donald argues that we are creating a nation of narrowed minds, primed for grievance, and that we are putting our competitive edge at risk. But there is hope in the works of authors, composers, and artists who have long inspired the best in us. Compiling the author’s decades of research and writing on the subject, The Diversity Delusion calls for a return to the classical liberal pursuits of open-minded inquiry and expression, by which everyone can discover a common humanity.
Download or read book The Great American Delusion written by Patrick Davies and published by Caravan Books UK. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Something has been going badly wrong in America. But what is really happening, why, and what does it mean? Could the US itself now be the greatest threat to the future of the West? What does Joe Biden need to do to get America back on track? In this fascinating account of America today, Patrick Davies, former British Deputy Ambassador to the US, sets out to understand how America, blinded by myths of its own exceptionalism, has failed to tackle serious political, social and economic problems which are exacerbating divisions in its society, poisoning its politics and ultimately fuelling America’s decline. The Great American Delusion asks whether, with global power shifting eastwards, the US can save itself and, with it, the Western world before it’s too late. Patrick Davies worked alongside the Obama and Trump White Houses for five years. He has more than 30 years’ experience of America, its people and its politics.
Download or read book Weapons of Mass Delusion written by Robert Draper and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2022 The disturbing eyewitness account of how a new breed of Republicans—led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and Madison Cawthorn—far from moving on from Trump, have taken the politics of hysteria to even greater extremes and brought American democracy to the edge The violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a terrible day for American democracy, but many people dared to hope that at least it would break the fever that had overcome the Republican Party and banish Trump's relentless lies about the stealing of the 2020 election. That is not what happened. Instead, “the big steal” has become dogma among an ever-higher percentage of American Republicans. What happened to the Republican Party, and America, during the Trump presidency is a story we more or less think we know. What has happened to the party since, it turns out, is even more disquieting. That is the story Robert Draper tells in Weapons of Mass Delusion. Through his extraordinarily intrepid cross-country reporting, Draper chronicles the road from January 6 to the 2022 midterms among the Republican base and in the U.S. Congress, rendering unforgettable portraits of how Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk came to shape their party’s terms of engagement to an extent that would have been unimaginable even five years ago. He also brings to life the efforts of a dwindling group of Republicans who are willing to push back against the falsehoods, in the face of a group of ascendent demagogues who are merrily weaponizing them. With a base whipped up into a perpetual frenzy of outrage by conspiracy theories—not just about the big steal but about COVID and vaccines, pedophilia and Antifa and Black Lives Matter and George Soros and President Obama, and on and on and on—the forces of reason within the GOP are on the defensive, to put it mildly. The book also benefits greatly from reporting conducted in Texas, Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, and other bellwether states in the country of the mind one might call a fever of undending conspiracies. Robert Draper has been a wise, fearless, and fair-minded chronicler of the American political scene for over twenty-five years. He has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. He has never seen it this ugly. Ultimately, this book tells the story of a fearful test of our ability, as a country, to hold together a system of government grounded in truth and the rule of law. Written on the eve of the 2022 midterm elections, Draper’s account of a party teetering on the precipice of madness reveals how the GOP fringe became its center of gravity.
Download or read book The Cameron Delusion written by Peter Hitchens and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-03-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The struggle between the main political parties has been reduced to an unpopularity contest, in which voters hold their noses and sigh as they trudge to the polls. Peter Hitchens explains how and why British politics has sunk to this dreary level - the takeover of the parties and the media by conventional left-wing dogmas which then call themselves 'the centre ground'. The Tory party under David Cameron has become a pale-blue twin of New Labour, offering change without alteration. Hitchens, a former Lobby reporter, examines and mocks the flock mentality of most Westminster journalists, explains how unattributable lunches guide coverage and why so many reporters - once slavish admirers of Labour - now follow the Tory line. This updated edition of Hitchens's The Broken Compass (2009) features a brand new introduction. In an excoriating analysis, Hitchens examines the Tory Party's record in government and opposition, dismissing it as a failure on all fronts but one - the ability to win office without principle. The one thing it certainly isn't is conservative.
Download or read book Useful Delusions The Power and Paradox of the Self Deceiving Brain written by Shankar Vedantam and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021 A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021 From the New York Times best-selling author and host of Hidden Brain comes a thought-provoking look at the role of self-deception in human flourishing. Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being. The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter. Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.
Download or read book Mending Democracy written by Carolyn M. Hendriks and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops the idea of democratic mending as a way of advancing a more connective and systemic approach to democratic repair.
Download or read book Cheap Speech written by Richard L. Hasen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An informed and practical road map for controlling disinformation, embracing free speech, saving American elections, and protecting democracy "A fresh, persuasive and deeply disturbing overview of the baleful and dangerous impact on the nation of widely disseminated false speech on social media. Richard Hasen, the country’s leading expert about election law, has written this book with flair and clarity.”—Floyd Abrams, author of The Soul of the First Amendment What can be done consistent with the First Amendment to ensure that American voters can make informed election decisions and hold free elections amid a flood of virally spread disinformation and the collapse of local news reporting? How should American society counter the actions of people like former President Donald J. Trump, who used social media to convince millions of his followers to doubt the integrity of U.S. elections and helped foment a violent insurrection? What can we do to minimize disinformation campaigns aimed at suppressing voter turnout? With piercing insight into the current debates over free speech, censorship, and Big Tech’s responsibilities, Richard L. Hasen proposes legal and social measures to restore Americans’ access to reliable information on which democracy depends. In an era when quack COVID treatments and bizarre QAnon theories have entered mainstream, this book explains how to assure both freedom of ideas and a commitment to truth.
Download or read book The Growth Delusion written by David Pilling and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative critique of the pieties and fallacies of our obsession with economic growth We live in a society in which a priesthood of economists, wielding impenetrable mathematical formulas, set the framework for public debate. Ultimately, it is the perceived health of the economy which determines how much we can spend on our schools, highways, and defense; economists decide how much unemployment is acceptable and whether it is right to print money or bail out profligate banks. The backlash we are currently witnessing suggests that people are turning against the experts and their faulty understanding of our lives. Despite decades of steady economic growth, many citizens feel more pessimistic than ever, and are voting for candidates who voice undisguised contempt for the technocratic elite. For too long, economics has relied on a language which fails to resonate with people's actual experience, and we are now living with the consequences. In this powerful, incisive book, David Pilling reveals the hidden biases of economic orthodoxy and explores the alternatives to GDP, from measures of wealth, equality, and sustainability to measures of subjective wellbeing. Authoritative, provocative, and eye-opening, The Growth Delusion offers witty and unexpected insights into how our society can respond to the needs of real people instead of pursuing growth at any cost.
Download or read book Witch Hunt written by Gregg Jarrett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Russia Hoax picks up where that book ended with this hard-hitting, well-reasoned examination of the latest findings about “collusion” between the Trump Administration and the Russians, offering further proof that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt. How did a small group of powerful intelligence officials convince tens of millions of Americans that the president is a traitor, without a shred of evidence? Now that every detail and argument set forth in The Russia Hoax has been borne out by the Mueller report, Jarrett returns with Witch Hunt, providing a hard-hitting, well-reasoned evisceration of what may be the dirtiest trick in political history. No marks have ever been as gullible as distraught Democrats in 2016. Washington insiders broke rule after rule investigating the president, chasing a conspiracy that turned out not to exist. Somehow this was spun into Donald Trump having something to hide. People associated with the president were pushed into plea deals that had nothing to do with Russian “collusion” or discouraged from serving by the threat of huge legal bills. Somehow this was spun into Trump’s lawyers being bullies. The president complained that the investigation was a waste of time, but he allowed it to continue unimpeded to the end. Somehow this was spun into obstruction of justice. In Witch Hunt, Gregg Jarrett uncovers the bureaucratic malfeasance and malicious politicization of our country’s justice system. The law was weaponized for partisan purposes. Even though it was Hillary Clinton’s campaign that collected and disseminated a trove of lies about Trump from a former British spy and Russian operatives, Democrats and the media spun this into a claim that Trump was working for the Russians. Senior officials at the FBI, blinded by their political bias and hatred of Trump, went after the wrong person. At the DOJ, the deputy attorney general discussed secretly recording the president and recruiting members of the cabinet to depose Trump. Those behind the Witch Hunt have either been fired or resigned. Many of them are now under investigation for abuse of power. But what about the pundits who concocted wild narratives in real time on television, or the newspapers which covered the fact that rumors were being investigated without investigating the facts themselves? Factual, highly persuasive, and damning, this must-read expose makes clear that not only was there no “collusion,” but there was not even a basis for Mueller’s investigation of the charge that has attacked Trump and his administration for more than two years. It’s always been a Witch Hunt.
