A Republican friend of mine sent me an e-mail this morning, bemoaning the internet gambling ban that was attached to the port security bill, and making a snide remark along the lines of “Bad Republicans, no mid-term win for you!”
This, frankly, stunned me.
A disastrous war that’s having precisely the opposite of the intended effect, a huge lobbying and corruption scandal, complete and utter disregard for separation of powers and checks and balances, approval of the suspension of long-standing protections like habeus corpus, the legalization of prisoner abuse and possibly even torture, a history of putting political power ahead of national security; all this, and it’s an internet gambling ban that’s the last straw?
What the hell is wrong with this country?
October 9th, 2006
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Politics, Culture |
24 comments
I was nervous when I started reading this book. As smart as Bill Scher is, the promo material that came with my review copy read as if this was going to be another stupid framing book. Whatever the academic merits of the “framing” concept, in practice, political books dealing with “re-framing” are almost exclusively about magical thinking. If only the left would use different frames, the thinking seems to go, then opposition will be left flummoxed and impotent, everyone will just fall in line and their will be universal health care, a sane foreign policy, civil rights, and ponies for all. This, fortunately, is not one of those books. Wait, Don’t Move to Canada does have some discussion about language and the use of terminology, but those sections are not ends in and of themselves: they serve the higher goals of the book. Bill Scher has written a book, to be blunt, about the importance of picking fights.
Picking a fight is the overriding theme of the book, even if it is never explicitly stated. But at every turn — from foreign policy, the environmentalism, to gay rights, to health care, to economics — Scher demonstrates that not picking fights, that trying to finesse difficult positions, does far more harm than it does good. He shows why it is important to pick those fights, even if we start out losing. Yes, there is discussion of language and terminology, but only in terms of how to effectively argue the points we need to argue. Scher doesn’t fall into the trap of believing that using the right term will suddenly shift people’s opinions. He, unlike too much of the framing crowd, doesn’t pretend that life long opinions will magically shift if liberals just recite the correct incantations. Scher is trying to teach people how to make effective arguments and even how to lose arguments in a manner that advances our goal. He isn’t framing issues, he is fighting to convince people that liberalism is the correct position.
But the tactical aspect of the book is of secondary importance. The real strength of the book is its central notion: that liberalism must be vocally defended if the Democrats are to have any long term success. In a world of supposedly non-ideological “netroots” and magical thinking hidden behind “frames”, it is refreshing to see a political book that celebrates the importance of ideas and the importance of defending and advancing those ideas. Wait! Don’t Move to Canada! might be disguised as a book on political tactics, but it is really a full throated defense of liberalism and the importance of liberal ideals to the country.
Political power is meaningless without ideology. Scher recognizes this, and his book both lays out a strong argument for liberalism as well as ways for you to help make that argument more effectively. The fact that it is written in a clear, punchy style and is often funny is a bonus. If you are a liberal who wants to make a difference, Wait! Don’t Move to Canada! will certainly help you do so.
October 9th, 2006
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Reviews, Books |
one comment
