HOSTILE TAKEOVER: HOW BIG MONEY & CORRUPTION CONQUERED OUR GOVERNMENT–AND HOW WE CAN TAKE IT BACK | David Sirota | That government and corporate America are in bed isn’t news, but the blatant mendacity, venality, and bipartisan suck-up that David Sirota details in his new book, Hostile Takeover, are appalling. Sirota, a senior editor at In These Times, exhaustively documents how the rights of average citizens are being trampled in favor of big business interests, all of it abetted by legislators in thrall to campaign cash and corporate-funded junkets.
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Sirota goes on to examine efforts to erode workers’ wages and benefits, undermine unions, and enhance profits for HMOs and the pharmaceutical and energy industries. Among the many distasteful tit-for-tattings in Sirota’s arsenal: in 2004 the credit card industry as a whole made $30 billion in profits; between 2000 and 2004 it donated $103 million to candidates of both parties. (MBNA is George Bush’s fifth-largest donor.) No surprise: the new bankruptcy bill cracks down on individuals but not corporate debtors.
Near the end of the book he writes, “If you’ve made it to this point . . . How do you feel? Depressed? Angry? Outraged?” If you’re an average working American, you’ll say oh, yes, indeed, that’s exactly how I feel. But after spending several days with Sirota’s damning manifesto you may no longer feel powerless. –Jerome Ludwig
“My dittiotism died the death of a thousand cuts,” Derych writes, recalling how after 9/11 he was dismayed by the Bush administration’s failure to capture Osama bin Laden, then flummoxed by Limbaugh’s insistence on holding Bill Clinton responsible for the whole thing: “Maybe I was just tired of hating Clinton. After eight years you get tired of feeling angry all the time.” It’s a moment that not only leads to Derych’s epiphany, but also points to a weakness that may exist even now in the teetering edifice that Limbaugh and other right-wing radio commentators have built in the minds of their listeners. –Renaldo Migaldi
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