THE WRECKING CREW: Thomas Frank on How Conservatives Rule

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/9/08 at 3:22pm

Social critic Thomas Frank examines the modern conservative movement and its excesses in his new book, The Wrecking Crew. Conservative politicians complain that big government does not work, writes Frank — then they get elected and prove it.




Here is a very good radio interview with Thomas Frank:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93253890

Check it out.

Updated On: 8/15/08 at 03:22 PM

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/9/08 at 3:31pm

I just finished a novel by Richard North Patterson called The Race. Its themes include politics, race, media, religion and gay rights. It's set around a Republican presidential nomination.

[Namaste]

Posted: 8/9/08 at 5:24pm

Thanks!

Added this to my list, and listening to the interview now.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/11/08 at 8:33pm

Here is another great interview and profile of the the book:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/8/the_wrecking_crew_thomas_frank_on

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/11/08 at 8:34pm

Here is the Bill Moyers interview:


http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08012008/profile3.html

Updated On: 8/13/08 at 08:34 PM

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 3:16am

From the author of the landmark bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a jaw-dropping investigation of the decades of deliberate—and lucrative—conservative misrule

In his previous book, Thomas Frank explained why working America votes for politicians who reserve their favors for the rich. Now, in The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt Washington those politicians have given us.

Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters—the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff.

It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state.

Stamped with Thomas Frank’s audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet—and his most important.

Updated On: 8/12/08 at 03:16 AM

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 5:30pm

Thomas Frank's website:

http://tcfrank.com/books/the-wrecking-crew/


COLBERT REPORT video interview:

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=178716


Colbert: "Government is welfare for those who can't put out their own fire"

Updated On: 8/14/08 at 05:30 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 5:36pm

Everyone should read Tom Frank before stepping into the voting booth.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 11:19pm

This was my genius insight about a year ago, remember everybody? I was pointing out that it makes no sense to elect people to the government who say they hate government. Can you imagine a job interview like that?

"So why would you like to work here at IBM/Abercrombie & Fitch/Pfizer?"

"Well, I'm not a people person and I hate computers/gay fashion marketed to straight teenage girls and the twinks who love them/drug companies."

"You're hired! We think an outsider is just what we need right now. PLUS, we get the sense that you'd be a lot of fun to have a beer with."

"Not really, but, whatever."

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 11:17am

That is brilliant!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 11:20am

I say reinstate the draft.


It's the only thing that's going to snap this country out of their ipods and cellphones and get them motivated to change things.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 11:53am

Looks like the book will debut on the 8/24 NY Times bestseller list when it's released this afternoon.

Not as high on the list as the 3 anti-Obama books or Tori Spelling, Chelsea Handler and Madonna's brother, but somewhere in the top 15!

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 5:54pm

Debuting at #11.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 6:19pm

11 is like two number 1s.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 6:41pm

I can't wait to read it!

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/14/08 at 2:46am

Complete interview here:

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/08/07/thomas_frank/

Thomas Frank on the Bush administration: Sabotage by design

The author of "What's the Matter With Kansas?" discusses the corrosive relationship between conservatives and business, liberal bias and his new book about Republican misrule.

By Rick Perlstein

Aug. 7, 2008 | Thomas Frank is back with another hunk of dynamite. His "What's the Matter With Kansas?" monopolized political discussion for over a year when it came out in the summer of 2004. "The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule" should monopolize political conversation this year. It's the first book to effectively tie the ruin and corruption of conservative governance to the conservative "movement building" of the 1970s, and, before that, the business crusade against good government going back at least to the 1890s.

Here, for example, is a splendid bit Frank pulled from the Journal of Commerce from 1928 about why it's best for business to wreck the state: "The best public servant is the worst one. A thoroughly first-rate man in public service is corrosive. He eats holes in our liberties. The better he is and the longer he stays the greater the danger. If he is an enthusiast -- a bright-eyed madman who is frantic to make this the finest government in the world -- the black plague is a house pet by comparison."

The guy who wrote that was a military contractor and former head of the national Chamber of Commerce. The genius of today's conservative movement, however, is that it doesn't need barons of commerce to say these things anymore. Conservatives have won over a species of the bright-eyed madmen -- kids writing for college newspapers, who can call themselves "principled" conservative "idealists," fighting the "battle of ideas" while carrying the water of corporate America.


We see the results before us. While the Bush administration "presided over one of the greatest expansions of federal spending in history, the number of federal employees actually decreased during Dubya's term of office." The conservative ascendency did not merely change the composition of government; they sold government off to business, piece by piece -- and, of course, it was sabotage by design.

I interviewed Frank by e-mail the weekend before his book debuted. The conversation ranged from the manicured lawns of academe to South Africa; one of the things you learn in the book is that for American conservatives, the two worlds intersect in a rather perverse way. I began the interview by asking him about one of the most successful conservative activist groups of the 1980s, the United Students of America Foundation, an offshoot of the college Republicans. He has located a curious smoking gun in the receipts of their tax-deductible donations that shows the conservative youth movement as rather less idealistic than today's Reaganauts like to remember. You wouldn't be surprised to learn that a conservative youth group was funded by business. You might be surprised, however, to learn that it was largely funded by certain apparently random businesses like bottling companies.

Read the rest of the interview portion here

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/08/07/thomas_frank//

Updated On: 8/14/08 at 02:46 AM

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/14/08 at 5:34pm

Buzzflash interview:

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/121

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/15/08 at 12:47pm

Link to full Rocky Mountain News interview:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/thomas-franks-wrecking-crew-fires-on/http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/thomas-franks-wrecking-crew-fires-on/

Excerpt:

Is public financing of campaigns the answer to stopping this cycle you describe of constituents contributing to politicians who in turn reward those constituents?

Public financing would solve a lot of problems. This is something conservatism would fight to the last. It's even more controversial than national health care. That would be the end for them because it takes money out of the picture. And conservatism is about, whether they admit it or not, representing the interests of the wealthy. If you take money out of the picture, it would be the end of their political clout. . . . It's never going to happen. But public financing would be a great thing. If that would happen, even someone like me could run for office.

Link to full Rocky Mountain News interview:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/thomas-franks-wrecking-crew-fires-on/http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/thomas-franks-wrecking-crew-fires-on/

Updated On: 8/15/08 at 12:47 PM

[roquat]

Posted: 8/15/08 at 3:32pm

I am always bemused when William F. Buckley's statement that "the conservative movement consists of standing athwart history yelling 'STOP!"" is quoted admiringly. Is that really a constructive (or realistic) principle to advocate?

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 8/15/08 at 7:38pm

Youtube version of Democracy Now interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6n8V0cKTRA