How To Take Back America by Thom Hartmann

"The nation I love is confronting a crisis no smaller than those faced by Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington: a crisis that will determine if American democracy survives to the next generation. So-called 'conservatives' are turning our government inside out, trying, as they say, 'to drown it in the bathtub,' killing off regulatory agencies, ripping up the Constitution, cutting funding to social services, and turning pollution controls over to industry. Government expenses in the trillions of dollars are being shifted from us, today, to the shoulders of our children, who will certainly have to repay the deficits Bush's so-called 'tax cuts' (which are really tax deferrals) are racking up. War is being waged in our name and without our consent.



"And, most disconcerting, the leadership of this administration is made up of blatantly profiteering CEOs, former defense industry lobbyists, and failed hack politicians so outside the mainstream that one - Ashcroft - even lost an election in his home state against a dead guy.



"Unlike most other modern democracies, our American electoral system only allows for two political parties, at least at the national level. So, given that the rich, the polluters, the paranoid, and the zealot war-mongers got to the Republicans first, we have no choice but to take back the Democratic Party, reinvigorate it, reorient it, and lead it to success in 2004. We may not be able to stop Bush now, but we sure as hell can throw him out of office next year at the ballot box."