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Catastrophe by Dick Morris
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Catastrophe

by Dick Morris

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I started reading this book with quite a bit of enthusiam to find what it contained. I think the unfortunate part is that the public is just now waking up to danger the country is in. How would the 2008 vote go if it was held now after the absurd spending, energy sector power grabs and tax increases, and threat to American health care delivery? Like another reviewer, and as much as I care about the content, I seem to have stalled in the chapter about lobbying because of the repetition used to pound the same point. It probably doesn't help that the book was written about current events last spring and the political landscape is quickly shifting. I suspect something like Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyrrany may stand the test of time a little better.
  BubbaCoop | Nov 11, 2009 |
As this book is a political commentary on current events, I feel obligated to let the reader of this review know my personal political biases: I am a registered independent and consider myself as a classical liberal in the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, and Thomas Jefferson. I find myself at times strongly disliking both the Republican and Democratic parties.

I recently received this book as a gift along with Glenn Beck's Common Sense. Of the two, I strongly preferred Morris' book. He does a good job of exposing a number of problems and issues, but he does so at a much greater level of detail than Beck, at least attempting to cite sources and quantify problems with a much greater level of specificity and precision. Morris also includes a number of action items for each chapter (though admittedly many simply consist of "call your congressman and tell him you don't like what's going on.") He tends to point the reader to his website for more information on actions private citizens can take, but unless I'm missing a large portion of the website, these seem pretty few and far between. The last third of Morris' book seems a bit slapdash, with a few additional chapters tacked on that don't seem to fit the work's overall theme (e.g., PTSD in the military and long airline delays). These are assuredly significant problems for those experiencing them, but are they national catastrophes? Morris does turn at times to a slightly conspiratorial presentation style where he baldly states Obama administration sinister goals behind its actions; I would have preferred a clearer delineation between fact and supposition.

I recommend the book, because it's well-written and attempts to engage in good sourcing and elaboration of most of the issues it discusses, but as with any book on contemporary politics, if the reader doesn't already share some of the author's biases, it's largely a waste of time.

Review copyright 2009 J. Andrew Byers ( )
1 vote bibliorex | Jul 23, 2009 |
I confess that I was not able to make it through this book. I am a libertarian who is very sympathetic with Morris's main points - that Obama, if he gets his way, will turn the US into a much more socialistic nation a la France and Canada. But I find much of the book a bit too partisan for my tastes.

For instance, Morris goes on for a while about the travesty and bad economic sense of the current bailouts; I couldn't agree more! But Morris lays all of the blame at the feet of the Obama camp... even though Bush was the one who got things rolling! (And on the chapters dealing with how we got into the financial crisis of '08/'09,Morris is quite blatantly careful not to menton that the entire housing bubble started with Bush's zeal for "affordable housing for all."

In other words, democrats and republicans share quite equal blame for the direction we are headed, and I can't take Morris seriously because he only recognizes the guilt of one party. It makes it seem like....he is....partisan with more interest in stumping than analysis.

There are plenty better books out there, like Housing Boom and Bust (Sowell) and Failure of Capitalism (Posner). At least those authors are even-handed and don't seem to have a partisan ax to grind. ( )
1 vote KevinCK | Jul 10, 2009 |
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It's sometimes hard to tell whether Morris is crafting a canny parody of right-wing dementia, or an ironic thriller. The wonder of this breathless novel is that it manages to be both.
added by Shortride | editSalon, Steve Almond (Sep 12, 2009)
 
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Catastrophe (book)

Book description

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 006177104X, Hardcover)

It's time to take back our country. Now. It's that simple. It's that urgent. So begins Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest and most important book. They say that we must act before President Barack Obama fully implements his radical political agenda. Because after Obama has won his war on prosperity and canceled the war on terror, it will be too late to regain our liberty or our security. At a time when we needed a pragmatic centrist to lead us out of recession, we got a doctrinaire socialist who wants to use the crisis to put the government in charge of the economy and enact European socialism here in the United States. Cars, banks-what's next? He will keep at it until Washington governs every major business in America and sets all our salaries. It's a catastrophe. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann saw the meltdown coming. In their book Outrage, they called out the house of cards that was Fannie Mae. In Fleeced, they went after the credit card companies, the subprime mortgage lenders, and the hedge fund billionaires who conspired to wreck the economy-and Barack Obama, whose policies, they predicted last summer, would "trigger a stock market crash." Now, in Catastrophe, Morris and McGann take a hard look at America in free fall-and at how Obama is transforming a vulnerable America into a socialist state. They tell the truth about Obama and his radical policies: He will destroy our health care system so that no one gets adequate care. He designed his bank rescue plan to pave the way for nation-alization of the banks and socialization of the economy. He firmly believes in government control of our major industries-he's already commandeered the banks and the automobile industry. He plans to reshape the political landscape to keep the left in power for decades by cooking the census, enfranchising illegal immigrants, muzzling talk radio, and coercing workers into unions. He is attacking those who fight terrorism while letting the terrorists go free. He gives aid to Hamas while Shariah Law threatens to take over America. He has repealed the Declaration of Independence and put us under a worldwide, European-dominated financial regulatory system. But Obama is not working alone. Morris and McGann spell out how Congress is complicit: How Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Charlie Rangel use special interests and special friends for their own enrichment and glorification. How Ted Kennedy Jr. is exploiting his father's health care power. "This is no time for apathy or alienation or hopelessness," Morris and McGann remind us. "It's a time for action." And that action must begin now-before it's too late.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:53:52 -0400)

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