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Digital Cameras - Camcorders - Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $8.12
Your Save: $ 6.83 ( 46% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Chelsea Green Publishing
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.973
EAN: 9781603580793
ISBN: 1603580794
Label: Chelsea Green Publishing
Manufacturer: Chelsea Green Publishing
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2008-08-25
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Studio: Chelsea Green Publishing
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A waste of time and money
Comment: Don't waste your time or money. I have heard better analysis about national politics from high school extemp speakers than what is contained in this book.
Hopefully Obama has better advisers than this writer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Obama's Challenge prescient!
Comment: This is an especially interesting book as it was published BEFORE the Wall Street crash and before the election. It compares the situation and Obama to the situations and other presidents who rose to meet and create new pathways for the future. I just hope the author is correct about how this could all (positively) turn out.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Obama's Challenge
Comment:
Robert Kuttner goes into some detail regarding the economy and how progressive programs could be a great help. He recognizes the political problems involved in getting these programs started and recommends some strategies that Barak Obama could pursue. His presentation is very insightful - maybe he should be an advisor to the president elect.
Very interesting: He wrote this book and submitted it to publication well before the election and at least a half year before it became obvious to most people as to how wide and deep the present depression (my word) is. Is this guy a prophet?
Customer Rating:
Summary: How Obama Can Be Great
Comment: No one can deny Robert Kuttner's premise - our next President really has his work cut out for him. But Kuttner goes further; he makes a strong case for the notion that the next President will have to be a great president. His examples of greatness, in a transformative sense, are Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.
In Kuttner's view, each of these Presidents entered office without an agenda of dramatic change, but the circumstances they found, once in office, forced each of them to transcend politics to become the kind of leaders the nation desperately needed.
The Republican, Abraham Lincoln, had no plans to abolish slavery when he ran for office in 1860, but grew in his realization that slavery was immoral - and must be addressed. His eloquence and his political gifts, along with the Civil War itself, allowed him to end that blight on the nation's conscience.
Franklin Roosevelt was committed to budget balancing and budget cutting when he campaigned in 1932. What he found upon assuming office was a deepening economic depression and a nation demoralized. He used his gifts of optimism and communication in a dramatic search for practical - not ideological - solutions.
Lyndon Johnson assumed the Presidency after John Kennedy's assassination, and found a highly segregated nation. His awakening to the plight of African-Americans was nothing short of remarkable for a Texas politician. His compassion and tenacity - with the passage of the Voting Rights Act - finally made possible the fulfillment of the promise of Lincoln.
Kuttner believes that the current crisis gives Obama this opportunity to grow into this kind of transformative leader we need to move forward in economic equity, health care reform and education. Obama is not there yet. His health care plan, for example, is not transformative to the degree we need. But of the two choices, Obama has the intellect, the character and the temperament to become a great leader.
Leaders, after all, do compromise and collaborate and understand politics; however, they also take us to places we have not imagined previously. They aspire us to rise above our old ways. They lead us to a new vision.
Not every President has the talent to lead us in this transformative way. George W. Bush, for example, when faced with a growing concern about global warming - decided to ignore the evidence. Entering office to decades long stagnation of middle class wages - he cut taxes on the wealthy and boosted deregulation. Following the tragedy of 9-11, he pushed for the invasion of a weak country and promoted the torture of prisoners. His leadership didn't call out our better selves - it exacerbated our weaknesses.
Kuttner promotes a number of transformative ideas for consideration. One that deserves consideration is the professionalization of the service employees of the nation's social service sector. We can all agree that the nation's children and elderly deserve high quality care, but current policies and regulations push the service equation towards lower prices, not higher quality.
The front line staff of America's nursing homes, residential treatment programs and day care centers are largely poorly trained, poorly educated, short-term employees. Private children's homes in KY face frighteningly high turnover rates every year. Higher governmental standards could force the hiring of better educated and more intrinsically motivated workers. In turn, as higher skilled workers demand higher wages, these good jobs could become a decent wage option for workers displaced by globalization and the decline of manufacturing.
Our vulnerable children and aging population would receive better care, and these newly enhanced jobs could not be outsourced to other nations.
Kuttner leaves us where Obama entered the race - with the possibilities of hope. Heaven knows we need it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can Obama rescue America from the brink?
Comment: Robert Kuttner's advices to Obama in overcoming the crisis that has brought America to the edge are not something new as many US foreign policy experts have done so in the recent past. But such advices were not heeded by the Bush administration until they have landed America into a real crisis situation.
Kuttner may be right in deriding unbridled free trade and the increasing obeisity of the federal government but does not his suggestion for more government intervention in economic spheres lead to the very road that Kuttner so vehemently opposes? The problem with American leaders is that American ideals and values that I'd termed as 'American Cavalcade' in my book, 'Tracing the Eagle's Orbit' were framed within and for an America closetted between the two oceans but the vision of the founding fathers regarding a non-interventionist and a non committed America from a global perspective had been repeatedly violated by successive presidents starting with TR.
So what worked for an isolationist United States under Lincoln or Roosevelt may not work in the third millennium. The role of charisma and leadership works well within a country but international relations are complex issues where it is the American values that are viewed with suspicion. To make matters worse, America of the new century needs the outside world more than vice-versa and hence the need to be more understanding of others.
Obama is an innovative leader and he is well aware of the international scenario and how to lead America through the intricacies of diverse interests of the community of nations. Obama, I think, should align more with its Western allies to stave off a second isolation.
Gautam Maitra
Author of 'Tracing the Eagle's Orbit: Illuminating Insights into Major US Foreign Policies since Independence.'
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Editorial Reviews:
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Barack Obama approaches the Presidency at a critical moment in American history, facing simultaneous crises of war, the environment, health care, but most especially in the economy. If he is able to rise to the moment, he could join the ranks of a small handful of previous presidents who have been truly transformative, succeeding in fundamentally changing our economy, society, and democracy for the better.But this will require imaginative and decisive action as Obama takes office, action bolder than he has promised during his campaign, and will be all the more difficult given the undertow of conventional wisdom in Washington and on Wall Street that resists fundamental change. Decades of regressive politics and political gridlock have left America in its most precarious situation since the onset of the Great Depression. The collapse of the housing bubble continues, as does the financial meltdown it triggered; a revival of 1970s style stagflation threatens; incomes continue to lag behind inflation; our household and international debts pile higher; disastrous climate change looms; energy and food prices continue their escalation; and the ranks of un- and under-insured Americans grow, the clearest, and most heartless, example of America’s destructive inequalities.Solutions to our multiple challenges do exist, but they won’t be found in overly cautious or expedient quick fixes. With his exceptional skill at appealing to our better angels, Barack Obama could be the right leader at the right time to re-awaken America to the renewed promise of shared prosperity coupled with responsibility towards future generations and the international community with whom we share the Earth. Invoking America’s greatest leaders, Robert Kuttner explains how Obama must be a transformative president—or a failed one.
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