How to Overthrow the Government
- Submitted by: Love Knowledge
- Category: Politics
How to Overthrow the Government
Powerful and enlightening. How to Overthrow the Government is an impassioned call to arms from one of America’s sharpest and most independent commentators. In its pages Huffington breaks away from the party-line platitudes of Republicans and Democrats alike while challenging Amerians to rise up and take back their government. From the power of special interests to the ravages of the war on drugs, Huffington offers radical yet viable strategies for reclaiming our nation from the corporate and political powers that hold it hostage. For, as she argues, if We the People are to preserve and protect our more perfect union, we must stand up and fight for our country — before it’s too late.”Our government is no longer serving us,” declares Arianna Huffington in How to Overthrow the Government. “[It] is slow, unfair, corrupt, and peopled by politicians living on graft and sinecure.” While the political class gloats about unprecedented prosperity, Americans are more turned off by their rulers than ever before: the public holds deeply cynical views about Washington, voter turnout continues to drop, and “modern campaigns … are so thoroughly dominated by pollsters and consultants that there’s no oxygen left for ideas that might challenge the status quo.” Politicians have turned a blind eye to America’s real problems. “Glad-handing lobbyists” (there are roughly 38 per member of Congress, says Huffington) and “the seductive allure of incumbency” have made lawmakers resistant to necessary reforms. “It’s this vicious cycle that explains why 35 million Americans are living in poverty and more children are homeless than at any time since the Great Depression; why middle-income Americans are saddled with crippling levels of debt; why our children attend drug-ridden schools where they are not safe and cannot learn.” Much of this book reads like an extended political column, full of anecdotes and zinging one-liners. Yet there’s also more earnestness and less satire on these pages than was glimpsed in Huffington’s previous book Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom. How to Overthrow the Government and its provocative recommendations will appeal mainly to the supporters of America’s dissident politicos, such as Sen. John McCain, Ralph Nader, and the Reform Party. –John J. Miller
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Customer Reviews 60 of 61 people found the following review helpful How to Overthrow the Plutocracy, December 23, 2002 By doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) – See all my reviews 
This is a book that many people will rate based on their agreement or disagreement with Huffington’s politics. Beware of low ratings that people give simply because they don’t like the author’s record, while some high ratings may have the same problem. These are hardly useful to someone considering a purchase. Certainly this book is political, but it is not necessary to agree with Huffington 100% politically to appreciate her main points. So if you’re prone to reducing any piece of public discourse into an archaic (and currently nonsensical) liberal vs. conservative dichotomy, don’t bother with this book because you won’t get it. What Huffington’s talking about here is far beyond left vs. right squabbling. The only problem with this book is that it was written in the middle of the 2000 presidential campaign and was immediately outdated in certain sections. Huffington’s opinions on that election’s disastrous finish would have given this book some extra kick.
Huffington has a great insider’s view of the horrendous state of our current political system. She’s a Republican but she’s got just as much (maybe even more) vitriol for the GOP in its failure to live up to its ideals, as she does for the Democrats. Plus her Centrist ideas reveal her to be one of the most levelheaded and realistic pundits around. For example, her proposal that all corporations and rich people should give 10% of their income to charity sure isn’t a Republican-like idea. In her great tongue-in-cheek and slightly sarcastic style, Huffington shows the ineffectiveness of the system, as career politicians on both sides are enslaved to corporate contributions, opinion polls that only ask inane lowest-common-denominator questions, and a lapdog media that convinces people that “character’ (actually reputation and personal rumors) is more important than leadership skills. And unlike other books of this type, Huffington’s ideas for solutions aren’t cheesy platitudes like “take the power back,” but real options like politically oriented volunteering, “None of the Above” options on ballots, and local clean finance campaign initiatives. Corporate contributors really spread the money around to all politicians, as a way to latch onto whoever has power regardless of ideology, while politicians utilize this vicious cycle to hold onto power instead of making real decisions or exercising true leadership, and the system looks down its nose at a disillusioned and disenfranchised electorate. This book is about overthrowing this plutocracy, and people of all political persuasions should be concerned, unless you’re a slave to the big money. Take Back Your Country: The Moment is Now!, February 5, 2000 By Dr. Nancy Snow – See all my reviews And we all thought Y2K meant botched computers. This Y2K book is a call to action for citizens to get involved in something much bigger than themselves–self-government through civic participation. Why should we wait for our "enlightened leaders" to call out directions? The answers lie within us: big money has corrupted our two-party system and the solutions aren’t in Washington or name-that-state capital; this manifesto provides precise steps to reclaim politics as that sacred public space that makes society better for us all. No one is truly rich when someone, somewhere is poor. Get on this political bandwagon because a political movement and moment is upon us. Oh, and by the way, Arianna Huffington will help you keep your sense of humor as the revolution embarks.
 Much more modest proposals than the title suggests, September 19, 2000 By Sean T. Carnathan (Boston, MA) – See all my reviews 
Okay, I like most readers of this book (I’m certain) first picked it up because the title is catchy. The actual substance of the book is much more modest, and largely centers on hammering the need for campaign finance reform. Along the way, Huffington also trashes pollsters, and emphasizes the need for citizen participation in government and in charitable activities. There really is nothing particularly new or ground breaking here, but Huffington does a nice job of gathering together in one place a lot of anecdotal information about her topics. She bashes politicians of both major parties evenly, and is apparently disappointed that the nominees for the fall elections are Bush and Gore rather than McCain and Bradley. Bottom line: A good read, but don’t expect to learn anything that rocks your world. One of her fundamental points — that the American people have come to expect their political leaders to be a pack of thieves — is all too true.
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