Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country

Greider seems like a nice man, the kind of man who helps old ladies across the street or gets cats out of trees. The kind of man my conservative friends call a bleeding heart liberal. But his careful analysis of the problems facing the United States as well as the problems the rest of the world have in coming to grips with the military power of the United States, makes this book well worth reading. If you agree with his conclusions or not, go read it.

I have made it a point to read all of Mr. Greider's Books. I find him to be an honest interpreter of current events. I consider him my civics teacher. He has been all over the world and has a big overview of what is happening. He knows banking. He knows economics. He knows Washington politics. He knows world trade. He knows people. And he knows and respects all of us "little" regular folks. Most important of all he has and is concerned with moral character - right and wrong; fair and unfair - what the old school once called "Social Justice." I was very surprised to read in this book that Mr. Greider was a product of a Republican upbringing. He states that if his back was put to the wall he would choose Democrat over Republican. I don't have to have my back to the wall to make the same choice - yet I find myself often as critical of both sides as Mr. Greider. I think Mr. Greider has come to the age where he feels any beating around the bush to be a waste of his valuable time. In this book he is very open with regards to his motivation, his goals and his dreams for America. He has covered the Washington political scene and found our elected representatives less than inspiring. He has covered lobbying and the moneyed interests and their hold on our system. He has written an exhausting book on the Federal Reserve. He has been hired to speak to bankers by the bankers. He has been warning of this economic and financial disaster for years. He has challenged the top economists on their principles - especially Free Trade and the Global economy. He has found little hope anywhere in the established system but yet he remains strong to his commitment to a personal optimism. He compares his long and frustrating career to that of a bag lady standing on a corner somewhere in America, screeching to a crowd as they zoom by, unaware and unconcerned. But who does he place his trust in if not the Fed, the president, the Senate, the Congress, the bankers, the CEOs and CFOs, the corporate giants, the international conglomerates, the boldest and brightest, the movers and shakers? Who is there left? Mr. Greider places his faith in "we" the people - all the people and democracy. Democracy doesn't scare him. He loves it - the more the better. He compares "we, the people" to an underground river. A river that rolls along beneath the surface. A river that is sometimes dry and sometimes a raging torrent. A river of people's varying opinions and ideas, a river of support, outrage and often society changing currents. Mr. Greider sees that river rising in America today. He wants to see it flood its caverns and fill our country with hope, change and, most of all, action. In this book Mr. Greider cheers for an American Democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. He doesn't know how the people will do it. He doesn't know what they will actually do but in true optimist tradition he is hoping that today's underground river will swell into a deluge of change a

In Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country William Greider presents a readable view of the current financial crisis and how we got here. He puts the spotlight on big banks, big business, and Wall Street and their collusion with our government over the last 30 yrs. Congress is in the pocket of these three, forming an oligarchy which rules for itself to the detriment of the middle class and the poor. The people need to take back their government with reasonable rules and regulations for the control of the financial system and business and to restore real democracy in the USA before we complete our downward spiral into a banana republic.

In my back room are TWO copies of William Greider's Who Will Tell the People. Greider, from a rich-guy world, worked Rolling Stone as international correspondent, then Washington Post, now The Nation. He's still helping us sort the tough stuff out... What I love about his current book, Come Home, America, is he points the way to a populist solution to our economic/global meltdown by examples of the people telling FDR that we need a Social Security system and labor rights. "Politicians need people to stand up to them," he says "President's, too." (repost from [...])

Bill Greider has written a very good book, and a very needed book, about the dire situation our nation is facing. The timing of its appearance, given the curve of events, especially the public's outrage over the AIG bonuses, has made him smile, I'm sure, and seem just a bit prophetic, since he assigns a big role for growing citizen participation to build a new economy, and a "thicker" democracy. (For "the smile," see his Op-Ed in the Outlook section of the March 22, 2009 edition of the Washington Post: "Main Street is Fired Up. Does Obama Feel the Heat?" at [...] It seems a lot of folks are calling for "Fireside Chats" these days, including NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who wants President Obama to level with the people over how tough the road ahead will be, but primarily to rally them behind the Secretary of the Treasury Geithner's Bailout II; others have called the President's recent appearance on the Jay Leno show a modern day "video" equivalent of the FDR original radio broadcasts, but this writer believes it is Bill Greider who has delivered a real Fireside Chat to the nation with his new book Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of our Country (Rodale). To be a genuine Fireside Chat, whatever the format, success is a matter of both tone and content: a conversational, over-the-fence tone, and serious, society-shaking subject matter. Greider has done justice, and then some, to both aspects. His opening chapter, "Fair Warning," is nearly pitch perfect in putting the reader at ease that the matters which follow, grave as they are, will be understandable. And he's tough, but fair, on the nation's political leaders: "I have some hard things to say about our country. Beyond recession and financial crisis, we are in much deeper trouble than many people suppose or the authorities want to acknowledge...the political behavior I do not forgive is failing to give people fair warning...those who govern ought to tell people what's coming so they at least have a chance to get out of the way." Yes, a chance "to get out of the way" would be nice for citizens, but they don't get off the hook so easily in this book, either. Ducking is not going to be enough. There won't be long vacations for anyone in our country, at least not for a while, given what is coming, and Greider wants to put citizens, and their morale, through a basic training course in political economy so they can become the "`third front' in the political power struggle, a counterforce to both government and the private interests, the two great poles of influence which have contested power in America for the past 100 years. During this great struggle, however, "Citizens became spectators, further alienated from participating in the decisions that govern their lives. To be heard in the halls of democracy, one has to hire a lobbyist. To influence the private decisions of corporations, one has to become a major shareholder. Many Americans, not