The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism - Hardcover

Hodge, Roger D.

3.7

73 ratings by Goodreads

9780062011268: The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006201126X ISBN 13: 9780062011268

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2010

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In a bold treatise, the former editor of Harper's Magazine accuses President Obama of failing to enact progressive reform at home and abroad, citing his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, the bailout of Wall Street and the fact that he has not followed through on many of his campaign promises. 50,000 first printing.

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Review:

""The Mendacity of Hope" should help wake up all those Obama-voters who've been napping while the wars escalate, the recession deepens, and the environment goes straight to hell."--Barbara Ehrenreich

""The Mendacity of Hope" is a roundhouse punch at the notion that Obama is anything but a conventional corporate liberal, supine before the moneyed interests."--Michael Tomasky, "The New York Review of Books"

"Roger D. Hodge brilliantly dissects how democracy has gone on sale in America."--Bill Moyers

"The Mendacity of Hope" is a roundhouse punch at the notion that Obama is anything but a conventional corporate liberal, supine before the moneyed interests. --Michael Tomasky, "The New York Review of Books""

An excellent book. . . . US politics has ended up as a battle between the mostly corrupt and the entirely corrupt. . . . It s long past time to put away your Obama t-shirt and take out your protest banner. --Johann Hari, "The Independent""

An eloquently sober indictment of the corruption which impels the self-aggrandizement of our executive branch, much to the bane of our Constitution. A frightening book whose conclusions ought to haunt every American. --William T. Vollmann"

Ready to wake up from the Obama dream yet? If so, this thrillingly scathing and relentlessly truthful "cri de coeur" is your strong cup of coffee. --Naomi Klein"

"The Mendacity of Hope" should help wake up all those Obama-voters who ve been napping while the wars escalate, the recession deepens, and the environment goes straight to hell. --Barbara Ehrenreich"

Hodge calls for revitalization of the founding tradition of civil virtue and republican values of liberty, a message that should be taken to heart if we are to reverse the drift towards an ugly future. --Noam Chomsky"

Roger Hodge has written a desperately needed expose of how Barack Obama is not the messiah of liberalism but its designated gravedigger. . . . This is a blazing indictment of corporate collusion and a bracing injection of hard truths. --Naomi Wolf"

From the Back Cover:

A fearless and incisive manifesto that exposes the real causes of President Obama's failure to enact liberal reform, by the former editor of Harper's Magazine

Americans find themselves in genuine confusion and dismay concerning the actions of President Obama's administration, especially when it comes to the financial crisis and health care. Obama's reform packages, passed with great fanfare, ignore the most significant perils facing the United States. In The Mendacity of Hope, Roger D. Hodge makes the provocative case that substantive reform was never even on the table. Behind the euphoria of Obama's victory was in fact a business-as-usual corporate machine, a bloc of political investors, campaign contributors, and lobbyists expecting big returns on their investments. And what a return they have received: in one bailout after another, for the health insurance industry as well as for Wall Street, Obama made sure that the Democratic Party's most powerful investors made out like bandits.

None of Obama's most important campaign promises—ending the Iraq war, abolishing torture, closing Guant�namo, changing Washington's culture of corruption—has come to pass. Instead, he has escalated the conflict in Afghanistan, bailed out the bankers, and institutionalized the civil rights abuses of the Bush regime.

Another president might have played the forces of corporate interest differently, but Hodge argues that the fantasy of American politics is that a different kind of president is possible without a fundamental reform of our political system. Americans bought into the delusion that one man could bring change to Washington, but instead of reform we've seen a continuation of George W. Bush's assault on the Constitution. Obama's presidency has demonstrated that mere hope is never enough, that change will come only when the American people take charge of their own politics. A brilliantly crafted call to arms, The Mendacity of Hope offers an essential analysis of the American political system and the powerful interests that control our government.

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