Democracy Matters

Cornel West, one of the most eloquent articulators of the state of affairs today, has a new book out: Democracy Matters.



Anthony Day reviews it in the L.A. Times. An excerpt:

"Cornel West's 'Democracy Matters' is a jeremiad against contemporary America. West writes that it is ironic '9/11 -- a vicious attack on innocent civilians by gangsters -- becomes the historic occasion for the full-scale gangsterization of America.'

Three dogmas, he says, have contributed to this gangsterization: free market fundamentalism, which 'posits the unregulated and unfettered market as idol and fetish'; aggressive militarism, which 'takes the form of unilateral intervention, colonial invasion and armed occupation abroad'; and escalating authoritarianism, which 'is rooted in our understandable paranoia toward potential terrorists, our traditional fear of too many liberties and our deep distrust of one another.'"