Product Description

Prominent CNN host and commentator Lou Dobbs unleashes his manifesto on the vanishing American dream

Through his nightly CNN show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, his syndicated radio program, and his monthly magazine column, Lou Dobbs has become one of America’s most visible, popular, and respected voices on business and financial matters. Now, with War on the Middle Class, Dobbs takes an impassioned and rousing stance on the all-out class war that is turning the American dream into a nightmare.

The middle class has never been so vulnerable. Its every feature is under assault by politicians and the lobbyists who court them, big-business corporations that are sending their jobs overseas, and a media that relies on sensationalism instead of facts when reporting the news. In a sweeping analysis, Dobbs looks at every aspect of the decline of the middle class—from a lack of political representation to America’s corrupt health-care system—to demonstrate how the gap between America’s newest haves and have-nots is no longer merely financial, but instead includes the erosion of education, employment, government, and community. Dobbs proposes a series of measures to resolve each issue and incite people, whose future is being mortgaged to benefit a powerful few, to preserve their rights and dreams. War on the Middle Class is provocative, incendiary, and bound to be widely discussed—the perfect book to establish the terms of debate in this year’s midterm elections.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #258623 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 276 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Though a self-confessed "lifelong Republican and a strong believer in free enterprise," Dobbs's opinions have evolved away from mainline GOP and corporate dogma. Charging that the Clinton and Bush administrations have waged "class warfare" on the American middle class, he criticizes their free trade policies, which have eliminated manufacturing jobs in the U.S., either outright or by outsourcing them. He's scornful of a GOP that panders to its fundamentalist religious base with bills that focus on abortion, gay marriage and the Pledge of Allegiance while the huge federal deficits ("an estate tax on the middle class and their children") spiral out of control. He rails against the K Street lobbyists, like Jack Abramoff, and their friends in Congress; chastises the credit card and banking industries for engineering the new bankruptcy law to their own profits; and criticizes the press for its sloppy "he says, she says" journalism. But Dobbs risks slipping from populist to demagogue in his jeremiad against the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and his support for the vigilante Minuteman Project. Agree with him or not, Dobbs remains a refreshingly bold thinker who refuses to be intellectually pigeonholed. (Oct. 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Dobbs, cable TV anchor and journalist, offers strong opinions on what he terms the war on the middle class, America's "working men and women." From corporate ownership of our political system to the near extinction of labor unions and the outsourcing of many jobs, the author paints a grim picture indeed. He is critical of churches that favor social issues under the banner of "family values" rather than promoting the common good, and decries the state of America's health-care system and education. The author's recommendations include individuals' changing their voter registration from Democrat or Republican to Independent, public financing of elections, and promoting voter initiatives and referenda. He wants to reform the lobbyist system in Washington, impose ethical standards on Congress, change the process of trade negotiations, and strictly protect our borders from illegal immigrants. Dobbs is a controversial figure. Although he correctly identifies important national issues in this book, his perspective will be embraced by his supporters and rejected by critics. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“His refreshing prose, like his on-air persona, combines seemingly unmixable ingredients [and] thanks to Dobbs’ passion and charisma [War on the Middle Class] succeeds in sounding an alarm that cannot be ignored.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“[Dobbs] manages to shine a powerful spotlight on many outrages.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“[Dobbs is] a refreshingly bold thinker who refuses to be intellectually pigeon-holed.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review