Go Jimmy! Carter's book #1 on non-fiction list

Our Endangered Values

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/12/1.php

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The number one nonfiction bestseller in the country is Our Endangered Values by--Jimmy Carter.

It's parked above Frank McCourt's Teacher Man, Joan Didion's grief memoir, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Lincoln tome (and comeback vehicle), Al Franken's latest, and Maureen Dowd's Who Needs Men when Dildos Come in So Many Shapes and Colors?

Think about it. For thirty years Carter has been mocked and derided as a loser president, a feeble, ineffectual, careworn chief executive who, yes, presided over the Camp David accords, but whose single term of office was liver-spotted with the Iranian hostage crisis, Bert Lance, the "malaise" speech (though the word itself was never used), and a close call with a killer rabbit. For conservatives, the only good thing about the Carter presidency was that it provided the springboard for the glory and majesty of Ronald Reagan, and the American Restoration.

-snip-

Yet the perserverence and idealism with which Carter has pursued his post-presidency have not been for naught. His good works--especially through Habitat for Humanity--and unimpeachable integrity have not been lost on enough people who admire his tireless example and care enough about what he has to say to put him atop the bestseller list. It must madden right wingers. Thirty years they've flogged his name with a shitstick and he goes into the Christmas season with the country's bestselling nonfiction title. Whereas the only conservative book on Times' top-fifteen list hanging on at #14, Peter Schweizer's Do As I Say (Not as I Do), by Peter Schweizer, a hodge-podge of "profiles in liberal hypocrisy."
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don't you just love: "It must madden right wingers."

the article's last paragraph is a dandy one.

:patriot:

Yay! I was at my grandmother's (mom's mom) during Thanksgiving and me and her were watching the last part of the president series on the history channel and they talked about Carter and she said she always liked him best (if you're wondering she did vote for Kerry and doesn't like Bush and I got her to watch F911 :D ).

on The Daily Show tonight!

First two chapters setup his qualifications and background. I hold him in the highest possible regard. Can't believe how the Dems pretty much left him to hang out and dry.

i still shake my head when i think of the grief he got for his brother, whose main crime seemed to be drinking beer. what i wouldn't do to have *'s family sins on the front page every day.
i think the saudi's purposely messed up the us economy to get rid of him. they could not stand to have an honest, unbought man in the white house.

and spin yarns.

I worked for a woman who was a small time silver jewelry maker. Sara told stories endlessly while we worked on the jewelry. People COULD call her a liar... but she was really just spinning yarns.

Nothing wrong with that. Passes the time and entertains.

with child prostitutes.

first target success and they've continued to refined their dirty tactics since then.

I picked it up a few months ago, but just getting around to reading it. A very interesting 'fictional based on historical fact' of the American Revolutionary War, political issues of the day and the culture of the times - good read.

I'm interested in reading this new book, I've got a keen sense of the perspective based on interviews i've seen and I think it goes straight to the core of what is at stake in our culture today.

I am very disappointed with Carter's joining Howard Baker on the 2004 elections report, basically sanctioning yet another cover up as to the extent of the fraud and vote manipulation that flipped another election for W.

i kept waiting for him to speak out.

Although the media has portrayed him as such for the past 25 years -- the facts simply don't back that up.

Everything that went south during the Carter presidency was a result of the inflation spiral of the preceding decade.

Interest rates went up -- and as a result people stopped borrowing and started saving. Small investors and people with CDs got a great return on their money. Carter appointed Paul Volcker to the Fed. Reagan kept him on and Reagan got credit for Volcker's "turning the economy around".

The Bert Lance scandal was NO scandal. Lance got popped for unsecured lending to farmers. This was the way it had worked for decades in the rural communities where farmers got seed money and paid back their loans when the crop came in. The Lance deal was a pitiful attempt to find something, anything to smear Carter's ethics.

Carter's malaise speech analysis was a distortion -- same thing as the "Al Gore invested the internet" meme that the press distorted in 2000.

Carter was polling way ahead of Reagan at the beginning of the campaign. Several things transpired to change that:

1. The Democrats were split due to the Ted Kennedy challenge in the primaries. Many party activists sat on their hands during the campaign.

2. The press failed to report anything negative about Ronald Reagan.

3. George Will stole Carter's briefing book before the debate with Reagan and Reagan was prepped for responses to everything Carter would say. The "there you go again" stuff was totally rehearsed.

4. George Bush and Bill Casey were working alive to assure that the hostages would not be released during the campaign -- and making promises to sell the Iranians spare parts for their missiles in the event of a Reagan win.

5. The oil industry spent an unknown fortune to defeat Carter because of the "Windfall Profits Tax".

So Carter loses in a landslide and the conventional wisdom is that Carter was a bad president. Nothing could be further from the truth. Carter was all about human rights and dignity; peace and understanding; civil rights and tolerance; economic justice and judicial fairness. He was defeated by a regime that began ushering in the perverted Democracy we now live under.

as one of America's greatest Presidents.

Besides all that you mentioned, Carter put in place actions and incentives to rid us of our oil dependence. Most if not all were rescinded by Reagan.

So who do conservatives worship? The true conservative Carter, or the use it up and spend like no tomorrow Reagan.

I to this day wonder what things would be like today be like if Carter had gotten a second term.

This is arguably treason.

But I don't think it's ever been PROVEN, has it?

It certainly fits the facts.

Someone with integrity to burn

who tried, and tries, to do good. And, HMO, a man who is a Christian in more than name. Thank you, sir.

:patriot:


Lisby

Kansas City, MO - President Jimmy Carter says President Bush's policies conflict with American values. More than a thousand people packed into Unity Temple on the Plaza for the former president to sign a copy of his new book "Our Endangered Values." Reviews call the book biting political commentary, despite the fact that there's an unwritten rule in American politics that former presidents do not criticize current ones. Carter says he wrote this book reluctantly, but did so because he just couldn't stay silent anymore. "In the last 5 years there's been a dramatic and disturbing and radical change in the values of this country," Carter said. For example, he says peace is an American value, not pre-emptive war: "we don't wait until our country is threatened," Carter said, "we publicly announced our new policy is to attack a county, invade a country, bomb a county." He says another American value is human rights. For decades the US has supported the Geneva convention saying we won't torture prisoners, but he says now "our senators are voting to keep torture. It's inconceivable this would happen in the United States of America." Carter also says American politics is being infused with what he calls "fundamentalist" religion. Carter, who is a born again Christian, says blurring the line between church and state is dangerous.

those that are on the radio, the hate speakers, the war mongers, the Bush liars. They are all saying one thing over and over and over and over . . .

"The reason Liberal books do so well (especially Jimmy Carter) is because they put every Conservative book written in the back of the store under "Politics," or under "Cook Books," even the brand new ones. If we didn't tell you people about this, you would think that only Liberals wrote books."



Yet, again we will be blamed for their continuous failure to sell books. If they had more than a pea for a brain, maybe they would realize the American People aren't as stupid as they think we are. We are tired of the same old stories and lies of supposed leadership from one man, Reagan (who didn't fart without Nancy checking with their astrologer), as well as they stating he ended the Cold War.

Jimmy Carter, himself, will sit and tell you that HE ended the Cold War, NOT a D-rated celebrity, who the last couple years of his life was already in the stages of Alzheimer's.

Read a book by Leslie Stahl when she was the White House Correspondent during the Reagan Administration. Republicans call it a "fable," but if it's a lie, seems to me that an Editor and Chief would not let it go to print. The book is called, “Reporting Live."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0684829304/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/002-3611685-3246455?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

that's so untrue. A good while back I was at Walden's in the mall and I got Al Franken's "Lies" book and there were plenty of conservative books on the front sheleves. They have them all lined up and behind the book is other copies. :eyes: They had Ann Coulter and that nonsense book "The Truth about Hillary" and others. And at this other book store in the mall they had TONS of conservative books from Hannity and O'Reilly to Coulter.

they can come up with I suppose. I mean when Hillary Clinton sells 4 million+ copies of her first book and Coulter sells 10,000 copies of hers, they have to come up with something.

What amazes me is Coulters book will get on the "Best Sellers List" but still only sell 10,000 copies.

You know how the right works. If you don't know which is true and which is a lie, conjure up a lie plus add to it if it is about the left.

They just cannot accept the fact that we are superior cognitively, spiritually (by everyone worshiping their God the way they want to . . . not being told it's either the one dimensional, narrow-minded way or eternal damnation.). We do not have to stand and daily pronounce that we are "Gods" chosen. We have respect for all creatures, big and small. We accept the scientific facts presented to us regarding global warming, evolution, and the ancient history of man. We are not pro abortion but pro choice, and speaking of abortion, they need to do some digging in their little fertility clinics and see just how many abortions happen there yearly.

Sorry, got carried away as usual. This will end the thread I'm sure. My threads always do.

He really tries to stay away from partisanship. Most Republicans I talk to really respect him, they just feel he was an inadequate president.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

gas shortage and creating gas station lines around the block, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies (who disliked Carter's more humane foreign policy, aimed at justice and peace and away from assassinations of foreign leaders and trumped up wars) just killing him, media-wise, with blown-out-of-proportion foibles (as could be done to any human being), and then the war profiteering financial institutions artificially jacking up inflation, and on and on...

...and, finally, the coup de grace, REAGAN's campaign operatives negotiating with the Iranian hostage-takers, over Carter's head, to HOLD OFF release of the hostages until after the 1980 election.

Good 'ol Walter Cronkite is also not without blame. CBS put a "counter" on their screens every night, during the news, counting off the days that the hostages were still held.

Peace, justice and humanity were not to be the policies of the United States. Reagan was no more in office than the Iran-Contra thugs began their covert war on Nicaragua--of assassinations of teachers and mayors who supported Daniel Ortega's mild socialism, and near bloodless revolution--in direct violation of a law passed by Congress FORBIDDING a war against that country.

Reagan should have been impeached for that offense, but he never was--and his thugs got off much too easy (and are back with us now!). We had a Democratic Congress, and an investigation, and then...basically, nothing. The Dems were already hogtied to military spending at that point, and very much in the pockets of the military-corporate complex.

I watched those hearings--with Ollie North and all. And, in the end, it looked like a Boys' Club to me. Everybody politely patting each other on the back. The Dems weren't about to seek real justice, or to expose the secret government that was oppressing us and everybody else.

There was also the Reagan tax code re-write, eliminating the progressive income tax (and favoring the rich). And, ominously, the arming of Saddam Hussein with WMDs to use against the Iranians. (We were arming both sides!)

And, finally, there was the arming of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin in Afghanistan--to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union (who was actually running a fairly decent government in that country--lots of school projects, freedom for women, improved medical care, and creation of a civil society).

Just another pawn in our game, to Reagan and Reaganites, who were bent on smashing "communism" once and for all, as a rival system to predatory capitalism.

All the pieces were put in place--taking from the poor to give to the rich, huge, wasteful military spending, covert wars--that would come back, later, and on a much bigger scale, to utterly destroy our democracy and our progressive society, loot our country blind, and send it into a tailspin of international disgrace and penury.

Which is where we are now. Reaganism writ large. And no "checks and balances."

Prior to the Bush junta we had what I think of as "the Clinton compromise"--letting the global corporate predators loose for worldwide piracy, with NAFTA, GATT and other completely undemocratic "trade agreements," while to some extent curtailing the worser thuggism of the Iran-Contra variety. Clinton, for instance, supported democracy in Haiti and other places, and the reduction of CIA death squad/assassination activity in Latin America helped pave the way for the rebirth of democracy in places like Venezuela*--but he did not stop the wholesale looting of third world economies, nor take care to prevent the bleeding of jobs from the US, loss of labor rights, and worldwide environmental destruction (rampant with "global trade"). He promised labor and environmental protections. He reneged on those promises.

Clinton also oversaw "welfare reform"--kicking poor mothers off welfare and into low paying jobs, with no benefits, and no child care. And then, of course, even those low-paying jobs began to disappear.

Neither was his administration completely peaceful--by any means. These corporate predator policies require some violence to enforce. What Clinton did in Iraq, for instance--bombing the "no fly" zones, and continuing stiff economic sanctions after the first Gulf War under Bush I--completely crippled Iraq (and killed lots of innocents), and made Iraq fair game for Bush II when he got into office. (Bush II's war on Iraq has to be the most cowardly thing that our nation has ever done.)

On Clinton's side, he at least did most military actions with a UN mandate--thus supporting the forum in which world opinion could act to prevent precipitous military action. More form than substance, but still, some acknowledgment that the world has a right to a say in such actions, and to oversee them, and that diplomacy and cooperation are the guiding rules.

A mixed bag, Clinton. But, bottom-line, Reaganism did not really go away. The unfair tax structure remained; the military funding and capabilities remained, and the fascists just bided their time (while distracting the populace with truly sleazy harassment of Clinton and fear of rightwing witch-burners).

Carter doesn't fit very well into this picture of increasing fascism and Democratic compromisers--except that the military-corporate "powers that be" couldn't abide him. He is a man without a country, in many ways--as are we all these days. Carter was the last truly honest and truly humane leader of our country--and probably the last one of that breed who was electable by the people (because, despite filthy-money corporate interference in our elections, the vote count was still transparent enough for a Carter to BE elected).

I hope and trust that his model of decent, ethical and humane government will rise again, that we will be able to throw off these murderers and thieves, and re-build the good country that most Americans want.

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*(It is quite interesting that Carter was key to transparent, honest elections in Venezuela--and has worked so hard on the issue of election transparency in other countries. He must be appalled at what has happened here. I believe he was making an effort with the deviously-created Baker-Carter commission to keep track of their doings, and try to bend them in the right direction. I think because of Carter--and also, importantly, due to the strenuous activism and effort of grass roots reform groups--their report wasn't as bad and twisted as it could have been. (The commission was stacked with e-voting industry advocates and presenters.) Anybody know if his book says anything about our compromised election system?

only reportings on the report, including Carter's interviews on the subject- which essentially says, nothing much to report here on fraud, just a lot of other "problems".

but i didn't expect anything else with Howard Baker overseeing the "project".

commission. It was JAMES Baker--architect of Bush's year 2000 election theft--who headed that commission with Carter--not Howard. (Howard Baker was the Republican minority leader in the Senate Watergate hearings--now ambassador to Japan, I believe. Wonder what he thinks of all this.)

Carter has pills for nation's ills
Holly Mullen
11/29/05

Try, just try to find a copy somewhere in Salt Lake or environs of Our Endangered Values, the new book by President Carter.

I called five bookstores Monday morning in hot pursuit of the publication, in which, critics say, the 39th U.S. president and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner calmly but candidly illustrates how the steady blurring of the line between church and state is a major threat to individual liberties and the nation's general prosperity.

How strongly does Carter feel about this? He subtitled the book "America's Moral Crisis." The 81-year-old Democrat and devout Baptist has been on a grueling national book tour, which brought him to Salt Lake a week ago. His stop at the Sugar House Barnes & Noble attracted a line that stretched four blocks into the frigid night and kept people coming for hours.

Now, bookstore manager Mike Johnson told me no copies of the best-seller are to be had. Anywhere. "The publisher has run out," he said, adding that Simon & Schuster is scrambling to deliver more books nationwide for peak holiday sales. "We're told that demand exceeds supply, period," Johnson said. He didn't have an exact number of people who brought a book for Carter's autograph last week. "Thousands," he said. Eighty-one years young, Jimmy Carter is onto something here. And people think nothing of standing in line for hours to feel a part of it.


http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3260922

I've felt for a long time that Americans were being mis-read, and greatly maligned as "sheeple" by nearly everybody, and no one was paying attention to what they really think--as reflected, say, in the issue polls over the last two year. (Example: 63% of Americans opposed to torture "under any circumstances," May '04--despite relentless fearmongering and war propaganda.)

I am convinced that there is a great progressive American majority which has been disempowere, demoralized, and, above all, DISENFRANCHISED.

It looks like Carter is tapping into it. Go, Jimmy!

And guess who I heard on the radio two days ago--on the Alan Colmbs show--84 year old Fr. Dan Berrigan--burner of Draft records, past fugitive from the FBI on the "ten most wanted list," Jesuit priest, poet and antiwar activist, with plans to get arrested again in an antiwar action in the near future that he didn't want to specify! 84 four years old!

Love and peace to all!

GO JIMMY!!

:patriot:

...out of the election.

You go Jimmy.

I have the book and am reading it now and it's really well so far. :D

He is way more astute than people realize