Many Americans believe Barack Obama represents a hopeful future for America. But does he also reflect the American politics of the past? This book offers the broadest and best-informed understanding on the meaning of the Obama phenomenon to date.Paul Street was on the ground throughout the Iowa campaign, and his stories of the rising Obama phenomenon are poignant. Yet the author s background in American political history allows him to explore the deeper meanings of Obama s remarkable political career. He looks at Obama in relation to contemporary issues of class, race, war, and empire. He considers Obama in the context of our nation s political history, with comparisons to FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, and other leaders. Street finds that the Obama persona, crafted by campaign consultants and filtered through dominant media trends, masks the change candidate s adherence to long-prevailing power structures and party doctrines. He shows how American political culture has produced misperceptions by the electorate of Obama s positions and values. Obama is no magical exception to the narrow-spectrum electoral system and ideological culture that have done so much to define and limit the American political tradition. Yet the author suggests key ways in which Obama potentially advances democratic transformation. Street makes recommendations on how citizens can productively respond to and act upon Obama s influence and the broader historical and social forces that have produced his celebrity and relevance. He also lays out a real agenda for change for the new presidential administration, one that addresses the recent failures of democratic politics.This study differs from previous books on Obama in at least three ways: (1) Street s determination to offer a balanced but critical assessment of the Obama phenomenon from a perspective shaped by years of engagement with Left theory and activism; (2) Street s effort to understand the phenomenon in a deeply researched historical, societal, and institutional context, consistently relating Obama s career and candidacy to the ongoing historical development and dilemmas of U.S. political culture; (3) Street s ability to deepen his account by drawing on his considerable direct experience with the phenomenon over years as a civil rights researcher and advocate on the south side of Chicago (2000 2005) and as a campaign activist in Iowa during the long and critical Iowa primary (caucus) season of 2007 2008.Read the "Huffington Post" interview with Paul Street: Huffington Post interviewRead the "ZNet" interview with Paul Street: ZNet Interview Read the "Firedoglake Book Salon" feature of this book: Firedoglake Review"

- What real progress have we made to meaningfully reform America's schools?
- Is the racial make-up of today's schools, as Paul Street argues, in a state of de facto apartheid?
- How do we begin to realize the equality that "Brown v. Board of Education" envisioned?
With an eye to the historical development of segregated education, Street examines the current state of school funding, disparities in teacher quality, student-teacher ratios, and more. Critical of "No Child Left Behind" and the school vouchers initiative, Street proposes no easy answers for creating equal educational opportunities for every American child. Instead, he offers both theoretical concepts and practical solutions for fulfilling the promise of integrated and equitable schools for all.

--Uses a fascism frame to explain new forms of fascism today and why solutions need be bold enough to meet these new challenges. --Explains how Trump tapped reactionary tendencies embedded in the nation's founding and frontier history which rose to the fore dues to the crisis of social cohesion and bourgeois democracy imposed by late 20th and 21st century capitalism. --Traces the mainstream intellectual's remarkable and stubborn denial of the fascist nature of the Trump presidency.

--Uses a fascism frame to explain new forms of fascism today and why solutions need be bold enough to meet these new challenges. --Explains how Trump tapped reactionary tendencies embedded in the nation's founding and frontier history which rose to the fore dues to the crisis of social cohesion and bourgeois democracy imposed by late 20th and 21st century capitalism. --Traces the mainstream intellectual's remarkable and stubborn denial of the fascist nature of the Trump presidency.

A sequel to Street s "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics," this new book documents and assesses Obama s newly emergent record on domestic and foreign politics against his original agenda for change. Although mainstream journalists have noted discrepancies between Obama s original vision and reality, Paul Street uniquely measures Obama s record against the expectations of the truly progressive agenda many of his supporters expected him to follow. Taken together, the list of Obama s weakened policies is startling: his business-friendly measures with the economy, the lack of support for the growing mass of unemployed and poor, the dilution of his health reform agenda, the passage of a record-setting Pentagon budget, and the escalation of U.S. military violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Street s account reveals these and many other indications of how deeply beholden Obama is to existing dominant domestic and global hierarchies and doctrines. His new book yields a perspective on Obama and current politics that is scarcely found in mainstream media. No progressive reader will want to miss it Help Paul raise funds for his east coast speaking tour this summer by going here: kickstarter.com"

A sequel to Street s "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics," this new book documents and assesses Obama s newly emergent record on domestic and foreign politics against his original agenda for change. Although mainstream journalists have noted discrepancies between Obama s original vision and reality, Paul Street uniquely measures Obama s record against the expectations of the truly progressive agenda many of his supporters expected him to follow. Taken together, the list of Obama s weakened policies is startling: his business-friendly measures with the economy, the lack of support for the growing mass of unemployed and poor, the dilution of his health reform agenda, the passage of a record-setting Pentagon budget, and the escalation of U.S. military violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Street s account reveals these and many other indications of how deeply beholden Obama is to existing dominant domestic and global hierarchies and doctrines. His new book yields a perspective on Obama and current politics that is scarcely found in mainstream media. No progressive reader will want to miss it Help Paul raise funds for his east coast speaking tour this summer by going here: kickstarter.com"

"This is an impressive collection: well-informed, well-written, covering highly important topics over an impressive range, with no hesitation about taking an honest stand that gets right to the heart of the matter in case after case." Noam Chomsky A frequent columnist in Z magazine, Black Commentator, and other magazines, Paul Street has closely monitored the deterioration of civil liberties since 9/11. In his new book, Street challenges the widely accepted notion that 'everything changed' on 9/11. The event of 9/11 changed the lives of thousands of people in tragic and lasting ways, but some things it did not drastically alter were the long-term goals of the Bush administration. Rather, the terrorist attacks offered a way for them to fully realize these goals, through waging war against fictional enemies abroad and against civil liberties at home. By pointing out rampant injustices in society and doggedly pursuing the blatant contradictions in current government policies, Street reveals a very different America than the government or media portray. Empire and Inequality shows how the jetliner attacks provided a windfall opportunity to accelerate pre-existing trends towards greater global and domestic hierarchy, inequality, and repression. Street shows how the elites of American government and business used classic propaganda mechanisms in pursuit of this regressive and authoritarian agenda in the "post-9/11 era." Street offers a cogent critique of the myth of the powerless state, showing that U.S. government's cup runs over when it comes to serving the wealthy and privileged few and is empty only when it comes to meeting the needs of the non-affluent majority. Empire and Inequality is a powerful reflection on the inseparable, deepening, and mutually reinforcing relationships that exist between empire abroad and inequality and repression at home in the "post 9/11 era."

"This is an impressive collection: well-informed, well-written, covering highly important topics over an impressive range, with no hesitation about taking an honest stand that gets right to the heart of the matter in case after case." Noam Chomsky A frequent columnist in Z magazine, Black Commentator, and other magazines, Paul Street has closely monitored the deterioration of civil liberties since 9/11. In his new book, Street challenges the widely accepted notion that 'everything changed' on 9/11. The event of 9/11 changed the lives of thousands of people in tragic and lasting ways, but some things it did not drastically alter were the long-term goals of the Bush administration. Rather, the terrorist attacks offered a way for them to fully realize these goals, through waging war against fictional enemies abroad and against civil liberties at home. By pointing out rampant injustices in society and doggedly pursuing the blatant contradictions in current government policies, Street reveals a very different America than the government or media portray. Empire and Inequality shows how the jetliner attacks provided a windfall opportunity to accelerate pre-existing trends towards greater global and domestic hierarchy, inequality, and repression. Street shows how the elites of American government and business used classic propaganda mechanisms in pursuit of this regressive and authoritarian agenda in the "post-9/11 era." Street offers a cogent critique of the myth of the powerless state, showing that U.S. government's cup runs over when it comes to serving the wealthy and privileged few and is empty only when it comes to meeting the needs of the non-affluent majority. Empire and Inequality is a powerful reflection on the inseparable, deepening, and mutually reinforcing relationships that exist between empire abroad and inequality and repression at home in the "post 9/11 era."

"Crashing the Tea Party" challenges conventional dogmas related to the most recent movement of choice of conservative America and the mass media. This book undertakes a critical journalistic and scholarly examination of the Tea Party at the national and local level. Through firsthand observation of local Tea Party chapters, Street and DiMaggio uncover details about the Tea Party that have remained largely unexplored. Is the Tea Party a genuine social movement or a top-down interest group created largely by the mass media, Republican Party, and corporate funding? Street and DiMaggio explore this question systematically, closely documenting their results. They show how mass media reporting and commentary affect public opinion of the Tea Party and its preferred policy whipping boy, health care reform, in particular. This book fills the gap in public understanding of how social movements fit within the larger political ideologies on the left and right, and the growing role of media in influencing public opinion on major issues of the day. Street and DiMaggio cover the Tea Party from the inside out, and in the context of the 2010 Midterm elections, the Wisconsin Worker Movement, and the Arab Spring."

"Crashing the Tea Party" challenges conventional dogmas related to the most recent movement of choice of conservative America and the mass media. This book undertakes a critical journalistic and scholarly examination of the Tea Party at the national and local level. Through firsthand observation of local Tea Party chapters, Street and DiMaggio uncover details about the Tea Party that have remained largely unexplored. Is the Tea Party a genuine social movement or a top-down interest group created largely by the mass media, Republican Party, and corporate funding? Street and DiMaggio explore this question systematically, closely documenting their results. They show how mass media reporting and commentary affect public opinion of the Tea Party and its preferred policy whipping boy, health care reform, in particular. This book fills the gap in public understanding of how social movements fit within the larger political ideologies on the left and right, and the growing role of media in influencing public opinion on major issues of the day. Street and DiMaggio cover the Tea Party from the inside out, and in the context of the 2010 Midterm elections, the Wisconsin Worker Movement, and the Arab Spring."

They Rule reflects on key political questions raised by the Occupy movement, showing how similar questions have been raised by previous generations of radical activists: who really owns and rules the US? Does it matter that the nation is divided by stark class disparities and a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few? Along the way, this book sharpens readers' sense of who the US oligarchy are, including how their fortunes have changed over the course of US history, how they live and think and how to detect and de-cloak them. They Rule is a masterful historical and political analysis, revealing what lies beneath the surface of US society and what ordinary people can do to bring about social change.

This book reflects on key questions raised by recent movements and statements about the status of American politics and polity from the Tea Party to Occupy, from the 1% to the 47% to the 99% that is the rest of us. These questions have also been raised by previous generations of labor, farmer, socialist, anarchist, and populist protestors and critics: Who owns and rules America beyond the pretense of democratic popular governance? Why does it matter that the nation s economy, society, culture, and politics are torn by stark class disparities and a concentration of wealth in the hands of a privileged few? What is the price of that savage inequality? And what can we the people do about it in defense of democracy, a livable natural environment, and the common good of all? Along the way, this book sharpens readers sense of who the US oligarchy are; how their fortunes have changed over the course of American history; how they live and think; and how to detect and de-cloak them. Paul Street is a master at revealing what lies beneath the surfaces of American politics and society and bringing his readers to the forefront of action."