Reviews
On Amazon.com, for all editions:
An
odd yet revealing book, June 28, 2000, Thomas
Veil "thomasveil”
I
picked up a freebie copy of this book on a bench in the hallway of my local
university. As a "history of the future" it looked very peculiar.
Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I read it cover to cover in
one sitting.
The
15% Solution is basically an attempt in 1995 to write a "non-fiction"
wake-up call against the proto-fascist tendencies of the religious right. While
it is a "history of the future" and each chapter details future
events, the book has a large number of footnoted references to statements made
by the Gingrich Republicans around 1994-95. "Jonathan Westminster"
wants us to see the seeds of fascist rule in the Contract on America.
How
you receive this verdict depends on where you stand. I thought that
Westminster's quotes from the Gingrich sheep were revealing and disturbing.
Nonetheless, this book seems more a product of its time than an accurate
forecast. American politics have moved in a very different direction from that
which the author foretold.
How
does this stand up as a fictional work of non-fiction? The verdict here is
mixed. Each chapter of the book details a step in the legal assault of future
Presidents (from the "Right-Wing Reaction") on the Constitution then
links their acts to 90s conservatism while stressing that there is no
"historical evidence" that Limbaugh, Buchanan, Armey et al would
support such measures. The chapters are quite repetitive and focus entirely on
legal discussions. Some of the characters whose political observations are
quoted get very redundant. Nonetheless the story is not uninteresting.
This
book is gimmicky and a little strange. I doubt conservatives can or will read
it and like it. Nonetheless, for what it was, I found it readable and
interesting if a bit off.
Alarming, but with a
framework for a better way, December 7, 2001, Dwain Deets
I thought this book had an intriguing approach. It is a
political fiction, I guess you would say, in the same
sense that we have science fiction. It extended a trend that was going on in
the mid-nineties a decade or two, from that point, into the future. The
scenario it played out was definitely an extreme, with what the author called
the "Contract on America" as the launching point. This of course is
the give away. The Republicans called it the Contract WITH America, so this
book is from a perspective highly critical of what it calls the Right-Wing
Reaction. If the reader can set aside his or her philosophical perspective for
a moment, the book provides an alarming insight into how easy it might be to
change the U.S. Constitution, through the amendment process, into something
totally at odds with what our founding fathers intended. Through a combination
of factors, both the Supreme Court and the Congress become ineffectual, leaving
the President to govern without checks and balance. The President becomes, in
effect, a dictator, governing completely within the law, in what clearly must
be described as fascist. This all happens because a cohesive alternative plan
is never brought to the American people, therefore a growing segment become
disenchanted with politics, chooses not to vote, and a mere 15% of the eligible
voters are able to elect the Right-Wing Reaction's slate of candidates.
The author has very high regard for the Constitution and
Declaration of Independence, and gives considerable insight into many of their
core principles. Finally, the author concludes with cohesive alternative plan
that might have been adopted, one that flows directly from the Constitution and
Declaration of Independence. I thought one of the most valuable aspects of the
book was the use of these two bedrock documents, showing how they can serve as
a framework or philosophy for developing a comprehensive governing plan.
Eerily prescient, June 23, 2006, D. Howell "pinget"
I just started reading this book. I have no idea how the author
knew 10 years ago exactly what would be going on in American politics today,
but he did. I'm just waiting for the amendment to the bill of rights solving
our immigrant problem by stating that you are not an American citizen unless at
least one of your parents is a citizen. That's the next step in the author's
timeline. When that happens, I will be seriously creeped out.
Just a couple years ahead of time, January 13, 2006, D. Sokal "political cyclist" North Carolina)
This book extrapolates the rise of executive power, starting
with "The Real War on Drugs," which is started by a Republican
president elected in 2000. Substitute the War on Terror for the Real War on
Drugs, and the first couple of chapters read like recent history. Bush and
Cheney's fear mongering, with the help of a rubber stamp Republican congress,
are leading us toward a fascist state, where the President and Big Business run
the country, under a single party government.
With Alito heading for approval as I write this, our democratic form of
government really seems to be in danger. It will probably play out slightly
differently than the later chapters of this book, but the first few are right
on target.
This is must reading for anyone concerned about the future of our country.
By Michael Carmichael, Editor/Publisher of The Moving
Planet Blog (http://www.planetarymovement.org/), March
3, 2003
The truth is stranger
than fiction
The merger of the Republican party with the right-wing
religious evangelism of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell; the supreme
exaltation of the executive branch of government initiated by Nixon, Reagan and
Bush; the congressional acquiescence in extraordinary powers to the presidency;
the 'voluntary' censorship of the press; the suspension of civil rights; the
retraction of the fourth amendment; the isolation from constitutional
protection for targeted segments of society; the systematic insinuation of
civilians into domestic espionage; the use of torture in prisons; the
perversion of the concept of American patriotism to mean nothing more than
political support for the president; the reduction of government to military
and police operations; the implementation of vast secret police forces; engagement in ill-defined foreign wars;
tax cuts for the rich; dissolution of domestic social programmes;
merger of state and Christian church; deletion of women's rights to terminate
pregnancies; legalisation of marital rape, incest and
domestic violence; scientific confirmation of the intellectual inferiority of
racial groups; ; racial discrimination in law enforcement and criminal justice;
repeal of environmental protection laws and the dissolution of the EPA; large
scale timber felling and mineral exploitation in national parks by private
corporations; the political
implosion of the Democratic Party - Sound familiar? If so, then imagine that somewhere in America, a single
solitary visionary at work alone in his garret produced a novel based on the
scenario above. Now imagine the
date: 1996. Jonathan Westminster has done precisely
that.
In 1996, Westminster envisioned that the sociopolitical
trends launched in the postwar period would coagulate and merge into a tide of
fascist ideology. He predicted
that the political mobilisation of the right-wing of American society would result in the
destruction of civil liberties, the bill of rights and the constitution by
perfectly constitutional means. In
so doing, Westminster has provided a detailed blueprint for the current Bush
administration, which from many vantage points appears to be moving the United
States inexorably in the direction of the fascist governments of the
1930s. Given the circumstances, it
is clear that the present US administration may yet fulfill "The 15%
Solution's" core premise, a fascist takeover of US government by purely
peaceful, legal and electoral means.
The 15% solution of the title is a reference to the Reverend
Pat Robertson's stated political strategy: to mobilise the 15% of hard
right-wing loonies, gun nuts, religious fanatics and cross burners and to
engineer the simultaneous disaffection, disenfranchisement and alienation of a
substantial proportion of the American electorate in order to seize political
power through the polls.
In Westminster’s vision of a dystopian American future, a
second final solution is eventually implemented. The extermination of homosexuals, blacks and other racial
minorities and ethnic groups becomes popular as a necessity to ensure the
national security and the morality of the American fascist state.
Westminster provides a new definition of patriotism,
"Love of one's country, and devotion to the defense of its best
interests." According to
Westminster, patriotism is not, "Blind devotion to the President and what
he alone claims the country's best interests are." He continues, "Republicans depend
heavily upon the latter, false, definition of patriotism. They always couch patriotism in terms
of militaristic symbols and loyalty to the President. Thus they focus on: the flag itself (not what it stands for in terms of personal freedom): America is always right (regardless of
whose interests are really being served or harmed by what policy): militarism (the easy response to
difficult challenges): and 'support the President' (this latter position being
especially perverse in light of the supposed Republican aversion to
'government,' especially the Federal government)."
Instead, Westminster redefines patriotism as devotion to the
principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill
of Rights. This shift in understanding
the historical origins at the heart of patriotism in America falsifies the
prevailing creed driving the Republican agenda.
While the author would probably deny it, he is a scholar of
American Constitutional history and Constitutional law. The essence of his case is that a series
of Republican administrations beginning with Nixon have undermined the
constitution to the point that the political slide into a fascist future is
inevitable. The acquiescence of
the Democratic Party in this process has not gone unnoticed. Westminster squarely blames Democrats
of the 1980s-90s for failing to respond to the lies at the root of the problems
facing contemporary America. In The 15% Solution, the historical period
of the 1980s-90s is termed "the pre-fascist transformational period in
American history". Westminster lashes out specifically at the Democratic Leadership Council
(DLC) as the onus of the political collaboration with the fascist ideologies underpinning
the Republicanism of Limbaugh, Falwell, Robertson,
Buchanan, the Bushes, Reagan and Gingrich. Truman's sagacious warning to the Democratic Party to be
faithful and steadfast to the tradition of FDR rings throughout "The 15%
Solution," "If people want to vote for Republicans, they will vote
for the real thing, not Democrats warmed over and disguised as
Republicans."
Westminster's book is filled with fictional characters who constantly refer to the well known ideological leaders
and paragons of the American right. The characters embark on the morality-driven dismantling of the
constitution while quoting the speeches of Buchanan, Robertson and Falwell. Westminster's book warns America that the inspirational potential of the
religious right cannot be underestimated, and that to ignore their direct
threat to liberty and justice will lead to the imposition of a fascist state
headquartered in Washington within the very near future.
In years to come, The
15% Solution will be either: hailed as a visionary book that could have
prevented the political imposition of fascism in America or the book that
actually prevented it. As
groundbreaking as Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin or London's The Iron Heel, The 15% Solution is a wakeup call to all
Americans seriously concerned about their country's future.
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