"Take this Job and Ship It!" / Rallying Cry for Dem Populism (Book Review [View All]

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Take This Job and Ship It:How Corporate Greed and Brain Dead Politics Are Selling Out America

A Rallying Cry for Democratic Populism/
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan
Thomas Dunne Books, 288 pp., $24.95

Review by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum -Washington Post

What would happen if the opposition party actually chose to oppose the one in power? Not just on the margins, but by rejecting outright the majority party's fundamental beliefs on trade and tax policy?

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) urges Democrats to take on Republicans in just that way in his new book, "Take This Job and Ship It: How Corporate Greed and Brain Dead Politics Are Selling Out America." He makes a politically compelling -- if economically questionable -- case.

Dorgan, a master of partisan rhetoric, puts his debating skills to good use in spinning out anecdotes that make free trade and corporate tax breaks seem cruel to the average citizen. He clearly hopes to instruct fellow Democrats how to ride a populist wave if one were ever to form.

Democrats are deeply divided, of course, about whether to adopt his advice. Many prefer pro-business, pro-trade positions that distinguish them a little from the GOP, but not a lot. A growing number of others, however, are in Dorgan's radical camp. They think the way to finally win is to just say "No."

Depending on how low President Bush's job-approval ratings go, Dorgan might be on to something. His book is worth reading if only to see in detail how a reenergized Democratic Party might act.

Its first tenet would be to buck the economic consensus about the wisdom and inevitability of globalization. Dorgan disparages the elites' blind faith in markets to produce positive financial results. Instead, he concentrates on the human toll that cheap labor has exacted on low- and middle-income families.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/30/AR2006073000552_pf.html