Waterstones No Is Not Enough

Author: Tambok

Rating: 5

Review: A very important book that gives an insight into what the great American public have foisted on themselves,and the rest of the world given the effect events there have Worldwide. A big part of the book is showing that Donald Trump and his fellow multi-millionaire reprobates are not just harmless buffoons but a dangerous cabal wiping their feet on democracy but also dismantling decades of social and political progress and putting the planet at risk in the process. There's a whole lot more to it than that and thankfully some light at the end of the tunnel. I didn't agree with all of it but it's a book I'd urge everyone to read as Klein gets her views and ideas across with battering the reader over the head with it and her urge for a return to society (just part of her solution) is a worthwhile one. There was a bit of a rant towards the end and parts of it were of far more interest to American or Canadian readers but it's well thought out and the conversational style that she says she decided on before writing the book works well for those like myself very much in the "layman" camp. I found myself reading this from cover to cover, a thought-provoking and often quite disturbing book but one that suggests that there is another way.

Author: Lanoo_Harve

Rating: 2

Review: This books sets off like an express train, going to the heart of some of the problems facing the USA (and the world in general) today. As I read more, however, I realised that the author's stance is part of the problem she describes: polarised and confrontational politics reflecting a polarised and confrontational society. She postulates that all the problems are right-wing; all the answers are left-wing. She doesn't offer a reason why a socialist state today should be any different to the disastrous examples of all socialist states since the Second World War. At least, she doesn't offer a reason in the first half of the book. At that point I stopped reading. What Naomi Klein argues is for inclusive politics, but which she offers is a divisive solution; one that excludes the energies and enterprises of those wicked capitalists. She identifies the problem as abuse of power, by individuals such as Trump and by market sectors such as banking and petrochemicals, when in fact the problem is that the Founding Fathers gave too much power to the office of President, and successive Presidents have given too much power to rich market sectors. Those powers need to be trimmed. More than half the electorate chose not to vote for Trump or Clinton in the last election. Is that because of apathy, or because voters felt that a vote for either candidate didn't give them what they wanted. The choices need to be more nuanced and less polarised. If the White House were run by the equivalent of a board of directors, rather than by a President and his unelected cronies, each voter could be given a range of options across the entire political, social and economic spectrum. A 'board' could have representatives fighting for all the things that voters care about. Decision-making would have to be more consensual, less confrontational. Perhaps all that comes in the second half of the book, but I doubt it. Ms Klein wants to replace one flawed system with another.