Joe Conason - Books

Select an Item

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 02:26:28 -0400

It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 15:51:41 -0500

Book Description:

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” ---Sinclair Lewis, author of It Can’t Happen Here, 1935

For the first time since the Nixon era, Americans have reason to doubt the future---or even the presence---of democracy. We live in a society where government conspires with big business and big evangelism; where ideologues and religious zealots attack logic and the scientific method; and where the ruling party encourages xenophobic nationalism based on irrational, manufactured fear. The party in power seems to seek a perpetual state of war to hold on to power, and they are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their ends. The question must be asked: Are we headed toward the end of American democracy?

Nobel Prize--winning author Sinclair Lewis depicted authoritarianism American-style in his sardonically titled dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here, published in 1935. Now, bestselling political journalist Joe Conason argues that it can happen here—and a select group of extremely powerful right-wing ideologues are driving us ever closer to the precipice. In this compelling, impassioned, yet rational and fact-based look at the state of the nation, Conason shows how and why America has been wrenched away from its founding principles and is being dragged toward authoritarianism.

The Raw Deal

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 15:08:53 -0400

Book Description:

Social Security is facing the most serious, well-financed, and determined threat to its existence since its inception in 1935. For Americans to make sense of the barrage of conflicting messages on the subject, it’s necessary to understand who is behind the campaign to "reform" Social Security, what the campaign aims to achieve, and how it misrepresents its goals. Best-selling author Joe Conason exposes why and how this is happening. The Raw Deal explores the Right’s privatization goals, Bush’s hard-fought privatization campaign (built on a stacked "study"), the corporate interests behind the plan, the media campaign to undermine confidence in Social Security, and how the swindle can be stopped. Conason’s no-apologies, no-nonsense approach clears up the myriad misperceptions surrounding this important, confusing issue and gets to the truth about the big Social Security bluff.

Praise for The Raw Deal | Read the Introduction

Frontpage Teaser:

“With insight and clarity, Joe Conason shows how the longstanding conservative antipathy toward Social Security has morphed into a lavishly funded and breathtakingly dishonest conservative PR campaign … In untangling spools of GOP propaganda, The Raw Deal sets the record straight and shows what's really at stake for all Americans in the current battle.”

Big Lies : The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 03:24:38 -0400

Book Description:

Joe Conason takes on the most common arguments and propaganda promoted by the right and exposes them as the lies they are. From “conservatives are paragons of moral rectitude” to “Republicans know how to run the economy” and “tough right-wingers never coddle terrorists,” Big Lies examines ten Republican myths and reveals their hypocrisy with incisiveness and scathing humor. A powerful rebuttal to books such as Bias and Slander, Big Lies is essential reading in an era of right-wing bullying and political conformity.

Praise for Big Lies

Frontpage Teaser:

Conservative talk show hosts and newspaper columnists have made an industry out of incessantly deriding the American left, citing liberals for everything from moral decay to bad economic policy to a soft approach on terrorism. Often these accusations are bound in book form and sell quite well. Only one problem, according to Salon.com and New York Observer writer Joe Conason: the charges they're leveling just aren't true.

The Hunting of the President : The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:55:51 -0400

Book Description:

When Hillary Clinton spoke of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” determined to bring down the president, many people laughed. In fact, though there has never been a single tightly organized group of conspirators, the authors show that beginning in 1989, Lee Atwater set into motion a chain of attacks and slanders that inevitably led to the near destruction of the Clintons. In the tradition of All the President’s Men, two veteran journalists show where the money came from, how the attacks were organized and how the supposedly neutral or “liberal” journalists were seduced in their desire for a “scoop,” even when the charges were ludicrous.
A New York Times bestseller, The Hunting of the President broke new ground in investigative journalism. It is a timeless book with critical lessons about the extremes the right-wing will go to in order to stay in power and destroy any Democrat willing to challenge them.

Praise for Hunting

Frontpage Teaser:

Unhappy reading for Republicans or political naïfs, The Hunting of the President is the story of a sustained and well-funded effort to discredit and defeat Bill Clinton, dating from his gubernatorial days in Arkansas and eventually leading to his impeachment trial. Award-winning journalists Joe Conason and Gene Lyons have crafted a tale as compulsively readable as a political thriller--paced, and at times worded, like a summer bestseller

The Hunting of the President - DVD

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:45:29 -0400

Book Description:

The Hunting of the President, a documentary examining the Republican campaign to discredit Bill Clinton's presidency, unfolds like a paranoid thriller--made all the more astonishing by scrupulous documentation and an impressive breadth of interviews with journalists, lawyers, political analysts, judges, newspaper editors, and many of the people caught up in the Whitewater scandal--which, after an expense of many millions of dollars and several years of investigation, failed to find any criminal act. The relentless efforts of Clinton's enemies grow into an appalling abuse of power, ultimately resulting in his impeachment (but not his removal from office). This documentary, like those of Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11), uses brief clips from Hollywood movies and television to give a boost to the narrative; this could seem cloying, but The Hunting of the President presents such an impressive barrage of facts and perspectives that it earns some moments of flippancy. --Bret Fetzer

Frontpage Teaser: