Populist radio commentator, columnist and author Hightower (If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates) delivers a timely manifesto for progressives living in what he calls a nation ruled by "a confederacy of kleptocrats." In Hightower's view of the current political situation, "King George the W" reigns atop a greedy hierarchy of corporate-politico corruption in which many politicians have become no more than handmaidens of corporations and the super-rich. Devotees of Hightower's populist politics and his sardonic style will find much to admire, but the average reader will consider the book a jumble of loosely connected treatises laced with distracting sidebars and peppered with hyperbolic forebodings of government evil. Hightower warns the reader, "Big Brother is no longer a paranoid's nightmare, but is alive and very much on the prowl." Hightower's prose at times bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the propaganda he condemns. While he does offer inspirational stories of community action and even practical information (e.g., how to contact a long list of public interest groups), the book's disorganization is baffling: he careens in one chapter from professional sports through the fate of public libraries to the history of Santa Claus. In addition, Hightower's quasi-comical, off-the-wall pronouncements (suggesting, for instance, that CEOs of companies with tax-free Bermuda bank accounts be required to wear Bermuda shorts at all times) tend to stifle his worthy, impassioned calls for action. Progressives will need a more comprehensible spokesperson if they hope, as Hightower envisions, to "take [America] back." (Aug. 18)
