When I first got my copy of Declaration of Independents: How We Can Break the Two-Party Stranglehold and Restore the American Dream, I had in the back of my mind that it would be a dry political report. It is not.
This book, of easy reading, is divided into four main parts. The first part recounts the author’s path to political Independence. His early life provided the perfect training to mediate with the polarization that has arisen in the government. His father was a Republican and his mother was a Democrat. He learned how to balance and accommodate conservative and liberal beliefs. Looking back at his youth he learned that “true independence comes not from adherence to rigid ideology but through putting our country ahead of a political party and the special interests that support it”. Part Ⅱ warns of the fate that awaits if we “don’t fix the dysfunctional duopoly that controls Washington, DC” The third section focuses on how the parties hold on and reinforcement their power. Part Ⅳ is the part that I found most useful. It proposes an Independent “path that will lift up every American”.
Declaration of Independents by Greg Orman is not only a good read, but warns us of the dangers of partisanship and the need for voters to discuss, civilly, their disagreements. This kind of level headed give-and-take will help us correct a government that “is less, and less, capable of making logical decisions. The parties have invested themselves in partisanship, not principals, gamesmanship, not statesmanship.”
Steve Guarin lives in the Bronx. He is retired and an activist with the New York City Independence Clubs.
POLITICS for the PEOPLE BOOK CLUB
CONFERENCE CALL with GREG ORMAN, Author of
A Declaration of Independents
How We Can Break the Two-Party Stranglehold and Restore the American Dream
SUNDAY, APRIL 15th @ 7 PM EST
641-715-3605 and passcode 767775#
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