Breaking Through Bureaucracy: A New Vision for Managing in Government

Book Description

This book attacks the conventional wisdom that bureaucrats are bunglers and the system can't be changed. Michael Barzelay and Babak Armajani trace the source of much poor performance in government to the persistent influence of what they call the bureaucratic paradigm--a theory built on such notions as central control, economy and efficiency, and rigid adherence to rules. Rarely questioned, the bureaucratic paradigm leads competent and faithful public servants--as well as politicians--unwittingly to impair government's ability to serve citizens by weakening, misplacing, and misdirecting accountability.
How can this system be changed? Drawing on research sponsored by the Ford Foundation/Harvard University program on Innovations in State and Local Government, this book tells the story of how public officials in one state, Minnesota, cast off the conceptual blinders of the bureaucratic paradigm and experimented with ideas such as customer service, empowering front-line employees to resolve problems, and selectively introducing market forces within government. The author highlights the arguments government executives made for the changes they proposed, traces the way these changes were implemented, and summarizes the impressive results. This approach provides would-be bureaucracy busters with a powerful method for dramatically improving the way government manages the public's business.
Generalizing from the Minnesota experience and from similar efforts nationwide, the book proposes a new paradigm that will reframe the perennial debate on public management. With its carefully analyzed ideas, real-life examples, and closely reasoned practical advice, Breaking Through Bureaucracy is indispensable to public managers and students of public policy and administration.

Customer Reviews:

Some conceptual and practical keys for developing a results-oriented administrative infrastructure.......2006-11-10

I've found Breaking Through Bureaucracy is a challenge for graduate students to read but immensely rewarding for those who persevere. For mid-career professionals with whom I've worked, who understand the argument of this text and who have sufficient leverage at work, studying this text has changed the way their government offices and business enterprises work. For those currently without that leverage in their workplace, engaging with this text will help better prepare practitioners to think more reflectively about how they may choose to manage at a personal level in the present and as an administrative unit in the future.

At its broadest level, the argument of Breaking Through Bureaucracy is that nothing less than new ways of thinking and acting are required today in public service. The argument proceeds on two levels of analysis interwoven throughout the text: 1) the level of ideas through which those with management responsibility typically construct administrative arguments and 2) that of daily administrative operations, most especially with respect to recurring relations between overseers, staff, and line operators.

The interweaving of Babak Armajani's reflective practice with Michael Barzelay's conceptual analysis in this text provides invaluable clues for the attentive reader. Part I demonstrates how during the reform era, the bureaucratic paradigm addressed effectively leading problems of its day. At the same time, it argues and illustrates with clarity that yesterday's bureaucratic solution has become the source of unintended administrative ills and organizational dysfunction today.

Part I introduces the two main levels of analysis on which the book unfolds. The first level of analysis is that of ideas with which administrators typically frame issues of public management. At this level of analysis, the text sets up a debate, broadly between defenders of the status quo who see recurring troubles along the overseer-staff-line relations as conditions to be endured and possibilist thinker-doers who see these recurring troubles as problems to be solved. At its second level of analysis, the text begins to introduce the reader to concrete routines, constraints, and incentives that typically govern relations between overseers, staff, and line in everyday administrative operations. At this level of analysis, the text argues the need for innovative strategies capable of effectually altering these recurring routines. A principle finding at this concrete level of administrative analysis is articulating how the role of staff (those administrative experts who control inputs to line whether in budget, finance, purchasing, HR, IT etc.) typically constitute likely recurring bottlenecks in government agencies (or any other type of bureaucratic organization) that seek to strengthen responsiveness to customers and to develop a results-oriented culture.

Part II of the text presents a case study drawn from Minnesota State government and describes the inventing of new strategies, the reworking of organizational cultures (in ways that increased responsiveness and accountability for results), and discusses how developments in the case under consideration challenged financial paradigms dominant in government today. [It should be noted that independent of this text, an update on the subject of "Challenging Financial Paradigms" has been co-written by Bob Hutchison, [then Finance Commissioner in Minnesota] and published in paperback in 2006 as The Price of Government.) Part II demonstrates how daily administrative routine, constraints, and incentives were transformed by reflective practitioners in Minnesota through engaging constructively with the concrete particulars before them, and more broadly, presents an argument for seeing and treating these recurring troubles along the overseer-staff-line frontier as "problems" (due to malleable if insistent circumstances) rather than as "conditions" (or unalterable facts of life).

Part III discusses "generalizations" or lessons learned from the case study. A methodological note is appropriate here. As a case study, it is appropriate to note that the likelihood of its external validity or capacity for generalization is not predicated upon statistical inferences derived from an applied variance analysis, but rather depends upon the generation of its theoretical model (contrasting "bureaucratic" and "post-bureaucratic" ways of thinking and acting), a model derived from Michael Barzelay's effectual process analysis in this case study. In my experience with readers, for those who take the trouble to understand the conceptual contrast, resonance of this theoretical model with the experience of practitioners across a wide variety of local government settings is high. Any practitioner who takes the time for a careful reading of this text, of course, is entitled to draw his or her own inferences as to the likely external validity of generalizations drawn from this case study.

The author's "generalizations" or lessons learned are divided into three chapters. The first of these entitled "More Problems, Fewer Conditions" redefines bureaucratic accountability, suggesting that all too often bureaucratic reliance upon the enforcement model of control ends up breeding weak, misguided, and/or misplaced accountability. The chapter offers the authors recommendations for strengthening and redirecting accountability. One key to this text is Barzelay's contrasting the "enforcement model of control" with the "leadership model of control;" His analysis underscores the increased degree of control and accountability generated in Minnesota through the latter model of action. This model of control Barzelay argues is integral to the "post-bureaucratic paradigm." For those interested in a close understanding of what's entailed in such a leadership model of control, it's worthwhile to note that this approach to generating control is conceptually speaking, a direct descendent from different way of thinking and acting first articulated in a coherent form by Mary Parker Follett (and whose work once again is available in print today as Mary Parker Follett--Prophet of Management (thanks to the initiative of Pauline Graham [ed.] and the Harvard Business School Press. In this regard, see especially her articles on "The Giving of Orders," "Leadership," and "Control").

The second to last chapter of this text addresses the "then what?" question for public managers. Entitled "Managing Customer-Focused Staff Agencies," this chapter addresses what the author argues with considerable persuasion throughout is probably the key administrative bottleneck in developing more responsive and results-oriented governmental agencies. He offers six principles in line with the "post-bureaucratic paradgim" that reflective practitioners may take into account in their management practice. Finally, the last chapter, "The Post-Bureaucratic Paradigm in Historical Perspective," ties all the pieces of the text together. Largely incomprehensible to most public administrative students/practitioners when they begin here, it's the "aha" chapter that reward those who have carefully gone through each of the stepping stones in the argument of the text.

In closing, central to the argument of Barzelay and Armajani (and reminiscent of Mary Parker Follett's notion of reciprocal response and her treatment of the role of purpose in administrative affairs), is their pointing to the need for greater mutual adjustment in relations between overseers, staff, and line together with their arguing the practical need for administrators to reimbue work with purpose at every level of the organization.

Moving in this direction requires more than Barzelay points to in his analysis and more, unfortunately, than many of his associates in the New Public Management movement seem to have recognized. Nevertheless, Barzelay and Armajani take us to a critical threshold that I believe is key to developing new ways of thinking and acting in and for public service. This text does not have all the answers and there are some striking limitations in Barzelay's analysis based on the very case he presents. Yet if we as a field of professional practice in the broad area of public policy, public management, public administration, miss core lessons in this text, then I believe someone else will have to rediscover them in the future. This text deserves to be recognized as a modern classic in the field and widely studied, most especially by those who will be constructing our administrative infrastructures of the future.

Well thought out........2000-10-28

This book is for those of you who are sick of redundant and mundane bureaucratic routine work, and wan to learn about the ways to change such system. This books points out inefficiencies of bureaucracy and promotes the idea of simple and quick approach to technology, which the way we do things. It also gives some good examples from a few corporations that are being affected by their implementation of rational organizational structure i.e. bureaucratic structure. It's an advocate of creative behavior at jobs regardless of the nature.

The Minnesota State Constitution: A Reference Guide (Reference Guides to the State Constitutions of the United States)

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The Minnesota State Constitution: A Reference Guide (Reference Guides to the State Constitutions of the United States)
Mary Jane Morrison
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0313284113

Book Description

Ratified in 1857, the Minnesota State Constitution is one of the oldest state constitutions in effect today. Beginning with the document's roots in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Morrison places the document's influences, controversies, and amendments in historical perspective. She then provides a close analysis of the current constitution article by article, which comprises the heart of the book. In addition the author looks at the litigation that has followed the constitution, with particular emphasis on how court interpretations have affected its meaning. A table of cases, bibliography, and index complete this unique reference survey, which is designed for students and teachers, scholars and experts, and lawyers in the fields of legal studies, state and local government, and American history.

To Be The Main Leaders Of Our People (Native American Series (East Lansing, Mich.).)

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Fantastic!
How Native Americans Responded to the Westward Movement

To Be The Main Leaders Of Our People (Native American Series (East Lansing, Mich.).)
Rebecca, Kugel
Manufacturer: Michigan State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0870134310

Book Description

In the spring of 1868, people from several Ojibwe villages located along the upper Mississippi River were relocated to a new reservation at White Earth, more than 100 miles to the west. In many public declarations that accompanied their forced migration, these people appeared to embrace the move, as well as their conversion to Christianity and the new agrarian lifestyle imposed on them. Beneath this surface piety and apparent acceptance of change, however, lay deep and bitter political divisions that were to define fundamental struggles that shaped Ojibwe society for several generations. In this volume, the Ojibwe "speak for themselves," as their words were recorded by government officials, Christian missionaries, fur traders, soldiers, lumbermen, homesteaders, and journalists. While they were nearly always recorded in English translation, Ojibwe thoughts, perceptions, concerns, and even humor clearly emerge. To Be The Main Leaders of Our People expands the parameters of how oral traditions can be used in historical writing and sheds new light on a complex, but critical, series of events in ongoing relations between Native and non-Native people.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic!.......2001-05-14

This is one of the most compelling stories that I have read on the Indians experience with the Europeans. My son brought this home, it was one of his college books, and I could not put it down after I picked it up.

How Native Americans Responded to the Westward Movement.......2000-11-28

Just briefly, I am an historian so perhaps I am not the general reader. But I found Rebecca Kugel's account of the Ojibwe (Chippewa) struggle to adapt to the rush of Euro-American settlement utterly absorbing. It makes the choices faced by Native Americans, and the factional divisions among themselves, clearer than anything else I've read.

I am impressed enough with the book that I intend to use it as a textbook in my college class next semester. We'll see if my Minnesota students are equally impressed.

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Questions Begging for Answers

Research for more

As author I agree with A. Abruzzese's criticism

A Strange Death Indeed

Bully Boys Don't Like It

American Assassination: The Strange Death Of Senator Paul Wellstone
Four Arrows , and James H. Fetzer
Manufacturer: Vox Pop
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Binding: Paperback

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The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistle Blowers, and the Cover-up

9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition

The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11

Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans--Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild

9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, Vol. 1

ASIN: 0975276301

Book Description

Senator Paul Wellstone was, "the first 1960s radical elected to the U.S. Senate." In Senate Race 2002, the White House made defeating Wellstone priority #1. Karl Rove hand-picked arch Republican Norm Coleman to run against him. Despite massive funding, Coleman was trailing the popular Wellstone two weeks before election day.

Then, tragedy struck. On the morning of October 25th, 2002, Wellstone was killed after a mysterious communication cut-out and crash of his small aircraft. He died alongside his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia, three staff members, and two pilots, while trying to land at Minnesota's Eveleth airfield. CNN's Wolf Blitzer insisted to his reporter at the scene that foul weather was the lethal factor in the crash, despite the statements to the contrary from the CNN correspondent. To this day, the public tends to blame the weather.

Ph.D. Professors James Fetzer and Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs present the harrowing truth. The plane was exceptionally airworthy. The weather didn't bring down Senator Wellstone. Nor were the two pilots incompetent, as the report of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would eventually claim.

The facts point elsewhere. The FBI arrived at the remote rural crash scene less than two hours after the crash. Could they have known about it in advance? The FBI forbade the ambulance and fire teams to take photos. Even the AP photographer on hand was intimidated, delayed and then highly monitored. For some reason, a member of the U.S. Capitol Police Dignitary Protection Division was also present.

Why did the FBI state that they were treating the site as a "crime scene" although there were "no indications of any criminal activity"? How could the FBI so very swiftly conclude and state publicly, before NTSB arrived, that there was "no evidence of terrorism" involved? Why did the NTSB search for a "black box" for a day and a half and then conclude that there hadn't been one, after all?

AMERICAN ASSASSINATION confirms the worst fears of a nation. Senator Paul Wellstone was murdered.

Both authors are decorated university professors. A Native American, Four Arrows (a.k.a. Dr. Don Jacobs) teaches educational leadership and is a staunch critic of US foreign policy. Dr. Jim Fetzer is a published expert on U.S. political assassinations and the logic of science.

Although no one can prove exactly what happened in the events leading to Wellstone's death, these two Ph.D.s point out the official story's inconsistencies and deliberate omissions. With a methodical argument, they present evidence of an official cover-up, a compelling motive for Wellstone's assassination and advance a more likely explanation for how Senator Wellstone's plane was taken down. Their findings include new evidence and alternative hypotheses that were never considered by the NTSB:

• There was never any distress call from the pilots. Communication was somehow cut off shortly before the crash.

• NTSB's Carol Carmody handled the Wellstone case. A former CIA official, Carmody is a damage-control expert who handled the NTSB's investigation of the suspicious aircraft crash of Democratic Senatorial candidate Mel Carnahan, exactly two years earlier.

• NTSB is legally mandated to take jurisdiction over a crash scene, yet it allowed the FBI to control the scene--and then neglected to cite the FBI's involvement in presence in the NTSB's final report.

• Some witnesses heard the engines cutting out, a phenomenon not consistent with a stall.

• Others reported odd cell-phone and garage-door phenomena that were taking place about the same time the plane lost both communications and control.

• The NTSB's own simulations, which replicated properties like those of King Air A-100s under similar conditions, were unable to bring the plane down—even when conducted under abnormally slow speeds!

• One of the members who actually signed the report, Richard Healing, admitted that they really had no idea what had caused the plane to crash.

Since becoming active in this issue, local residents have contacted Professor Fetzer and related strange electronic interference in the area at the time of the crash. One experienced an odd cell-phone phenomenon with a form of static he had never heard before. Its auditory pattern appears to be similar to that of "electro-magnetic pulse" (EMP) weapons recently developed by the Pentagon to jam the computer-assisted controls of enemy aircraft.

Reports of garage doors that mysteriously opened in the immediate vicinity are surfacing. And radar images from the time of the plane crashes of Senator Carnahan and of Senator Wellstone are suggestive of EMP imprints. These weapons not only jam a plane's electronics but also disable its radio communications.

In the wake of the crash, 69% of Minnesoteans blamed a "GOP Conspiracy" for Wellstone's death. This book makes the case that, in this case, at least, the people had it right.

In appendices to AMERICAN ASSASSINATION, Paul Wellstone's courageous stands against the rich and powerful continue to inspire us. It presents highlights from Wellstone's platform and includes his important speech, "On Iraq."

His opposition to the Bush administration helps the reader to understand why the Senator was a likely target for assassination. When the reader meets Wellstone in his own words, his vision is kept alive and lives on in each of us.

Customer Reviews:

Questions Begging for Answers.......2006-11-07

The number of light plane crashes involving key House and Senate members is chilling. The author details several fatal crashes that tipped the balance (or prevented a change in) the House or Senate. Many questions raised about the pilots, the lackluster NTSB investigation, and almost immediate FBI presence, certainly adds up to enough for a skilled
investigative journalist to explore; the official investigations are
obvious rubber stamps. If someone told you that one of these pilots had
been a fight trainer for a 9/11 hijacker, you would not believe it...but
the book clearly documents this as a fact, which can easily be confirmed
by anyone. Where are you, Sixty Minutes? The details of the crash, which
is always attributed to snow, are far more complex, as the weather was
actually not a problem. The authors postulate EMP interference with the
aircraft, which is something I was only vaguely aware of, but it is a
difficult charge to prove. I was most puzzled at the odd connection
between a 9/11 hijacker and the co-pilot...a very strange connection that
I've never seen mentioned in mainstream media, yet is very well documented here. Overall, the book made me aware that there IS a puzzle worth investigating, and a book worth reading.

Research for more.......2006-06-29

This book for me was very good. There seems to be some "connecting of the dots" with other topics during a certain administration and other 'strange occurences'. Not a conspiracty theorist, but some things are more than obvious.

As author I agree with A. Abruzzese's criticism .......2006-06-15

I am Four Arrows, the lead author of this book.(See also my newest text from the Univesity of Texas, "Unlearning the Language of Conquest: Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America).
I recently read Abruzzese's review and find it to be fairly on target, in spite of its negativity. I'm at least happy he recommended that people read it "as a starting point," for this is all we intended it to be. We express state that the questions, inconsistencies and logic of our arguments should be sufficient for a more in-depth investigation.
As for the book being too short, our motive for writing this book was to get it published before the 2004 presidential elections in hopes that it would at least offer a prima facia case sufficient to raise the kind of questions that MIGHT dissuade people to vote for Bush. We only had a few short months to turn the "new evidence" that sparked our writing the book to get in published in time. Perhaps such hopes were unwarranted in spite of rigged elections and an relatively apathetic, hegemonized public, but it was our long-shot hope nonetheless.
In our book we have some substantial "evidence" from interviews and analysis, but mostly we simply show enough inconsistencies and provide enough motive to make a good enough case to stimulate further investigation, which we ALMOST got from Senator Barbara Boxer, who has a copy of the book.
I agree that some of the language about JFK comparisons and "scientific rigor" were unnecessary, but three people being involved with the content, such things, as unfortunate as they might have been to our message, might be persuasive for other readers. In any case, the bottom line is there needs to be further investigations and on this Abruzzese agrees.
In our new book from Elsevier, "The Hidden History of 9/11," I think this reviewer would find more "evidence" but still realize that it as well is a call for more investigation.
For example, how can "we" continue to ignore all of the testimony relating to bombs going off in the WTC or to the physics of falling buildings?
At any rate, it is past time to allow a fear of being a "conspiracy theorist" keep us from discussing the probability that our corporation, military and government institutions have reached a point where assassinations, false flag operations and rigged elections must be taken seriously as a fact of life.
Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs

A Strange Death Indeed.......2005-11-17

"American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone" expands the report filed by the NTSB with the information received from eyewitnesses, U.S. government log files, local government reports and interviews with people related to those who died in the crash. Using this information and deductive reasoning/logic to sort through the gathered evidence, the authors display their conclusion: Wellstone, his family and friends, and the pilots were killed through sabotage. Conspiracy theories generally don't hold my interest too long unless there's proof, but I found this book to be well-written and strong in the use of logic. The book was extremely interesting to me, as I had suspected that the Senator's death by plane crash (another plane crash death) to be very peculiar, to a very suspicious degree. Read the book with an open mind, and see what kind of death you believe this to be.

Bully Boys Don't Like It.......2005-10-28

America has its share of facist wannabes who in this case, write negative reviews of this and other similar books (often without even reading them) in order to debunk any progressive thought that may arise within the general public. Exposure to a variety of thought is anathema to these people. While these would-be brownshirts are being hoodwinked by the corporate propagandists that they follow without question, those same corporate interests are busy conducting a slaughter of civilians in Iraq in order to secure access to the world's supply of oil, as well as murdering an inspirational progressive politician like Paul Wellstone.

Unllike many of the "reviewers" of this book, I've actually read it, and what is offered here seems entirely plausible.
Having lived through the previous assassinations of both Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X., among others, the apparent fact that wealthy, right-wing, corporate interests in this country sometimes kill their perceived enemies comes as no surprise to me. Unfortunately, it does happen here. Read the book for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota

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Excellent, comprehensive history

A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota
William D. Green
Manufacturer: Minnesota Historical Society Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Book Description

In the 1850s, as Minnesota Territory was reaching toward statehood, settlers from the eastern United States moved in, carrying rigid perceptions of race and culture into a community built by people of many backgrounds who relied on each other for survival. History professor William Green unearths the untold stories of African Americans and contrasts their experiences with those of Indians, mixed bloods, and Irish Catholics. He demonstrates how a government built on the ideals of liberty and equality denied the rights to vote, run for office, and serve on a jury to free men fully engaged in the lives of their respective communities.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent, comprehensive history.......2007-05-14

Dr. Green has put together a wide range of original sources to paint a comprehensive picture of life and the interactions among different communities at the time of statehood in Minnesota - 1858. He helps us see how Irish Catholics, Africans slaves and former slaves, Native Americans, mixed race, French, and many other communities fit together in a complex and every changing society. Excellent timing -- just before the state's sesqucentennial.

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Uncovering the Dome
Amy Klobuchar
Manufacturer: Waveland Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0881332186

Book Description

Was the public interest served in Minnesota's ten-year political brawl over the Metrodome? This case study tells the story of how a $55 million domed stadium called the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome came to be built in Minneapolis. More importantly, it offers an opportunity to explore the way things work in American politics: the shifting coalitions and uncertain outcomes; the scattered interests and chaotic atmosphere; the differing conceptions of what serves the public interest. This is not an idealized version of how things should work in American politics, but a story of how they do work!

Transforming Public Policy: Dynamics of Policy Entrepreneurship and Innovation (Jossey Bass Public Administration Series)

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Transforming Public Policy: Dynamics of Policy Entrepreneurship and Innovation (Jossey Bass Public Administration Series)
Nancy C. Roberts , and Paula J. King
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub
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Binding: Hardcover

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Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (Basic Books Classics)

ASIN: 0787902020

The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda (Minnesota)

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The Conscience of a Liberal
What a GREAT Book...
10 stars Buy for every Democrat elected or running for office and for yourself!
Absolute drivel!
Great Book!!!

The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda (Minnesota)
Paul David Wellstone
Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 081664179X

Amazon.com

When senators think about running for president, they write books like The Conscience of a Liberal. Indeed, Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota thought about pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, but ultimately backed off. Unfortunately, his death in an October 2002 plane crash ended both a promising political career and all speculation about where it might lead.

The first part of the book explains Wellstone's unlikely ascension to the Senate (he was once a college professor), and some of his campaign war stories are fun reading for political junkies. One of the most amusing passages describes how he once nearly clocked New York Republican Alfonse D'Amato over a disagreement: "When the train reached the Senate chamber, I jumped out and lunged forward, intending to catch D'Amato and deck him. My body was shaking with uncontrollable anger." Another senator held him back, and Wellstone calmed down.

The bulk of The Conscience of a Liberal, however, is given over to laying out a political agenda that includes universal health care, reversing welfare reforms, prekindergarten education, raising the minimum wage, and campaign-finance reform. He closes with a call for a new politics: "This is not a conservative America.... There is a huge leadership void in this country that the Democratic Party, emboldened by political courage and a commitment to the issues that made our party great, can fill." Sadly, one of the politicians who helped fill that void is now gone himself. Still, his ideas live on. --John J. Miller

Book Description

From his earliest childhood memories to the college classroom, from rural Minnesota farm fields and the defense of workers' rights to his 1990 election campaign promises of politics for the benefit of the people, The Conscience of a Liberal candidly discusses Wellstone's life experiences and the coming-of-age of his political views. What emerges is an intriguing inside look at Wellstone's crusade to assert an unabashedly liberal agenda.

From the moment he was elected, Wellstone has passionately articulated a path to economic and social justice for all citizens, justice not contingent on the size of a person's bank account or their political influence. A call for personal politics and deep commitment to beliefs, Wellstone's tenure as a U.S. senator has been a vigorous, at times outraged, and always active fight for support for farmers, working families, and other Minnesotans; for decent jobs, improved health care, a good education, and retirement security.

At once responding to the conservative hijacking of compassion as a political yardstick and explaining his own political record, Wellstone engagingly elucidates what contrasts conservative and liberal interests and, as always, rouses progressives to influence the future of American politics.

"Wellstone promised to be what Washingtonians always say their city desperately needs: a colorful character. No one was disappointed. He still considers himself an activist, and his book reads like the work of an activist." Wall Street Journal

"Wellstone relishes the role of the lonely hero taking on powerful bullies, and irritates his jaded colleagues with his stubborn stand on principles." Washington Monthly

"A call to arms aimed at politically like-minded Americans, time and again The Conscience of a Liberal argues that a grassroots movement of progressives can defy the odds." National Journal

Senator Paul Wellstone was a professor of political science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, for twenty-one years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1990.

Download Description

A true "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" story, this wise and heartfelt meditation explores the value of doing what you believe in, written by one of the most outspoken liberals in the United States Senate.

Customer Reviews:

The Conscience of a Liberal.......2006-08-18

I am disappointed in this book. I expected something more philosophical and/or well written. I admire Wellstone's work as a politician but find his writing rather mediocre. American history and politics are my meat and bread. This book does not meet my standards. I usually buy books since I'm a bookaholic, but i wish I had borrowed this from the library. It does not meet my standards.

What a GREAT Book..........2006-04-29

I was a great admirer of Paul Wellstone ever since the fall of 1990. Although I have lived in Minnesota since 2001, in 1990 I was a college sophomore in another state who was writing a paper studying the 1990 elections. I follwed the 1990 Minnesota Senate race, and was pleasantly surprised when he went against the predominate "conventional wisdom" and scored an upset victory (he was the ONLY Democrat to defeat an incumbent that year).
For someone like me, who has been quite frankly sick and tired of the right-ward drift of the Democratic Party and the "play it safe" convetnional wisdom, Paul Wellstone was the antidote.
I enjoyed the autobiographical narrative of this book, it brought back a lot of memories. I enjoyed his frank discussion of the inner working of the US Senate, and I especially enjoyed the later chapters where he offered hope for a people-centered, progressive politics.

10 stars Buy for every Democrat elected or running for office and for yourself!.......2006-03-22

Great book that begins where he was in college and how he and his wife met and how they became the activists they were and what a real progressive is or at least should be. And that being a liberal is nothing to be ashamed of! Sadly the Senator died in 2002 just before he would have been reelected to the Senate. Some of us still believe it wasn't the innocent accident some say that killed him when the plane he was on went down.

Having said that let me rave about this book. I go to Chapter 9 titled A Winning Progressive Politics, where the author notes 'A progressive politics is a winning politics, as long as it is not organized in a way that is top-down and elitist. It must respect the capacity of ordinary citizens and focus on workaday majority issues. I have never understood arguments for the need for politicians to 'move to the center' to get elected. What is the operational definition of 'the center'? If what is meant is that you need to have more votes than your opponent, then I am all for being in the center. But this is too obvious. If what is meant by the center is the dominant mood of the populace -- the issues that are important issues to Americans and what they hope for--then I would again argue for the need to occupy the center. A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstance of peoples lives, a politics that does not speak to include people is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.'

Page 206 of the same chapter 'Clearly, there is a forgotten American majority. It is precisely this America that our politics today fails to serve fully and fairly. This America faces major challenges: low wages, insufficient health care, nonexistent pension coverage (the majority if private sector workers have no pension coverage), daunting child care expenses, rising college expenses, and exorbitant housing costs. These Americans can't hire lobbyists. They can't fly senators and congressmen to resorts. They don't fill the campaign coffers of political candidates. Only when these Americans are given proportional voice in politics can we claim to live in a truly representative democracy.'

Page 208 'Not only do Democrats have too timid and downsized an agenda, we also have failed to confront conservatives on core value questions. I call the Republicans' philosophy the 'New Isolationism.' Not as in foreign affairs, but in human affairs. It is a 'Buddy, your're on your own' philosophy. If you are losing your family farm, if you can't afford prescription drugs, if you have no health insurance, if you are working forty hours a week but are still poor and unable to support your children, if you are a homeless Vietnam veteran struggling with mental problems, you're on your own. Whatever happened to 'There but for the grace if God go I'? Or 'Love they neighbor as thyself'? We need to replace isolationism with fellowship. We need to talk about community, about justice, about the goodness of America. People are ready for a politics that inspires them to be their best'.

Thus this book is rich with common sense honesty that I want more Democrats to read and follow, rather than the disoriented, weak kneed, stand for NOTHING nonsense the Democrats are giving us now. This book should be a must read for anyone who dislikes with a passion the special interest, elitist administration, congress and senate we now have.

Absolute drivel!.......2005-02-09

This is the type of feel good no meat and potatos thinking that permiates the liberal left. An agenda designed to fail from start to finish because the author refuses to accept the reality that regardless of what you do money does not solve problems, accountability does.

Great Book!!!.......2004-07-08

The late Paul Wellstone puts together a great story of how he became who he is...a liberal and proud of it. So often these days, we hear the word liberal used in the pejorative sense. That doesn't have to be. I prefer to think of liberals as "free thinkers," who don't happen to march in line like Limbaugh and Hannity...and don't forget Jessie Helms.

Wellstone was a great and HONEST politician. This world of Bill Clintons and Jack Ryans needs more honest politicians with the enthusiastic spirit of Wellstone!

TWO THUMBS UP!!

Book Description

Atkins eloquently portrays the extreme hardships of Minnesota farmers during the grasshopper plagues of the 1870s. She examines local, state, and national relief efforts, which she reviews in the context of 19th-century social welfare philosophy.

Customer Reviews:

Harvest of Grief.......2000-05-25

Harvest of Grief, by Annette Atkins chronicles the grasshopper plagues of the 1870s and discusses the hardships faced by the farmers of that decade and the failure of the government to supply them with public assistance.

I found out about this book doing a search on the Internet after reading "On The Banks of Plum Creek" by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my son. When Laura and her family moved to Minnesota, their crops were devestated by the "Rocky Mountain Grasshoppers" that swept over the western praries from the years 1873-1878 and caused millions of dollars in damages.

This book (Harvest of Grief) deals with the farmers' plight in Minnesota.

The 1870s were a time of change in America and it's territories. Ideals were changing and it wasn't the farmer that was the cornerstone of American society any longer, but money that proved success. With families like the Rockerfellers and the Vanderbilts, the definition of "success" was rapidly changing.

The book tells of the theories behind why the grasshoppers came and why they suddenly disappeared after 5 years, how farmers tried desperately to save their farms, often losing them to mortgage companies, and those who begged and borrowed trying to survive along with their families.

The book also tells of how they tried to get federal relief from the government and why this was difficult. Hundreds of people were in some cases left homeless with nothing more than a blanket and a sheet, without a bed to sleep in nor a floor to make one on.

Annette Atkins uses Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family as a reference several times in the book, along with others who suffered greatly during that time, when being poor and unable to pay your debts was looked on as a character flaw, the result of laziness and an unwillingness to work.

Amazon.com

"Career politicians are bought and sold," says Jesse Ventura, but "no one owns me. I come with no strings attached." His victory in the Minnesota gubernatorial race was one of the most surprising stories of the 1998 elections; even after he'd served as mayor of his small Minneapolis suburb, few pundits expected that the former pro wrestler, film actor, and radio personality had what it took to win a statewide campaign against two established politicians.

I Ain't Got Time to Bleed takes its title from the best remembered line in Ventura's film debut, the action/horror flick Predator. It's a phrase that neatly encapsulates his rough and tumble approach to political activism. In addition to a look behind the scenes at his campaign, and his stand on the issues affecting his state (particularly tax reform and public education), Ventura also shares with readers his experiences as a member of the U.S. Navy's SEAL program and as a pro wrestler. It's a lively read that's sure to satisfy his established fans and surprise skeptics with its thoughtful approach to politics and civic responsibility.

Book Description

When he left the navy SEALs to become a pro wrestler, the fans knew him as "Jesse, the Body."

When he hosted his hard-hitting KFAN radio talk show, he became "Jesse, the Mouth."

And now that this body-slamming, straight-talking, charismatic hero is masterminding Minnesota's gubernatorial decisions, you'd better start calling him "Jesse, the Mind."

In I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Jesse Ventura reveals the secret of his landslide electoral success—with record voter turnout—and maps his innovative strategies for pioneering a new era in American government. In his own inimitable words, he takes on bloated government, career politicians, and apathetic voters, and tells the wildly colorful story of his days as a navy SEAL, his nights in the pro-wrestling ring, and his experiences on radio and in films like Predator and Batman and Robin .

I Ain't Got Time to Bleed is Rocky meets Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—a book that will challenge readers' ideas of traditional government as it introduces them to one of American politics' most ferocious new heroes.

Download Description

In I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Jesse Ventura reveals the secrets of his landslide electoral success -- with record voter turnout -- end maps his innovative strategies for pioneering a new era in American government. In his own inimitable words, he takes on bloated government, career politicians, and apathetic voters, and tells the wildly colorful story of his days as a navy SEAL, his nights: in the pro-wrestling ring, and his experiences on radio and in films like Predator and Batman and Robin.

Customer Reviews:

Straight Talk from Jesse the Body.......2007-04-29

Jesse the Body had an unconventional career before being a politician, so he's able to take risks in disclosing his background and ideas in a manner very refreshing in today's political arena. Jesse starts with his background in the Navy, moves on to his life as a wrestler, and lastly the motivation behind his entrance into politics. The pop-autobiography shows a few more warts than most in the genre, perhaps due to Ventura's security with his persona and life. All in all it's a very fun ride!

Better than I thought it would be.......2007-01-15

The Jesse Ventura story is an example of the American Dream where an average man can push himself into places that he never would have thought that he would go.

Ventura was a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, then became a professional wrestler, wrestling commentator, radio host, Mayor and then Governor of Minneapolis.

Ventura writes pretty well and tells it the way he thinks it is (which is ok, everyone should have an opinion).

Perhaps the only point that I would like to make is that it appears a very political book - not as in discussing politics (from which he makes some good points) but the rhetoric about not running for President. He mentions it a few times throughout the book, almost as if he wants us to think about him in the role and to start to generate support for the White House bid. It just seemed to me to be a little self-serving. That is a minor point though and could be just my imagination.

All in all, a readable book and worth the time.

I Ain't Got Time to Bleed by Jesse Ventura.......2006-02-05

This work is written in a simple and uncomplicated conversational
style. The author discusses the desirability of raising money
modestly and the judicious use of television time in campaigning.
Governor Ventura is in favor of term limits, legal reform,
low taxes and the consumption tax. The beauty of the consumption
tax is that it penalizes excess consumption and frivolous
purchases. The author would have the government refund budget
surpluses. In addition, people should not be driven off their
land due to increasing tax valuations. New York's Harlem is
becoming unaffordable to people who've lived there for generations.

The author urges us to improve public education and basic
literacy. He asks that we make math/science relevant and
involve parents in the schooling process. Reduced class size
and student work-study programs provide additional enhancements to the learning environment. The internet is a tremendous
tool for learners according to the author.

Ultimately, Americans are pioneers and visionaries. This is our
basic strength as a country. To continue prospering, we should
build upon these strengths.

Inspiring Story of True Strength.......2006-01-18

The title of Jesse Ventura's memoir is taken from his famous line he delivered in the movie Predator. It is a great mantra for a former Navy SEAL, pro-wrestler, and man-of-the-people elected official. Once you get through the first chapter that explains Ventura's views on the issues of the day, the rest is an absorbing, humorous, truthful, and motivating memoir of a true tough guy who can put his money where his mouth is.

Jesse tells all in this memoir. When he was a young man, he worked hard, and played hard. Drinking and sex are included here. My eyebrows went up a few times. It is clear he is not covering anything up in order to look squeaky clean.

Anyone who reads this book will wish there were a million more Jesses holding political office, instead of the Democrat/Republican factory of career politicians who are addicted to power. I never seriously considered the validity or need for a third political party until I read this book.

Ex-Governance.......2005-12-27

All who complain about G. W. Bush, take note.
it's possible that things could be worse:

For instance, suppose "W" had been a boorish stage wrestler, bald of head and great of girth, flat of feet. Of course there are always a number of odd candidates for president, that is to say beyond the normal four or five, probably thousands of others, but most of these others are hapless delusional sorts, nutters, schizophrenics -- exceedingly few of them ever make it onto the ballot. But wait! There was one such, indeed, a bald wrestler, alluded to above, who became, well, not president, but nonetheless the governor of an actual state. No, I'm not making this up--Minnesota was the state. The wrestler's name was Jesse Ventura. You can check for yourself, in case you don't remember--nothing quite like this has happened in this country since Reconstruction.

This wrestler's campaign was mercurial, yet his platform was utterly simple, to the point: "I'm fed up to here with professional politicians and unresponsive government," he would roar. A fresh face he was, something new on the scene. Bald he was, too, yes, but so, too, Dwight Eisenhower and John Glenn and other politicians. But, then too, what ho, a screaming, mugging wrestler? Why, never before-- never! He and his "Reform Party" filled the news, picking up where the politically departed H. Ross Perot (remember him?) had left off. Outspoken, and brutally honest, that's what they said. So refreshingly honest was he, yet also so vain and egotistical that he refused to wear makeup, unlike so many others, and of course he refused a wig, as well, though his bald pate glistened under the television lights. He would never beautify himself! And besides, he wasn't that ugly, all told: One of his political opponents, the disappointing son of the famous Hubert H. Humphrey, was nearly baldheaded, too, and quite weak. Why, that one could barely bench press 100 lbs!!

Mr. Ventura, nicknamed "The Body" during his wrestling days, made short work of them all -- "Body" slammed 'em, you might say---his first real victory (those WWWWWF wrestling competitons are staged, you know).

And, thus, after "The Body" was elected, his celebrity status went way up, all the way up, to his (bald) head. He loved to give colorful interviews. Publicity-seeking wrestler no more, he was everything, now, in the public eye always, and, also, as he liked to suggest, was he ever so attractive to the opposite sex. He even told the women of Minnesota that he didn't wear underwear. (According to exit polls, Munsingwear sales went down in the state that year, while dead-bolt lock sales went accordingly up.) His moment had come, and he knew how to take advantage of it; and, after many years of choreographed stage wrestling, he knew how to get down and dance, too (after a shuffling fashion). Staid old St. Paul became Rap Central, after he and his wrestlemaniacs took over the hoary old governor's mansion, a domicile which during the past century had mainly been occupied by shy public servants of Norwegian extraction, virtually all bearing the truly unpretentious Minnesota surname "Anderson"! Thus taken by storm, none of those in the state who had never before been treated to television wrestling knew exactly what to think of it all, at first. No, they didn't know what to think of the new governor, not in the least, but before long they became embarrassed by him, for he seemed to crave ever more publicity, he fed off it, desperately, like a giant, manic, gluttonous, 275 lb. baby! He tried stunt after stunt! He offered to referee celebrity wrestling matches, and even to Return To The Ring! Why, he wanted to fly fifty feet through the air and go plop onto the wrasslin' mat!! And, what ho, these full-coverage publicity stunts became his prime occupation, for his job soon bored him, he became tired of all the endless confusing mundane details of statecraft and governance, his attention deficit disorder raged, he started to feud with the legislature; and oh, what a terrible, fireworks-filled, WWWWWF Battlestar Galactica that feud became! And yet, somehow, incredibly, he managed all the while to COMPLAIN ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT more bitterly than ever before, as though he were some kook in the street, say, or some Somalian-hating Minneaplolis cab driver crank, with a loud opinion on every subject, who had inhaled too many of his own exhaust fumes. It almost seemed, in this respect, that no one had told him he had actually been elected, and that he was the governor of the very state whose government he was attacking!!

"I'm sick of Me!!!" he as much as said, and the public soon came to agree. They, too, became sick of the bad government.

One year after the election, NO ONE in the whole of Minnesota would admit to having voted for him. This Great Baldheaded No-Underwear Wrasslin' Reform Populist Governor was as UNpopular as Herbert Hoover had ever been during the Great Depression! Rather than taking responsibility for having voted for him, many adults blamed the whole problem of his having ever become governor on the 18-yr-olds who had been given the vote just before the election. Obviously, this argument was unfair-- that is to say, few 18-yr-olds could ever be as immature as "The Body."

Well, the state survived, though barely able to stand against his powerful slams, and though many decent souls did in fact move to Iowa, Wisconsin, Canada, North and South Dakota, while some stoics stayed put and opened their veins in silent protest. Nowadays, no one left alive in Minnesota would even think of voting for him. Why, he couldn't even get himself elected as a dog catcher --too opinionated, and too lazy. He would immediately come out against catching dogs! Not even garbage collector--of Zumbrota!! Why, he can't even publish one of his ego-letters to the editor; not even the New Ulm Daily Journal will have anything to do with him! Not even the poor little Sleepy Eye one-pager! The retired governor couldn't even get in a word in a local retirement home newsletter, not even edgewise!

I guess he'll just have to write another bad ghost book, a sort of sequel to his first. A good title for it? Gee, that's a good question. How's about, "What the (Vulgar Expletives) Is Wrong With This Country?" But to hear him crank off these days, you'll have to go pay him a visit--but beware, he has Rottweilers, and, besides, he, too, like so many others affected by his slammings, has left the state. He's outa-there!!

"Where could he possibly have gone?" you might ask yourself. Whithersoever such a wrasslin' man to wander?

Where, indeed, did he go? Did he go back on wrestling tour, as the "Bad Blood Monster Guv"? Is he now on stage, pummelling flabby fall guy Skip Humphrey, kicking Skip's stomach, and mashing Skip's poor face into the canvas with many a roar and thumping gorilla chest? A revenge match or two? No, no, he threw his back out a couple of years ago, no more flips. Those days are long gone, now. No, THAT didn't happen, and won't, either, but here's the REAL answer:

He went to, I'm not making this up, Harvard, to study, guess what, no, never mind, you'll never guess it, but I'll tell you anyway, and I'm not making this one up, either--GOVERNMENT!!! But at least the authorities make him wear, at the minimum, boxer shorts, before he is allowed on campus. He gets checked daily--the co-eds insist!

And get this, shades of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Johnson--a political comeback! Rumor has it that, due to some confusion of language, Mr. Body wanted to run for Student Body President, but was found to be ineligible--too old, these days!!!

In a certain sense he did reform politics from the bottom up, but the whole bad act never got very far up off the bottom....

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