Barack Obama’s new campaign book, Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise,is now available for purchase at amazon.com.

The book contains his written plans for America, transcripts of a number of his speeches, and a new foreword by Sen. Obama.

In Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy, Jeffrey Feldman analyzes the use of violent language by right-wing pundits and how it undermines the American tradition of working together to solve our problems. He looks at the debates on gun control and immigration, the use of September 11th, the language of Bill O’Reilly and James Dobson, as well as the perceived “war against Christmas” in order to illustrate how pervasive the violent framing of civic debate has become.

Feldman’s aim is to “take a longer, more detailed look at what right-wing pundits have said with the goal of understanding the kind of public conversation their words have built.” He calls his readers to action to “refuse to accept it, talk about the important issues it obscures, and work together to improve our civic discourse.”

He believes that America’s “lost passion for discussion in politics and the rise of a mass media with entertainment for profit as its central goal” is enabling the violent framing of political debates to continue without check. The public needs “a media with an interest in that conversation that is prioritized above the bottom-line.”

Feldman offers six suggestions to help re-frame the political debate:

1. Stop using “war” metaphors.
2. Revive expository journalism.
3. Invest in local media.
4. Increase citizen participation.
5. Introduce a rating system for political entertainment.
6. Create new deliberative forums.

Feldman looks to the rise of the Millennials as hope for the creation of new deliberative forums.

In many ways, the generation referred to as the “Millennials” (those born post-1980) is already involved with this task, creating and inhabiting these new forums with regularity and enthusiasm.

The rise of the Millennials is also leading to discussions about “harnessing social networking technology for the practice of government itself.”

Here are some of the questions and thoughts I wrote in the margins of my copy while reading:

• It is possible that the polemic writing about the failures of the Bush administration are less effective than expository writing about the failures themselves would be. Polemic writing tends to lead readers to believe that the article is biased political propaganda and turns off all but the choir. Writing modeled after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle could have a much greater effect in reaching and convincing moderate and even right-leaning citizens.
• What role will expository journalism have on blogging, and conversely, what role will blogging have on expository journalism?
• We should create public awareness programs on the use of new media and citizen journalism.
• What will be the role of traditional media companies and larger websites in facilitating citizen journalism. Currently CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, YouTube, and MTV have created such outlets.
• The use of violent metaphor leads people to believe that solutions are external and are the fault of an enemy. The goal becomes combating the enemy and the only solution is their defeat. It undermines the concept of personal responsibility and the idea that people can work together to create solutions to problems.
• James Dobson’s violence as authority teachings makes the ability to inflict pain a sign of power and authority. This may lead people to use violence against one another in order to show dominance and feel like it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
• Those Americans whose culture was the monolithic American culture in the past fear the loss of their cultural hegemony in the wake of the new multiculturalism in America. Instead of realizing that their culture is not being damaged or attacked, only joined by others, they believe that the acceptance of any cultures other than their own is a “war” against their own.

Have you read the book? What are your thoughts? If not go pick yourself up a copy and come back to join the conversation.

Andrei Cherny, a young Arizona Democrat and all-around rock star was interviewed on The Colbert Report last night promoting his new book The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour.

Video of Stephen Colbert’s Interview of Andrei Cherny

Andrei’s book is extremely timely in the light of the current attitude towards diplomacy held by the current administration and of Republican nominee John McCain. The book’s subject is the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, when the United States continuously flew food and supplies to West Berlin after the Soviet Union blocked off all food transportation routes into the city.

The air lift began only three years after the end of World War II, and many Germans held an antagonistic view of the United States, associating the country with bombing their homes and defeating their country. The commitment of the United States in supporting the people of West Berlin changed the perceptions of the U.S. held by those people. Where once they were associated with aggressiveness and violence, they became associated with compassion and survival. Andrei’s chosen title, The Candy Bombers, is based on the American pilots who dropped candy bars with parachutes down to the children of West Berlin.

The Candy Bombers is valuable reading for those who want to remember what American foreign policy used to be about. By showing compassion for the people of other nations we built the reputation and standing as a great nation supported by the international community. From Andrei’s book we may be inspired to seek a better foreign policy strategy, one the does not antagonize, but wins the hearts and minds of the international community with compassion.

Go ahead and pick up The Candy Bombers at your local bookstore or on Amazon.com.

So after making the mistake of getting the slowest shipping possible, my copy of Michael Connery’s (of Future Majority) Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority finally came yesterday. I read it cover-to-cover as soon as it hit my hands. I just want to say that every person that is a leader in YDA should read this book.

It is important that as leaders of progressive youth organizations we know the history of the movement, in order to learn what has worked and what has failed, as well as the knowledge of how we came to be what we are now. As I wrote in an earlier post, one of the advantages of the youth movement was its ability to innovate and learn from trial and error. Youth to Power gives a great analysis of the past successes and failures of our movement.

Specifically valuable for leaders in YDA is the chapter on Rebuilding the Democratic Youth Brand. This chapter extensively covers YDA and CDA, and many of you were part of that history.

Some of the most interesting points are on the use of the internet and mobile technology, the role of music and culture in engaging youth, and the comparison of the Conservation youth leadership pipeline to its weaker progressive counterpart.