To hear a demo from Grimm’s upcoming, as yet unnamed album, click here. Unless you use Firefox, which blows and doesn’t integrate for shit with this website.

All in all, Happy May Day compadres. Now go tear down a system or two, would ya?

Photo by Juan Moncada

For all you folks who’ve not made it down to Antigua for a visit, take a look at what you’re missing, courtesy of this lovely video, Luna León by El Gordo, shot from the roof of Café Sky (you can see our buddy Les, one of the owners, drinkin’ and smokin’ in the background.) Methinks we should get this fella to play at Café No Sé.

Grifter Moon by Matthew Grimm

February 23, 2008.

They feared the worst.  Luis had gone out on his motorcycle and was expected home any moment.  There was a notorious curve in the road near their house, and a drop-off to a river.  They raced out to see, praying they were wrong.   Tragically, as they approached the crash scene, they realized they weren’t.

And so began the longest night in this family’s life.  They took the unconscious Luis to the hospital in Antigua.  But they couldn’t do anything to help, so they transferred him to the National Hospital in the capital.  The bike had fallen on Luis’s back in the accident.  An MRI revealed that the impact of the collision had fractured his spine.  Luis would never walk again.

Luis spent the next three months in the National Hospital.  During that time, the most hopeful intervention was to perform an operation that might allow Luis to sit up on his own. The first operation was unsuccessful, requiring a second three weeks later. Luis developed bedsores in the hospital, which can be life-threatening and often take years to heal.

When Luis was discharged, he couldn’t be cared for in the family home, because, even if the family could afford a wheelchair, the house was not accessible to the disabled.  So Luis lived by himself in a room his family rented for him closer to the road.  Moreover, due to his disability, Luis had no way of traveling to his classes, so he had to drop out of school and give up his dream of graduating from university

It is fair to say that these were Luis’ darkest days.

June 13, 2009. It is a typical Friday afternoon in Antigua.  A group of guys are playing basketball on the court in La Candelaria.  They’re good.  So good, in fact, they’ve won second place in an international tournament the last two years, playing against teams from Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico.  One guy, in particular, stands out.  He only joined the team five months ago, and is already playing center.

The young man is 21 years old.  He’s gainfully employed, he’s in his final year of studying to be an accountant and he’s on a scholarship to study English.  His name is Luis.

Luis’ fortunes got brighter when, two weeks after he returned from the hospital, he was introduced to Transitions – an Antigua-based project which provides wheelchairs, prosthetics/orthotics, rehabilitation, employment, education, training and other support to disabled Guatemalans.  The project is led by Alex Gálvez, a paraplegic himself.

Alex, who had suffered from life-threatening bedsores from his own injury, provided support and helped Luis treat the wound at home.  Three months later, it was healed.  Luis was then able to begin a rehabilitation program with the Transitions team, which provided him with a wheelchair and taught him skills such as bathing, dressing and navigating Antigua on wheels.

Alex founded Transitions in 1996 after a life-transforming experience.  At the age of 16, Alex was the victim of a gun-shot wound that left him paralyzed from the waist down.  He was in a critical condition from bedsores in Hermano Pedro hospital when he met John Bell, a special education teacher from the United States who was volunteering at the hospital.  John arranged for Alex to travel to the United States for life-saving surgical treatment and rehabilitation.  This experience gave Alex a vision of providing the next generation of disabled Guatemalans the same opportunity that he had.  So, with the help of John, he returned to Guatemala and began the work of Transitions.

Our Buddy, Earl Fish - File Photo

We met Joe Bageant the way we meet many of our best friends, through a mutual acquaintance that may have stepped on the wrong side of the law a few times. The brother in question, Earl Fish, did a couple of stints in the pen for safe cracking, and a couple more for trying to escape. Earl was down here in Antigua a few months ago, visiting from his half-a-year-home in Oaxaca where he also provides a hide out when we’re creatively transporting booze back across the Guatemala / Mexico border. Over a few beers I mentioned to Earl that I’d found a powerful voice for social justice and good whiskey on the interweb and that his name was Joe Bageant. Earl said, “Joe, he’s an old buddy of mine. Want me to drop him a line and see if you might use a few of his pieces for your magazine?”

I believe my response was both a spit take and a “Hells Yeah! But that doesn’t get you off the hook for writing me a piece or two, yer-self, Earl.”

Earl smiled more wryly than Clint Eastwood as Josey Wales eyeballing a copperhead and said, “Well, if you want the real good stories, you’ll have to wait for the statute of limitations to expire.”

Earl’s a gem, and anyone who would see him only through the lens of the crimes he’s done, and not the man he is, is a rat-hearted fool, as far as we’re concerned. Earl might have strayed from convention a bit in his younger days, but he’s about the best friend a guy could want. Honest as the day is long, never afraid to call shit, shit, and a brother who would walk a mile over broken glass if you said you’d come up light on a bar tab or just needed someone to shoot the shit with on a long, dark night of the soul.

Joe feels the same way, too, as it turns out. Within hours of Earl dropping him a line, Joe wrote us back saying that “any friend of Earl’s is a friend of mine.” He’s since allowed us to print a number of his essays in these pages, and we thank him for that enormously and promise him a barrel of free beer when he makes good on his promise (threat?) to come and visit us. We’ll keep you posted.

Joe’s honesty of spirit and clarity of soul carries through all of his writing, as readers of this mag will no doubt attest, and for those of you who don’t know his voice, we strongly urge you to discover it for yourself by checking out his website at www.joebageant.com. And in his book, Deer Hunting With Jesus, Joe brings that hard-living, great-loving spirit to the fore. I know there’s at least one copy of his book in town, and I might be inclined to lend it to you if you ask real nice.

Joe grew up in Winchester, Virginia, though he now splits his time between his old hometown and a small cabaña in Hopkins Village, Belize. In Deer Hunting With Jesus, Joe points out that Winchester is neigh on the most northern outpost of the old Confederacy, but it is still, undeniably, “The South.” It is a community of a few well-to-do who live in the airy Virginia sun above the majority of Rednecks who work the line, fix the cars, sing the Karaoke, love their country, and fall a bit deeper into debt to a system rigged to fuck them at every turn, until they die penniless in some run-down old folks storage container at the edge of town, or just over the state line.

Joe is a rarity in his hometown, and in the United States, writ large. He is a man who comes from a certain class (poor, under-educated and white) and yet was able to transcend the coarsest aspect of that acculturation, while maintaining the love and the connection that he feels for family and friends, even when they don’t see eye to eye. And even those few times when they might see  eye to clenched fist.

Adam’s first album, Friends Like These, is still set for heavy rotation on my iPod and I’ve been waiting over two years for Mr. Stokes to deliver on his promised follow-up. In the interceding time I’ve given Adam a raft of shit via email, voice mail and snail mail for not getting the album done, but I know two things about the musician and the man. The former is a perfectionist and the latter a serious stoner. So I cut the brother some slack.

October Sky was worth the wait.

The album’s 13 tracks are an invitation into Adam’s personal world and cover a range of material from the achingly private, “When We’re Free” to the memory seducing, “B to 34th.” Throughout the album Adam sings in a voice both sweet and whiskied.

With that voice, in “When We’re Free,” Adam sings that, “I’m a slob, but you’re a drunk and I get high a little too much. We never really get around to what’s really wrong. I hide from you and you hide from me, either of us only show the things we want seen. I know I’ll be lost before too long.” It’s a song written about those times in a relationship when all the things you once loved about your partner start to get under your skin in the worst of ways. But more than that, the song is about your willingness to work through the pain for the greater love, if only your lover will come along for the ride.

Fortunately for Adam, Jess and the rest of us, they’ve made it through those times and came out on the other end with a beautiful baby boy AND a new album!

In “B to 34th,” written in New York City in October of 2001, Adam brings us all – particularly expatriated New Yorkers – back to that tragically magical moment when we realized just how much our lives and our city were worth. It recalls that very moment when we knew that it was alright to just cry. As expressed in the song, pain and love are of a coin, obverse and converse. For Adam the moment came on the B train. For me it came at Flannery’s Bar on 14th street in late September of 2001 when I saw a woman crying, forlornly, into her drink. I pulled up my barstool next to hers and took her in my arms. We’d never met, but she let it all go. And then, wiping her tears, she said the quietest “thank you” before walking out of the bar never to be seen again. They were the only words we ever shared, and Adam’s powerful voice recalled them to me. And for that I thank him.

That is the mark of true power with a songwriter. By putting memory to melody and imbuing reality with rhythm, Stokes sings to the recollections of the listener and allows their private world to dance a waltz with his. I’ve heard few voices more attuned to that particular magic than Adam’s.

Another one of his true gifts is time-honored in American Roots music. He has the ability to tell a story. In one of my favorite cuts on the album, “Jane Jacobs,” Adam schools his audience on the life and work of the title character, a civilly disobedient woman who helped to save New York’s Greenwich Village from the further pillaging of Robert Moses. Moses was the urban planner who destroyed countless Gotham neighborhoods with the bisecting devastation of highways, bridges and canals, all in the name of progress. If it weren’t for Jane Jacobs, that same fate would have befallen the stomping grounds of my early adulthood. Without Adam, I never would have known her name.

Adam rounds out the album with the lighthearted and beautifully rendered ballad, “Bare Hands,” in which he fantasizes about killing an unnamed object of his recent affection. He claims it’s all a joke, and for Jess’ sake, we sure as hell hope so.

I’ll let him sing us out on that note:

“I’ve heard people say that a person can change, but I thought that it might take some time. But you went from Gandhi to Hitler it seems, all right in front of my eyes. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I hope you die sometime later today.  Maybe you should go and not come back. Don’t take this personal ’cause it’s a fact. I’d like to kill you in 10,000 ways. With some ancient torture that takes a couple days.  I want to kill you with my bare hands. And if I knew CPR I would kill you again. With my bare hands.”

Those hands, at their foundation, aren’t violent. They are jeweler’s tools with which he crafts beauty and brings it home to his audience.

Buy the album.

October Sky can be purchased online at cdbaby.com and iTunes. Someday soon you should visit his website at www.adamstokesmusic.com. He said it is still under construction, which means, with his weed habit, you might want to give it a few months.

]]> http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/music-reviews/new-music-review/feed/ 0 http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/businesses/an-open-letter-to-local-antigua-business-owners/ http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/businesses/an-open-letter-to-local-antigua-business-owners/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 02:10:51 +0000 Michael Tallon http://lacuadraonline.com/?p=267 We keep hearing, verbatim, the same line, over and over again, from our advertising staff. They say the most common reason new clients give for declining to take an ad is because they believe, “…only locals read La Cuadra.” This has been happening with a regularity that makes us wonder if one of our competitors has been practicing hypnotism during sales calls and we’d like to address the issue directly.

First, we’ve gotta call bullshit. We publish 5000 copies of La Cuadra every other month and they are always gone within five weeks. So, either there are 5000 locals reading the mag, or there is a good part of the traveling population that picks up La Cuadra. With our strong opinions and our the occasional off-color use of language, we might lose a few old blue-hairs from the Bible Belt, but we more than make up for that in travelers who want something to read, in English, at the end of a six hour Spanish class or a long day of volunteer work. And they’re the customers you want – those that are in town for weeks or months.

But we’ve got a better pitch – let’s explode our crafty competitor’s argument. You are a local business owner. You live here and you READ La Cuadra. You choose to spend time with us. That means something.

We’ve heard, time and again, from our readers that they take the magazine home with them to share with friends. They ask for back issues (which are pretty tough to come by at this point.) They ask if they can get a subscription and have the magazine mailed to them at home. We oblige. Also, later this month, we’ll be online. Our website, www.lacuadraonline.com, is within a few weeks of being fully operational – and that’s another advertising outlet for you.

We also know that people come to Antigua because of La Cuadra. They have heard, through friends, that something artistic and thoughtful is happening here. What that means for you is an engaged readership that is focused on the magazine before them. That means your ad is making a lasting impression. Give us a thought.

]]> http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/businesses/an-open-letter-to-local-antigua-business-owners/feed/ 1 http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/ngo-review/ngo-review-manos-abiertas/ http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/ngo-review/ngo-review-manos-abiertas/#comments Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:25:51 +0000 Jessica Arnold http://www.lacuadraonline.com/?p=754 Paola is in her mid-thirties and has six children. She is deathly afraid to become pregnant again, but her husband wants more children. She is reluctant to have sex with her husband, and he is looking around for other women. He has threatened to leave Paola and their children if she does not submit, and Paola does not know what to do or where to turn.

Fortunately for Paola, Manos Abiertas offers a solution. Manos Abiertas, or “Open Hands,” is an integrated women’s health center providing family planning and maternal health services. The clinic is located in the small town of Ciudad Vieja, five kilometers from Antigua, at the base of Volcan Agua. The clinic is run by its founder and director, Hannah Freiwald.

Ms. Freiwald, originally from Germany, is a trained midwife who has managed birthing centers in Guatemala City since 1997. Several years ago, a representative from Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (“PPFA”) contacted Ms. Freiwald about funding a Guatemalan project focusing on maternal health issues. With PPFA funding, Ms. Freiwald decided to open Manos Abiertas in Ciudad Vieja.

Before Manos Abiertas opened, there were no comparable services in Ciudad Vieja. Women lacked education about family planning choices. Ciudad Vieja had (and still has) no hospital. The public emergency health center was attended by a general auxiliary nurse with no emergency services outside of office hours. Generally, women delivered babies at the National Hospital in Antigua. Yet, the hospital had a high rate of infant mortality and performing C-sections, which are inherently dangerous to the mother. Women who chose not to deliver at the hospital gave birth at home with the assistance of a traditional midwife. Ms. Freiwald explained that although traditional midwives are good, they are not trained to handle emergency situations.

NEW SERVICES

Manos Abiertas now offers a full range of women’s health care services – from family planning options to post natal care. The clinic offers full gynecological care, including pelvic exams and pap smears, which test for cervical cancer and other abnormalities, and receives lab results in about a week. In addition, Manos Abiertas tests for most sexual transmitted diseases, including herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis B and C, and HIV. If other or more expensive tests are necessary, Manos Abiertas will refer the patient to other doctors, usually in Guatemala City.

Manos Abiertas supplies several family planning options. The clinic offers oral contraceptives, birth control shots (one or three month injections), birth control implants, condoms, intrauterine devices, emergency contraceptives, and other services. Most importantly, the clinic provides education and counseling about all of these family planning methods so that women can make informed decisions.

If a patient is pregnant, the clinic provides prenatal and postnatal services. Manos Abiertas supplies pregnant women with nutrition and health counseling, nutrition supplements, lab work, routine check ups, and prenatal classes. After delivery, the clinic offers check ups for the mother and baby for up to six weeks.

Manos Abiertas is also a birthing clinic, following a professional midwifery model. This means that the mother decides her position for delivery and who she wants present during delivery. She also delivers naturally without chemicals. There are two individual rooms for birthing at the clinic, and the mother may remain at the clinic for up to 24 hours after delivery. Only in an emergency situation will the clinic staff attend a delivery at the home of the mother.

The three staff members of Manos Abiertas, Ms. Freiwald, her assistant Gabriela, and the head of clinical maintenance, are all women. Ms. Freiwald is a certified professional midwife and has personally trained Gabriela. Both women are qualified to provide clinical care for women. The clinic also hosts interns studying midwifery for several months. Other volunteers are welcomed. The clinic is open every day during the week, with a staff member on call for emergencies.

On average, a woman will pay Q25 for each prenatal appointment until she delivers her baby. However, Manos Abiertas offers these services on a sliding scale, meaning that the amount a woman will pay for clinical care is based on her ability to afford treatment. Approximately one or two women a month are unable to cover the Q25 fee. According to Ms. Freiwald, “No one is ever turned away.”  The clinic will work out a payment plan for those who cannot afford to pay at the time services are rendered.

For example, recently a mother of five children in her mid-thirties sought the clinic’s help. The mother had miscarried twins at four months and had developed an infection and anemia. She had been to a doctor who had prescribed her antibiotics to prevent her from becoming more septic. The woman was too ashamed to tell the doctor that she could not afford to pay for the medicine. She refused to see the doctor again despite needing more care.

A family member then brought her to Manos Abiertas. The clinic realized that she desperately needed help. The clinic purchased and administered the expensive medication and allowed the woman to rest at the clinic. If the woman had gone without treatment for another twenty-four hours, she would likely have died. The clinic then worked out a payment plan with the family to pay off the debt from the medications. Manos Abiertas’ determination to turn no one away is an enormous drain on the clinic’s operating budget, and the clinic needs donations to cover these kinds of emergencies.

As for other funding, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. has supplied Manos Abiertas with a renewable grant for up to four years to cover general operating costs. PPFA also provides technical support, training, and all of the tests and contraceptives the clinic offers. Manos Abiertas hopes to be self sustainable in the next few years.

Manos Abiertas is the only clinic in Central America funded by PPFA that offers midwifery services. PPFA requires that the clinic use PPFA funds for maternal health care but has not placed any other restrictions on the clinic. Private donors have also helped by supplying the clinic with medical equipment and furniture.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

On average, the clinic sees eight to ten women a day, with most women being around the age of sixteen. The counseling and education the clinic provides is working. According to Ms. Freiwald, the clinic’s success is due in large part “because there are no men here.”  Manos Abiertas offers “Atención de mujer a mujer;” care from women to women. By creating an environment free from the influence of men, the women – and only the women – make decisions concerning their reproductive health.

Traditional midwives have also been supportive of Manos Abiertas. For example, a young woman named Maria was expecting her first child. She had been attended by a traditional midwife throughout her pregnancy, but her midwife was not allowed to deliver her baby because regulations from the Guatemalan Ministry of Health prohibit traditional midwives from delivering the baby of a first time mother. Instead of going to the hospital, the traditional midwife recommended that Manos Abiertas deliver the baby. Maria was able to deliver a healthy baby at Manos Abiertas with her family present.

Despite its success, Manos Abiertas still faces many challenges. The “machismo” culture in Guatemala oftentimes dictates that the husband will make all reproductive health choices for the wife, including when she has children and how delivery will occur. Additionally, some Guatemalan men believe that a woman who does not get pregnant is unfaithful. Accordingly, men often forbid women from using contraceptives.

As a result, women are seeking counseling secretly. For example, Paola, as noted above, has six children and does not want to get pregnant again. So, Paola comes to Manos Abiertas, without her husband’s knowledge, to receive monthly birth control injections. She plans to undergo sterilization surgery soon, and she must not become pregnant for the surgery to be successful.

Some religions also prevent women from receiving care because they advocate against contraceptives, emergency contraception, and abortion. (Abortion is illegal in Guatemala except in cases to save the mother’s life). Additionally, some patients are mono-lingual in a Mayan language, making counseling difficult.

Despite these challenges, the future for Manos Abiertas is promising. Backed by PPFA support, the clinic intends to reach more women and eventually offer more services. For now, Manos Abiertas is glad to be able to offer women an alternative to the maternal health choices – or lack of choices – that they have had in the past. With hands open, Manos Abiertas invites women to receive integrated family care given from one woman to another.

HOW TO HELP:

Manos Abiertas accepts donations and volunteers. The clinic desperately needs an ultrasound machine and donations to its emergency fund. If you are interested in helping, please contact the clinic via telephone at (502) 7888-7740 or (502) 5000-4810; via email at manosabiertas@centrodepartonatural.org; or in person at Manos Abiertas, 2 Calle 2-59 zona 3, Ciudad Vieja, Sacatepequez. Manos Abiertas’ website is available at http://centrodepartonatural.org/index_archivos/Page487.htm.

One of my favorite slogans

Groucho Marxists used comedy and outlandishness as a political tool. They believed revolution should be a party, a circus, a festival of irony and absurdity that raised political awareness and paved the way for real change.

In 1968, long before any of the blather about a “Pigs in Lipstick,” for example, they ran a pig – Pigasus The Immortal – as a presidential candidate.

During the Vietnam War, they organized a demonstration with over 50,000 non-violent protestors who hoped to end the war by using their collective psychic powers to levitate the Pentagon and turn it orange. Cool. The media attention they gained helped to swell the ranks of the anti-war movement.

I mention this because every night I go to bed and try to use my individual psychic power to levitate the Pentagon and send it spiraling out of our galaxy. Someday it will work and you will thank me.

I mention it because I have been thinking about how the methods of enacting change have evolved, and how there are those who often, very quietly and beneath the radar, work to make things a bit better. They are perhaps not as theatrical as the Yippies, but many of them are equally as bold and dedicated. Many of them are working here in Guatemala, privately or in NGOs.

I also mention it because my brain, during this time of year, is one giant egg-nog soaked non-sequitur and I needed a tenuous hook for the next sentence, which is: I have violated a central tenet of Groucho Marxism. I Now Belong to A Club That Would Have Me For A Member.

Even worse, I did not just join a club, I (and Café No Sé) joined an association along with Mono Loco, Reilly’s, La Sala, Bistro 5, Nokiate, Fridas, Sin Ventura, La Casbah, Gaia and Café 2000.

The association, ASADE, is a collective or restaurants, bars and entertainment venues that have joined together to try and give back to the community.

To that end, ASADE recently donated Q18,000 to the NGO, Niños de Guatemala which is opening a school in Ciudad Vieja this month. That donation was generously matched by Rotary International bringing the total to Q36,000. The money, which will be used to help furnish the school, was presented in November during a tribute concert for the late Garifuna star and social activist, Andy Palacio. The Niños de Guatemala school, when it opens, will enroll 70 students, with the goal of having 200 students by the beginning of 2013.

ASADE has also begun an environmental initiative to coordinate recycling programs amongst its members.

I think Groucho, quite the radical himself, would applaud ASADE. Happy New Year, and Niños de Guatemala, felicidades!

]]> http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/businesses/local-business-association-review-asade/feed/ 0 http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/book-reviews/book-review-%e2%80%93-the-predator-state/ http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/book-reviews/book-review-%e2%80%93-the-predator-state/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:46:37 +0000 James R. Tallon, Jr. http://lacuadraonline.com/?p=595 The Internet “gives us instant free communication at the price of universal surveillance.”

This parenthetical observation has nothing to do with the central themes of James K. Galbraith’s new book, “The Predator State.” It’s included in a brief description of technologies which moved from military roots to broader societal application. It marks the moment, however, when a casual summer read, poolside at a hotel in Antigua, gave way to an agreement by a recovering politician and policy wonk with minimal graduate training in the discipline to review a work on economic policy by a distinguished professor for his son’s magazine. Good thing, too. This book is worth reading.

With analytic clarity, grace, and wit – the Internet line is just one of myriad examples – James K. Galbraith takes the reader on an almost thirty year flight, from the Reagan Revolution to the hopes and fears of current discourse. The altitude is low enough to describe details on the ground but sufficient in height to discern patterns of governmental and economic policy. The result is a refreshing antidote, perhaps for the economist, but surely for the concerned general reader, to the superficial exchange of talking points and cable commentary which passes for a national policy debate. His goal, he says, is to “free up the Liberal mind.”

Galbraith introduces us to the concept of predation, “the systematic abuse of public institutions for private profit or, equivalently, the systematic undermining of public protections for the benefit of private clients.”  At its core, however, the analysis moves beyond yet another critique of the Bush administration to its real target, the inability of Democratic leaders to articulate a governing alternative. He challenges the reader to envision an approach which is more than not-Bush.

Galbraith begins with the theoretical economic tenets of the Reagan Revolution: tight money, low taxes, balanced budgets, deregulation, free trade and others.  With civility, he cites the roots of these ideas in the academia of the 1970s, and while affirming his rejection of both the content and logic of the theories, he grants a seriousness of belief to the revolutionaries.

A series of chapters, thought provoking to the layman, no doubt the grist for a bodily assault in the Academy, examines the rejection and abandonment of the conservative policies, at least with respect to their stated economic objectives, through the years of Reagan and beyond. The lasting impacts of the Reagan revolutionaries were not, he argues, in the basics of economic policy. Rather, Galbraith offers a fresh concept: Reagan and his supporters changed the language of debate.

The lasting effect of the “Reagan Revolution” was to bring reverence to the concept of markets, a word which Galbraith suggests has risen to the status of a secular religion in American political discourse. Observe the genuflections as the word “Market” is spoken. To the economic assertions about the market, Reagan conservatives appended the political concept of freedom. “Economic freedom,” in Galbraith’s words: “the freedom to shop,” took center stage in political discourse.

Far from defending or ensuring a role for coherent governmental action, Liberals have been overtaken by the language of “making markets work.”  The result has been to define and limit the discourse between Liberals and Conservatives nearly three decades later. What is government’s role and who speaks for it?

While the words of the current Bush administration echo the Reagan vision, they are – in Galbraith’s view – of a wholly different character.  The rhetoric is still of limited government, but the reality, simply stated, is why challenge the role of government when it is easier to acquire control directly? Galbraith cites the litany of oft-heard criticisms of the Bush years, but he places the behavior of the administration within the concept of a “corporate republic.”

Their policies are wholly consistent with a private takeover of the state. Help our “investors” make money on government’s lines of business. Keep regulation out of our way. Deliver our governing message with efficiency and effect. The rhetoric is conservative, but the reality is quite the contrary.  It is an aggressive governmental effort in support of private gain.

This is The Predator State.

To Galbraith, the ideas and policies of Reagan have been abandoned in practice. In his view, they were wrong anyway. But they have taken on cosmic life as a secular belief system. The political descendents of Reagan use the rhetoric to run a private interest government, and the Liberals, trapped in the language of markets, seem able only to stammer, “we’re not them.”

This is the puzzle of 2008.

While Galbraith admits that he could write more – perhaps he will – about the road ahead, he reminds us that our national success from the Great Depression forward grew not from a “free market economy” but from our unique American mix of public and private action. He concludes with thoughtful examination of the potential for public planning and standard setting in advancing a new approach to climate change and infrastructure development.

Lest The Predator State be viewed as a one-sided ideological attack, Galbraith takes aim at commonly heard criticisms of trade policy and the loss of jobs by America’s middle class. He reminds us that the quality of jobs “at risk” in the trade debate were not created as a result of “free markets” but by unions, laws, regulations and standards, imposed here at home. The problem is a conservative attack on those mechanisms, not in the concept of trade. The answer is how we respond in our domestic policies. “The trade deficit overall has practically nothing to do with trade agreements.”

I learned a valuable lesson from Professor Galbraith. As a member of his target audience, a Liberal caught in the language of markets, he offers a simple challenge. Think about how things really work. My work is in health care policy. His modest treatment of this area covers the well stated criticisms of high cost, uneven quality, and our lack of a universal payment system. It’s also a field awash in talk about markets, about the freedom to choose. How does this market thing really work? Can you even buy a unit of health care if you wanted to? Are you purchasing medical care or are you purchasing insurance, an entirely different product? In other words: think about how the terms of discourse alter and mask our real choices.

Galbraith acknowledges that the book, at least in part, was suggested during his last visit with his father, John Kenneth Galbraith, at a Cambridge hospital in 2006.

The Internet moment cited above occurred in the presence of my son and, thus, the agreement to write the review. If 2008 presents an opportunity for meaningful discussion among generations, Galbraith is a good traveling companion.

Jim Tallon is President of the United Hospital Fund, a health care policy think tank and philanthropy. He served as Majority Leader of the New York State Assembly. He lives and works in New York City.