Dare to hope

the long version

Most Americans don't vote. We're told it's because we're happy with the way things are, or we're lazy or apathetic. West says it's because we understand that our vote makes little difference in a world of candidates corrupt, spineless or both. Yet West has faith in the possibilities of political change: Americans have constantly reshaped our country. With the national debt in the trillions, no national health care, unsustainable energy sources, poor public education, a broken voting system, a corporate economy that has abandoned the American worker, and a morality that encourages discrimination, America is not the democracy it could be, and West believes we can change that. Mayor of New Paltz, N.Y., and member of the Green Party, as fiercely practical as he is passionate, West offers hope and action to combat the sense of helplessness creeping across the country.--From publisher description.