American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century

by Tony Blankley

Book Overview

Tough Times Call for Tough Action In American Grit, nationally syndicated columnist Tony Blankley warns that the administration of Barack Obama is a potential disaster at a dangerous time for America.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596985194
• ISBN13: 9781596985193
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing
• Length: 215 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Too Many Rights Not Enough Responsibilities

In AMERICAN GRIT, Tony Blankley directly addresses the controversy over where to strike a viable balance between rights and responsibilities. He sees that such a balance historically moves in waves. During times of war that present a clear and present danger to the territorial integrity of the United States(World Wars I and II), he sees a shift toward responsibility and sacrifice. During all other times, the shift is in an opposite direction toward individual rights. This simplistic paradigm he notes has changed due to two reasons: First, the government of the United States aided and abetted by its judiciary, academia, and the media have lurched this country toward the left. Second, the nature of war itself has changed. We are far less likely to engage in the far flung type battlefields of total war that characterized the first two world wars but are far more likely to encounter a never ending series of localized "hot spot" eruptions that feature terror rather than massed force as its impetus. It is the confluence of these factors that he believes represents the greatest danger to America's sovereignty and survival since the days of the Cold War and nuclear exchange. In AMERICAN GRIT, he outlines a series of steps that are not only doable but necessary for our ongoing survival. Blankley sees the restoration of the draft as the cornerstone to the revival of the security of the United States. His reasons are hardly new, but their familiarity to the over fifty generation does not reduce the need to ensure that as the world's hot spots multiply so will the need of the American military to have sufficient force to fight on several fronts at once. Even now with American forces fighting only in two adjacent countries in the MidEast, we have clearly reached a tipping point. Should the need to fight elsewhere emerge, America may not have the horses to respond. Blankley addresses other almost equally crucial areas needed for American survival. He bemoans the Left's success in reducing America's ability to become energy independent while simultaneously increasing our dependence on foreign oil. He takes an unbiased look at the need to censor the media during time of war. It is with no small irony that he compares the utter ruthlessness of past presidents like Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt to clamp down on seditious writers, editors, magazines, and newspapers during wartime to the almost cavalier censorings of George Bush, whom the left and the media reviled incessantly and grotesquely. As one reads of Blankley's attempts to essentially place the interests of America over the rest of the world, one can sense that the greatest threat to all this comes from the newest occupant of the White House, a man who is bent on placing the United States under the umbrella of a One World Government, one in which the U. S. Constitution will no longer reign supreme. It is to prevent this unhappy fate that Tony Blankley has written this book.

You don't need to agree with Blankley to benefit from reading his book

I always enjoy Tony Blankley's commentary and analysis. He immigrated to America and approaches his citizenship and our country's values with an interesting perspective that can enrich the views of those of us who are native born. When I was a young man I lived for two years in Queensland, Australia and those years abroad forever changed my perspective of what it means to be an American and how we are viewed around the world. Like Blankley, I am a Conservative before I am a Republican. Of course, in this book Blankley rejects even the title of Conservative, Libertarian, Neo-Conservative, Neo-Con (an epithet from the Left), Paleo-Con, or any other already defined group. He calls himself an American Nationalist. That is, he wants policies that make America stronger rather than the perfecting of any abstract philosophy. He sees our times as far too troubled for the niceties of abstractions and wants practical solutions that address the most serious issues we face. He makes his case for this approach in Chapter 1. He advocates bringing back the draft less because of military needs, although he is for a larger military, but to foster the kind of shared values and culture fostered by the near universal service the World War II generation experienced. He believes America will benefit if more of us sacrifice for her and become invested in her protection. Like many of us he also recognizes the vulnerabilities we face because of our dependence on imported oil. He wisely exposes the ridiculous promises made on behalf of "alternative energies" and the political agenda behind the global warming alarmist rants. Blankley advocates a sound energy program of more drilling, more nuclear, and more coal. Personally, I think we should make almost all of our electricity from nuclear power. Blankley also wants a war time censorship akin to what we had in wars past. He doesn't want the New York Times or anyone else exposing state secrets and compromising intelligence programs that have no real public benefit except furthering the paper's left-wing and anti-war agenda. Yes, the author recognizes how complicated the balancing act is between suppressing true sedition and quashing honest political debate and covers this in chapter six, "A Law Code for Wartime". In chapter seven he focuses on how our national policies should be evaluated on their benefit to America rather than any other political, social, or international agenda. This includes the protection of America's sovereignty and the danger we face through use by the Left of international treaties to erode American independence and Constitutional principles. Since Blankley's professional expertise is in communications, he has many interesting points to make in using communications more effectively in the way our government engages other governments and how we pursue the principles of Liberty around the world. The author also speaks against the conversion of our schools and universities in

Can the world afford for America to fail? A call to action!

Mr. Tony Blankley's American Grit provides a grim reminder of the perilous situation America finds itself in the early 21st century. It also portrays the danger the rest of the world faces if America continues to pursue policies that weaken it and therefore would lead to a far more dangerous world than many of us even want to begin to contemplate. American Grit is a short 188 page read that packs a lot of thought provoking information into a small book. For example, Mr. Blankley's case to bring back the draft was very well put together and well reasoned. In the past I have dismissed bringing back the draft as either a naïve idea or simply an idea that was brought forth by people that simply wanted to embarrass or hurt former President Bush. Mr. Blankley's argument however has made me think I need to reconsider my previous stance. The book is broken into the following, somewhat self explanatory, chapters. 1. The Case for a New American Nationalism 2. Bring Back the Draft 3. America Held Hostage 4. Making America Energy Independent 5. In Praise of Censorship 6. A Law Code for Wartime 7. Putting America's Interests First 8. Broadcasting Liberty 9. Back to Basics: Reading Writing and ROTC 10. Conclusion: The Road Ahead Besides the draft chapter, I found the chapters on censorship and the Back to Basics chapter extremely eye opening. While I understood some of the policies enacted during the Civil War, WWI and WWII, Mr. Blankley gives some astonishing facts that compare starkly with how we are prosecuting the current War of Terror, which I believe should be termed the War on Islamo-Fascism. The Back to Basics chapter on our education system and the lack of patriotism was frightening. In a short half a century, how and what our children are taught has been turned upside down. If this trend continues I believe we will eventually become a nation truly in decline. American Grit is a book that would be beneficial to the left, the right and the middle in this country. It's a call to action to put America back on the appropriate path of what is right for America.

American Grit is what we need.

I agree with Tony. He is a common sense Nationalist and a Patriot. I found this book on the New York Conservative Web Page [..] and I think it's great.