Twilight's Last Gleaming: The Price of Happiness in America

This blueprint for national renewal bristles with unorthodox proposals, many brilliant, some unworkable or ill-advised. If Americans pursue current naive, trickle-down economics of minimally regulated corporatism, then a fascistic U.S. lurks in the wings, warns Cooper, a professor of real estate and legal studies at Georgia State University. He urges the creation of a federally sponsored National Service Corps to put terminally unemployed Americans back to work and recommends a policy of open competition that would sever the Defense Department's alliance with the military/industrial oligopoly and halt its wasteful spending. Using Toronto and Amsterdam as examples, Cooper outlines a campaign to rebuild the U.S.'s cities and infrastructure. He advocates mandatory voting and urges the formation of ``Committees of 1000'' to launch class-action lawsuits. In place of the global arms race, he recommends a foreign policy that would foster Third World economic development, with aid tied to constructive, democratic change. Despite Cooper's stodgy prose and disconcerning tendency to hop from topic to topic, his provocative manifesto is well worth reading. (Sept.)