The hottest spot last Wednesday
It was hot in Washington, D.C., last Wednesday but the hottest spot was undoubtedly on the terrace of the Willard Hotel, and I am not talking only about the mercury. Gathered there were 100 or so patriots concerned about the direction of the country. They had come to celebrate the first season of a new publishing initiative from Encounter Books, Encounter Broadsides. To date, we’ve published a baker’s dozen of these forthright educational pamphlets.
Joining me to talk about the Broadsides were Ambassador John Bolton, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and health-care campaigner Betsy McCaughey, whose “Obama Health Law: What It Says and How to Overturn It” just rolled off the press and will be available in bookstores and for download soon.
But what are Encounter Broadsides? One answer is that they are modestly priced, handsomely printed essays of some 5000-7000 words — long enough to elaborate a case, short enough to be composed quickly by a seasoned writer and to be read in a sitting.
Another, deeper, answer is that they are an effort to resuscitate an 18th-century literary form in a 21st century context. Just as Broadsides like The Federalist Papers and Common Sense helped define the aspirations of ordered liberty at the dawn of the United States, so Encounter Broadsides aim to inform, illuminate, arouse, and protect freedom in this troubled period of American history. Together, Encounter Broadsides are a wake-up call. An alarm bell. A blueprint, if I may employ a once-popular phrase, for hope and change.
In an age when debate about critical matters is often compressed into the literary equivalent of a geometrical point, we saw that there was a new opportunity for commentary that is brief but thoughtful, authoritative yet timely.
With Encounter Broadsides, we aim to capitalize on that opportunity, providing new ammunition for serious debate. You can read them in a sitting and come away knowing the best we can hope for and the worst we must fear.
We aim not merely to comment on, but to intervene in the debate, bringing fresh perspectives to controversies that too often have been interred in the shallow grave of politically correct orthodoxy.
The goal of Encounter Broadsides is to change minds, not merely add to the pile of commentary. Ultimately, we seek to help shape policy and rescue the American dream from the nightmare of the new collectivism that is threatening our liberty, our prosperity, and our national security.
I believe this is a critical moment in the history of the West, and of America in particular. The economic crisis has precipitated a loss of confidence in the value of free markets unlike anything we have seen in decades. Socialism, and the soft-totalitarianism that follows in its wake, is making a comeback everywhere. At the same time, radical Islam confronts democratic society with a categorical and intransigent threat to its existence even as newly rampant authoritarian regimes from Russia and Iran to China and Venezuela are flexing their muscles. Truly, as the old Chinese curse would have it, these are interesting times.
I believe that Encounter Broadsides can play an important role in analyzing and educating the public about a broad range of critical issues. Written by some of our most lively and perceptive commentators, they make the case for liberty and the institutions of democratic capitalism at a time when they are under siege from the resurgence of collectivist sentiment and anti-democratic feeling.
You’ll be hearing more about Encounter Broadsides in the months ahead. In the meantime, here’s some advice: buy a Broadside, convert a liberal, save the nation.
First reaction: Damn! More pages to read.
Second reaction: Hold on, these pamphlets, if well done, may actually serve to reduce the total number of pages I’ll need to get through.
Common Sense, by the way, had a press run of ca. 100,000. Exclude minors, the illiterate and the servile population; multiply by the number of readers who did not buy a copy and this must have taken in the entire politically aware population of Colonial America. No equivalent publishing phenomenon in contemporary America.
Good to see a proper hat amidst America’s sea of damn baseball caps.
Common Sense was bootlegged by countless printers, with Paine’s approval. Second best seller in colonial history (after the Bible). When Washington and his officers read it in Jan., 1776, they stopped toasting the King’s health and George began a letter writing campaign to persuade friends to favor a call for independence.
Another thing to remember. The PETA folks have ONE thing right (praise be!) One fur coat IS harmful to the ecology. It must take 10 trees to make all those protest signs a fur coat generates.
Excellent!
Do you have an iPod app where I can purchase them through iTunes & read them on my iPod touch? They would be perfect for reading while taking the train to NYC.
With all due respect to the iFan, the most efficient way to get these pamphlets into the hands of multiple e-reader platforms would probably be through Amazon’s Kindle store.
Kindle apps are available FREE for the iPhone and iPad, Windows and Mac PCs, and Blackberry devices… and they say an Android app is coming, as well. (See Amazon’s Kindle App page here.
With all those platforms being able to read Kindle formatted documents, Mr. Kimball, I’d encourage you and the others at Encounter Broadsides to talk to Amazon about making your pamphlets available through their distribution channels.
It’s a great series; I own several, and have just finished Ambassador Bolton’s “How Barack Obama is Endangering Our National Sovereignty,” an excellent overview of an all-too obscure issue.
One suggestion: It may not fit the pamphlet style, but I’d like a few endnotes or references at the end of the booklet, so I can check the source if an author makes a statement I’m curious about. That’s a minor issue, though. Encounter Broadsides are must-reading.
They sound like they make for good reading and that they will help those of us who are concerned about these issues by serving as a convenient reference in making the case against the misguided policies of the Obama administration.
Nevertheless, I doubt that they will do anything to “convert liberals” as the subtitle to this piece suggested. Closed-mindedness is one of the hallmarks of contemporary liberalism, and none of the so-called “liberals” I know would be caught reading anything by John Bolton–no matter how illuminating many others might find him.
A wonderful idea. There are so many aspects of politics and governance on which I am not well informed, and so many concerned voices that I have never heard, that I look forward to many rewarding “sittings”.
A cautionary note from a marketing professional. To have the effect you seek, these must be offered in a manner that permits, or possibly encourages, an intelligent “liberal” to red them, in order to achieve the objective of changing minds. A title like “How Barack Obama is Endangering our National Sovereignty” is not going to encourage my grandson to read Mr. Bolton’s Broadside. It screams knee-jerk anti-Obama. Something like “National Sovereignty in a Changing World” has a chance, as long as is early pages make it clear that it is a “fair and balanced” in approach. Or have the whole effort a “Common Sense” series – “Common Sense on National Sovereignty”" – sort of a “Political Reasoning for Dummies”.
I have to agree that now might be the best time to amend the titles. I’m one of the typical Tea Party people who had minimal interest in politics but who is now “off the sidelines.” By about 8 months into Obama’s presidency, I had started LIVING on the internet, reading like mad.
I have a conservative bent, so the titles don’t offend me, but they will be off-putting to the people who have been floating along on MSM sound bites, who are not lefty loonies, but those younger people Churchill referred to with a heart, who haven’t yet grown up to become conservatives. They need this food for their brains. Don’t short-change the excellent content with off-putting titles.
Sorry, I forgot to add that I sent this link to the history teacher at my daughter’s private Christian school. They would seem to be ideal for high school students.
Ray Harvey wrote a series of these “broadsides” over a year ago and compiled it into a slim but excellent book called Leave Us Alone: A Capitalist Credo, well reviewed by, among others, Major Diggs Brown, Green Beret, United States Army.
Can’t wait to read the Betsy McCaughey piece. To warm up for it, I watched her appearance on The Daily Show — it’s on YouTube; priceless! A woman who used to quote chapter and verse of the Health Care Bill to attack it suddenly can’t find her place when asked to back up her assertions.
Now that is a nice hat.
If you like, I could produce a broadsheet entreating our lesser brethren for the necessity of fine head coverings.
“Gathered there were 100 or so patriots concerned about the direction of the country.”
Certain people have lately taken to describing themselves as “patriots” in the mistaken conviction that their opinions are thereby rendered more important than those offered by mere “citizens”. As if a Brit drew humself up to his full height and declared “Sir, I am not merely an Englishman, I am an earl”.
I presume Mr Kimball drinks his tea with his pinky out. Now that I notice the bow tie, I am practically sure of it.
May be you are right.I think it is a good archive.Thank you!