Freedom Book of the Month for October 2000:
The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits
by David Horowitz
Spence Publishing, 2000, 203 pp.

David Horowitz has spent half a century on the front lines of societal conflict, moving from the New Left in the 1960s to a beleaguered right today. In "The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits," Horowitz offers a compelling description of the battle plan with which his old compatriots have triumphed over conservatives on the field of public policy.

"You have less than thirty seconds to reach the average undecided voter who, by the way, is completely uninterested in the political process, and thinks all politicians are interchangeable..." Horowitz tells fellow Republican activists in the title essay. "[W]hat are you going to say to them to get their vote?"

Horowitz then offers six principles of political war, which he claims that "the left understands, but conservatives do not." Libertarians of every party would do well to take heed. Nearly every political failure of free-market ideas can be traced to a strategic failure to apply these principles in the campaign for those ideas -- and where libertarian policy prescriptions are beginning to take hold, the conscious or simply lucky application of them can be seen in the background.

Ultimately, policy struggles come down to the sixth Horowitz Principle: "Victory lies on the side of the people." The organization which is able to position itself as the friend of the underdog -- and its opponents as the protectors of privilege and oppression -- wins the struggle. Horowitz catalogs numerous instances of Democratic triumph based on this simple premise, political victory based not on fact but on public perception. He exposes the parlor tricks and shows how to achieve the power of this position.

The title essay is well worth the purchase price of "The Art of Political War" -- but there's more. Horowitz takes on friend and enemy alike, outlining essentially libertarian arguments in the twin essays "When Liberals Censor..." and "...And Conservatives Follow;" exploding gun control myths; and placing the current generation of black civil rights leaders in their proper historical context as successors to the segregationists that Martin Luther King, Jr. fought against.

If Horowitz is not always right, he is at least always blunt and straightforward, offering no quarter to hypocrisy on left or right. "The Art of Political War" is an enjoyable read -- and a weapon in the activist's arsenal the likes of which has not been seen since Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."

Order "The Art of Political War" from Amazon.Com for $19.96

September 2000: An Enemy of the State by Justio Raimondo

August 2000: The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell

July 2000: A Generation Divided by Rebecca Klatch

June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman

May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith

April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben

March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand

February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler

January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood

Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz

November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell

October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy

September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe

July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman

June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant

May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz

April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille

March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary

February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra