Sometimes you really can’t judge a book by its cover. Take Political Class Dismissed, by local attorney James Ostrowski, who is of late leading the taxpayer revolt called Free Buffalo. When I first picked it up about a year ago I thought, “what the fuck is this cover suppose to mean?” The cover graphic, as you can see, is of a guy in a tux with dark sunglasses holding an oversized gavel in front of cityhall with a sort of bullet-riddled title font. I said tomyself, “this is too stupid for words” and didn’t botherto give the book even a cursory review. Somebody
had gotten the book free from somewhere so don’t think I buy books I don’t intend to read. I just wasn’t interested in a book with such a lame cover.

When the Erie County budget process became a catastrophe and the geriatric tightwad bitching class went for its torches and pick-axes, Mr. Ostrowski, with the aid of local closet case Tom Bauerle, jumped to the front of the class. Nobody likes death or taxes, so the near-dead were ripe for the anti-tax religion Ostrowski and his ilk preach. In light of these events I thought that maybe now would be a good time to read this book. It turns out my knee-jerk reaction to Ostrowski's lame cover was mistaken. The book is worth the read; well, at least under present circumstances. He is one of us and he has something to say.

I liked and hated the book, and that's not a bad thing. Its purist libertarianism, mixed with free market zealotry, made for interesting reading. The very least that can be said for Mr. Ostrowski's book is that it's not a bad starting point for those involved or considering joining the battle to regain control over the government that us ordinary citizens lost control of decades ago.

I'll start with the good news: Ostrowski is a self-professed "independent, middle-class, populist, radical libertarian" and his book is filled with his many, mostly dead-on, off the cuff observations about the state of politics and the world. He knows Buffalo and explains what ails her in a thoughtful and thorough analysis. The main essay, "What's wrong with Buffalo," takes up about 20% of the book's length. His observations make sense, even though I don't agree his with some of his anti-union, pro-free market perspectives. The book is fairly well written- he should stay away from trying to be funny-and touches on many topics that I would hope most progressive would agree with. You also have to ignore the author's somewhat overblown opinion of himself (The promo line on the cover, "It's more than a book; it's an event!" epitomizes this lack of humility. Note to Jim: it is just a book; get over your bad geek self.)

But Ostrowski's got smart things to say about the futility of the war on drugs, the idiocy of gun control, the out of control security state, and the exponential expansion of the federal government and the imperial ambitions of our leaders over the past fifty years. He's clearly committed to seeing Buffalo survive and prosper, which might not be all that's needed, but at this point it sure looks like a good start.

Ostrowski recognizes the fundamental corruption that is killing not only our local life but also the future of our country. His analysis relies too heavily, in my opinion, on his libertarian buddies whom he idolizes. Where I think he goes off the deep end is in relying on his perceptions without giving the reader enough back-up for his conclusions other than the personal frame of reference he has garnered from being a libertarian convert for the last twenty years or so.

He takes on a lot of "liberal" (he often targets the "liberal" archetype, despite his frequent assertion that labels are useless) sacred cows such as FDR, Abe Lincoln, Michael Moore and even Noam Chomsky. In order to enjoy the book, I suggest you skip the introduction, entitled "Liberty v. Utopia." It's just plain libertarian ranting that made little sense to me. Ostrowski attempts to convince us that neither he nor libertarians are utopian. Therefore, the only smart thing to do is accept the principle that every man is an island, and some islands are just damn worthless. Apparently accepting the miserable human condition is a fact of life libertarians are willing to live with, but I get a creepy, racist, superiority vibe from this tack. I like the thought that freedom is the right to do that which does not infringe upon other's freedom, but a big part of the libertarian thing is having the right to do what you want with property you obtain fairly. How do we know what is fair? I think we have decided that living in a society is a benefit and to do so fairly we need to arbitrate questions of whether what you do intrudes upon my freedom or not. Read the book, make up your mind, get involved with Free Buffalo, or something else-or don't complain when Jim Ostrowski and his curmudgeonly followers are running things in a few years.