I just finished reading two recently published books that deal with the deteriorating state of democracy in the United States. One is written by radical journalist David Lindorff and the other is a composition by rock musician/free speech advocate Krist Novoselic (of Nirvana). Neither makes for uplifting reading, although Novoselic ends his work with some hopeful suggestions for reform. Lindorff, however, holds little hope for reform, while hitting hard on not only the repercussions of our faltering republic but also on the reasons for its failures.

His book is a collection of essays and investigative pieces written for Counterpunch and Salon. The essays reveal a government driven by greed and bloodlust, while the investigative pieces reveal the extent (enhanced by idiocy and incompetence) of the attack on the civil and human rights of many US residents. Lindorff's democracy is the ideal democracy that we used to hear about in civics class-where the Bill of Rights matters and the elected ones actually represent the people who voted for them, not the capitalists who paid for their election. This United States is the one we read about all too often: Depleted Uranium weapons strewn about the countries our military attacks, even though the manufacturers of these weapons know they are killing US soldiers along with countless numbers of civilians who happen to live downwind of the radioactive dust these bombs produce; lying politicians who, when caught in their lies, just make up another one which the media immediately spreads with the same lack of skepticism with which they spread the first one, and so on.

Lindorff titles his book, "This Can't Be Happening!" The title represents the disbelief he believes the people of the United States should be experiencing as they watch their country plummet to depths of corruption and greed never before seen. Unfortunately for the nation and its residents, however, that sense of disbelief doesn't seem to exist on a great enough scale to make a difference. As for those of us who do share his sense of incredulity, there just aren't enough of us doing anything about it to matter. Indeed, most of us are sitting in our cars and homes with our jaws scraping the floor-because we can't believe this is happening and, worse, we don't know what we can do about it (or if what we do will matter).

Yet, all hope should not be lost. Lindorff has provided us with important information and given it to us in an exciting, insightful and readable manner. Now it's time to turn that information into actions that might render not only the deeds of the men and women he indicts to the dustbin of history, but send those men and women to that receptacle as well. It's not enough to know what is wrong; one must also share one's knowledge in the hopes that that knowledge will spur change. Change that not only would benefit humankind, but might very well save it.

Krist Novoselic's book, "Of Grunge and Government," is brief and insistent, kind of like a track from a Nirvana CD. Always the most politically involved of the three men in that group, Novoselic has become something of an advocate for free speech and civic involvement in his home state of Washington.

For the rest of this column, please go (at no charge) to This Can't Be Happening! .