Book Reports

Glenzilla has a new book coming out.

It seems to me that most politically oriented books simply preach to the choir. Ann Coulter makes up shit about liberals and publishes it in a book. Liberals don't buy that book - only the conservatives will. Greenwald publishes a book, and it's a sure bet that neither conservatives nor the MSM elite are going to buy it. Not a chance.

I really don't need to buy Greenwald's book as some enlightenment. I already know what's going on because I'm a political junky. I understand Greenwald's points, and largely agree with him. If I bought his book, it would simply be an exercise in throwing him some money - which he does deserve considering his efforts to push the progressive movement forward. It would be easier for me to just throw some money in his tip jar.

Does anyone ever read a political non-fiction book and come away with a different point of view then they had previously? Doubtful..

It's not that I'm putting Greenwald and Coulter on the same level. They are vastly different. The point is that the noise from the likes of Chris Matthews and Faux News cannot be defeated.

The only chance the Democrats have to succeed against this bullshit is for the conservatives to botch governance so badly that a narrative takes hold in the psyche of the American public despite the efforts of the media. Fortunately, that seems to be the case. Chimpy threw out the first pitch at the National's opener, and was resoundly booed. The narrative has sunk in I think.

Anyway.. a snippit of Greenwald's theme;

The Right has perfected the art of creating mythical cults of personality around their leaders. They are strong, courageous, honor-bound, protective, morally upstanding salt-of-the earth Everyman-warriors -- contemptuous of elitist prerogatives, and oozing traditional masculine virtues and cultural normalcy. As important, if not more so, is the corresponding character demonization of liberals, Democrats and a growing group of miscellaneous right-wing opponents -- those weak, subversive, conniving, appeasing, gender-confused, elitist freaks, whose men are as effeminate and cowardly as their women are angry, threatening and emasculating.

These election-determinant themes are not merely petty and completely removed from what actually matters. That would be bad enough. Far worse is that they are complete fabrications. Virtually the entire leadership of the right-wing GOP is the complete opposite of these cartoon icons they are held out to be. Their lives are almost completely devoid of the virtues in which they are packaged. After all, their leaders are Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Ann Coulter, Bill Kristol and the whole slew of tough guy pundits from Fox News and National Review, cheering on wars while imputing to themselves the courage and virtue of those they endlessly send off to fight and prancing around as moral guardians and defenders of individual freedom while, in reality, living lives that rapidly destroy those very values.

The right wing has this down to such a science (har) that their minions, the Douglas V. Gibbs of the world, spew it forth in every word without even understanding what they're doing.

Mindless pawns..