Memorizing Politics from Ancient History

Once again, it's time to peruse the bookstands and see what kind of hogwash is passing for political insight these days.

Tony Blankley, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?
--Since the West has obviously been losing in its head-to-head showdown with Muslim theocracies (i.e. they have the most oil), Blankley, the Jabba-the-Hut stand-in on The McLaughlin Group, proposes that the West levee economic sanctions against them (don't we already do that?), practice racial profiling in America, and be less concerned with "freedoms" than we are during peace-time. So I take it this is the West's last chance to become a police state to protect ourselves from ourselves and from tiny "cells" that have thousands of times less military capability than we do? This is a "clash of civilizations"? Sounds more like a sobriety checkpoint to me.

Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science
--This thrilling action-adventure fantasy based on "facts" is about how Conservatives used Engines of Faith and Armies of the Compassionate to Bomb the Holy Fuck out of Science, which relies as much on "faith in argument"--and strong financial backing--as Religion does. Mooney's arch-liberal perspective blinds him from the facts: there is no such thing as Global Warming (35 tropical storms in the last two years doesn't prove anything) and there's no way we evolved from Monkees (Holly evolved from the Dave Clark Five, suckers!).

Alan Sears and Craig Osten, The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values
--Seriously people, because of the ACLU, drug abuse is rampant, sex crimes are more prevalent than actual sex, people use crucifixes as utensils when eating pork during Lent, and the American flag is turned into toilet paper for punk rockers and rappers to wipe their filthy-ass mouths on during their burlesque vaudeville shows that celebrate rage and violence. Oh, and like before the ACLU, people weren't being lynched because of their race, children weren't forced to work 12 hour days in coal mines, and people weren't forced out of their jobs because they didn't agree with the party line of the United States politically. Oh wait, they were. Moral values are redefined every day in thousands of courts throughout the country--with our without the ACLU--and the ACLU is not nearly powerful enough to make flogging Christians in public a mandatory act of free speech ... at least, not yet!

Bernard Goldberg, 100 People Who are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)
--This guy is a big douche. His prose is terrible, his sense of humor is just knock-off Jay Leno, and, apparently, Michael Moore is doing more to screw up America than anybody else in the world (he is #1, baby). Liberal firebrands Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo and Alec Baldwin make the list, as do celebrities like Courtney Love and Enimem. In a shocker: Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly (the latter of two whose shows he's always on as a guest on Fox News Channel--surprise, surprise) don't make the list. Most shocking: John Kerry (who, by the way, is NOT, I repeat, NOT our president) is high up on the list, but George W. Bush--Mr. Late-response-to-the-Hurricane himself--is not on it AT ALL. Neither is Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. I guess that scene in Team America: World Police (2004) where the marionette version of Michael Moore blows up Mount Rushmore is, in fact, wholly accurate.

Barbara Ehrenreich, Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
--Having Nickel and Dimed (2002) her way to literary fame by exposing the plight of low-wage workers in the United States, Ehrenreich here shows how silly her notion of the American Dream (i.e. getting a job you hate to afford things you can't have) is by trying to get jobs she is not qualified for. By lying her way into various white collar jobs, she wonders why she is deceived when she doesn't get the exact job or benefits that were advertised to her. It seems that "truth in advertising" goes both ways. I was disappointed to find out that this book has nothing to do with fishing.

Well, that's it for the current crop of political-statement feel-good Books of the Late Summer and Early Autumn. It should be pointed out that I've only read the jacket flaps of these books, and in a few instances, I've only read so far as the title page. Nevertheless, I feel quite confident that I've accurately assessed the merits and demerits of these books. Happy Reading!!

By the way, it appears that Holly's fantasy football team is far from dead, given the lively performances of Terrell Owens and Shaun Alexander on Sunday. Cat, The Full Hot Orator and her minions live on!