I picked up a copy of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas? at Barnes & Noble over the weekend. It was on sale for a dollar because they were apparently desperate to clear out some old stock, including Susan Estrich's Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate, which contributor Amber picked up, and Senator Al Franken's The Truth (with jokes) (which I also grabbed). (This is not to say that books of this type made up the whole of the sale lot - much of it was fiction I had yet to hear of. I guess if you're not writing what amounts to teenage-girl gushfests about sparkly vampires, you don't sell in this economy.)
I'm not even that far into Kansas and I'd recommend it. It points up how conservatives successfully married far-right "gut feeling" politics of the fire-and-brimstone variety to their disastrous laissez-faire economic ideas. And no, it's not just Kansas - sadly, it's much of my country that's been hoodwinked this way, my state included. I'm already seeing the parallels between the fools that Kansas elects and the ones that we do.
Now if only I could get some time to really read it.
I'm not even that far into Kansas and I'd recommend it. It points up how conservatives successfully married far-right "gut feeling" politics of the fire-and-brimstone variety to their disastrous laissez-faire economic ideas. And no, it's not just Kansas - sadly, it's much of my country that's been hoodwinked this way, my state included. I'm already seeing the parallels between the fools that Kansas elects and the ones that we do.
Now if only I could get some time to really read it.
