May 16, 2009 01:00 PM
'The Eliminationists': Gotta love those reviews
Warning: Shameless self-promotion to follow ...
Digby's hosting a salon at Firedoglake today for my new book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. Come and join us!
In the meantime, the reviews are starting to roll in, too. Elbert Ventura wrote a very positive piece in The American Prospect. (Eric Boehlert gave it a shout-out too.) And a couple of weeks ago, SusanG at DailyKos gave it a big thumbs-up too. (You might want to read my conversation with Susan too.) And then there were the thoughtful reviews from Tristero at Hullabaloo.
I was also on Air America last week with Jon Elliott. You can listen to the show below:
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Looks like another must read.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
LOL . . no problem better we get the money then them.
The Exclusionists
How Democrats and Republicans Emboldened Hate Talk Media Through the FCC.
I'm glad you devoted your attention to this subject, its one people need to know about. The more resources for them to learn, the better, I'd pick up a copy (and might in the future) but presently have no stomach for the subject of wingnuttia media.
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
You're here, aren't you?
And thats the point: Stay up to date. Its the least I can do. Thank me later
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
I can haz Kindle edition?
Where's part two of the interview?
I'm sure it's a great book***, but I'm afraid that only the most inanimate of humans could have missed the sideshow that America's rightwing nutjobs have made of talk radio (and talk itself..). I wish I was unaware enough to have to read about how it was done, but I actually had to live through this puke, so I'll pass.
I'm sure they're radicalized (if by radicalized you also include mesmerized). One example of this is the profound impact on the environment that their destructive letting of tea bags had. All twelve of them. Substitute marginalized for radicalized as necessary.
Enjoy.
***and Digby reminds us over at FDL that we get one step closer to waterboarding Rush Limbaugh every time somebody buys a copy (loosely paraphrased)
What Dave calls eliminationism is what I more properly refer to as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. They want to eliminate everybody who isn't of their perverse minority sect. The fact that Bush et.al. were compliant and engaged with this same Christian Taliban (bibles for Afghanistan anybody???) is well known. Praying sessions were probably scheduled right before, and immediately after the waterboarding. I don't have the schedule for same, just the strong remembrance of seemingly important this was to these people. Ashcroft on guitar...take it away....
Enjoy.
Mom always told me I was special and I believed her.
Hey, David!
Congrats!
I couldn't agree more with the premise that hate-talk gets people much more riled up than they'd be sitting on the front porch bitching and moaning about the government to their neighbors. It crosses the line between encouraging activism and egging on violence. We seem to have more and more people willing to engage in violence than in "civil disobedience". Taking things into their own hands rather than letting the law settle differences.
A nation of men, not laws, is unfortunately the tenor of the day.
A few years back I was looking for analysis of how Rush Limbaugh was damaging political discourse and I stumbled on your blog. I printed out the pdfs on him, then the pdfs on neofascism and read every single word. I'm surprised it took so long for people to catch on to how corrosive this kind of speech is.
Of course if your book captures the attention of Limbaugh, O'Reilly and the other demagogues controlling the conservative airwaves, it'll be spun into something unrecognizable.
And that's the problem. Not only have these folks mainstreamed the kind of rhetoric once reserved for the lunatic fringe, they've changed our language and even our thinking. It used to be that regardless of party affiliation, there were some values that all Americans held (we were strong, but charitable and fair, and we didn't torture).
Along comes Limbaugh and his countless clones, who begin to manipulate those beliefs by redefining them for their own political ends. They were the Jane Elliott of the airwaves, only this wasn't a classroom experiment. The good guys were Americans and bad guys were liberals. "Do-gooder" became a pejorative; conciliation was a sign of weakness. If you could slap a label on something that might weaken your position, and if you could work the ref by labeling it "liberal media," you could control the narrative while dismissing all legitimate counter-arguments.
The manipulation was breathtaking and frightening. Those people at the tea parties aren't stupid, as Jon Elliott arrogantly stated, but evidence of what can happen if the people controlling the airwaves are not intellectually honest.
I just finished reading your book last night, I had found my copy in L.A. just last month. The part of Arizona that I am in is fairly conservative, the only large bookstore here is called Hastings and their political science section has nearly every wingnut book in existence (literally every book written by Ann Coulter), the liberal books are mostly from a few years ago, I had to go all the way to Tuscon to find Bob Cesca's book.
Most of the information in the book I was familiar with already as your blog is one of my favorites (by the way, I'm glad your here on this blog which is my main favorite), but it is good to get a more up to date perspective on all of your old theames and to have them all gathered togeather in one place. Please keep up the good work.
When angry, count four, when very angry, swear.
-Mark Twain-
"(You) really don’t mind people criticizing (your) work or (your) posts, but the tone of (my) comments for the past couple of months not only has been so consistently negative, (you have taken them as) a lot of cheap shots directed at (you.)
(It is not my) mission to try to attack (your) credibility by cheap-shotting (you.) Because(your) credibility is built on years of work, and it’s earned the respect of a lot of people who actually count. (I) on the other hand, (am) simply an anonymous commenter.
(For fear that your) patience wears thin (I'll keep my positive opinions of your book to myself.)
"The deal has to be negotiated in the real world, not on some idealized Aristotelian plane. We understand that. A 100-percent deal may be impossible."
Famous "Reality Based" Commentator
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