 | Price Comparisons: Rental | | Sorry, the textbook you were looking for is not available as Rental, at any of the stores we searched. | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | Over the last year, award-winning journalist and videographer Max Blumenthal has been behind some of the most sensational (and funniest) exposes of Republican machinations. Whether it was his revelation that Sarah Palin was "anointed" by a Kenyan priest famous for casting out witches, or his confronting Republican congressional leaders and John McCain's family at the GOP convention about the party's opposition to sex education (and hence, the rise in teen pregnancies like that of Palin's daughter), or his expose of the eccentric multimillionaire theocrat behind California's Prop 8 anti-gay marriage initaive, Blumenthal has become one of the most important and most constantly cited journalists on how fringe movements are becoming the Republican Party mainstream.
Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal and sordidmess from the dark heart of the forces that now have a leash on the party. It shows how those forces are the ones that establishment Republicans-like John McCain-have to bow to if they have any hope of running for President. It shows that Sarah Palin was the logical choice of a party in the control of theocrats. But more that just an expose, Republican Gomorrah shows that many of the movement's leading figures have more in common than just the power they command within conservative ranks. Their personal lives have been stained by crisis and scandal: depression, mental illness, extra-marital affairs, struggles with homosexual urges, heavy medication, addiction to pornography, serial domestic abuse, and even murder. Inspired by the work of psychologists Erich Fromm, who asserted that the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings, Blumenthal explains in a compelling narrative how a culture of personal crisis has defined the radical right, transforming the nature of the Republican Party for the next generation and setting the stage for the future of American politics. |
Average Customer Rating:   Looking in The Republican Underwear Drawer Although this book was a fun read - I am addicted to the shenanigans, goings on, associations and quotes of the extreme conservatives that have hijacked the secular Republican party. It is always fun to learn more about James Dobson for example, who is squarely highlighted in Max Blementhal's book. If you're politically inclined and tend toward progressivism and secular humanism, you'll adore the dirt that the author has uncovered. I am not naive enough to believe everything I read in it of course (though desperately I would love to!), but he does present some interesting connections that a thoughtful, objective and investigative person can find the truth on her own.
My main interest in the extreme right of the Republican party, however, goes further than pointing the finger at their peccadillos - for years I have been fascinated with how they think since it's so unlike my own. How can someone be so vehmently racist, virulently homophobic; how can the Republican party not want what seems to be best for the planet, for the future of humanity, for civil rights for all men and women? Blumenthal begins to enlighten us, or at least give us some threads to follow. Throughout the text, he alludes to Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom (which I have yet to read). Fromm's works investigated the mind of those who to prefer authoritarian regimes or prefer to submit to an authoritarian government and he found that in many cases, they were abused as children (I have yet to uncover more facts than the one sentence I'd come across about how, in Madrassahs the boys (who become terrorists)are often sexually abused by the imams - true or not?) I think a criticism of Blumenthal could be that he weaves this premise throughout his book to make us think that the Christian Reconstructionist movement has been fomented by a group of leaders who have been abused as children. It cannot be taken at face value of course, but it is certainly one piece of information that can be studied as I continue to try to figure out why it is that the Christian Right perceive the world so differently than I do.
I recommend this book to any thoughtful person - there may be errors and it may contain some degree of leftist spewing - no matter. Blumenthal gives us plenty of fodder to investigate and cogitate upon. Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party This book has an amazing insight into the so-called Christian Right. Ever person interested in public policy and politics should read it. Every Christian should read it. I could not put it down until I finished it. Republican Gomorrah - Max Blumenthal Republican Gomorrah provides a glimpse behind the usual talking points and explores the hidden history and psychological background of the American right wing movement. To me, reading this book was a fascinating and somewhat depressing experience. I guess, that's what the truth does to me sometimes. Fantastic Book Great insight into the Christian Right which has encroached onto the Republican Party and driven away real non-fundamentalist Republicans. Definitely a must-read Reading this book was like driving by a bad auto accident on the highway - you want to look away, but you can't.
I thought I knew a fair bit about the so-called "religious Right," but this book was an eye-opener. Raised a fairly conventional Catholic, I did not know about the writings of Rushdoony and Schiller, or the life events that led those men to espouse the beliefs they propounded. Now, as a non-religious person who believes in doing good because it is the right thing to do (from love, not fear), I learn that we have come disturbingly close to having something very like the Taliban trying to take over this country.
I had dismissed James Dobson as just another nut, and I could not imagine how anyone could take seriously a convicted felon like Chuck Colson spouting about religion, of all things. I had written off as gullible all those who seem to think that, if you just claim to have "found Jesus" (FWIW, I didn't know he was lost!) in the jail, it doesn't matter how heinous your crimes were, it's all OK! My mom said that every felon would "find Jesus" if it meant a chance at getting out of jail early. Nonetheless, the very idea that a monster like Ted Bundy could be seen as "useful" to anyone, for any purpose, is utterly revolting - and yet, here it is. In short, I didn't think anyone could possibly believe these things or take them seriously, because they seem to me...insane. So I made light of it, since it couldn't possibly be real.
Enter Max Blumenthal and his book. I could not put it down. There are people in the book that I had never heard of before, but you can bet I will be looking for them from now on. The ordinary holy rollers are bad enough, but these Dominionist people and their Talibanic dreams of theocracy are as un-American as Kruschev's dreams of "burying" this country. Far from the joke I had thought them, these people really do want to run the world - and ruin our country.
This is one book; it cannot cover every aspect of its subject matter. I was particularly interested in the psychological causes behind the kind of totalitarian belief I see in so many evangelicals (since it is so foreign to me), and this book provides a good starting point for further reading. It has inspired me to read more, and more deeply, on that subject.
Finally, this book is not an attack on Christianity; however, it does a great deal to expose those who would pervert "Christianity" as a means for personal power and self-aggrandizement. I would encourage everyone to read it with an open mind, and to do your own reading and research into the topics that it discusses.
In short, a book that every citizen should read. |  |
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