I picked up a very large but seemingly very interesting book this afternoon at one of these liquidation bookstores. Five hundred plus pages about democracy; it's history and what "the trouble is" with it.
I sat down and started reading and already, only a few pages in, I am finding some really great stuff. Stuff I want to expand on, blog about.
I put the book aside and went online. Googled the author's name and... oh horror. He's a raging ultra right-wing conservative. His website, ripe with "essays" about how homosexuals don't deserve equal social rights, how abortion is murder, etc etc etc, turns me off immediately.
So I am perplexed. I wonder if I should bother reading any further into his book. Despite how he has started by questioning - as I am - the validity of what we now worship as "democracy", I wonder where he will go. A quick glance at the Table of Contents offers no hints, other than all that is offered is a statement of facts. They may be angled from his particular perspective, which is inevitable I suppose... but... How do I get this bad taste out of my mouth?
I guess I shall read on and see.
But just to whet:
Accordingly, much of this book will be devoted to showing how the language of democracy has actually been turned against democratic practice as it was originally understood, and how the people feel helpless. For they have no other language with which to resist.
(This is very much in-line with the idea of cultural fascism I shared with Jim Moore at the Oasis diner in Burlington, which had him jumping up and down... until we called John Perry who's immediate response was "we'll have to find another word for that..." Hehehehe. We laughed about it... and then Hemingway punched me in the mouth.)
