Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics

Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics | Glenn Greenwald | Exposing the Freak Show

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Great American Hyp...

	Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics Glenn Greenwald Crown, 2008 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Liberal Comebacks to Conservatives Lies

I recommend this book be read wearing asbestos gloves. Greenwald's tone is emphatic and sometimes vociferous with dozens of passages written in bold. With a large font, these fairly jump out at the reader. His theme is just as bold and twice as profound and accurate with facts that the current events follower will readily recall.

In "Great American Hypocrites," he first takes aim at the American icon of masculinity and bravado, John Wayne, whom he brands for cowardice under fire from the Selective Service Act. John Wayne received a deferment claiming that he had a wife and three kids to support while other actors, younger and older, in similar circumstances hurried to enlist and fight for their country. While promising to enlist he ignored additional summonses from his draft board until his studio could intervene on his behalf.

Greenwald postulates that men such as Wayne need to overcompensate for their cowardice by throwing their wholehearted support to future military interventions so they will feel like patriots and men of courage. It is equally important to label people who avoid service or dissent against a war as cowards and traitors. This is an important point that the author makes.

By waving the flag and calling for war, they become courageous, strong, and patriotic. By denouncing those who disagree, the dissenters become cowardly, unpatriotic, and weak. Perfect examples of this are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who avoided combat by any means, while depicting a true war hero, John Kerry, as an effete, namby-pamby. Greenwald called this image "Tough Guise."

And this has been the republican and conservative strategy since Ronald Reagan who also avoided combat vs. Jimmy Carter who served aboard nuclear submarines. They not only portray themselves as he-men and strong, but their opponents as nerdy, Casper Milquetoasts. This is already in full-swing. A no-nonsense Hillary Clinton is "rumored" to be a lesbian, and Barack Obama is now "Obambi," according to the NY Times' Maureen Dowd.

The republican strategy requires the full support of a compliant right-leaning press that is all too eager to take dictation from right-wing and rumor-mongering blogs such as the Drudge Report, which is checked almost daily by the networks. As a result, rumors and wedge issues become the order of the day and gossip becomes "character issues," lowering the bar on public discourse to the point that there isn't one anymore. April 15th of this year provides a fine example with most of the time being spent on such issues in the Pennsylvania debate between Obama and Clinton. Almost nothing of the economy, the war, our burgeoning debt to China, healthcare, or where candidates stand, made their way to them. This plays into the hands of the republican strategy.

The big question is: whose haircut is next?

Besides manliness and courage, Greenwald notes that family values, and Christian virtue have also been a part of the Great American Hypocrisy. Divorces, second and third marriages, mistresses, extramarital affairs, gay prostitution, and drug addictions have been a hallmark of the conservative orgy of false advertising.

Another defining myth of conservative marketing is that they are pro-individual and anti-government. At least that was their campaign in the 90's where the raid on the Branch Davidians and returning Elian Gonzalez to his father was an example of government interference. With the ascendancy of the Bush regime, all this fear of big government went out the Constitutional window, as did our rights regarding habeas corpus, unlawful detentions, renditions, and eavesdropping. As the author states, "overnight [they went from] liberty-defending warriors to loyal authoritarian followers.

This book establishes its obsolescence talking about McCain as the republican candidate for president whom he describes as the same old conservative wrapped in a maverick's and independent's clothing. He is bound to be embraced by the right wing media machine because he is for staying in Iraq indefinitely, one of our more unpopular wars. The mainstream media has already given him a pass on numerous gaffes and the Keating scandal while focusing endlessly on Obama's former pastor or Hillary's "sniper fire." The author predicts it will be a replay of media bias as it was in the 2000 campaign between Gore and Bush.

Glenn Greenwald knows how to capture a reader's attention. I was only mildly annoyed at the use of bold lettering, large font, and that some paragraphs seemed a bit repetitive. It seems there was a rush to print. (No one told the author that the C.V.A. Ronald Reagan is an aircraft carrier and not a battleship). But more important is the book's credibility. Greenwald writes with impassioned accuracy about what happened, and what is happening right now.

That is why you should consider reading this right now, if for nothing else to learn about truth, justice, and the American way.

It's an in-depth comeback to conservatives lies and conservative damned lies.

Also recommended:

Its identical twin:

Conason, Joe, "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth." (Highly Recommended HR).

About the Press:

Waldman, Paul, "Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You." Although this is five years old, Waldman does a superb job of showing where the bias really is in our media. (HR)

Boehlert, Eric, "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush" (HR)

Thomas, Helen, "Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public."

For Contrasts and Giggles:

Jackson, Gregg, "Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies: Issue by Issue Responses to the Most Common Claims of the Left from A to Z." Please compare this parochial work to Conason's and Greenwald's.

For more sleaze and rumors, read the Drudge Report and Michelle Malkin's blog--just once.

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Exposing the Freak Show

Glenn Greenwald's new book is indispensable for anyone who wants to know why America seems to be going so far along the wrong track we've been running along for too long. How can we have a government controlled by a party which claims to be strong on defense, in favor of smaller government and personal liberty instead give us record deficits, a more dangerous world, a weakened military, and government intrusion into every sphere of private life? It's not an accident.

Greenwald lays out in great detail what the problem is. Our political discourse in this country has been thoroughly debased by turning away from substantive debate on real issues to a freak show where myths matter more than truth and the press aids and abets the process.

The practitioners of these myths are the Republican party, which has cloaked itself in an facade of manliness, patriotism, and moral rectitude even as the facts show they are anything but. Greenwald shows how time and time again they project their own sins onto the Democrats and the press mindlessly parrots their talking points. It's not pretty, but it works - and that's why the GOP will keep doing it.

For someone who is a Republican, but wonders why the budget is busted, why fundamentalist preachers are calling the shots, why the party keeps having scandal after scandal, why the country is now on a permanent war footing, this book is a must read.

For someone who is a Democrat, this book is a must read because it explains why the Democrats seem to be always snatching defeat from victory, why they can't catch a break from the press, and why the Republicans are literally able to get away with murder time and time again.

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Outstanding Book

Great American Hypocrites is the best book I've read on how the media works since Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. In some ways, I think it's an even more important read for conservatives than it is for liberals -- at least for conservatives, like yours truly, who put principle before party. If you want to understand how politics and the media work today, how the Republican party has betrayed the principles it purports to defend, and how opinion is manipulated by appeals to fear, prejudice, and other irrational emotions, Great American Hypocrites is indispensable. Give it a try -- you won't be able to put it down, and you'll never read the paper or watch the news the same way after.

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Finally, a much-needed political mythbuster

Anyone who plans on watching or participating in the 2008 badly needs to read this book. Glenn Greenwald's insightful take on the current electoral arena is a powerful follow-up to his previous work and refreshing perspective on the current mudslinging that has come to define American politics.

I would also like to recommend this book for true Republicans who are tired of watching their ideology of small government and rich civil liberties being hijacked by the loony wing of their party that cuts taxes for the rich and sends the less fortunate to die in their hopeless foreign quagmires for oil.

Read this book.

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If It Didn't Hurt So Much, I Would Laugh!

I have read all three of Glenn Greenwald's books and he continues to build on the indictment of the GOP generally and this administration particularly. He takes what I have felt, in my gut, was true and gives me the information I need to KNOW it is true. He exposes the fact that the Emperor, in fact, has no clothes. He proves the charge of hypocracy with exquisite detail and skill. I'd be willing to bet he was VERY effective in the court room. The research and documentation are evident and convincing.
I have watched the decline of journalistic integrity over the past three decades. Through out the media mergers and growth of right-wing tabloid media "news" programming, I have marveled at the dumbing down of what passes as journalism. I have often speculated as to what the media spin would be if Watergate had happened in 2000 instead of 1972.
The GOP is so sordid and sleazy and these people are the ones with power in our country. Surely, if it didn't hurt so much, I would laugh. Even Monty Python could not have invented anything this preposterous.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4

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