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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2008 > March > 10 > Entry
are you a liberal??
Don’t be embarrassed. I know, the word LIBERAL has taken a bad rap. There are still lots of liberals around. Barack Obama is a liberal. Heck, I think Hillary Clinton was a liberal at one time; sometime in between her Barry Goldwater allegiance and the present day.
A new book can help self-identified liberals understand who they are, and why - WHY WE’RE LIBERALS - A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America (Viking) by Eric Alterman will help liberals to realize that being liberal isn’t that weird. Really.
On the cover of the book there is an illustration by the cartoonist Tom Tomorrow that depicts the faces of many liberal thinkers. OK, a lot of them are dead. You can spot Abe Lincoln, FDR,Thurgood Marshall, Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus. Wait a minute, Jesus lives!
Seriously, liberalism is still alive, right? There’s Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Albert Einstein…OK, it doesn’t take an Einstein to know Albert has been dead these 50 years. Is liberalism on life support? Does it have a pulse? To check for a heartbeat you need to locate a heart - does liberalism still have one?
Maybe our next president will be a liberal? Stranger things have happened.
Maybe you are a liberal? Find out for sure - read this book. Don’t be ashamed. Liberals came from a proud tradition and a few still remain. I think?
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: clearing the cobwebs
Comments
By victor mickunas
March 12, 2008 1:37 PM | Link to this
Mike, thanks for yet another insightful comment.By Mike
March 12, 2008 1:14 PM | Link to this
In order to have any intelligent discourse on this, first and foremost, you have to do away with the simplistic labels about “what people are”. The fact of the matter is, and Mark from St. Paul points this out, there has been such an extreme rightward shift in the governing party of this country in the last several years that the labels, in many ways, have been turned on their heads to where they are no longer valid for anything other than to invoke some level of demonization on the person to whom the label is being applied. It is a classic example of the Overton Window theory. Using these particular descriptive terms to classify people only throws up immediate walls which often cannot be breached by any other attempts at discussion. I bet that people would likely be very surprised where they really fall in the political spectrum if their true beliefs and actions were explored in a logical and methodical way. There are just too many shades of gray in the real world to so narrowly classify people as has become the custom. Labeling people only perpetuates the US-vs-THEM mentality which has gotten us into this depressing state we are in today, as a country. And this condition is a direct result of a concerted and conscious attempt by those in positions of power who have authoritarian aspirations to create a divided country. Only a divided country can perpetuate the conditions needed for a continuing consolidation of their power and influence.By Blowfly
March 12, 2008 12:32 PM | Link to this
There’s some truth to what Mark in St. Paul says, despite the sarcasm. What was a liberal in the 70’s is a radical now, and a conservative then is a moderate now. Today’s neocon if they had existed in the 70’s would have been a fascist. Politics is like a black hole, if you get too close to one edge of the political spectrum you run the risk of being sucked in and spit out on the other end.By Mark from St Paul
March 11, 2008 6:23 PM | Link to this
I think Joe’s quote is considerably older than Joe. But what often gets lost in the shuffle when that quote is pulled out is the fact that today’s Democratic party is, demonstrably, the more conservative of the two parties in the U.S. today. Conservatives do not launch wars of aggression (they’re isolationists by nature), they do not run massive deficits, and they do not rape and pillage our natural resources. So what I think Joe is trying to say is that he’s now a Democrat.By prose
March 11, 2008 11:05 AM | Link to this
Dear Joe, if you’re a neocon Nazi in the Hitler youth, you’ll probably still be a stupid conservative Nazi moron when you’re 40. Best wishes when you find your brain. It’s probably where you left it. That would be in your copy of “How to be a good lemming and ignore how we stole your constitutional rights, stole the national treasure, and still call the Democrats tax and spend liberals while laughing all the way to the bank”authored by the Republican Party. That great con-servative fallacy.By KP
March 11, 2008 10:55 AM | Link to this
If you have no tolerance for people who may think differently than you, then you have no heart or brain.By Joe
March 10, 2008 9:15 PM | Link to this
If are not a liberal when you are in your 20’s you have no heart. If you are a liberal when you are in your 40’s you have no brain.