Wrapped In The Flag (Book Review Club)

Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Right

by Claire Conner
Adult Biography
Beacon Press

Claire Conner was raised by parents who were in the inner circles of the John Birch Society. This is the story of her lifelong acquaintance with the psychology of the radical right. She wrote the book after seeing the rise of the Tea Party movement in 2010, which sounded all too familiar to her.

Though her parents tried hard to indoctrinate her, she had a mind of her own and was open to new ideas. Her parents were conservative Catholics who insisted their children attend only Catholic schools, which were often too liberal for the parents's comfort. Claire was mortified by her mother's numerous trips to the school office to complain about the curriculum. A sympathetic lay teacher gave Claire "plain wrap" books to read. (She literally had a shelf of books with plain brown wrappers on them, so Claire never knew what the book was until she opened it.) One was Black Like Me, which opened her eyes to the way racism operated in the Deep South. In the end, Claire went from devout Catholic to liberal Unitarian. (The pedophile priest scandal was the final straw.) I don't think her parents ever forgave her for abandoning the Church.

The  book is well-written, informative and I had a lot of sympathy for Claire and her siblings. It can't have been easy to be raised by narrow-minded, paranoid conspiracy theorists, esp. since they were also controlling as well as emotionally and physically abusive.

I remember the Birch Society being derided as nutty extremists, and nothing she said here made it seem otherwise. The founder and long-time leader, Robert Welch, had some very strange ideas, as well as a lot of the common prejudices of the early 20th c. He was both bigoted and anti-semitic (as were Claire's parents) and saw a Communist behind every bush. A Southerner by birth, Welch was also a racist. Some of his wilder theories made me laugh, since they defy all internal logic and show an astonishing ignorance of history and economics. Welch thought Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy & LBJ were all pro-Communist. Huh? His other big bugaboo was the much-feared New World Order, which was somehow being fomented by Communists and Jewish bankers! Because we all know how well those two groups have gotten along, historically speaking. The only thing that ever seemed to throw them was Reagan winning the presidency (to their delight) then turning out not to be quite as conservative as expected.

Overall, Wrapped in the Flag is a fascinating yet disturbing look at the radical right and their commitment, dedication and relentlessness. And now, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, they are allowed to spend more money than ever before on candidates and political activism.  I admire the author's courage and honesty in exposing her life to public scrutiny, but I was a little discouraged when I finished it, though I think the book well worth reading.

Click here for more great reviews in Barrie Summy's Book Review Club.

Linda

American Nations (Book Review Club)

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

by Colin Woodard
Viking, 2011

Why is the United States of America such a fractious and divided nation? Woodard claims it is because we are not one nation, one culture, but a federation of ten different regional cultures. (The eleventh nation is the relatively new First Nation in Canada. While he occasional references Canada, the book is primarily about the US. )

The problem goes back to the early European settlements in North America, which were begun by several different countries - Spain, France, Holland and Britain  - in widely separated areas and at different times in history. He bases his sociological ideas on the doctrine of "first viable settlement" which posits that the culture of a region takes on the characteristics of the first group to establish a self-perpetuating society, no matter how small the original group had been.

His regional American cultures are, in order of settlement:

• El Norte (on both sides of the present American-Mexican border)
• New France (Quebec & Southern Louisiana)
• Tidewater (Virginia, Maryland & part of Delaware)
• Yankeedom (New England plus areas later settled by Yankees)
• New Netherland (NYC & northern New Jersey
• The Deep South (North Carolina to east Texas)
• The Midlands (Pennsylvania and parts of the Midwest)
• Greater Appalachia (the "Borderlanders" from the Blue Ridge on westward into Texas)
• The Left Coast (Washington, Oregon & Northern California)
• The Far West

On his map* Canada is also shown having regional cultures from The Left Coast of BC to the Yankee-influenced Maritimes, though Woodard talks most about Quebec (New France) and First Nation.

There is a lot of information in this book, more than I can explain in a review, but it's quite readable and I found it interesting and persuasive. For one thing, his regional culture theory explains why parts of the country are what they are and why they cause so much amusement and/or consternation in the rest of us. Most important, he goes into what each culture values in terms of the balance of freedom and order, individual rights versus communal needs. And it explains why it is so hard for us to find a compromise position on much of anything. If there is one overriding theme, it is the historical struggle between Yankeedom and the Deep South, both aided by shifting alliances with the other regions, for control of the nation, which culminated in the Civil War but still goes on today.

Some of this was familiar territory, as Woodard builds on earlier works like David Fischer's Albion's Seed, which I read and enjoyed years ago. But I learned some new things as well, for instance, the reasons for the (to me) odd combination of Libertarianism and Corporatism found in the Far West. (Basically, the climate and geography of the region were too rugged for individuals to truly succeed on their own. Corporate and government intervention was required to make the land livable.)

As a history nut, I found the book both fascinating and insightful. The one time the nation really came together as one was during World War II, but even there, reasons for supporting the war varied. I think this passage is very telling:

Borderlanders fought for the traditional Scots-Irish reason: to avenge an attack by defeating their enemies on the field of battle. The Tidewater and Deep Southern elite... wished to uphold U.S. "national" honor and to defend their Anglo-Norman brethren acrosee the sea. Pacifist Midlanders backed the war as a struggle against military despotism, while Yankees, New Netherlanders, and Left Coasters emphasized the antiauthoritarian aspect of the struggle. Residents of El Norte and the Far West embraced a war that showered their long-neglected regions with federal largesse.

What a war, something for everyone!

I had wondered if our present culture wars were mostly a generational problem that would go away once the Baby Boomers died off. After all, we are a generation of Happy Warriors. But it appears the problem is of much longer standing. Woodard offers no solution to the problem, for there is no easy answer here, even acknowledging that the breakup of the country is not unthinkable. A greater understanding of our differences could help, especially if we can recognize that those who don't agree with us are not necessarily idiots or scoundrels, only people with differing values and beliefs. The trick is finding ways to compromise on policy without compromising principles.

In any case, Woodard urges an open and honest political debate, concluding with: "The United States needs its central government to function cleanly, openly, and efficiently because it's one of the few things binding us together." Unfortunately, that is not working optimally, as we've seen in the last few days. Our federal government is currently as dysfunctional as I've ever seen it, and I've been around for a while!

Happy New Year!

Linda

* Map Photo by Sean Wilkinson, Sean Wilkinson Design, can be better viewed on the Washington Monthly website where Woodard wrote an article or at the author's website.

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Book Review Club: Twilight of the Elites

Twilight of the Elites
by Christopher Hayes
Crown Publishing, 2012
Adult Non-fiction

Hayes examines why "America feels broken" and comes to the conclusion that our meritocracy has failed us. We are in a new "crisis of authority".

The last such crisis occurred in the 1960's when the whiz kids of the WASP elite led us into disaster in Vietnam. The Civil Rights struggle triumphed at the same time, which led to the formation of a new meritocratic elite, chosen from the "best and brightest" of the nation, including women and minorities. This led to the election of Barack Obama, the country's first African-American president. But by then we were nearing the end of a decade of elite failure. Hayes writes:

The central tragic irony of the presidency of Barack Obama is that his election marked the crowning achievement of the post-1960s meritocracy, just at the moment that the system was imploding on itself.

Hayes walks us through each elite failure of the "Fail Decade" from the intelligence debacles that led the Iraq War, the engineering failures that led to the busting of the levees around New Orleans, and finally to the banking crisis that created the worst financial slump since the 1930s. He includes the pedophile priest scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in some detail. None of it makes for a pretty picture.

But why has so little changed? For instance, why are there so few bankers in jail? The problem is that at some point elites become self-perpetuating and self-protective, dysfunctional and corrupt. They become so sure of their own merit, they cannot accept responsibility for their own failures.

The rise of the meritocracy, and the rise in compensation to those at the top, has led to an astounding gap of inequality between the "best" and the rest. This is the big downside of the system. Equality of opportunity isn't enough, esp. when it doesn't really exist in some areas of the country. That isn't to say we necessarily want equality of outcome, but the more prosperity is shared by everyone, the better we do as a nation and as a society. Education alone cannot solve the problems, esp. since schools are not funded equally.

So how to fix the mess we're in?

There are two approaches, according to Hayes:

- the institutionalists, like President Obama, want to fix the system - a tweak here, a tweak there

- the insurrectionists, like economist Paul Krugman and the Occupy Movement, think the system is irrevocably broken and needs to be changed radically.

I lean more to the insurrectionist point of view myself. (I am still royally pissed that the banks got away with massive mortgage fraud.) In any case I agree with Hayes's conclusion that "the answer lies in a newly radicalized middle class" that insists on finding ways to level the playing field.

Whether, or when, that will happen remains to be seen. Either way, it's going to be a bumpy ride for most of us.

Twilight of the Elites is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book, and I recommend it highly.

About the author:
Christopher Hayes is Editor at Large of The Nation and host of Up w/ Chris Hayes on MSNBC (Sat 7-9am and Sun 8-10am.)

As always, click on the graphic below for more book reviews. My thanks to Barrie Summi for organizing our monthly book club.

Linda


P.S. Dear FCC, I bought the ebook from Amazon and read it on my iPad.

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Book Review Club: Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero

When I heard about this book, I checked the local library website and saw that they had ordered it, and wonder of wonders, there was no reserve list yet, so I got my name in quickly. It arrived in mid-December and I checked it out to read over the holidays.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was one of the towering figures of my childhood, and like everyone who was alive in the early 1960's, I have vivid memories of the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination. Over the years, Jack has become even more fascinating to me, so I was anxious to read the book and I found it quite interesting.

Author Chris Matthews is a political pundit, so the emphasis here is on JFK as politician. If you are looking for juicy details about his private life, you'll have to look elsewhere. 

This is a political biography. Some of the things I learned about Kennedy are:

- Jack was the spare, not the heir, so in typical patriarchal tradition, most parental attention was focused on his older brother Joe. As a result, Jack developed an independent streak.

- His health problems were more serious than were publicly acknowledged at the time. Jack was a sickly child who spent a lot of time in bed reading. This experience made him a deeper and more original thinker. I suspect it also made him more empathic than might normally be expected of a young man from a wealthy family.

- In 1947 he was diagnosed with Addison's disease, a disorder of the adrenal glands. He also had a bad back and failed the physical to join the Navy the first time. He exercised to build up his strength and passed the second time. (A few moments ago, I read and reviewed a book called A First Rate Madness by Nassir Ghaemi that talked about Jack's health problems and the steroids used to treat him.)

- He was close to death on more than one occasion and was given Last Rites several times before becoming president. Matthews quotes a close friend of Jack's who said he was "deeply preoccupied by death" and that "quick... was the key". That gave me chills.

- Matthews talks more than once about their being "two Jacks" - the wealthy bon vivant and the serious politician. He was able to compartmentalize the different areas of his lives in order to focus on one at a time. He was anbitious and single-minded in pursuit of a goal, and could be ruthless when he had to be. 

- JFK and Richard Nixon were elected to Congress the same year (1946) and became friendly. Nixon was very upset when Jack became gravely ill. The friendship did not survive the contentious 1960 campaign, however.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and recommend it to those interested in politics and/or Kennedy. But read it now, before we all get heartily sick and tired of politics. It's an election year, after all.

Happy New Year and don't forget to check out the other reviews in the Book Review Club. Click on the graphic below.

Linda

Update: I finished the book last night and have a few final thoughts. I grew up in a family of Republicans who had no love for JFK when he was alive. In retrospect, I have come to realize what a great president he was. Matthews makes that apparent in this loving portrait of a remarkable man who accomplished so much in such a short time and at such great personal cost.

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Video: Pirates of the Health Care-ibbean

I usually try to avoid politics here, but I saw this at Crooks and Liars and couldn't resist posting it.



The video was video originally posted in 2006 by ConsumerWatchdog.org, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consure Rights, and is still right on.

Linda

My Town Monday: California's Budget Woes

I was going to do a perfectly innocuous post about Downtown Disney, but then I got to thinking about California's current budget crisis and decided to blog about that instead. As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, California is in the red, big time. We've been dealing with recurring budget shortfalls for some time now, but this year the problem is worse than ever. Last February, the budget was short sixteen billion dollars, but as of Jan. 27, 2009, it was estimated at more than $40 billion from now through the 2009-2010 fiscal year, according to the Los Angeles Times.

State officials are figuring out where to cut while praying for help from the federal government in the stimulus bill now before the Senate. Of course, we're not the only state in trouble, though our debt may be the largest in the country. So why is California in such bad shape?

One of the problems is the fact that it takes a 2/3 vote of the state legislature to pass a budget. This means that a relative handful of representatives can hold the entire process hostage to their own agenda, whatever that may be. Another problem is the fact that Californians have seldom met a bond issue they didn't like and now the state's credit rating is in the toilet. Apparently, some of us don't realize that a bond issue isn't free money. It's debt that ultimately has to be repaid along with interest, and using bond issued to finance state projects always costs more in the long run than if we paid for them through tax increases.

Of course, another problem is the fact that over the last thirty years conservatives have managed to convince the American people that tax is a four-letter word. And the liberals haven't done a very good job of explaining that taxes are the price we pay to live in a functional and semi-civilized society. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) I'm not sure Californians have figured out yet that votes have consequences, as when we recalled Governor Gray Davis and replaced him by our current Governator who talks a good game but so far hasn't governed very effectively. (Talk about someone who likes to borrow and spend!) We're all to blame here, though. There are some votes I'd change if I could go back in time, but I can't.

The most controversial thing the Governator has done recently is to require state employees to take off two extra days a month, without pay, to help cut the budget deficit. It adds up to a de facto 9-10% pay cut. Personally, I don't think this is such a bad idea, but the unions are fighting it. I'm a union supporter, but I can't agree with them. I know the job of the union is to protect its workers, but when the employer is on the verge of bankruptcy, something has to give. In a time when workers in the private sector are losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands, not to mention their health care and their homes, I can't help thinking public employees should stop complaining, enjoy their days off and count their blessings. At least they still have jobs, benefits and pensions to look forward to. That's more than a lot of Americans can say these days.

I just hope someone in Sacramento finds a solution to this mess and soon.

Linda

My Town Monday comes to us via Travis Erwin, http://traviserwin.blogspot.com/. Thanks, Travis! Click on his site to read his latest post and find links to the other participants.


My Town Monday is the brilliant brain child of writer/blogger Travis Erwin. Thanks, Travis! Go to his blog to read his latest post and find links to the other participants.