So the question becomes not so much who plays "good cop" and who plays "bad cop," as who gets the job done?
Marshall gets to the crux of the problem quickly here. Pointing directly towards early support for the war from some of the leading lights of liberalism in the name of combating a post 9/11 "threat of terrorism," he more correctly identifies the need to maintain and spread corporate interests in the world in the name of good old fashioned American capitalism as the true culprit.
Early on, he attends an event where liberal academics Paul Berman and Michael Ignatieff defend the security issue as a valid reason to go to war with Iraq, as being the least of the evils available in the way of options. Which, at the very least, makes one ponder in retrospect our post 9/11 rush to war in the wake of what we now know. Likewise, it makes you almost embarrassed for the current Democratic presidential candidates running — frantically in some cases — from that initial support for the Iraq war.
In later chapters, Marshall goes after everybody from Gore Vidal to such sacred cows as Bono and Bob Geldof, and the way their Live 8 show to raise money for starving people in Africa also featured a lily-white cast of performers.
This is a book that almost makes you wonder how the draft card burning radicals of the sixties anti-war movement — the group which most defines modern day liberalism — would have approached these times. While I don't necessarily agree with everything said in this book, I certainly did find it thought provoking.
Published — probably because no one else would dare touch it — by the ever-subversive folks at the Disinformation Company, who are responsible for such books as Everything You Know Is Wrong, I'd recommend this book to any and all "enquiring minds who want to know."
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss?
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!
2 - Glen Boyd
Thanx Natalie. I don't do a whole lot of book reviews so the recognition is a doubly good thing.
-Glen
3 - Stephen Marshall
Thanks for taking the time to review the book Glen, the subject matter has made it tough for people on either side of the aisle to figure out what to do with it!
4 - Glen Boyd
Glad you liked it Stephen. It's an interesting book with an even more interesting premise to say the very least. As a somewhat frustrated liberal leaning moderate myself, I found myself nodding my head in silent agreement often as I read it. Thanks for the comment.
-Glen
5 - bliffle
Phew! Good thing we can get back to liberal-bashing so we don't have to look at the hell of the current administration.
I notice that this is a trend throughout BC, where we now have articles attacking Jimmy Carter and other liberals. Good distractions to keep us from contemplating the copious sins of the Bush administration.
6 - Glen Boyd
So Bliffle, with all due respect did you actually read this article?
As I state in the very first paragraph, the book's title is somewhat misleading as it is not an attack piece on liberalism, but rather a critical anaylsis looking at it from the inside. The book is not about bashing liberalism, but rather about how many so-called liberals seem to have abandoned the core values that once defined them. As a card carrying Democrat myself, I think the book asks some very important questions, particularly with regard to the lack of opposition with any sort of teeth from the left to the Iraq war.
No liberal bashing here. Just a timely and pragmatic look in the mirror.
-Glen