Let's talk books

I read some books recently that dealt broadly with the subject of politics. I was highly impressed by "Up From Conservatism" by Michael Lind. Now with that kind of title you might think he's a Michael Moore style liberal, but nothing could be further from the truth. He's definitely a centrist and he bashes the "left liberals" (his term) pretty hard. If you read the Amazon reviews from this book, you'll see that he people on both sides were angered by what he had to say. In general, I think that's a good thing. He's no apologist.

The main theme of this book is that there needs to be a rebirth of a party that actually represents the majority of Americans. We all know that neither Repubs nor Democrats represent the broadest spectrum of American citizenry. That's not a stunning revelation, but it's definitely something that neither party really talks about. With that in mind, he starts out with a brief history of the two major parties and how today's situation came about (the today of 10 years ago, that is). Then he goes on into more detail about the Republican party, such as how it's built today and what its constituencies are and how things got to be that way. He talks about Republican strategies and methods of operation. Lest you be shaking your head that some liberal wrote a book about Republicans, forget it. This guy is a conservative, at least in the classic sense, and he used to be a mentee of William F. Buckley, Jr. He was part of the movement and saw it from the inside. He didn't get fed up with his own ideology, he got frustrated with the way the Republicans behaved and disgusted by right-wing nuts.

Unless he's a great liar (which I suppose is possible) he knows what he's talking about and he pulls no punches against today's conservatives/Repubs. I think it would be a good read for members of the party as well, because I think he does a good job identifying the weaknesses of their platform and plans.

I was really impressed by the book and I thought that aside from the arguments he presents, just the informational value of it is tremendous (unless, that is he can be proven to be mistaken or lying). There are some drawbacks to it. I found it to be a pretty difficult read, and for those of you who know me, you know that's some heavy stuff. Not because it's really poorly written, but he does have a habit of long, complex sentences and slow word constructions (you know, all the stuff you're supposed to avoid when you're writing non-technically) and worst of all, his narrative construct jumps between subjects for brief periods, which combined with the writing means that sometimes you can lose track of exactly what the subject is.

Overall, well worth reading. I hope you guys read it.