"What's the Matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank. Anybody reading it?

[Xenolith]

Seems like a great analysis of why red state folks vote against their own self interest.

"American conservatism depends for its continued dominance and even
for its very existence on people never making certain connections
about the world, connections that until recently were treated as
obvious or self-evident everywhere on the planet. For example, the
connection between mass culture, most of which conservatives hate,
and laissez-faire capitalism, which they adore without reservation.
Or between the small towns they profess to love and the market
forces that are slowly grinding those small towns back into the red
state dust - which forces they praise in the most exalted terms."

(snip)

"The problem is not that Democrats are monolithically pro-choice or
anti-school prayer; it's that by dropping the class language that
once distinguished them sharply from Republicans they have left
themselves vulnerable to cultural wedge issues like guns and
abortion and the rest whose hallucinatory appeal would ordinarily
be far overshadowed by material concerns. We are in an environment
where Republicans talk constantly about class - in a coded way to
be sure - but where Democrats are afraid to bring it up."

[Nlighten1]

1. Follow it up with this...

http://www.nypress.com/17/23/news&columns/MarkAmes.cfm?page=1&last=3

[Alpharetta]

7. brilliant piece

I am stunned by this article.

It explains why middle and lower income republicans revere and vote for leaders who hate them.

I have a lot of thinking to do.

I can no longer point out how mean the right is. Why bother? Inside, they're saying "Yeah we're mean and it feels good."

I can no longer point out the obviousness of their intent to dump America into the crapper. Inside, they're saying "Yeah? Well at least it's OUR hand on the flusher."

Why fight for truth if the ignorant, once educated, choose to be evil?

I have a lot of thinking to do.

I know a man from Serbia who fled the war. I am going to ask him for advice.

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. A friend received it the other day and is looking forward to reading it.

I expect that I will be told to read it next.

[LittleApple81]

3. I plan to buy several copies to donate to my local library. I live in

KANSAS.
Haven't read it yet, but listened to the author on several radio programs. Sounds excellent.

[RoBear]

6. I'm from Kansas, too...

and he was here in Wichita last night. I'm kicking myself for not getting to his reading.

[Nay]

4. I read the excerpt in Harper's Magazine a couple of months ago.

I was impressed and want to read the book, too.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. What a lousy review, though

Another Gore-hating hipster who has it all psychoanalyzed and attributed to White Males who aren't getting laid.

The wretched truth is that America is an erogenous no man's land. Most white males here (at least the straight ones) have either dismal sex lives or no sex lives at all. As bad as this hurts, the pain is compounded every time you expose yourself to the cultural lies that await you at every turn—that is, every waking hour and during deep REM sleep, when the subliminal messages kick in. This wretchedness leads to a desire for vengeance, to externalize the inner famine—it leads directly to the Republican camp.

And what a shame. Mark Ames put a lot of insight into his review, but then tarted it up, an über-cool urban pig with lipstick (and mirrorshades, of course).

What is it with white male urban hipsters that they hate white male non-urban non-hipsters -- and have a fascination with their supposedly miserable sex lives? Is it the realization that within ten years, they will become the very ghosts they see when the lights are out?

I haven't had sex in quite a long time. I do not consider it to be emblematic of political decay, and it hasn't forced my politics to the right. Ames associates it with the desire for vengeance, but his review is tumescent with the same poison he writes about. Mark Ames has gazed into the abyss, and a balding, overweight, impotent, un-cool tulpa wearing his face gazed back.

Thomas Frank? That's a different story ... and for all his own shortcomings, I still enjoy Frank's writing. With or without sex.

--bkl
Abyss-lost, overweight, impotent, un-cool, but I do have a good head of hair.

[Alpharetta]

8. I disagreed w/ Ames regarding the sex analysis

but still I agree with the spite. the rightwing denial is for a reason.

[Nay]

9. I also disagree with the sex remarks -- most of these supposedly

sexually-frustrated guys get laid plenty often. They are just immature assholes who want their way all the time, and are spiteful little shits as a result.

[Shoe2]

10. Unrelated

I am a newcomer to this site and altho I am interjecting an unrelated response into this thread, I ask that you all excuse my interruption, and allow me to ask a straightforward question, which if answered will settle a point of discussion in a political argument. When Ashcroft ran for re-election to the senate, who was leading in the polls immediately prior to the tragic death of Mel Carnahan. Was the election close at that point in time?