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Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America (2004)

by John P. Avlon(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0984295119 (ISBN13: 9780984295111)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Beast Books

review 1: Interesting overview of the radical left and right in US politics and media, and some analysis of why they have gained such prominence.I wished for more explanation, from outside the US it seems inexplicable how these people have such influence.Avlon suggests some fixes for the political structure to re-balance US politics, but the chances of what he suggests happening seem, to me, extremely unlikely. but at some point common sense must come back, surely?
review 2: A very informative work, a quick read, with lots of good information, and with one big fat flaw in it's thesis -- I'll call it an "equivalency" problem. To paraphrase said thesis, most Americans are somewhere in the middle of the "political spectrum", and yet a disproportionate amount of modern day m... moreedia coverage has been hijacked by extremists on both the political right AND the political left. Good so far, right? Well, right. But where's the left? Don't get me wrong. Believe me, I've seen my share of left Wingnuts -- they are true-believing, full market socialists (Che posters on their walls, natch) & believe that Dick Cheney remote control flew the airplanes into the twin towers and the Pentagon (actually a cruise missile there) himself, personally, on 9-11. They (the left Wingnuts) exist. No doubt about it. So where's their 24 hour news network? (And please, for God's sake, don't tell me MSNBC -- owned by multi-billion dollar corporation GE, which recently hired a handful of moderately left-of-center pundits in order to cash in on the untapped market of folks who don't fit into the Tea Party/ Fox News mind-set.) Name a powerful media leftist. Michael Moore, right? How did I guess? Probably he can, in terms of physical bulk, counterbalance Rush Limbaugh. In terms of influence? Probably not. Maybe you've got Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. All right, well get ready -- Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Schlessinger, Bill O'Reilly . . . I could go into the minor leagues with someone like Michael Medved, and a whole "minor leagues" system of wannabe big-time bloviators. But I think you get the idea. And has Tim Robbins ever said the offensive equivalent of a Michael Savage (actually Weiner, but that's a whole other rant) telling a gay man to "get AIDS & die"? Where is anything Susan Sarandon has EVER said to compare with Anne Coulter's post 9-11 statement in regards to Muslims worldwide, that we ought to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."? John Avlon (author of Wingnuts) points out a single instance in which MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann called George W. Bush a "Fascist". (And, when considered rationally, policies such as torture, the invasion of sovereign nations which have not attacked you first, and the kidnapping of suspects off of the streets worldwide, with their delivery to "black" sites in order to subject them to said "enhanced" interrogation techniques -- this could reasonably be called at least "Fascistic", yes? I will leave it for others to decide how many "Fascistic" acts, policies, etc. one can initiate before one can reasonably be referred to as a "Fascist.") Almost every one of right wing pundits I have named above have repeatedly -- REPEATEDLY! -- referred to my President, Barack Obama, as a "Socialist", a "Communist", or (and this would be comic if they weren't deadly serious about it) a "Fascist." And, of course, a "crypto-Muslim terrorist sympathizer". And they have done so with the megaphone of some VERY powerful and ubiquitous cable and radio networks. Where is the Rupert Murcoch of the left? Don't waste your time looking. There isn't one. And while, to a limited degree, Avlon's point is well taken -- the extremes, right and left, are the tail; we in the middle are the dog -- to pretend that the far right has not had much, MUCH more influence in the last 20 years or so is to also ignore a genuine and VERY present danger. The "middle" is not a static place. It has been moved to the right, VERY deliberately, in recent years. So is Avlon's book a recommended read? Sure. But with the following caveat -- the equivalency which he pretends exists for the sake of his thesis, does NOT. 40 years ago, egged on by some overheated left wing rhetoric, a group calling itself the "Weather Underground" set off several bombs, some of which even killed some innocent people. 15 years ago an individual named Timothy McVeigh, egged on by some very overheated right wing rhetoric, set off a bomb, killing 186 people in a single morning. less

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