Tom Hayden's Port Huron Statement was a very powerful read for me as a 17 year old. He has updated it and brought it into the present. He will be at the "Strand" bookstore in NYC next Thursday if anyone that reads my drivel lives in that neck of the woods. He will also be speaking with Laura Flanders and Katrina vanden Heuvel whilst there. If you do not live near there, as I don't, it will be on Air America Radio hopefully the following weekend on Laura's show Saturday and Sunday from 7:00 to 10:00pm EST on the Air America Radio Network.
There is also a book out that I would like to draw your attention to. The author is Kevin Phillips, and the title is "American Theocracy". Mr. Phillips is one of the architects of conservatism, he helped create the conservative movement as a young man in the 60's. He is the author of 12 other books as well. He is well respected in literary circles as well as political circles. Mr. Phillips is no longer a believer with regards to the current conservative trends. To quote from the NY Times review of his current book: "No longer does he see Republican government as a source of stability and order. Instead, he presents a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness. (His final chapter is entitled "The Erring Republican Majority.") In an era of best-selling jeremiads on both sides of the political divide, "American Theocracy" may be the most alarming analysis of where we are and where we may be going to have appeared in many years. It is not without polemic, but unlike many of the more glib and strident political commentaries of recent years, it is extensively researched and for the most part frighteningly persuasive."
I plan on picking up this book soon. He has seen the changes within the Republican party from the inside. He helped create the monster he now chastises. It should be interesting. The part of the review that hooked me is this: When the american troops failed to secure the Iraqi National Museum of History, it was looted bare of priceless human historical artifacts. But the troops did manage to beat feet over to the Iraqi Oil Ministy and secure that building, which of course housed the maps and charts to their vast oil production. Terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, tyranny, democracy and other public rationales were, Phillips says, simply ruses to disguise the real motivation for the invasion....Geez..no shit? What was his first clue?
