Posted by
Ernie on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 9:56:42 PM
I'm about midway through the book
Donkey Cons and I can only conclude that it needs to be required reading in high school history classes. Certainly in adult education.
I have seen many books that attempt to revise history, calling historical truth lies, and doing so with virtually no contextual documentation. "Don't Know Much About History", "Lies We Learned In School" and other such books litter the bookscape and linger on the shelves for years, if not decades. Those authors clearly find historical truth distasteful, and have endeavored to set the record... crooked.
Twenty years ago, I bought and read some of these books, thinking I was learning something new and gaining a sense of enlightenment, maybe feeling a little bit like an 'insider' who knew the truth that no one else had. In time, I began to learn that
those authors were not telling me the truth, that it was really one world-view against another, and that I just didn't have a way of knowing who is and is not telling the truth.
Armed with a more discerning eye, I continued to seek out honesty. An annoying little belief system came to light which I have a lot of trouble with: "History is written by the victors". This statement could be true if it weren't for free societies. The Soviet Union tried for decades to supress the truth, to control what their people could know. Today, China and other countries continue this silliness in vain. In the USA, there's not even a pretense of truth to that statement. Bookstores and libraries have an annual Banned Books week, sponsored by the American Library Association. What an irony - they feature these supposed 'banned books' in their stores in great supply. The premise is that everyone from government to right-wing 'hate' groups are trying to keep you from seeing these books. Isn't this amazing?
The real argument, when you question the advocates long enough, is that they consider restricting access to anything that might be inappropriate to be a violation of free speech. So, for example, an explicit book about the sex lives of lesbians in women's prisons should be in elementary school libraries, with no adult or parental control. Or a website with detailed instructions on constructing a dirty nuclear bomb, including resources and suggested high-population targets should not be taken down. Any attempt to restrict access, or bring down potentially dangerous websites would be a violation of free speech.
These same people pile on top of their lies their own form of supression of free speech. Now, I know bookstores are in the business of making money - they don't care what makes the money - as long as they are making it. Those drawn to
work in bookstores, libraries and that sort of business tend to be in it for the literature, not for the political books, computer books, DVD's, or for the money. They tend to be liberal, featuring books that agree with their views and burying the rest. I've seen this over and over again, and often find 'conservative' bestsellers turned over on the shelves, covered with a 'liberal' title, lacking a recommendation, and sometimes outright criticized by the seller (Amazon once lifted their prohibition on ad-hominem attacks on authors exclusively for the book "Unfit For Command").
I live in San Diego and one of the authors of Donkey Cons, Lynn Vincent, lives in San Diego, too. Do you remember when bookstores featured local authors? Not this time. It briefly made it to the New Releases table, then was promptly buried with so many other political books in the back.
It's not my normal practice to read political books. But I must say, I'm getting a wonderful education by reading Donkey Cons. It's extremely well-documented, balanced (the authors bring to light equivalent Republican missteps), and validates many suspicions I've had regarding Democrats.
One last thing - a disclaimer. I know Lynn Vincent. Not well, but her family attended a church which I also attend, and we've had brief conversations at writer's conferences long before I ever knew about this book. I would have heard about it anyway from a radio interview she did with Michael Medved, who I listen to regularly.