Totalitarian Neoconservatism (Is That a Tautology?)

Writes Patrick:

I was at the library today, and was only going to get one book — but then I noticed a familiar cover in the “New” section. The book was American Grit by Tony Blankley. I remember seeing it on TV somewhere, so out of curiosity I picked it up and read the overview on the front flap of the book:

“In this passionate, hard-hitting book, Blankley shows:

* How Obama’s plan for national service is a weak substitute for what America really needs — a full-on military draft…

* Why we need stricter laws to prevent the media from compromising our national security

* Why the office of the presidency, contrary to popular belief, has not gained enough power since the September 11 attacks

* How our war effort in Iraq was undermined by effective enemy propaganda — and what we can do about it

* Why education reform under President Obama will fail to address one of the biggest problems in our education system: the failure to teach patriotism”

I read the first point about the military draft and seriously thought it was a joke…until I read the rest of the points and realized the book is dead serious.

I’ll be reading the book, just for the heck of it; but you can be sure I’ll be keeping a trash can nearby, just in case.

UPDATE from Vadim Antonov:

Here’s a bit of wisdom from the old Soviet times: keep the book. It can be put to the proper use in case of a shortage of TP. Since that was quite the routine condition in the Soviet Union, I managed to use a tome from Lenin’s collected works in precisely this manner back in late 80s.

UPDATE from Gene Trosper:

A fun exercise regarding Tony Blankley’s book “American Grit”:

Log onto Amazon.com, search for his book and look for the “tags” which have been attached to the book by various Amazon account holders (I added ‘blind patriotism”). Look through the tags and click on the ones most appropriate to that book, such as “fascism”, “neocon”, “slavery”, and of course “blind patriotism”. Add one of your own!

The purpose of this fun little exercise is to identify his book with those descriptors, so when some user does a search for “fascism” or “slavery”, up pops American Grit among the search results.

May as well call a spade a spade.

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2:13 pm on February 6, 2009