by Glenn Greenwald
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Product Description
A takedown of the GOP’s deceitful propaganda machine from the hugely popular blogger of Salon.com’s Unclaimed Territory and the author of the New York Times bestsellers How Would a Patriot Act? and A Tragic Legacy
Long since Americans were wooed by images of Ronald Reagan astride a horse, complete with cowboy hat and rugged good looks, the Republican Party has used a John Wayne mythology to build up its candidates and win elections. Their marketing scheme of evoking brave, courageous, heroic warriors has been so persuasive and strikes such a patriotic nerve, that many citizens have voted based on this manipulative imagery even when they’ve flat out disagreed with the GOP’s positions on key issues.
Glenn Greenwald puts this bogus GOP mythology under microscopic critique and successfully argues that none of these men is, in fact, a brave, strong moral warrior—far from it. Rather, most have dodged military duty, have strings of broken marriages and affairs, and live decadent, elitist lives, which they so ruthlessly condemn Democrats for doing. Such false archetypes—that GOP leaders are exclusively fit to command the military, represent traditional family values, and are fiscally restrained and responsible because they’re just regular folk like us—are so firmly entrenched in our culture as to allow the GOP to sit back and let their time-tested marketing ploy spin itself silly while avoiding debate on real issues. When they actually do voice opinions, it’s nothing more than a smear campaign of the supposed weakness and elitism of the Democrats.
To prevent this tired marketing scheme from succeeding again, Greenwald takes off the gloves and knocks down the hoaxes and myths, exposing the tactics the right-wing machine uses to drown out both reality and consideration of real issues. But he also calls on Democrats to shake off the defensive posture (“We love America too,” “We support the troops too,” “We also believe in God”) and start attacking the Republican candidates for the hypocrites they, in truth, are.
The first book to dissect the Republican Cult of Personality and leave it openly exposed in its unabashed, shameful depravity, Great American Hypocrites is a deeply necessary call-out to Democrats to attack the GOP with their competitor’s very own weapons.
Ever since the cowboy image of Ronald Reagan was sold to Americans, the Republican Party has used the same John Wayne imagery to support its candidates and take elections. We all know how they govern, but
the right-wing propaganda machine is very adept at hijacking debate
and marketing their candidates as effectively as the Marlboro Man.
For example:
Myth: The Republican nominee is an upstanding, regular guy who shares the values of the common man.
Reality: He divorced his first wife in order to marry a young multimillionaire heiress whose family then funded his political career.
Myth: Republicans are brave and courageous.
Reality: It’s a party filled with chicken hawks and draft dodgers.
Myth: Republicans are strong on defense and will keep us safe.
Reality: They prey on fears, and their endless wars make America far less secure.
Myth: The Republicans are the party of fiscal restraint and small, limited
government.
Reality: Soaring deficits, unchecked presidential power, and an increasingly invasive surveillance state are par for their course.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Applauding LOUDLY !, 2008-08-09
Thank you Mr. Greenwald for shining a light on the truth of the hypocrites who call themselves, America's Value Patriots. When in fact they are the panzies who run from America's needs ! Self-proclaimed patriot John Wayne was not a very good actor, but instead a fellow who was a hypocrite in all aspects of his life, as you point out. As a kid I thought he was "slow", like a buddy of mine was in real life.
Also your book points to Ann Coulter as being a "talk-a-lot-do-nothing". But in reality, she's just making a buck and couldn't care less about Republican politics......Mr. Murdoch publishes her books, I used to work for his publishing house.
Keep up the good work with the truth telling in your future books, and maybe America will get a chance to throw out the bad guys and heal itself.
I beg anyone who seeks the truth to read this book, and I still hold out hope that Republicans and Independents who have the courage to read this great book are enlightened by your tome, and will convert to the true American ideals. Thus we can rid our land of the fakes like Limbaugh and Hannity, and all of those hypocites underlined in this book.
You'll thank yourself for buying and reading this book - I bought four as pre-election gifts for family members who lean to the right.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
An entertaining polemic..., 2008-08-07
...provided you're Democratically- (as opposed to democratically-) inclined. Glenn Greenwald's object in life appears to be to take the fight to the right-wing Republican loonies, to repossess the ground that they have taken and dominated for so long, namely, the ideas that Republican men are real men, Republican women are real women and Republican little furry green creatures from Alpha-Centauri are real little furry green creatures from Alpha-Centauri, and only they can be trusted to bring security, low taxes, free gas, high morality and family values, and to have a direct line to God (who, as everyone knows, votes Republican, if He knows what's good for Him). On the other hand, Democrats are faggotty, wimpish, limp-wristed, girly men, their womenfolk are dragons, harridans and dykes, and they're friends of terrorists, poofters, global warming liars, Big Government, Satan and Richard Dawkins (the last-named two possibly being one and the same).
Mr. Greenwald mercilessly (but somewhat repetitively - a Greenwald trait, it seems) exposes the lies, distortions and utter humbug of these appalling people, starting at the archetypical American hero John Wayne, ultra-hawk, who, like his distinguished successors Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kristol (Sr. and Jr.), etc., etc., furiously struck heroic poses but strenuously avoided combat, and were happy enough to send others off to do the dying. Remember Dubya's contribution to the Iraq War; he gave up golf, poor baby. I did love the contrast between the disgusting San Francisco liberal and potential civilisation-ender Nancy Pelosi (one husband, children and grandchildren) and that sterling defender of family values Newt Gingrich (multiple wives, sordid divorces, multiple affairs).
To me, as a limp-wristed, cheese-eating, domineered, surrender Yurpeen, the most worrying thing of all is that a book like this needs to be written at all. Those of us outside the USA can see it all clearly and how silly it all is. The scary thing is that so many in the USA apparently can't or won't. They ignore substantial issues and concentrate instead on trivialities, and that these trivial issues decide who will be the leader of the world's most powerful armed forces, with his or her finger on the trigger of a major nuclear arsenal. If John Edwards had good positions on issues facing the country, I would be interested, regardless of the facts that he spent $400 on a haircut and combed the results for half an hour at a time (funny that nothing is made of John McCain's taste for seriously expensive Italian shoes), and, yes, even the occasional infidelity (he wasn't the first and he assuredly won't be the last - besides, The Holy Newt leaves him totally in the shade).
Has US political dialogue and the things that determine elections really sunk so low? As I write, John McCain (basically a fine and honourable gentleman, I believe) has unleashed the Rovian Republican attack dogs whose job is to dig up dirt for an easily-conned (or willing to be conned) electorate. One can sense the desperation that this is his last chance at The Big One and that he'll stoop to any dirty trick to get it. As Mr. Greenwald says, Mr. McCain is More Of The Same. And you'd think that the US electorate could see through it all by now. Apparently not :-(
Trouble is, you just know that, if the pendulum were to swing the other way, the Democrats would become just as rotten, corrupt, petty and downright dishonest. The system itself is at fault. If Mr. Greenwald's book wakens America up to the fact that it needs major surgery on its institutions, in order to move away from being the world's largest banana republic, it will have done a great service.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
No Wonder the MSM is SO Superficial!, 2008-06-13
I counted 62 hypocrites described in this book and each is well-singed by Greenwald. However, for me, the most important part of the book addressed the right-wing dirt peddlers. Does everyone know that Matt Drudge, a disciple of Rush Limbaugh, influences much of TV and print-media "news"? Editors of the recently-formed internet newspaper, The Politico, are quoted: "Matt Drudge rules our world....With the exception of the Associated Press, there is no outlet other than the Drudge Report whose dispatches instantly can command the attention and energies of the most established newspapers and television newscasts." Wow! Greenwald describes Drudge as "the lie-spewing, dirt-wallowing, right-wing Internet gossip."
Does everyone know and find it acceptable that The Politico, which is given great credibility on TV news, is almost completely underwritten by a right-wing Washington fixture, Joseph Albritton? Now we know why so much Anna Nicole Smith, LIndsay Lohan, etc. get so much coverage, and why substantive issues get so little coverage. Can we expect better? Not as long as the MSM is controlled by Neanderthals.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
THE Book for the Post Nixon/Reagan/Bush Era, 2008-06-05
Glenn Greenwald is the writer for our time. I think historians will use Glenn's writings as a milestone beginning the end of the corporate propaganda era. Glenn has few sacred cows except the truth, which we all know has a liberal bias. This book is another in his impressive catalog exposing the Hypocrites in the corporate media and corporate bought government. Conservative apologists and the gasbags in the media will hate it as it is filled with bonafide facts.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A dose of their own medicine, 2008-05-31
Greenwald writes an online column for Salon, which if you haven't read, you must. He consistently provides razor sharp insight simply not available in traditional media, such as astute criticism of said media. This book is an unflinching dressing-down of the ridiculous myths that exist out there about "conservatives," from John Wayne to John McCain. No need to list them here--if you're even looking at picking up this book, you already know what they are, and are outraged by them. My only criticism of Greenwald is that he can from time to time be repetitive in his observations and points, taking, for example, 15 pages to say what could be said in 12. That's all that keeps me from giving this 5 stars. But don't let that stop you. Buy this book. And start reading him on Salon.
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