Beth’s Books: Wingnuts by John Avlon

Hmm, maybe I need to come up with a cute little graphic for Beth’s Books, like I have for Beth’s Music Moment! Not today, though.

The subtitle is How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, and that is a good descriptive.

I’ve always liked John Avlon, because he seems reasonable, but he is always willing to call bullshit when it needs to be called (I’m talkin’ to YOU, Orly Taitz!).

I think he is very fair in saying that the wingnuts occur on both sides; but the majority of the book is about the right wingnuts, because you know what? That’s where the majority of the wingnuts reside. The rhetoric on the left can be bad, too. That’s why I stopped watching MSNBC. I catch clips here and there, but I’ve found that the shouting (I’m talkin' to YOU, Chris Matthews!) kills any reasonable discussion, and I find it rather unpleasant and unproductive. You can’t have a conversation when you’re shouting down the other person.

But it’s pretty obvious that the right wing has been a little more vicious and vocal for the past several years, and Avlon rightly focuses more on this. There is just more “there” there, right?

I liked what he had to say about people on either side standing up to the fringes in their own party. There is nothing wrong with telling a friend that they need to dial down the rhetoric a bit. We all want to move forward, but if we are unwilling to listen because of our own ideological “purity,” then nothing really gets done, does it?

If you’re interested in politics, I recommend this book. I follow John Avlon on Twitter and told him that his book was fantastic, and he tweeted back a “thank you.” That was very nice!

Different subject. The Twitterverse and Facebookosphere are exploding with the news of James Gandolfini’s death. I am also reading reports that this is another celebrity death hoax. I am hoping that the latter is true. If so, I’ve got a few friends who are on board with finding out who is responsible for this and making them pay for what they have perpetrated. Ya get what I’m sayin’? [cracking knuckles] Nobody fucks with the guy who played Tony OR fucks with his family like this. NOBODY. You hear me?