Time for a revolution, I think.

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is terrifying and is a must-read for anyone concerned at the growing attempts by the far-right to dismantle our nation. It is the story of how one man named James Buchanan spent his life trying to under the 20th century, really believing that we'd be at our best with no public schools, no safety net, no public anything. Just rule by the already rich.

As I told my wife as I was reading this, the list of people I need to shoot, or dig up and shoot, grows longer by the page.

What is amazing is the immense self-delusion evident in these plans. Buchanan and his fellow travelers seem to just assume at first that people would just accept the loss of benefits. When it becomes clear that any attempt to do away with Medicare or privatize social security was doomed to a huge vocal backlash, they shifted their focus to undermining the basis of American democracy itself.

And they are still at it.

Read this book to truly understand who the real enemy of the people are, and to understand their tactics.



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xxxxxx xxxxxxxx!

And in the Missing the Point Category, we have MeTV. Purveyor of classic television, including Perry Mason, to which I am addicted.

Because I suffer some hearing loss and tend to not wear my hearing aids at home, I usually turn on the subtitles when watching Perry. Which is where we run into the issue.

I can understand censoring foul language, but really, they've gone too far. People drink cocktails, not xxxxtails. It got really bad last night, where the mystery centered on the death of a young man named Richard two years prior.

Of course, everyone called him Dick. Which came out on screen as xxxx. Had I been dependent on the subtitles, rather than using them as an aide, I wouldn't have been able to follow the story. Which would have been a pity, as "The Case of the Golden Venom" is really good.

I'm going to try to figure out who does the closed captioning and suggest they adjust their algorithm.