Gerry Spence on a Tirade

Sounds like a book that needs to be on our "to read list," right near the top.

One can order it from http://buzzflash.com

Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power: The Rise and Risks of the New Conservative Hate Culture (Hardcover)

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Gerry Spence:

"These members of Team Hate are the new conservative mouthpieces for a power structure that's selling us into a murky, dead world where people can no longer love, where God is money, where the earth is a commodity to be destroyed for profit, where people are but digits in a money machine, where the ideals of a Christian society are mocked so that greed is now its favored value, where the good Samaritan is a piteous fool and violence against our fellow creatures is celebrated in the name of Christ.

We have become a culture that is fed hate, that has grown to crave hate, a hate-addicted culture that, like any psychotic entity, can destroy itself absent treatment at the hands of those who still retain their ability to love and to forgive.

The argument here is that the new conservative hate culture in America is leading us resolutely and irretrievably to the Fourth Reich. And Team Hate provides the mouth-pieces that spew its dangerous propaganda."

From Booklist:*Starred Review* Despite its inflammatory title, this book offers a thoughtful exploration of the vitriol of conservative commentators in the media and their effect on the broader society.

Spence, an attorney who has represented Karen Silkwood and Randy Weaver of Ruby Ridge fame, lambastes Nancy Grace, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative commentators.

While they attack liberals and others with whom they disagree, they don't dare attack their corporate sponsors, who commit all manner of misdeeds.

Spence cites troubling parallels between the propaganda of Fascist Mussolini and Nazi Hitler and what he calls "corporacy," the growing corporate ownership and control of the media and American thought and discourse.

Spence also attacks "thingism," the unbridled lust for products that enslaves Americans with debt, tying them to unfulfilling jobs, stoking constant fear and anger that are fed by the conservative commentators. Hate sells, Spence laments, in this stinging rebuke of the hypocrisy of commentators who cash in on the frustrations of average Americans without regard for the longer term consequences.

Spence's passion should appeal to a broad range of readers concerned about the current political environment.

Vanessa Bush

BuzzFlash: Gerry Spence offers a trenchant answer to the question, "How can people who claim to uphold moral values and believe in God be so bitterly hateful and encourage violence?"It is the essential conundrum of the right wing paid pundits of hate. They are their own worst role models of virtue. There is nothing virtuous about them at all, unless having a serpent's tongue is considered to be of some moral value.

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.