For many years now, I've been a diehard Half-Price Books fanatic, always making a stop whenever I'm back home. It's become an addiction on par with my grapefruit and DVD compulsions.
The primary reason for this habit is the nature of the store -- it's like a treasure hunt. Time and time again I've struck gold.
Over break while panning in the stream I found a particularly nice nugget: "Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America" by Robert B. Reich. Three bucks.
After reading the first 30 pages or so, I went back the following day and picked up the remaining five copies to give to friends. So obviously I highly recommend it, especially for open-minded Bush-supporters. It's a particularly gentle book, free of insults, with respect for people with whom the author deeply disagrees.
Early on a quote appears from Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first presidential campaign regarding what it means to be a liberal: "Say that civilization is a tree which, as it grows, continually produces rot and dead wood. The radical says: 'Cut it down.' The conservative says: 'Don't touch it.' The liberal compromises: 'Let's prune so that we lose neither the old trunk nor the new branches.'" Metaphors are another of my addictions.
Leaping forward 75 years or so, how does that apply to our political situation? The current administration is more radical than conservative. The term that Reich prefers is "radcon" -- radical conservatives.
This is an administration of fast, sweeping, major changes with little respect for those of a differing viewpoint. I can here the phony invocation of 9/11 coming.
Social security is a tree that would have some problems down the line. And the administration is now trying to rally support to chop it down -- something many radcons have longed for for decades. Thankfully President Bush has yet to even unify his own party behind it.
Saddam Hussein was another tree that needed attention. So the administration went after it with a huge ax. It's too bad that the falling tree has collapsed right on top of us and the Iraqi people. And perhaps there could have been some planning on what to do with the fallen tree once we hacked it down. Now it's just sitting there rotting away on top of us as more acts of violence occur every day.
Something that does not get said enough: The war in Iraq is illegal. In invading Iraq, we broke international law. The administration knows this, and one of its chief hawks has even admitted it before. According to the Guardian, one of the driving forces toward the war, Richard Perle said "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
Or consider the gay marriage issue. The administration's solution: amend the constitution. Bit extreme, perhaps? Maybe even, "radical"?
Reich even cites conservatives who admit what they truly are. Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage foundation, said "We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals working to overturn the present power structure of the country."
Is it that difficult for those who ardently support the administration to just try to stretch for a moment and understand why the opposition is so passionate?
No, it's not. All one need do is pick up Reich's book and give it a shot.
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