Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Honorary Alaskan Max Blumenthal's New Book is Out and Available in Anchorage

I picked up a copy of Max Blumenthal's new book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, at the Anchorage Barnes & Noble last Sunday. It was a bit of synchronicity to find it right after I had given a talk related to how many figures on the GOP fundamentalist right revel in the imprecatory.

I read the parts about Alaska and Sarah Palin first, as Max based some of his investigations into the Palins' ties to dispensationalist and millenialist groups on my help or tips. Those parts are excellent, with a few minor editorial flaws (the Palin Wasilla electoral victory was 1996, not 1994, for instance).

The overall impact of the book - I'm reading it fairly quickly - may be formidable, though. Not only is the book one relentlessly described failure of purported GOP morality after another, acted out by Republican luminary after Republican leader after GOP icon, the descriptions are visceral, probing and sometimes humorous, in the blackest of layers of irony.

The timing of the publication couldn't have been more appropriate:


Here's Max confronting GOP figures, showing his black humor and gift for understated humor:


Max tackles a whole bundle of issues - Republican hypocrisy on morality; sexual repression; repressed or encouraged violence against minorities, women, gays and liberals; and how this is truned into a money machine by GOP-related organizations - quite well. Combined with Max's hard-hitting style, this book is turning out to be a compelling read.

I'll have a full review when I finish the book.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that hate and murder inciting pastor must have attended some of Sarah Palin's rallies. As someone who was raised in the Baptist church, I am deeply ashamed and horrified by this so-called "pastor". He is a deeply disturbed and overtly sinful man who has no place in the pulpit. As a Christian person, I will pray for his lost soul.

Anonymous said...

I have also been following Max's career. He makes up some of his stories out of thin air. I know that to be an absolute fact. He then couches the falsehoods in enough truth to make them believable to his left wing audience.

Philip Munger said...

anon @ 6:20 am - you have three hours to back up your claim, or your comment will be removed as untrue.

Anonymous said...

Well giddy up with the new read review!

Annoy-mouse here and I picked up the book as well. Holy smokes, Max can be blunt. However I'm liking it.

(While making the trip to Anch., I forgot to dig up some white iris root clumps and drop off at diane b. house for your Judy... next trip into the city won't be till early-mid Oct... Might be too late to plant the root clump in the ground or get it out of the ground... We'll see... Planning and actually getting to the city is a colossal event for my band of renagades...)

Philip Munger said...

{{{{{annoy-mouse}}}}}

I'll be seeing Diane Sunday, I hope...

Anonymous said...

"anon @ 6:20 am - you have three hours to back up your claim, or your comment will be removed as untrue."

Ha, ha..PA pitches a hissy fit. Guess being a "progressive" isn't much fun these days ! Hope n change , bruddah !