and I wrote this email to the author:
I just finished "What's the Matter With Kansas." I found it to be very well written, documented, and entertaining, but the fact that it offers no solutions to the problems you describe is troublesome. The whole book is basically 250 pages of semi-veiled fun poking at crazy conservatives. Yes, it artfully depicts the descent of your homestate into reactionaryism, but what it fails to do is offer any means for re-changing the attitides of Sunflower Staters.

So, what we are left with is more preaching to the choir, more us vs. them and not even an attempt at a solution.

May I suggest an addendum to the paperback version that I am sure is in the works?

Thanks,
Dave
______________

I mean, when a rightwing media cabal expends most of its energy saying that Democrats are the party of whining malcontents, and then this is the public face given to the 'soul searching' going on within the party' you play into their hand. Ask John Kerry how well that works.

Aaron McGruder wouldn't write a book like this, and neither would I.

You can't read.

isn't knowing half the battle?

Anyone else catch that bit about whatsisnuts Republican Senator going on a christian broadcast, from a church yesterday, saying that he felt dems were targeting people of faith? Wow.

(sound of gauntlet hitting the ground)

yeh, i'm sick of that crap. frist is not a good man.

He makes the senator's point here... division plays into the hands of republicans, and nicely at that. Good-Guy/Bad-Guy politics require having a clear black and a clear white. And the "yer either with us or against us" tactic will work if things continue down this path. I was telling the wife this morning, that as nice people who don't happen to be religious, there is one crucial factor that works against us, and that is the lack of the kind of organization that church-goers have. When, as a rule, you get together weekly and make sure everyone's on the same page, and when your bigger events get regular press coverage (like Frist's message), you tend to be heard and taken more seriously.

There is no "just nice folks, but not religious" church. And any similar institutions are not well attended.

my two moments with religion this weekend:

- i was at a wedding on saturday and started reading the bible, and one part of it said that if your child is acting up take him to the town elders and if still acts up after that you should take your child to the center of town and stone him to death.

- i heard someone say on a talk radio, "i can't stand that i live in a country that makes it mandatory to put a no-smoking sign near a gas pump but makes it illegal to put the 10 Commandments in a court house."

thanks, Lady Jay.

i figured you might be interested in this book. Most of it's about Johnson County.

I might go along with this if there wasn't already a universe of rhetoric claiming the same knowledge that this author does.



Nice. I agree with you, btw. I mean, it's a common reaction to any given work of exegetical prose to say that it doesn't offer a solution, and certainly sometimes identifying the problem is all that is possible at any given time. But during the election I think that we heard plenty about why both sides were wrongheaded, and almost no tack for finding a comprimise. This is generally because prototypical side-takers don't believe they should have to compromise. So I guess in that's case it would be enough to point out what's wrong with the other side, because the solution is for them to change all of those things to be more like your side.

In all seriousness though I agree with you Dave----Books like this are great and all, but are basically just complain-fests for disenfranchised liberals who offer either no solutions or solutions that make no damn sense.

The only hope is that Repubs basically can't get out of their own way these days. It is a natural cycle of American poilitics. The citizenry typically prefers both parties being represented at the top of the federal government and any consolidation of power by one party equals hubris, infighting, and an eventual loss of said power.

Its history folks.

to be fair, he goes into a lot of specifics, and if you have ever spent time in KS, I think you might get more out of it than the main audience of this book (sneering libs)

as to my interesting language dynamics, he talks about how Kansas has changed from radical left to radical right, and, in fact wants to change it back, or re-change people's attitudes. Forgive me, I am quite hung over.

I figured that's what you meant - I approve.

I would argue that my parents and your mom's church is like that. My parents go to church every sunday for sure and are good republicans to boot, but I have never once heard the words jesus, god, or sin come from their lips.

My parents go to church for the social aspects. They vote republican because we are small business, small government people. The pro-life, exterme right wing, fundamentalist side of the Republican Party makes people like my parents (and me too) nervous and will eventually drive them away if the Democratic Party can come back to reality and be the party of Bill Clinton instead of Nany Pulosi....

I see your above point, Haq. And I agree with you (what is this an agreement fest?!?) that many people seem to think "Well, if these people could just SEE how silly they are being, evrything would turn around." Well, no it won't. Because most people don't like to be told that they are dolts, and many (myselfincluded) will oftentimes do just the opposite, just to piss you off.

I also think that the main lesson of last election is DON'T DO EXACTLY WHAT YOUR OPPONENT ACCUSES YOU OF. and I can guarantee that once the right wing radio whores get ramped up on this it will be dismissed as bunch of whiney shit. Well, you say, they are not the intended audience. Then WTF is the point of writing this?

I guess what I am trying to say is that preaching to the choir may feel good, but the real changes come about when you bring in the sinners. (bad, botched church metaphor)

And I am frustrated because I swear i could do better than these dolts...patience young padawan....

True dat. And on the broadcast this morning about Frist, they showed some pastors (I wanna say Presbyterian, maybe Lutheran) who were angry that Frist et al make it seem like Christian = Republican, which ain't neccessarily so. They were protesting somewhere. They made signs.

There are, but they get confused with Scientology far too often to be taken seriously.

Sadly enough, this was the GADEM PARTY of Tom Murphy, Zell, Roy Barnes, et al. Now we have Big Government Conservatives who have approved land grabbing, land raping, and waiting periods for gagortions.

Here's the problem right now as I see it: In the south (I will generalize, but most of my political experience is in GA and AL) Democrat has become a bad word, so even though the Dems speak for what most people REALLY WANT: Education funding, equality, and down here, gun rights and property rights (zoned property right, but property rights that most would understand) people just up and vote Republican even if the last real job the dude on the ballot had was changing tires down at PoBoys and he got fired for drinking on the job (true story down here )

in short, without a serious plan of action, Dems are fucked.

Your parents and my parents sound alot like. On a side note, for my job I work with alot of different christian religions and none of them are anything like the Fundamentalist that are so commonly used here as the "typical church goer".

Do you ever wonder about David Blaine's plan for your life?

Hey now. Charlie Melancon beat "little" Billy Tauzin.

That's a good point oldbulee. I mean every single member of the AL DEM Delegation are pretty well versed in their Bible and their 'Ligion. And the black folks are quite keen on the man upstairs....but they paint this whole fucking thing as, in my words: Jesus vs. The Faggots, and well, guess how people vote.

This thread is a agree-fest. And that's sorry. I saw the same thing beating up on Frist for his participation in this obvious meeting of the Fourth Reicht.

Yeah, the party vs. religion thing has gotten way out of hand. I mean I am a Dem and non-religous, but their aren't really too many differences (i mean there are, but they are cosmic than philisophical) between me and republicans like my parents. I mean, my dad uses the most liberal examples to clown me for being a Dem and I do just the opposite to him----its like sport, but in the end, we ain't all that different.

I'm gonna go cry and the hand of god just came out of the sky to give me a fist pump..............."Then sings my song, my saviour unto the......"

Nope.

You see what I mean, though... Being a normal, neutral, live and let live person is hard to get fired up about. I neither feel seriously attacked, nor desire to seriously attack anyone. Most people in my category have as their most serious fault a kind of ingrained apathy, arising from the false belief that since we don't desire to remake things in our own image, why would anyone else? We have no rallying cry. We have no leaders.

Yeah bul, Charlie Boy did beat Little Billy, but will he survive 06 with a real opponent and another Dem in the race? I think he won by 526 votes, and is the number one or two Republican target in the nation.

and now that the Republicans are all big government and spending our money like crazy, maybe they will flip sides.