Rating: 
Summary: Overall, a pretty good read
Review: Overall a pretty good read. Exposes all the misconceptions and half-truths about the progressive/liberal movement and at the same time still remains humorous throughout. The liberal-minded won't be amused, but its a good read for all us "pollution-loving, uncaring, extremist" conservatives. Probably one of the better books I've bought this year. Now excuse me while I finish my spotted owl sandwich...LOL
Rating:
Summary: Vastly Underrated.
Review: I just reread this for the first time this weekend after not having opened it for five years. I remembered it mostly as an entertaining personal memoir which was really not giving the author the credit he deserved as there is considerable political punching power within these 270 plus pages. Stein examines most of the great issues of our day, and illustrates the way in which common sense has the power to alter one's political beliefs. In this autobiographical account, he discusses all manner of societal hot topics from feminism, gay rights, The New York Times, media bias, and the political parties. His refutation of political correctness was quite impressive and I only wish that more people internalized it. Stein is a very gifted writer as he does a magnificent job of recreating the personalities of the individuals he discusses, such as Tennessee Williams and Harvey Fierstein and countless others. The title of this book is a reflection of Stein's wit and humor, but one should be forewarned that his views are not lightweight.
Rating:
Summary: Where did it all go wrong?
Review:
Stein writes about those things that have been bothering so many people with an ounce of common sense,for a long time.Sure there were a lot of things that were not perfect in the 60's and a lot of things were done by many people to correct them.Stein shows that while most good people fall into the middle of the political spectrum,there has and always will be extremists both on the left and right wing of politics.
He covers all aspects of social changes,agendas,and other issues and really leaves it up to the reader to decide for himself,as he did,what is really right and what is misguided.As to whether the way things have evolved was by design or by faulty idealism ;really doesn't matter.In the final analysis, right is right and wrong is wrong.
Have we really seen progress in any of the areas discussed?
There is litle doubt that far left wing dominance has ruled in education,media,and the arts in general;ever since the 60's;both under Democratic and Republicans.So,if you feel that the education institutions have lost their direction,the media is slanted and much of the arts represented by TV,Movies,Music and Graphics is pathetic;where does the fault lie?Because the institutions were turned over to the screaming inmates,is it any wonder that chaos was the result?To be fair it wasn't all the inmates only those who were screaming.
So many of the agendas have been spearheaded or hyjacked b ypeople who were full of hatred against anyone who had an opinion that differed in any way from theirs.In all their actions we see we see, not a desire to build hope and promise but unbridled desire to tear down and distruct.If anything is successful,to them, it must be done away with.The morals and belief systems that were the foundations of the country that led to the liberty and freedoms seem to be most objectionable to them.
Stein sums it up on page 136 with:
"I,for one,can respect serious souls who continue to believe that liberalism remains the road to an honorable and humane future.But a lot of contemporary liberal dogma is not so much forward-looking as based on compempt for the past,including what many of us see as our best traditions and most essential values;we are thus deeply affronted by the characterization of both the way things are and how they used to be.
True,both sides are marked by their fair share of intellectual corruption and many on each side have made an art of turning truth on its head.
But it strikes me that the question that needs to be asked and asked and asked again-not glossed over,but seriously thought about-is one which would never occur to most who see themselves as progressive:Which side is more intolerant? Or,perhaps more accurately,which side's brand of intolerance has done more damage lately?
For it is not as if committed cultural liberals refuse to pass judgement.They're endlessly on the lookout for racism,sexusm,homophobia,lookism,ageism,classism,ethnocentrism,toyou name it,and perceived transgressors can expect no mercy.The only excesses they won't condemn are sexual ones.They're for every kind of diversity going-except diversity of thought."
Stein could well have inclued Canada in his observations except for one difference.Here we have a void of conservative thinking;we just drift in the netherland between liberalism and
socialism.Oh yeah,I forgot seperatism,whatever that is.If you think that your liberals are full of themselves,try ours;they think they could run the US better than either the Democrats or the Republicans.
Keep the faith and God Bless America.
Rating: 
Summary: An everyman's tale for baby boomers
Review: Other reviews sample what's in this book, so I won't repeat all that. The book has strengths and weaknesses. The latter include gabbiness; he winds on about things that could be said more succinctly, and sometimes, his point gets lost. He doesn't pound as many facts as, say, Ann Coulter does in her books. He isn't as witty or enjoyably nasty, either, although this is still a breezy and fast-moving read. Stein writes much more from his own experience and does less research than Coulter does. He equivocates on some issues, weakening his arguments and making you wonder if he hopes his liberal friends will still like him as a result. On some issues, he really hasn't changed his mind. His countervailing disparagement of McCarthyism, repeated two or three times, suggests this is one milepost in becoming a conservative that he, a "red diaper baby" of sorts, still can't get past. Coulter in "Treason" makes a strong case for McCarthy's having been right, as the Venona files' declassification proved, while the historical record continues to be obscured by liberal academics and filmmakers waving the bloody shirt of McCarthyism. Stein thinks McCarthy did far more damage than good, forever opening critics of the left to the charge of red-baiting.
Other books may better examine individual issues covered here - speech limitations on college campuses, feminist hegemony in workplace politics, or the foibles of affirmatives action. The point of Stein's book, however, is his own conversion and the experiences which led to it. For this alone it is valuable. No one could epitomize a baby-boomer, Vietnam-era, long-haired, free-love-and-dope, let's-lead-society-to-a-better-world type more than Stein does. You only have to see his youthful, Afro'ed cover photo to get that. He was caught up in campus antiwar politics and in the first blush of 1970s "alternative" journalism. Check his account of savaging a conservative Virginia congressman without knowing much about him, and being ashamed years later when he read the man's obituary and learns of his climb up from poverty and many acts of goodness. And Stein dwelled in Manhattan's Upper West Side fount of liberalism. This doesn't apply to Coulter, a child during the seminal late-60s, early-70s era. Here is the the story of someone who did experience it, from the generation whose weight and attitudes changed society, for better or for worse, forever. He saw society the way many youths did back then. Stein experienced this social tidal wave intensely, living and working near a disproportionate number of journalists, lawyers, artists and media types - a place where new ideas like "day care so professional moms can fulfull themselves" often hit with tsunami-like force, with no anchoring by everyday folks who most suffer those ideas' consequences. He started changing his mind as he became a family man. Tellingly, his wife's opinions changed as well as she, running against feminist orthodoxy, discovered she actually wanted to stay home with her children. Stein endured years in a changing work world where men lost their jobs for the mildest, passing remarks, and he saw, repeatedly, dissenting stories suppressed when their angles or writers didn't conform to liberals' "rightsist" (my word) dogma. This may resonate with those the same age who have made a similar journey, perhaps facing, as Stein did, massive condemnation by friends and family for their apostasy. The past election suggests there are many silent Steins out there. Ninety percent of the noise came from liberals - it seemed like every writer and bumper-sticker bearer hated Bush - but 51 percent of the electorate voted conservative.
Stein's attack on liberalism here is softer than the approach of Coulter or your average right-wing talk show host. But it is more genuine, because Stein sees society through the lens of his own family experience, not through studies or stories or talking heads he can't stand. He doesn't experience liberals as faraway, two-dimensional caricatures, but as the very real friends, neighbors and coworkers he, for years, agreed with. Perhaps this explains his equivocation; rather than trying to get in their face to entertain others who already agree with him, he has the maturity to try and persuade them. Taking his leave of their camp was surely a hard journey. A Long March, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Zeal of the Convert
Review: Harry Stein's tale is an amusing one of a junior communist and facile liberal's journey to thinking, critical citizen. Its biggest flaw is the carryover of some of that facile uncritical thinking, namely, replacing knee-jerk blame America first tendencies with knee-jerk glorify America tendencies, coupled with the French bashing that has become so fashionable of late.
This is on display most prominently on page 162 in the paragraph that ends with the name Clinton. Stein lashes the French and Clinton simultaneously, holding up Washington and Jefferson in stark contrast to the Debauched Ones. Our America, he crows, "routinely (gives) rise to figures of towering character" while France has "invariably produced midgets".
Well hold on just a moment. If we're speaking of morals, I don't think we can overlook the slaves. It would seem to be immoral to own a single one. In David McCullough's book on Adams he notes that Washington and Jefferson owned over 200 slaves each. And I wouldn't go for that amber tinted fiction that the Founding Fathers' slaves were treated so well that they weren't even unhappy about being slaves. GW could not tell a lie about a cherry tree, but could he tell a young black girl she could not go to school, nor play with dolls, nor marry the man of her choice, nor even leave his plantation in Virginia? Apparently so, times 200. Or perhaps he delegated the authority to his overseers to convey those messages, along with all the other messages used to control slaves: body parts cut off runaways; forced breeding; parents separated from young children...
A child born on the 4th of July, 1776 on Jefferson's plantation might have lived to be 85 and still have no liberty. That child would have to live over 185 years in Virginia before being granted the right to pursue happiness on an equal footing with other Americans. For two centuries, towering character after towering character was unable to bring the US even with France in the treatment of people of African descent. In the 1950s many of the jazz greats preferred to live among France's moral "midgets" because they treated them as artist of great talent, as opposed to Virginia, where they were just "coloreds", not even fit to use the same drinking fountain as the towering descendents of the towering characters.
As Stein heaps scorn on the French for the collapse in 1940 he fails to consider the protective effects of thousands of miles of ocean between America and Nazi Germany. When he touts the American War of Independence he forgets the French naval blockade of Cornwallis at Yorktown, which more than any other factor won the war.
As for Stein's absurd suggestion that the French Resistance was a myth--that's on a par with suggesting the Underground Railroad was a myth, historical amnesia at best, desecration of fallen heroes at worst.
Stein is better when relating the folly of his former fellow travellers and what they've evolved (is that the right word?) into: animal rights activists demanding (and being granted!)authority to guard against the abuse of cockroaches on a Barry Sonnenfeld movie set. One wonders whether such lunacy is a harbinger of worse things to come, or just a relic of the madness that began to be rolled back at the dawn of the Reagan era, when Stein's transformation began.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable journey from Left to Right
Review: This is Harry Stein's account of how his political views changed over a longish period of time from liberal to conservative, and why. He describes how he gradually became disillusioned with feminism, , affirmitive action, political correctness etc, and his reasons for changing his opinions. It made me realise how ignorant I am about American current affairs, I hadn't even heard of approximately half the people mentioned in this book. Also, things like political correctness etc, don't seem to loom so large over here, we don't have any affirmitive action (yet), for instance. I can understand his position on abortion very well, it's more or less how I feel about the subject myself, with very mixed feelings. I occasionaly found myself surprised by some of his conclusions, for instance although he disaproves of many of the excesses of Political Correctness, he seems to have succumbed to Health Fascism, he mentions disaprovingly the casual attitude of the French towards smoking, which I regard as a point in their favour. Honestly, Mr Stein, whether you smoke or not, you're going to die anyway you know! I particularly enjoyed his scenario for a conservative sit-com set on a university campus, which seemed to me to have a lot of potential, could be almost as funny as 3rd Rock from the Sun. His children sound quite alarmingly mature for their age, being brought up by conservative parents seemed to have given them wisdom beyond their years, which is a good thing, I suppose. A bit unnerving to have about the house though. And this book introduced me to a brilliant quotation from Lincoln I'd never heard before, can't find the page now but it went something like "every time I hear someone argeu for slavery, I feel a wish to try it on them personally" Nice one, Abraham.
Rating:
Summary: Right-wing? Hardly. Entertaining? Yes.
Review: HIAJTVRWC is a relatively entertaining and thankfully somewhat short tome describing Harry Stein's transition from an Upper-West side liberal to a normal person. Right-wing? Hardly. Stein begins with the obligatory litany of liberal credentials which for most people would be called "youthful foolishness." Everything changes when Harry and wife conceive at which time they notice that all their selfish liberal friends are well, selfish liberals. One of the first shots across Stein's liberal bow is noticing that children kinda need parents and it is absurd to assert that they would be "better off" in day-care than at home. Unfortunately, being a liberal there is no one within 10 square miles that would agree with his assessment. The final brick in Stein's transformation is of course the whole Bill Clinton impeachment controversy. Like most people Stein cannot figure out why anyone would defend Clinton's behavior. Sure, I can see where some might say it was not impeachable, but Stein's friends were actually defending the man (Gore made the same mistake and I still think that is what cost him the election). As an actual member of the VRWC I did enjoy Stein's awakening and found it really cute that he considers himself a "right-winger", unfortunately by his definition of "right-winger" about 75% of American's are too. Of course, after writing this book he has probably been kicked even further to the right by his liberal friends and neighbors, so maybe there is hope for him yet.
Rating:
Summary: Comfort in uncomfortable times
Review: In HIAJTVRWCAFIP, Harry Stein has managed to create a book which reads like a long-time friend baring his soul and talking about his deepest beliefs. This book is helpful for anyone making the transition from liberal to conservative, for any conservative surrounded by liberals and should be mandatory for liberals who call conservatives racist, homophobic, fascist or mean-spirited. As Mr. Stein points out, political bias is overwhelming in certain areas of our society. We need to be able to hear one another's viewpoints and debate them without demonizing the holder. His is a cogent explanation of why he believes what he does, and generally a cogent and sympathetic explanation of liberal beliefs. The only area in which he fails in abortion. This is quite clearly because of personal guilt. He says he would be a hypocrite to oppose abortion, but anyone has the right to learn from past mistakes and change his mind. The hypocrite is the one who makes a public show of a belief which he has no intention of following in private. This book is full of laughs and wry moments. Having just read it for the third time, I found it just as fresh and enjoyable as before. Buy it today or at the least, put it on your wish list.
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