Rating: 
Summary: Some truth, but infected with a McCarthy virus.
Review: My background is on the "left." That has its shortcomings. For example, various concepts, especially the ubiquitous "racism/sexism/homophobia" are said to pervade everthing, ipso facto. Further, as many critics of the left have pointed out, we tend to be Manichean. So we need to create enemies, i.e., those not up to our outstanding moral standards. I tend, therefore, to look elsewhere, out of the left's genre, to find a more balanced perspective.In the case of this text, I actually agree with many of the things Berkowitz says. For instance, I find it devastating that if a white person were to perform a certain act, that act could be labled a "hate crime," while, were a black or other victim-designee to perform the same act, it is not a hate crime. (One of my leading reasons for an aversion to that is we then choose to focus so much on alleged white-on-black oppression that we ignore black-on-black crime, despite its frequency and brutality, and the crimes go on unabated or disregarded by us good liberals). Despite leftist routine, I DO find black racism conceivable--and I witness it. And, as Berkowitz was part of the Black Panthers during their heyday, if there is a smidgen of truth to his experience with them, they were thugs, more like 1930s mobsters than 1960s activists as we on the left romanticize them. But Berkowitz does the same as I excuse the extreme left of doing, and that, in fact, at which Rush Limbaugh excels: (1) finds eccentric extremists who are advocates of a cause and attributes their behavior to all advocates; (2) takes anything against which the left has struggled, the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, and condemns them en masse. "Progressive," "marxist," "communist," "leftist," "liberal" are not only synonymous but virtually diabolical. he is therefore no less Manichean than the leftists he condemns. As one example of, unfortunately, many, while exposing Rigoberta Menchu's fallacies (which mean something to me as I seek the truth, not ideological tracts), he implies that, because the Menchu text was influenced by leftist "guerrillas," or "terrorists," a couple more devil terms he uses and invariably associates with the left, then the work of the Maya in Guatemala was all ill-begotten. If Berkowitz knew anything about Guatemala, he would know that the cause of the poor there, who are almost all indigenous Mayans, was justified, and against terrible odds and human rights abuses. But the left is bad, Menchu's book was a fabrication; therefore anything to which the book referred was a fabrication and bad. Sorry, David, life doesn't work that way. Then there's his contrast of the Pinochet coup in Chile and the Cuban revolution. He applauds the Chilean "miracle" economy under the Pinochet regime while citing that the Cuban economy is a disaster. Conveniently he disregards the U.S. role in either, particularly the embargo on Cuba. A little selective, aren't we, David? Finally, his excuses and rationalizations for the right wing terrorism of the McCarthy era are unconscionable. Indeed, while some campuses doubtless cater to leftist dogma without a whole lot of questions (There are, David, rightist institutions who boast of doing the same with their own definition of "PC.") Berkowitz is so biased that I wonder of the credibility of his critiques of some of the "leftist" demonstrations at, say, Columbia University who would, he alleges, not permit right wing challengers to affirmative action. Did Berkowitz pull a Menchu on that and shade the story with his political doctrine? I suspect so. And all his rantings about Clinton. Pulleeze, don't get on the Limbaugh bandwagon and distinguish between "liberal" which is Clinton and the "real" which is the other. That will serve to keep the mediocre in power forever. While I've found some books in Amazon.com by "rightists" to be worthwhile, this isn't one I would recommend. If you too are accustomed to, or bored with leftist doctrine and want to seek the same balanced perspective I seek, I suggest the likes of Todd Gitlin, a former leftist who is simply more critical of the leftist dogma in retrospect, not an activist who's demonized all the causes which he once zealously represented. What we need here is a little more critical thought, not just more demonization to meet an author's ideological needs.
Rating: 
Summary: Chinese Spying
Review: This book is worth buying just for the sections on the sale of our atomic secrets to the chinese. No wonder Horowitz makes the left uncomfortable, he combines the persistence of the left with right wing/libertarian views. His knowledge about how left wing organisations get funded is amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Ask For Better Proof
Review: Horowitz has made it clear, in this and his other books, that the left routinely answers objections with attacks, smears, and blatant misstatements of fact in place of arguments. You couldn't ask for better proof of this than the recent review by "A Reader," who parrots the old line about conservative and foundation funding. If anything, this applies to the left much more than the right, and always has, with the Ford and Rockefeller foundations leading the way. The Capital Research Center keeps track of corporate philanthropy, and their web site reveals that in 1995, corporations gave $3.23 to liberal groups for every dollar given to conservative groups. (In 1993, the ratio had been over FOUR to one.) We should also keep in mind that even though a rich leftist should, in theory, be no more common than a Jewish Nazi or a black klansman, there has been a great abundance of rich leftists--like multimillionaire Ted Turner, who recently admitted to being a "socialist at heart"; Corliss Lamont, Cyrus Eaton, Armand Hammer, and Frederick Vanderbilt Field, all tireless apologists for communism and all multimillionaires or from extremely wealthy families; Marshall Field II (same); John Reed, whose grandfather left an estate of $300,000; Peggy Guggenheim; Nancy Cunard; Edward Lamb, a friend and admirer of Castro (by his own admission, Lamb was worth $600 million--see his book THE SHARING SOCIETY); Anita Roddick, multimillionaire owner of The Body Shop and another fervent admirer of Cuba; and Nan Fink, co-founder of the leftist magazine TIKKUN and the self-admitted inheritor of great wealth. Oh--did I forget the Frankfurt School of Marxist philosophy? It was established by Felix Weil, a Marxist sympathizer and the son of a millionaire businessman. The School's 3 leading Marxist luminaries were Max Horkheimer, the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer; Theodor Adorno, the son of a wealthy wine merchant; and Herbert Marcuse, whose father was a prosperous merchant and whose mother was the daughter of a wealthy factory owner. There's a book on the Amazon site (GUILT, BLAME, AND POLITICS) that explains why such seemingly anomalistic things are not anomalistic at all, but routine. One impression you get from reading Horowitz's book is that the people of the left are estranged and separated from the workaday world and its inhabitants. Does this have any influence on their political thinking? How could it not?
Rating:
Summary: Hating Whitey
Review: If only half of this book is true all real Americans better wake up! A great read
Rating:
Summary: Someone has finally told the truth!
Review: The only difference between white racism and black racism in the United States, is that Black racism is perfectly respectable -- made so by the ideologues that control the media in this country. Thank God for Mr. Horowitz who can't be intimidated and has the guts to tell the truth. This book should be required reading in every school in Ameica, but of course we know it won't, It's too honest.
Rating:
Summary: Recall Jews and Blacks you admire before reading this book.
Review: David Horowitz is a Jewish Republican who used to be a radical, communist, fellow traveler, whatever. His parents were sympathetic to the Soviet Union back when Stalin was bringing workers his version of paradise. As you might suspect, the path for David was long and tortuous, with many lessons to be learned about people and the world in which we live. 'Hating Whitey' is an account of his adventures. Reading Horowitz does for political passions what reading girlie magazines does for male sexual passions - it arouses. Where these arousals lead is unclear. Does reading girlie magazines lead to paying a prostitute for a one night lay, or to forging a lifelong relationship with a caring woman and having children? Does reading Horowitz lead to street riots and tearing down neighborhoods, or to forging lasting relationships among various cultural and racial groups? Only time will tell. I am not a Jew. I am not a Communist. I am not a Black. So, what right do I have to comment on this book? Well, I do belong to the White, male, blue-eyed, Anglo tribe that the characters in this book spend a lot of time thinking about - and trying to determine what to do with. I figure, if you are being talked about, you might as well listen in. Who knows, it just might save your life someday. David Horowitz got pretty deep into how to change our country for the better. He even became involved in Black Panther plans to bring enlightenment to us all. Funny thing, though. People kept getting killed, or beat to a pulp, or raped in ways that didn't do the victims any good. David, being the quick study that he is, decided after many years that he had better change directions That is how he became a Republican. He was Jewish all along, of course. Mr. Horowitz is obviously at home in academia, easily using such words as . . . elite universities . . . tenure . . . search committees . . . and so on. He knows many of the illustrious faculties around the country and discusses the brightest luminaries of the Black Universe. While his is not an Odyssey of Homeric proportions, yet it is more of a journey than many of us will ever take. So, read the book . . . it's worth it.
Rating:
Summary: A chilling expose' of the tyranny of political correctness
Review: This book documents, in chilling detail, the treasonous activities of the clinton administration in selling US security cheaply ... for mere campaign contributions. The last few chapters are frightening. The Rosenbergs were executed for far less than what was done by Johnny Huang, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung and, indeed, Clinton himself. Horowitz shows, how under the Clinton watch, we live in a much more dangerous world. Many other topics are covered, documenting the hypocrisy of the "politically correct." This book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Expose of the Lockstep Left
Review: This book's effectiveness is enhanced by the fact that Horowitz was a leftist himself, a part of his personal history that enabled him to understand how such people think and what to expect from them. (At the drop of a hat, they'll see "hidden agendas" everywhere among their opponents, but it's interesting that these carefully-concealed "agendas" are never well-hidden enough to be found and "exposed"!) The only missing element I'd like to have seen in this book is an analysis of WHY the left continues to be confined mainly to academia and the literary community--and conspicuously absent among working-class people, except for impressionable, upscale college-age people whose worldviews have been shaped almost entirely by the media. For example, we're constantly told that violent movies and cartoons entice children to violence. But we're NEVER told that media rants about the disparity of income, and how the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, entice anyone towards robbery or burglary! The implication here, of course, is that the further one is from the workaday world, the more personally responsible one feels for social problems. (In plain English, self-blame for things that they had nothing to do with.) This is the key fact about the left that explains its worldview. Most of the people who swallow the pie-in-the-sky guff of the left would be shaken to their core if they could read this book and see how the political realm really works.
Rating: 
Summary: Polemics takes away from some sound ideas
Review: Horowitz is a bright and thoughtful guy. There is no doubt about it. His analysis of the logical and practical difficulties inherent in the concept of "institutional racism" is extremely good and hard to argue with. On the other hand, the material on his earlier connection with the Black Panthers seems rather warmed over by this point. Frankly, who cares about them in this day and age? The problem with the book is that Horowitz was and is an ideologue. He is the sort of true believer who glosses over information that may not be too consonant with his arguments. I am sure that this ideologue quality is a carryover from his earlier leftist days and the polemical tone of the book is often a distraction from many of the sensible messages delivered therein. Horowitz has a tendency to dismiss out of hand both the arguments and motivations of those who may differ with him and this also subtracts from the often useful and thoughtful message he is trying to promote. All in all, I would say that this is an intelligent presentation that confronts many of the hypocrisies that are part of the current racial dialog. It deserves to be read.
Rating:
Summary: Horowitz hits home again
Review: This book takes off where Radical Son ended. A real eye opener from a talented writer who has lived on both sides of the New Left. Should be required reading for any open minded young person about to enter the lair of the "tenured left" as they seek higher education.
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