Rating: Summary: the truth shall set you free Review: I cannot say enough good things about this book. Anyone who is not 'blinded by the right' is in for a real wake-up call. This is a first-hand account of life inside the belly of the far right-wing conspiracy beast. While Mr. Brock's integrity is certainly suspect considering his opportunistic flip-flops from rebellious liberal to rebellious self-hating gay archconservative to reformed un-conservative, the book definitely has the ring of truth. Mr. Brock may well have axes to grind but I get the feeling that if he's getting back at others, he's using the truth to do it and there is nothing wrong with telling the truth, regardless of the motivation.What I found most stunning of all the things I read in this book, is to be hit in the face with the depth and breadth of the organized right-wing conspiracy as well as their deep hatred of 'the other side' and the extent which they are willing to go to rationalize greed, selfishness and hatred as just, 'righteous' Christian/American virtues. Thank you thank you thank you David Brock for telling the truth about the dangerous right-wing. I hope someday to see you at a book signing or lecture. You are doing an immensely valuable public service by 'outing' these evil right-wingers. I would also recommend to readers of this book, that they do some research on the Federalist Society, which is a kind of Illuminati of scary right-wing lawyers bent on taking over the US judiciary.
Rating: Summary: Brock has convinced me to leave the Republican Party Review: As a lifelong diehard Republican, I was shocked at the outrageous behavior of members of my own party that was documented in his book. The facts are the facts and David Brock has told the truth about the Republican Party and it's conservative members in such a way that I must leave it. This is a powerful book that must be read by anyone interested in politics. I never thought I'd become a Democrat but there is no choice after reading this great book.
Rating: Summary: Hidden Truths Finally are Told Review: If read with an open mind, this book reveals what we suspected all along. That $70,000,000 investigation was politics at its worst. Time and more books on this subject will help Americans get back to the voting booths with some thoughts behind their votes instead of blindly going with the news media spins. Or, perhaps, it will disgust us all so much, we won't want either Republicans or Democrats. The desire for money and power could ruin our nation if it weren't for a "few good men and women..."
Rating: Summary: Astounding and Brilliant!!! Review: David Brock has scored with an intelligent and pithy examination of the tactics of conservatives. I have yet to read a more damaging book to the conservative cause. This work proves that the "right-wing conspiracy" existed during the Clinton years and most probably still exists today. I, too, am a recovering conservative and this book has helped to validate my feelings that the religious right, neoconservativism, and the GOP as a whole, are only concerned with the interests of the party line and not with the well-being of the nation.
Rating: Summary: The Truth Will Set Us Free Review: Here it is America. The truth behind the right wing take over of the United States. We all suspected the things we learn in this book, but hoped they weren't true. They are. After reading this, you should wake up sweating every night in fear for your freedom. We learn the right wing is smaller in number, wealthier than all of us combined and in possesion of seemingly limitless power. And also possessed of unlimited evil, and the capacity to use it at every turn. We are in danger, America.
Rating: Summary: TIMELY INTELLIGENT BOMBSHELL OF A BOOK Review: We all knew it, but it was certainly nice to see it in print !! Read and enjoy...and then e-mail your congressmen and women for a rebate for all the fruitless years of investigation that the taxpayers absorbed!!
Rating: Summary: Yawn Review: David Brock is a talented writer and knows how to make his points, such as they are. But he has run out of things to say. Maybe a book is just too much content and he would be better sticking with journalistic length pieces. He doesn't have that much to say; so the empty space gets filled with a lot of stuff from David's Id that I really find boring. In short, this is a bitchy little book by a little man. I was completely unable to sustain interest in David Brock working thru his personal problems in public. He should go away for 10 years, grow up, and then try writing another book. He has the talent to write a good one. But he needs something to say.
Rating: Summary: Powerful and Intriguing Review: David Brocks book, "Blinded by the Right", gives us an insiders perception of the "new Conservative" power structure that has been waging a cultural civil war, on an international scale, for over twenty years now. He names names, and dishes dirt on all of the right wing power players he's come into contact with over the past decades. His writing is compelling, intriguing, well organized and easy to read. Some will find it unbelievable. As a Democrat, I wanted to believe every word. As a liberal, I must remind myself to consider the source.Mr. Brock is a muckraker and yellow journalist of the highest order. His writings have served to divide our country, and suspend any open, honest, and meaningful dialog between the right and left. My feeling is this work is an attempt at redemption. As a Christian, I forgive him- and wish him peace. My hope is that he will not prostitute his enormous talent to promote the agenda of either the neo- conservatives or the neo- liberals, but work to return us to the simple ideals that have made this country great. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Rating: Summary: Shelve this one in the "Fiction" section, folks ... Review: He's baa-aack! David Brock's confessional autobiography is pure tabloid fodder, and not a portrait of an era as some reviewers ... have claimed. Worse, much of the book feels second-hand, as if it had been recycled from other sources (which Brock often appears not to have read). That said, it's not as if he hasn't pulled this shell game before ... so what were you expecting? True or not, the book offers a gripping yarn in the Faustian mode: Idealistic young liar gains a position of eminence in American conservatism by selling his soul to the Far Right. (I can't help but think that whoever offered to buy Brock's soul was grossly overcharged.) If nothing else, _Blinded by the Right_ is a nice, trashy read -- sort of like those godawful Hollywood memoirs that everyone reads but no one ever admits to buying. It's fun to watch Brock give his "Anita Hill" treatment to former buddies Matt Drudge and John Podhoretz, most of the second generation of neoconservatives, and the entire staff of both the _Washington Times_ and the _American Spectator_. Still, even angry liberals and partisan Democrats might want to think twice before believing anything Brock says.
Rating: Summary: We All Knew It, But Here It Is: The Naked Truth Review: David Brock, the journalist and talking head who made his name by publishing the book "The Real Anita Hill," and appearing on cable talkshows since the early 1990s, arrives with his third expose, this time not about a person, but about the political climate of Washington. "Blinded By The Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" contains a detailed account of Brock's transformation into a conservative, and his involvement in various conservative projects from the mid-1980s on. It's a strange narrative, full of personal resentment, bigotry, lies, backstabbing, and manipulation, and Brock's conclusion - that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy not only existed, but operated with the ease of many former (and infamous) well-oiled political machines. Of course, this revelation is nothing surprising; it's kind of like when Alan Shepherd took the picture of Earth from orbit and, once and for all, determined that the Earth was not flat, but round. The book begins in Brock's days at Berkeley, when the rampant political correctness that occurs on so many college campuses polarized him to more conservative views. Brock reasoned, quite correctly, that the lefties who rattle on and on about "free speech," but then stifle opposing viewpoints with vigor, are pure hypocrites. So he migrated to the right, infuriating people with his (mild) conservative editorials in the school paper and making some "friends" in the process. After school, when he took a job with a conservative Washington newspaper (owned by the psychotic Rev. Moon, no less), Brock honed his writing abilities and his broad conservative friend-base in Washington. As time marched on, Brock's renown grew, culminating in the above-mentioned book on Anita Hill, which he dismisses as out-and-out lies and an attempt at character assassination (remember that the next time Rush Limbaugh cites it as a source, if Rush bothers to cite anything at all). What follows is a collection of snippits and vignettes about various figures in the conservative community who not only advocate the stretching of truth and lying to "prove" their "points," but who organize with each other to do so. The deception was so great that Brock doesn't hesitate to use the term "Right-Wing Conspiracy," as this is what it was: not an attempt so much to defame President Clinton, but instead to deceive and manipulate the American public for one sole purpose: the acquisition of power. It's a strange, Machiavellian lesson, and one that goes against everything America is supposed to stand for. Brock intersperses his account with tales of his closeted homosexuality, the issue which eventually led him to disassociate himself with the right. These tales, while interesting, won't be of much concern to the more politically-minded reader, and may very well alienate Brock from the (typically homophobic) audience that need to read this volume. Sometimes rough, sometimes far too personal (you feel like a voyeur in someone else's kitchen), but despite these faults timely and important, "Blinded by the Right" is a book Americans should read. It serves as a firm reminder of the old notion "power corrupts," and while the conservative American voting public may have the best intentions, the leaders who abuse both religion and ideals to win those votes do not. Plato was of the opinion that the best leaders are those who do not wish to lead; with that in mind, how can anyone allow people like Brock's friends (or liberals, for that matter) to have the reigns of power in America? Maybe it's time power went back to the people, not the politicians - and this book argues that case better than any intellectual's essay ever could.
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