Newt Gingrich: To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine - my review

Newt Gingrich:   To Save America:  Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine - my review

This is how your review will appear:  Beyond Garbage, March 10, 2011 By  Mark Vakkur - See all my reviews     This review is from: To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine (Paperback) To really save America, you might start by pledging never to read this book. Not only is it bad history (stunning for a man who apparently taught the subject and wrote a few works of historical fiction), but it advances as facts spurious, disrespectful, inflammatory charges that have virtually all been widely discredited. The fact that Newt Gingrich must know this, but writes it anyway, indicates that his fidelity to the truth is no greater than his fidelity to his first two wives. Mr. Gingrich can't even get the title right. First, it's PRESIDENT Obama. He earned that title by winning the election, receiving more votes than any American president in history. Second, President Obama is a Democrat, not a socialist. There is only one member of Congress who is a socialist, an easy fact for Mr. Gingrich to check. Third, the breathless reference to a "secular-socialist machine" is simply not supported by anything President Obama has done, stated, or written, and it most certainly is not backed up by anything Mr. Gingrich writes. Fourth (and perhaps this is technical) socialism by definition is secular, so the secular part is gratuitous and redundant (and probably should not be hyphenated). It does add a certain alliterative punch though, which is perhaps why the author chose to throw it in there. Mr. Gingrich alleges that there is a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy with the diabolical aim of empowering government to rule the people rather than serve them. As evidence of this, he cites the Justice Department's respect for the rule of law and the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of suspected terrorists (in Newt Gingrich's world, they are already guilty, and trials and attorneys are a redundant (and tax-supported) burden. I always find the idea of an American Left (which Mr. Gingrich capitalizes for emphasis) as amusing, considering that in Europe, where I live, the Democrats would be considered a right-of-center party and the Republicans a far right party. Issues the Republicans view as socialist plots to deprive us of our liberties - such as universal healthcare, worker's rights, federally-funded daycare, extensive public transportation - have long been settled here with generally outstanding results. In fact, the United States spends more on health care but (as I write this) leaves 59 million of its citizens without health insurance, a problem Newt Gingrich does not address directly (although he has two chapters on health care, mostly about how to reduce costs and the dangers of death panels, a Sarah Palin fabrication whose critics he ridicules (p. 56)). Perhaps Gingrich feels his audience will not get his message unless he overstates it, but instead of saying that he opposes healthcare reform, he titles the chapter in question, "The Secular-Socialist Machine's Health Bill Disaster" (p. 85). Wow, if that doesn't make you run into the street waving a Lipton's tea bag, I don't know what will. It's interesting that the same man who does not believe our children need health insurance believes that what we do need is a gun in each household and that - even with our government's advanced arsenal - a family could and should be able to keep those weapons just in case that government ever gets tyrannical (p. 294). This myth of the gun lobby - that guns can protect you not just against intruders but against your own government - is reminiscent of Sharron Angle's "second amendment remedies" rant and her intent to "take out" Senator Reid. If Gingrich's first name was Saddam, he likely would be getting a visit from the Department of Homeland Security for making even veiled terroristic threats against his government, but Newt is very, very white, and a new convert to Catholicism, so apparently gets a free pass. The book is not only sloppy in its logic, but mean-spirited. Mr. Gingrich tells us he is a Christian, but don't expect any evidence of charity or compassion in these pages. People who are on the Left are not like you and me, Gingrich assures us. They believe in theft rather than work, union bureaucracy rather than "productivity", corruption rather than honesty, and "secular oppression" rather than "religious belief." Now, I'm not sure how much stock to put in a lecture about honesty from a man who cheated on two wives with much younger women (one while crucifying the President of the United States for cheating on his wife), and I don't know how committed Gingrich is to "religious belief" if he has been one of the most vocal critics of his fellow citizens exercising their religious beliefs in lower Manhattan. But this collection of cartoon-like false dichotomies which he lists on page 7 is not only insulting, but completely uncorroborated by anything that follows. If you want a reference to any of these dastardly traits from that oppressive Secular Left (did I mention they have a Machine?), you won't find one. If many of these stereotypes sound familiar, that's because they are rehashed talking points from Fox News, who pays Gingrich $1 million a year for repeating them. The fact that Mr. Gingrich's personal life is so sordid and deviates so widely from what he pontificates should matter to us all, since he has advocated repeatedly that the personal, sexual life of public officials is not only fair game, but a fantastic litmus test for measuring their righteousness. By that measure, Gingrich fails, and this book does nothing to explain the yawning gaps between his serial adultery and his preaching of Christian morality. Comparing the president of the United States to Mao or Hitler while calling him something Gingrich knows (or should know) he is not is beyond irresponsible, especially during a time of war. The idea that a president who just extended massive tax cuts for the rich, who has advanced or passed no serious firearm legislation, who has kept Guantanamo Bay open and escalated the war in Afghanistan is a socialist is beyond nonsensical, and Gingrich should be ashamed for advancing such a lie, especially in the title of a book. But a man who can present his wife with a divorce agreement while she is recovering from cancer surgery probably has a much higher threshold for shame than the rest of us. Your Tags: fascist, tea party, hypocrite, adultery, cancer, multiple sclerosis, fat, islamophobia

Item being reviewed To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine The Fine Print All submitted reviews are subject to the license terms set forth in ourConditions of Use. Your reviews will be posted within 48 hours. Submissions that do not follow ourreview guidelines will not be posted. You must be over 13 in order to submit a review for this item. If you believe that the product you are reviewing is unsafe, please report this information to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) orcontact Amazon.com directly.