Posted on 03/31/2004 9:18:28 PM PST by quidnunc
Among the people who have generously taken the time and trouble to comment on my book, a few of them appear to be extremely annoyed that I did not criticize America for all the things that it has done wrong or, at least, for those enormities that are always sure to make the Top Ten list of anyone who has spent even a few hours in a college or junior college American history course. Why didn't I devote a chapter to the atrocities committed in the Philippines after the Spanish-American war one of the sentimental favorites of the any red-blooded Chomsky-ite?
Well, let me offer this anecdote as a justification of my omission.
A week after my book came out, a friend dragged me to the nearest Border's bookstore. Now what is interesting about this Border's is that it is located in Snellville, Georgia, the town that celebrated for its boast that "everybody is somebody in Snellville." It is heavily Southern Baptist, and in the last election probably voted for George Bush by an overwhelming majority. In short, it is as American as apple pie and Chevrolet.
So we went to this Border's, where my friend, after a good bit of searching, finally discovered the obligatory one copy of my book on the shelf reserved for political science facing spine up, of course. Meanwhile I was standing at the front of the store, right where the friendly Border's staff sets out those long tables stacked high with best sellers, among which were prominently displayed piles of Noam Chomsky's most recent recycling of his anti-American diatribe, while next to this was Chalmers Johnson's latest lament about the tawdry depravity of the new American Empire. Though these stacks were nothing compared to the rows of Michael Moore's books that greeted you the moment you stepped through the door.
-snip-
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His new book: Civilization and Its Enemies : The Next Stage of History
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