mmmPoo

In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure why I thought it was a good idea to read this book (What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank). It had two things going for it alone that should have been enough of a warning sign to stay away from it: a “discussion” on where our country is going in politics (which was based on experiences in Kansas) and a lot of discussion of Kansas history. I've been pretty pissed off with the political climate in our country and I've had some really bad and traumatic experience with people from Kansas recently, so again, I should have been smart enough to stay away from this sucker. At a few points I wasn't sure I was going to finish it, but I'm done now and I can't honestly say it was worth it.

Except for the anger and bad Kansas memories this book reminded me of, I feel pretty empty after completing the book. An excellent and short Boston Globe review that I read (which actually reminded me to pick up this book which I had heard about a while ago, but got lost in my wishlist) did a really good job of summing up the book. In fact, it's all you really need to read. Skip the book, read the review. You can also read my pseudo review below (which isn't as good as the Boston Globe review, but still...) and that will be enough.

The book goes into excruciating detail on the history of political movements in different parts of Kansas. It does a good job of providing tons of evidence of his point (which I'll discuss in a second), but it's really just a waste of time unless you are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY interested in Kansas history. He argues that Kansas is the start of many things in our nation's history (“the Civil War, Prohibition, Populism, Pizza Hut“) which “have a historical tendency to go national“ and we're headed into an “apocalypse“. If the themes he discusses in his book do spread (and they do doubt have already started), we as a nation are... what's the word I'm looking for? FUCKED.

The book analyzes an extremely disturbing trend of increasing support of Republicans by regular “non-elite“ citizens. Kansas is being dominated by an extremely strong Republican movement. The Republicans are split into two groups: “Cons“ and “Mods“. The Mods are what most people consider traditional Republicans: rich, elite, business leaders. The Cons are regular, low to middle class people (i.e. blue collar workers/“normal people“ ). Ironically the Cons are more Republican than the Mods. The Mods and Cons are in a consistent battle, but regardless, the end results/goal is almost always the same: a deemphasizing of regulations and strong desire for a laissez-faire free market economy. This really, really helps the rich, but is punishing everyone else. He talks about how towns in Kansas have seen signification losses in business (which includes lots of empty storefronts) and farmers are struggling to survive. The people who are getting hurt the most though, continue to support the people who are hurting them. It's nuts. They aren't concerned with the economy, which they believe will work itself out on its own, but they are very concerned with religion. They believe, and the Republicans do a great job of feeding this belief, that religion is the most important issue. The Republicans do lots of promising that they will address religious issues and problems in our society that go against religious values. Once they are elected though they instead focus on helping the rich and destroying the economy. It's depressing and if people don't get their heads out of their asses soon, we are totally heading into an apocalypse. woo!

So anyway, read the Boston Globe review, skip the book, stay away from Kansas (and most people from Kansas), and vote for Kerry!

My next book is about the educational system (A Different Kind of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto), which will also no doubt make me angry too.