It's two-for-one day at Dana's Book Emporium. These books just go
naturally together, sort of like candy and flowers, or politics and the
soundbite.
I read these two over the Fourth of July holiday as a celebration of
America's fine tradition of free speech. Jon Stewart's America is a sheer
delight start-to-
finish. I didn't realize when I ordered it that it was in the format of a
textbook. If all of my civics textbooks had been as good as this, I would've
graduated from high school.
Any fan of the Daily Show will appreciate this book, but its appeal isn't
limited to fans. If you're pissed off over broken political promises, want to
understand how our system of democracy works, and would like your
education sweetened with a healthy dose of snark, then this book is for
you. Warning: the photos of naked Supreme Court Justices is not for the
weak of stomach.
You'll find everything you would in a regular textbook, including sidebars
(snarky), review questions (snarkier), and activities (snarkfest
extraordinaire). If you're good at seeing the truth behind satire, you'll also
come away with a good, clear picture of how our democracy started, how
it's supposed to work, and where it's gone horribly awry. You'll also come
away with sore ribs, but in a good way.
The book is divided into easy and informative sections such as: Democracy
Before America; The Founding of America; The President: King of
Democracy; Congress: Quagmire of Freedom; The Judicial Branch: It
Rules; and Campaigns and Elections: America Changes the Sheets. There
are even sections on the media, the future of Democracy (which we're sure
to fuck up), and a tour of other countries' governments that is arranged
like a demented World Reference Atlas.
Please don't read this book late at night with your window open. The
neighbors might call the strait jacket people on you when you wake them
up the 64th time laughing your arse off while screaming in outrage.
If I ever end up being a teacher, this is one of the books I will assign.
Seriously. It's a wonderful, concise political education, and a tour-de-force
of the power of satire to tell the truth and make the mighty tremble.
From there, move on to Watchdogs of Democracy? I have a few things
against this book, beginning with that bloody question mark and ending
with the fact that I wish Helen had spent less time waxing nostalgic and
more time being a ruthless pitbull of a reporter, but overall, it's a great
read. You'll get to see - ye gods - over sixty years of a reporter's life, more
than forty of those spent at the White House, and will see the sad, slow
slide from true reporting to the soundbite. Helen has covered presidents
from Kennedy to Bush II, and she's not afraid to strip them in search of
warts.
There are times when the book slides from its purpose. She meant it as a
wake-up call for the American public and its media machine, but there are
times when it descends to the level of memoir. Just sit back and skim
those bits, unless you like memoir, in which case you'll enjoy. What you
really want to get at is the meat at the back: she ends with a blaze of glory.
It makes you want to grab a notebook and home-forged press card and dig
up dirt. It makes you want to demand less of the human interest story and
more of the good, true and meaty reporting one used to get before the Age
of the Warm Fuzzies. It will make you so frustrated with the tripe they
present as news that you'll turn off CNN and turn to the more robust
Internet independent news feeds for the story.
Both books will shake your complacency. If you've already felt that
America's on the slippery slope to irrelevance and political death, then you
need these books. They'll fan your flames, but they'll also give you the
hope that you might just have enough power to make a difference. One
person can't change the world. Get enough people trying to change it,
though, and the bloody thing will damned well change.
And it will restore your battered pride in the good ol' U.S. of A. For, while
we have allowed our ideals to be trampled under the consumer frenzy, we
still have this document called the Constitution that gives some hope that
We the People still matter. And there are two people here who show it can
still happen.
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