I had been listening to a really enticing bit about this book and more on the KPFK radio station and ordered this book thinking it would help me understand more about a lot of the conspiracy theories that are going on in this nation.I read a couple of chapters and lost interest because I was having a hard time following the content.
Thoroughly thought out, and elegantly argued, as a series of essays The New Hate is one stop shopping re: the almost metaphysical--and loony--length bigots since the Pharoahs have gone to crucify the Other (Jews get top billing). Namely those different from their generally lily white or at least sepia selves.
Hatred is the tool of the left. No argument or logic.
I have to say that I was disappointed in this book. It is a book that needs to be written, but I'm not sure that Goldwag is the one to do it.
Politics aside (I'm a good, old-fashioned lefty, by the way), this is not a bad book. It's also not a real good book either, unfortunately.
I was't around in the 1700s or even the 1940s, so what I know about hate I learned from the 1960s on.The black anti-semitism of the Oceanhill-Brownsville school board dispute, the Crown Heights pogrom, Farrakhan, Sharpton, Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson, MSNBC - real hatred, from the left of the political spectrum, and mostly from African-Americans.
If you thought, as did I, that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and their fellow sirens of doom were a recent phenomenon, Goldwag's 'The New Hate' will immediately disabuse you of that notion. Goldwag reminds readers not only of Joe McCarthy, John Birch, Father Coughlin, Lyndon LaRouche, Ayn Rand, W.
As someone who gave an endorsement to this book I perhaps have already had my say and shouldn't be commenting further; but the polarity of some of the reviews on Amazon just begs redress. Reasoned arguments around a myriad of positions exist across our political divide (though they are not always easy to locate online); what this one book does is trace a brand of reactive, conspiratorial thinking that has, on and off, characterized far-right ideology in America for much of the past century.
Arthur Goldwag believes there are no conspiracies. It seems to me that his primary focus with this book is to defend gay rights.
Thoroughly thought out, and elegantly argued, as a series of essays The New Hate is one stop shopping re: the almost metaphysical--and loony--length bigots since the Pharoahs have gone to crucify the Other (Jews get top billing). Namely those different from their generally lily white or at least sepia selves.
It really shouldn't be much of a surprise that I agreed with most of what was in here, but I would like to point out that calling modern conservative bigotry "the New Hate" is somewhat inaccurate, as it really seems to be made up of older hates that have been repainted for a different time. Take Henry Ford's concern about Jewish rabbinical courts in New York, bring it forward a few decades, and it becomes the anti-Shariah movement advocated by Frank "Eyebrows" Gaffney and Pamela "Shrieking Harpy" Geller.
The first couple of chapters are the sole reason anyone needs to read this. The rest was repetitive, but the book was good enough for me to check out the author's other works sometime.
I guess after the fact I didn't really find this book to be convincing. Goldwag promises at the beginning to tie conspiracy theorists to modern Conservatives, but all of his evidence is tangential and hearsay.
This is an important book in understanding the history of and growth of the virilent hatred in American politics currently. Every part of the book is excellent.
"The New Hate" was a fascinating read into area's of history I was aware of, but hadn't fully plumbed. It's thesis, if it can be said to have one, is that the new round of conspiracy theories and focused Right-Wing Populism is not that different from other such episodes in America's history, going all the way back to it's founding as a country.
