A Mix - Poetry by Gilbert Wesley Purdy, Photograph by Adolfo Caso...with Complementary Music

"Mockingbird" Photograph by Adolfo Caso

Harvesting the Light 

(for J.B. and Barbara Jackson) 

"Let us consider the light-harvesting."  --Diane Ackerman 

By Gilbert Wesley Purdy

The workers are in the garden today, 

collectors open expectantly: 

roses to gather damasks, 

roses, hibiscus still brighter reds and pinks, 

daylilies, their white baskets fresh each day,

 the snapdragon and the marigold. 

In the fields the poincianas winnow

 mandarins in their great fans, 

bright hosts of jasmine grabble yellows, 

beside desultory golden rod. 

Soon even the prodigal butterfly will groan

 under harvests of sulfur and apricot, 

sunset-orange and crimson-lake, 

carelessly trailing them behind.

~~~

Read and move on or stay awhile...In the Garden...
Enjoy your Day...

Online Discussion Invitation Beginning Tomorrow with Author of Elitism and the Election of Donald Trump

March 20 – March 22  Mar 20 at Noon to 8 PM and Wednesday from Noon to 8 PM

This is an open discussion about a published book. While the content is political, this is not meant to be a political discussion except as it relates to the book content. Thank you.

https://www.facebook.com/BookReadersHeaven/

Note: You may go over right now and add any questions, comments...

But we hope you can make it during scheduled times!

Discussion based upon Book

Earlier Discussion with Author 

and Book Review

This is the first of online interviews to be sponsored by

Reviewers Roundup Group/Page on Facebook!

Talking with Gilbert Wesley Purdy On His Book, Elitism and the Election of Donald Trump

I apologize on behalf of Blogger...I have tried to use color to differentiate individual talking, but it is coming out incorrectly in the printed version. I have added names to the speaker to show who is talking. Thank you for your patience, especially since this blog article is connected to our online activity!

~~~

Book Readers Heaven is proud to host Gilbert Wesley Purdy in talking about his book, Elitism and the Election of Donald Trump! Welcome!

Gil: Thank you...

Glenda: Can we begin by clarifying directly from your book title, please. In the book, we discover that Elitism has different definitions used by different people. For purposes of what you want to share with America, how do you personally define Elitism?

Gil: There are power elites, wealth elites and various versions of cultural elites (most of the latter declining).  Power and wealth elites are pretty much interchangeable.  Who are the elites so many public figures point to as the insidious source of all of our problems?  As I pointed out, they are largely a myth.  Boogeymen.

Glenda: Your Cover places a profound statement immediately: America in Critical Condition. First, could you tell us a little bit about your background which allowed you to come to this conclusion...


Gil: My background is in engineering.  I was trained by the Navy, originally, as an Electrician’s Mate Nuclear Grade.  From there I worked: as a power plant mechanic; then as an electrical field engineer for computer-based control systems; an instrumentation engineer; and a computer-based process control system lead engineer.  Following my first career, I became a hermit and quasi-hermit for a number of years and a food pantry manager. While I was a hermit (with a possum for an upstairs neighbor, as you’ve noticed elsewhere) I began freelance writing.  As free rent options for myself and my library disappeared, making my hermit career impracticable, I returned to doing physical plant maintenance for a few years.  I have put the past four years entirely toward freelance writing.

Glenda: and Second, Would you pinpoint specific issues that you identify as placing America in critical condition.


Gil: I put some 15,000 words into explaining it in Elitism and the Election of Donald Trump and could easily have doubled that if I hadn’t spent a lifetime trying to learn how to say a lot in the least possible number of words.  The overview might be that we have come to define “truth” as a word synonymous with our group’s political/economic agenda.  The only widely shared idea of truth is that there is no such thing.  That it is an outdated Elitist construct.

Glenda: Given that Trump has been in the presidency for some months, do you think anything has changed, revised, or been eliminated during those months that needed to be done and was it a satisfactory response from him in your opinion?

Gil: I’m not at all sure what you are asking here.  Power is shifting to the legislative branch because the White House is dysfunctional.  The White House reality show, however, is such compelling television that it looks like all the meaningful action is taking place there.  In fact, almost none is.  It’s something I predict in the book.

Glenda: "Too much has been lost and too much hangs in the balance to try to gain place by pleasing one faction at the expense of the others" is stated early in your book. To me, it seems that, almost daily, we are being forced to ignore political parties and try to deal, or at least be aware of, what's happening today. While I agree that we cannot please one faction to the expense of others, do you see a way that speaking out truthfully will be accepted ever again?


Gil: Only time will tell.  There is nothing to do but to try.

Glenda: Specifically, You knew immediately while watching the election process that something was wrong... Can you elaborate on those points that affected you the most?

Gil: The use of reality television scripts.  Of course, there would seem to be no scripts for reality television characters.  But, in fact, each character comes to write their own based upon their own previous viewing experiences (or is declared “boring” and tossed off the show).  The most important thing, by orders of magnitude, is not to write one’s part such that it is boring.  As for just being oneself, we’ve long ago developed scripts for that as well.  It’s just one more line of possible character development.


Among the myriad effects of this, there is no shame to lying per se.  If it makes your character compelling it is actually a positive.  If you miscalculate and it makes your character unattractive, it is a negative.  Or you can attempt a gambit and rewrite your character as compellingly unattractive.  Written well, the audience can love to hate you to the point where you become essential to the plotline.  Such a gambit is extremely difficult to manage, as Milo Yiannopoulos can attest.

Glenda: Lying was obviously something that has been picked up on, over and over... The size of the audience, to me, was not that important although it was spotlighted by Trump's staff over and over... Can you, again, pinpoint those areas where you saw lying, that would lead to future disastrous results?

Gil: It’s not so much that lying leads to this or that.  It’s that there is no longer any cultural agreement as to what is “a lie” and what is “the truth.” Any attempt to come to such an agreement is fiercely rejected.  That being the case, there is no basis for decision-making except as calculation for the maximum possible personal and/or group gain.  Inasmuch as there is a definition, the truth is whatever optimizes your and/or your group’s empowerment.  A lie is anything that causes less than optimum empowerment.  Thus every group has its “truth.”

Everything Trump said on the campaign trail was the truth because it increased his brand recognition, ego gratification and possibilities for greater wealth.  When it turned out that the brand was suffering for his behavior, it was because others were twisting what he said by lies.  His surrogates always told the truth because what they said enhanced their own name recognition and business opportunities.  All of this was done by telling people what they wanted to hear.  The campaign was virtually dripping with truth.

Glenda: "The truth people wanted to hear was the “truth” that justified them in their hatreds; dramatic “truths,” perhaps, that made the election seem less boring than past affairs... Policies were pathetic attempts at plot development and were largely cast aside. They were ignored in favor of confused, emotionally charged rants and conspiracy theories. Emotional connection was not the most important thing: it was everything. The candidate played to the pit and the sweeping emotion of angry cries and thunderous applause was so affecting that those in the cheap seats took it up as well..."  Many of us, especially women, saw this happening and yet, as I saw it, those in power allowed it.  How could that happen during an election? Or, why do you think it was "allowed?

Gil: Who do you think was in a position to forbid it?


“Those in power” implies  some person or group stands outside and above the fray.  If the Obama Administration tried to intervene it would only have been interference in the election process.  It would only have taken matters from bad to worse.  There are good reasons that such actions are absolutely verboten.  After all, in four years it would be the Trump Administration’s turn to intervene in the elections if they saw them as going off-track….

Glenda: The following quote from the book was "the truth" in my opinion. The presidential election had been transformed into a reality television show. One of the candidates was a reality television personality who knew how to play to the camera. Policies were pathetic attempts at plot development and were largely cast aside. They were ignored in favor of confused, emotionally charged rants and conspiracy theories. Emotional connection was not the most important thing: it was everything. The candidate played to the pit and the sweeping emotion of angry cries and thunderous applause was so affecting that those in the cheap seats took it up as well. His opponent was a “weak character”. No one was even sure why she was on the show except to be a foil. Scores of fact-free fan-sites were required in order even to turn her into a serviceable evil, demonic character that the audience could hate enough to keep the emotion building up. Without those sites she would only have been the greatest of television disasters: boring. 

Glenda: Not being a fan of reality shows myself, do you, and how do you correlate your statement that America is in Crisis, with what seems to be the "me" generation that we now find ourselves in, so much so that a national election could be turned into such a farce?

Gil: The ”truth” according to the present administration (for just one example) is that Climate Change is a hoax.  This is its truth because it is the position that most empowers its wealth elite.  Nevertheless, Climate Change is real.  When the “truth” that underwrites policy is determined in this way, a nation is in critical condition.  It will make self-destructive decisions.   

The Ctrl-Left has decided (for just another example) that the “truth” is that the “Heteropatriarchy” has dominated Western society to this point thus is responsible for every tragedy.  It declares that disempowering the Heteropatriachy will in-and-of-itself bring about profoundly positive social justice — put an end to tragedies.  It is the position that empowers its intellectual elite.  This truth also requires the auxiliary “truth” that immediate wholesale redesign of a complex society will arrive at improved outcomes as a matter of course.  But all of history argues powerfully against this truth.  The actual historical data says that wholesale societal change leads to unpredictable and largely destructive results.  The truth is that radical change results in severe instability.

For a half-century now the U.S. white heterosexual male has had the playing field entirely to himself.  His family lived ever better for it.  Even Europe still had a long way to go in order to compete effectively.  As the result, Americans won every competition, were the best at everything.  We came to expect that it would forever be the case.   It was inherent in being America that our answers were always correct.  We learned that we were by definition right and the rest of the world was wrong.

As the reality that we were always right began to be challenged a wide range of defenses were deployed.  At the same time, the system that made us so enormously powerful began to threaten our existence.  Wealth and power began to be dispersed among other nations.  Our waste products began to threaten our survival.  

But our technologies have reached unimaginable heights.   Again we have reason to understand that we can always be right by virtue of simply being American.  Donald Trump promised the U.S. white heterosexual male without the education to fully participate in these technologies that they will be brought along for the ride.  The Ctrl-Left intends to use the technologies to replace all that went before with a perfectly just new construct that overthrows the dominance of that group and the educated white heterosexual male wealth elite.  Neither goal is achievable and each faction is dedicated to fight to the death. 


In a world that is crumbling under the weight of our desires, we have chosen to believe that those desires are the source of truth.  This pattern repeats itself across all social and political factions.  America is in critical condition.

Glenda: Let's move on to the principles that you enumerated in your book. The one that bothers me most is the "Fake News." phenomenon...that is sweeping America, claiming that everything that is not agreed with or against your own beliefs and thoughts, is really Fake News created by the "opposition" whoever that may be? How do you recommend we deal with this?


Gil: My answer in the book is about as brief as I can get.  I had to have enormous self-control to keep it that general — to allow the reader  to fill in the fine detail as it might relate to their own individual circumstances.

Glenda: You move on from Fake News to ask the question-- "Defining Truth." with a subtitle of "Alt-Right, Conservatory Talk Radio. I have seen this over and over in past conversations. The thing that bothers me most is that, logically, most times what is being said, does not make sense. But more, how do we, perhaps I can say those who open themselves to read beyond their own biases, begin to communicate with those with whom we disagree? Or do we just ignore things to keep peace? Can we afford to continue to do that?

Gil: The particularly insidious “Chinese handcuff” nature of the problem does not condemn us to passivity but it does force deeply ironic, humble and patient answers upon us.  It is almost impossible to  “communicate,” as matters stand now, without being just another faction with its own alternative truth.

Glenda: Specifically, you talk about these things in the past tense, that fake news and truth have been used for many, many years. While I agree, what I see now is that everybody is questioning who can we trust in our government?! Doesn't this mean that something is bound to "break" since people are now questioning and not being willing to accept the questionable old-school rhetoric?


Gil: You can trust each faction to continue to try to advance its own interests. Inasmuch as one aligns with your own interests, and is competent, you are likely to be as satisfied as possible — perhaps even to feel that your trust was well-placed.

Glenda: I want to briefly speak to the issue of religion and the reality we now have of each religion having their own god, specific truth, and no other truth, and how you see it affecting America specifically. 


Gil: This is properly the subject of a book, not an interview question.  For present purposes, religious groups are just factions like any other.  They have their agendas and their actions can be predicted based upon them.

We are "Post-Truth" - “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

Glenda: For me as we look toward the end of the book, I personally must come back to our president who has declared media as unbelievable that anyone that is not for his decisions is...wrong...or criminals... A person who has used the emotional lives of America, to further divide our country...and so much more... In the past there has been a balance...now it seems the President demands his way or else...Can the crisis you've already identified possibly get better with the present leader in the White House? Specifically, what is your opinion of what has been happening since you first wrote your book?

Gil: I think it is fair to say that events are unfolding almost exactly as the book predicts.  The only thing that holds out some hope for matters to improve in the short term will be the Democrats scoring large victories in the 2018 elections.  In this way, they may be able to avoid becoming a permanent opposition party.  In the end, they are the more rational party though there would still be a lot of work to do, should they manage parity, within their own ranks.

Many thanks to Author Gilbert Wesley Purdy for participating in this important discussion, based upon his book Elitism and the Election of Donald Trump.

~~~

On the Facebook Reviewers Roundup Group Page, we will open this discussion to the public for comment and further discussion. This will be formally schedule for Monday, but you'll be able to start adding comments and questions as soon as you wish, with the responses starting on Monday.

Note: I am having trouble with Blogger Programming

and cannot get to my review...

You can access it from the Magazine Version

http://gabixlerreviews-bookreadersheaven.blogspot.com/

on February 19th..

from Downloading the World...Shared by Poet Gilbert Wesley Purdy

from Downloading the World

The empty pizza boxes stacked beside the door, 

the tamped-out smokes, the laundry on the floor, 

all bathed in bluish glow, 

he settles back and clicks his mouse, 

at which the room is filled with music

 and the screen with joyful dancing at a wedding feast, 

from Bosnia, perhaps, or from Khartoum,

 the bridegroom flushed with pride, the bride demure, 

the revelers all in third-world couture.

Another click: his favorite team.
The highlights from an earlier game:
homerun, homerun, homerun,
a fielder backed against the wall for each.

Another click he’s on the fan blog commenting,

a virtual chaw now adding menace to his virtual jaw:
Ace should have pitched around the clean-up man.
Instead his curveball hung.
 The outfield shift,
when so-and-so was up, was off a bit.

Fan Page

Click, the Paris Universal Exposition, 1900,

passersby, the question in their ageless faces turning smile
 as they realize the wondrous world they live in,
tip their bowlers, think to tell their friends
 they’re moving pictures now,

 and click, a dark sky turning ponderous,
bolts illuminating towering arches,
where tornado chasers keep the watches.

~~~

Used by Permission

Gilbert's poetry manuscript, *Mind Dance*, has been shortlisted for the Anita Dorn Memorial Award for Poetry. His poems have received numerous awards from World Order of Narrative and Formalist Poets and other literary organizations.

Gilbert Wesley Purdy is a widely published freelance essayist, translator, reviewer and poet, and the Review Section Editor at Eclectica Magazine. His work has appeared in many fine journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine, Poetry International (San Diego State University), The Georgia Review (University of Georgia), Grand Street, SLANT (University of Central Arkansas),The Evansville Review (University of Evansville), Consciousness Literature and the Arts (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Orbis (UK),and Valparaiso Poetry Review. His books include: Edward De Vere was Shake-speare: at long last, the proof; Was Shakespeare Gay? Straight Male Scholarly Angst and Shakespeare's Sonnets ; Henry David Thoreau and Two Other Autistic Lives: before the diagnosis existed; Discovered: A New Shakespeare Sonnet (or three, actually); and Red Pill, Blue Pill: the Real Matrix.

This is a fun poem, isn't it...It is a superb picture of our lives as we daily use the Internet to tour the world... Note, selection of team was selected by me on the three home run phenomena and does not reflect the author's favorite team...as far as I am aware! 😉

Gilbert Wesley Purdy Presents Elitism and the Election of Donald Trump: American in Critical Condition...

If I offend all of the parties involved, I can only suggest

that I may have done my job well. Too much has been lost and too much hangs in the balance to try to gain place by pleasing one faction at the expense of the others. The action-plan I advance in the end, then, is offered to all for all it is likely to be accepted by few. But those few are vitally important. Those who face up to the implications of our technologies and our popular and political culture will have a far better chance to build personal, financial and community resources to overcome the daunting challenges that lie ahead.--Gilbert Wesley Purdy

~~~

Gilbert Wesley Purdy is the Review Editor of the online journal Eclectica Magazine. He has published poetry, prose and translation (from Italian, Spanish and Latin) in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine, Poetry International (San Diego State University), The Georgia Review (University of Georgia), Grand Street, SLANT (University of Central Arkansas), The Evansville Review (University of Evansville), Consciousness Literature and the Arts (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Orbis (UK), and Valparaiso Poetry Review. His work in online journalism has been cited by Newsweek.UK and Huffington Post.

~~~

I fell in awe to the author, as I met him as a book reviewer, knowing that, here, I had just become friends with a true professional reviewer, who speaks with words fluid, eloquent--so beautifully written that he shares the book mentioned in a small, yet compelling way that reaches out to the reader...the review, itself, a work of art... 

How very lovely to have found his latest review in Eclectica Magazine as I was getting ready to review his latest book! I am already thinking about reaching out to find some of his poetry as well!

But now, he has written a book of extreme importance that I would immediately recommend as a Must-Read...

I asked about the title before I got the book. While the election time period does begin the book, Purdy has gone back much further to provide the foundation of how America reached the point through and after the election...

Of the election, he says:

The Election.   When people have asked me, over the years, why I do not watch the Olympic Games I have been in the habit of replying that Presidential election years were my Olympics. I study the rule books, the records and personalities involved in each “event,” keep track of when each is scheduled to occur, admire a well-organized competitive team. 
By shortly after the 2016 party conventions this cycle, however, I could not bear to watch any longer. The very few people who were asking for my observations must already have realized that I was struggling somehow. My attention had become spotty at best. I did not want to talk about the election — a thing almost unheard of. It wasn’t the pandering, although the practice was more than usually shameless. It wasn’t that the competition “got dirty.” Such is always the case at the fringes of the congressional and presidential races. It wasn’t due to the boring repetition of the same carefully crafted talking points. It wasn’t due to some bit of blatant opportunism. Elections are always affected by national and world events. Part of what a hard fought election shows us is that the candidates are able to quickly rally their forces and deal with the unexpected crisis. 
No, the problem was that the presidential election of 2016 was not an election at all. It was a travesty of an election. Donald Trump had one signature policy (keeping out black and brown immigrants — and, by clear implication, reducing black and brown citizens’ societal gains). The candidate openly instructed his followers to beat up people of color who got uppity. In the “old days,” he cried, real citizens would just beat them up and they would learn to behave properly. As for attending to other issues, he continually altered his positions to fit the prevailing circumstances. 
The Trump “spin-meisters” (a.k.a. Trump surrogates) did not take their craft to the limits and maybe a little beyond. They repeatedly lied, replied with blatantly false equivalencies, etc. Their trademark was a supreme confidence that there was nothing anyone could do about it and only political gain to come from it. 
Their analysis was correct. Lies reached millions of viewers at the speed of light. Fact checks arrived days later to be read by mere thousands who might care about such boring stuff. By vast majorities, people wanted to be told what they wanted to hear. It is an old meta-truth that the Trump campaign was the first to adopt without conscience. Old ideas of “truth” were boring. The truth people wanted to hear was the “truth” that justified them in their hatreds; dramatic “truths,” perhaps, that made the election seem less boring than past affairs. The presidential election had been transformed into a reality television show. 
One of the candidates was a reality television personality who knew how to play to the camera. Policies were pathetic attempts at plot development and were largely cast aside. They were ignored in favor of confused, emotionally charged rants and conspiracy theories. Emotional connection was not the most important thing: it was everything. The candidate played to the pit and the sweeping emotion of angry cries and thunderous applause was so affecting that those in the cheap seats took it up as well. His opponent was a “weak character.” No one was even sure why she was on the show except to be a foil. Scores of fact-free fan-sites were required in order even to turn her into a serviceable evil, demonic character that the audience could hate enough to keep the emotion building up. Without those sites she would only have been the greatest of television disasters: boring...

~~~

Elitism and the Election
 Of Donald Trump

By Gilbert Wesley Purdy

I needed to read this book. First let me explain...I'm not an involved political person like our author. I've watched the evolution of America through many years and have abhorred what I saw, felt what was happening. My family is Republican; I clearly leaned differently... So, the election this year became of interest to me purely because of one person--Donald Trump. I am afraid of what he is and what he is doing to America... But, for me, he was the icing on the cake as I saw it...

One of the most important things confirmed for me is that what is happening is outside of the individual in the presidency... For so many years I have tried to express my opinion that it is not the specific president elected that "caused" or "will change"

"Who cares?"

what has already been evolving in our culture... However, with the emotional trauma created by Trump this year, it appears that that the volcano has finally erupted... And it seems that I am one of those who  care and have accepted wholeheartedly what Purdy has declared in his book...

The destruction of the electoral process, as was seen this year, "had been destroyed..." Specifically, Purdy wrote his thoughts,

By this point, I was barely following. I had already realized that I was watching the destruction of the U.S. electoral process. It was almost certainly irreversible no matter who won. I had hoped against hope that I would never see the day...

Punditry, providing analysis or opinion to the media, together with the material on lying was almost sickening for me... We all saw the blatancy of it in November...but this was only the "big show." Lying through, for instance, deceiving advertising, in order to slowly allow the bottom line to become the decision-making priority, has been building slowly over the years so that truth...well, Purdy notes it really doesn't exist any more... Or... it is defined by those who are speaking... Yikes!


Purdy elaborated that Fake News became the norm during the election, illustrating how everybody believes that what they hear...and...accept...is the truth while fake news is what those who are out to deceive or promote their own agenda, the opposite viewpoint of their own, is fake, false, a deliberate lie. Fortunately, I had no vested interest in the election--I didn't support either candidate--so perhaps that is why I was easily able to read and understand Purdy was speaking "Truth..." I was thankful to see this learned expert agreed with most of what I'd thought about...and presented so much more as documentation...

Fake News Within several days the spotlight began to settle on the matter of the “fake news sites” (referred to as “citizen journalism sites,” by those who benefit from them, and which I have referred to as “fact-free fan-sites” to this point) which had become so prevalent. 
There could be little doubt over recent years that these sites were proliferating. By the time the elections got underway, their number was legion. They were generally aligned with the Alt-Right (the moniker designating white nationalists and their mercenary “allies”) and Activist-Left/ Anti-Alt-Right (now more often and tellingly referred to as the “Ctrl-Left”). Some were single issue news sites created to cover LGBT issues, abortion issues, etc. The Alt-Right sites were far more prevalent. Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that they were more popular in inverse proportion to their concern for fact. Their audience was facing demographic absorption into a pluralistic society. The numbers sorted more against them with each election cycle. They were angry and desperate. This was political war and all was fair in war.

~~~

There are many other issues included; however, I want to move ahead to the chapter related to the word, Elitism, which is part of the title. Purdy begins:

Elitism.  So then, have the Elites done us in? Did they win? The Wealth Elite won, of course, but then you may have noticed that they generally do. It has been surprising it took them so long this go around, actually. They were slowed down by the fact that traditional Conservative politicians could not bring themselves to accept that they must be willing to do anything toward the cause that wasn’t expressly against the law if they wished to continue in their positions... But who, actually, are the Elites? If our brains weren’t trained to shut down the moment the name is mentioned, the question would not be difficult to answer. First of all, they are a myth...

Those without power are being placated or worse. 

They are only receiving that much in order

 to avoid economic disruption.

~~~

I'm willing to share that I defined the Elite as those with financial power, but I discovered that this really didn't work...for all people! And frankly I saw the Elitism of Trump as he rented space in his property to the government, for just one example. But that is MY truth! What is yours?

One of the things that has bothered me for many years is explained by the phrase "Dumbing of America..." I've not read the book that probably created the phrase, and really don't want to... I've see it in action over and over... We know that education has been underfunded and is projected to be even more so... Yet those who don't have higher education credentials are finding it harder and harder to live in today's culture, while the cost continues to be prohibitive for many... What lies ahead for the majority of Americans?

Value education above all things. Don’t accept substitutions. 

Do everything in your power to assure that your children attend schools

 that stress math, science and language skills 

and teach out of a valid, up to date Western Canon.

~~~

Purdy presents a book that places readers in the position of somebody telling them the facts, the truth... His truth. But you will see, if you are willing to, that this book will begin to speak to you and you'll begin to agree with what he's has found over his years of political analysis...

I began my comments by saying that I needed to read this book. I needed to have somebody speak about the topics that concern me and I needed to be able to accept or reject them based upon my own experience and knowledge. I realized my feelings were more intuitive than based upon study, which has always been geared toward business management issues. 

This man has "Played" the Election game as most others watch the Olympic games...people have known this and respected him for his opinions. It's exactly the book I needed to read given the daily situations we learn about... It's not the easiest book because of his expertise, but then, I used it as a textbook and made sure I understood what was being said before I moved forward...That means to me that everybody can do the same.

Want to read a fresh perspective of life in America and where our culture has changed and may be headed? Again, read this book...it truly is a Must-Read if you care about America and its future...and how you may be able to learn to adjust... Isn't it time you give up on choices created by some false basis that you may even have historically accepted routinely, and think through what is reality, happening now, right now? Let me know what you think after you read the book!


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