A grand achievement, given my recent failure to read 300 pages within a month. My previous two attendances at book club have had me within 50 pages of their ending, and as such, I've cultivated a silent yet impressive look of smugness to mask my ignorance to the discussion. I wear that look all over my filthy face like a hot towel. So in finishing a book I got for Christmas (that's right, 2 days ago!), I feel mighty fine about myself. Admittedly, the book is written by a blogger and as such is somewhat light in tone and breezy in style. And it's worth knowing the book - or perhaps lengthy essay - is but 118 pages long. Fuck that, I finished it before new year, I am some kind of reading god. Perhaps though, one should always feel a little guilty for reading something that you breeze through. It's like you know that you're settling for something that comforts you, that reinforces what you believe or could easily (and lazily) believe.
Savage Mules, the book in question, was written by Dennis Perrin, whom I know nothing about. He's written for lots of online news sites (the Huffington Post being the only one I'd heard of) and is seemingly an agitator of mainstream American politics. Looking at historical examples, he challenges the idea that the Democratic Party are on the whole, of an anti-war stance. He takes on everyone, from the saintly Clinton to poor old Jimmy Carter. Woodrow Wilson comes off pretty bad, and he even savagely skewers the sacred cows, FDR and JFK. It's breezy and blog-like in nature and his attacks are dropped in nonchalantly, with the reader wondering how well researched these points are. For example, "His [JFK] Alliance For Progress was a cover for death squad activity throughout the Americas, in an effort to rid the region of burgeoning Castros." I've read a little about the Alliance For Progress and thought it sounded like a vain diplomatic charade that made Kennedy look like he was doing something positive in Latin America without doing much at all, but this comment intrigued me. Is this true? It wouldn't surprise me but I'd like to know more. Expecting a little too much from Journa-lite? Perhaps. It's fun to read nonetheless as he tears through the modern political world of ambitious pretty people with little backbone and no sense of humour. He writes with passion and precision about the sad point-scoring and "sleazy fear-mongering" the Democrats enact, displaying "the same contempt for the populace as do GOP reactionaries." A minor criticism would be that his historical attacks derail his central argument. One that irked me was how he took on Andrew Jackson as a Democrat President. This in itself is true, but his thesis seems to be that the contemporary image of Democrats amongst Americans of all political persuasions is at odds with their actions. The political parties pre-civil war were undoubtedly different beasts to their latter 20th Century guises. Given that the Republican Party was an abolitionist Party - indeed its inception came from its opposition to slavery - it's fair to say these were different times and calling Andrew Jackson a war-mongerer Dem in the same breath as Clinton the war-mongering Dem doesn't support his argument effectively. They were simply different parties.
Reading the book was like a good reminder to distrust politicians. Like remembering to smile or to be nice to people. Having someone tell you that Harry Truman dropped 2 nuclear bombs isn't particularly insightful journalism. Neither is reminding you he was a Democrat. More like an 'oh yeah' moment. His better writing comes in his analysis of the party in the last twenty years, no doubt where he is better versed due to personal experience. And then, in the last couple of chapters - now that we've got to know him a little better - he indulges in self-congratulatory anecdotes and the democratization (it's an American book, ok, leave me alone) process of blogging. Ooh, I feel bad ending negatively. It was nice.
Dennis Perrin - Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War
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