Best Sellers as NeoCon Bullets aimed to deceive

Now that the Patriot Act is just barely behind us, the ink still drying on the pages of the Congressional Record, an early Christmas present all Americans should appreciate, it is time to consider how the NeoCons, managed to suborn the system for their fun and profit. It was well planned and executed though they have now hit some rocky spots on their carefully planned road to a real American Serfdom for us and the establishment of an American Baronage for them; an amazing accomplishment.


No one can deny that they are ever so clever and we should not fail to give credit where it is due. Karl Rove's finger prints are all over the globe.

One of those answers lies in the perusal of used book stores. I noticed some time ago but had not put the parts together until recently.

To feed my addiction to the printed word I spend a lot of time in used book stores. The piles of nearly new books by such NeoCon Blogscreechers as Ann Coulter gave me pause. The time between purchase and deposit in the used bin hardly seemed long enough to allow the books to be read. And most of the ones I thumbed through did not appear to have been 'used,' for that matter.

It gave me pause for thought. Thought lead me to the ever ready websites that touted these books along with their authors. Not surprisingly, most come out of the same publishing houses. Three Rivers Press, Crown Forum, Regnany. A brief perusal of their authors reveals other interesting insights. The NeoCons live in a very small world.

The authors of these books, along with acting as spokespeople for the range of points necessitated by the policies on which rest the NeoCon POV also provide other valuable services. Along with the white males there are tokens of otherly ethnic and gendered persons. If you put together the right graph you can see how they all fit in, promulgating opinion in those areas that were essential to their larger strategy. Examined, it is actually rather simple minded. But it worked.

With the right message you have to have the right messenger and so we fill in those little places on the graph. There are links from those sites to a mass of sites that are NeoCon clubs, for instance the Heritage Foundation. Having attended some of the functions at similar organizations associated with the folks from NeoConland I now know that these organizations push books and often will give them away to loyal supporters who are attending expensive conferences that allow them to hear first hand what they are supposed to think; opinion pronounced by those same authors.

The degree to which each opinion maker knows how their opinion is being used would vary, of course. For some it would be a little like being discovered in the coffee shop in Hollywood and advancing immediately to the big leagues with a contract for three movies. Some books by their regular cadre of political operatives, for instance John Fund, would have been planned and assigned in advance.

What if to accomplish your political ends you knew, say 20 years ago, you would need to produce the appearance of public support? One relatively cheap way to accomplish that would be to identify and fund a cadre of writers representing the 'points' of your political agenda and ensure that the books they produced, flowing from their eager fingers like guano from a gull, would register big time in sales.

Wow, the media would say, these people have their fingers on the pulse of America. Interviews and respect would automatically ensue. Media people respect anyone who can manage to be paid for talking or writing.

This simulated public presence also translates into a real presence because so many people interested in politics want to go with the 'winner' in this case the one whose books are selling and who are on the screen talking to America about their shiny new ideas. It is also a clever way to pay off the writers, who are in effect political operatives paid through royalties.

The publishing house makes money selling the books; the authors make money; and the public, curious about what is being said, also buy many more books than would otherwise have been the case. Book tours result in more media and allow the authors a far more active dating life than would otherwise have been possible.

Additionally, your opposition goes out and buys the books to respond. Those might be the most satisfactory sales of all to Karl Rove.

This is supposition on my part, of course. I went in less than 20 books stores in three states checking out the stacks. But it is very possible for us to find out if this is true. All we need is a website, free on yahoo, that lets folks list how many books they found on what day in which stores. Outing them on this would be delicious. I am really hoping that some interested Internet savant does just that.

The cleverness of the whole has Karl Rove stamped all over it.

Now, how to respond to this strategy.

These books sell cheap, needless to say; many book store owners repined that they are impossible to sell so removing them from inventory saves space, usefully recycling them to a higher purpose is therefore both a public service and a necessity. So in the spirit of charity and the season such books could be made available to low income people living in areas that are experiencing the sharp rise in heating bills and used to generate some real heat in their fireplaces.

I can just see St. Nick coming down on a pile of crackling Coulters. That will warm his old heart.
The thing about the Rove strategy, and this was a component of their ongoing war on America and Americans, is that it may not make sense at the time but in retrospect you see what was really happening.

Visit your local used book store and clean out your fireplace for use this Christmas Season. You will be glad you did.