Customer Reviews

Bush-League Spectacles: Empire, Politics, and Culture in Bushwhacked America

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I strongly recommend Bush-League Spectacles to anyone concerned about the state of national and global affairs. Fran Shor is a citizen scholar committed to an incisive progressive analysis of the times. This well written and thoughtfully arranged collection of political and cultural commentaries and essays published over several years is like having a pile of those articles we all tear out of magazines and newspapers to re-read at leisure, sure that they will retain their interest. Any reader who has not signed onto the movement to change the national motto from "In God We Trust" to "Trust Us - Just Pretend Everything is OK" will appreciate this book I suppose some will say he overstates the issues but then one realizes that this is a world where the Department of Defense is infiltrating the Quakers and uncovering the fact that they do indeed pose a credible threat of being pacifists (after 350 years of saying so) and spying on Vegans, one supposes for fear that they are potential slackers in the war on cows.
In reading this book I was struck by the scope of the historical connections he draws. Recalling the past to illustrate the present and giving at least some suggestions as to what the current trajectory of events holds for the future. As opposed to the juvenile truth-mongering, spin-doctoring and fact-smithing which comprises too much writing about current events and trends, he really seems to care about using reason in argument and distinguishing facts from opinion; presenting both with integrity and style. He assumes as valuable and good such old-fashioned ideas as the common good and the reality of the social contract, and he still writes with respect for the rule of law and the fundamentally American notion that no one is above it. His thinking suggests that the biggest threat to liberty comes from within, from citizens too entertained or alienated to attend to the public business and from a government which seeks to hold sacrosanct its prerogatives and secrets - especially the embarrassing one - above all else. In other words you would think he didn't know that everything changed after 9/11. Or could it be that he is not so much out of touch with the current message from the national bully pulpit but that he harkens to older and, we hope, more persistent sources of national character.
This is an invigorating visit with a veteran activist in peace and justice campaigns who is also a professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Wayne State University and who has received a Fulbright Distinguished Scholars Award. Bush-League Spectacles merits a place on the nightstand, not just on the bookshelf.

Fran Shor's "Bush League Spectacles" is a must read for anyone who cares about the future of the United States and the freedom of its citizens. Shor clearly illustrates whose interests are being served by the three year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the corresponding "war on terror". George W. Bush, his and his father's cronies, and those fighting to spread the right-wing agenda are becoming more powerful and wealthy, while people continue to die in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile a growing majority of people in this country continue to lose their health care, their jobs, and their constitutional rights.

Shor explains how along with the power of the right-wing increasing, the U.S. has been being turned into a police state for over 20 years. Since 9/11 and Bush's declaration of "If you're not with us you're against us", the military and other government agencies have been encouraged to use extreme force in fighting the "war on terror". From the use of torture, to illegal wire tapping and recording of phone conversations, to harassing peaceful protesters, the right-wing government running this country has disregarded the rights of U.S. citizens as well as citizens from all over the world. "Bush League Spectacles" uncovers the lies and hypocrisies of the Bush administration, and demonstrates why the U.S. can not take two more years of this administration. Rather than spreading democracy, this book shows how the Bush administration has used spectacles to spread fear, terror, and disaster within and abroad. Shor not only explains this phenomenon and how it came about, but what we, as U.S. citizens, need to do about it.