Gook: John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters (Perfect Paperback)

by Irwin A Tang (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
I hate the gooks, said John McCain, I will hate them as long as I live. Senator McCain said these words when asked about his continued use of the racial slur, "gook.".

John McCain has told us who he is.

John McCain supported the rescinding of Martin Luther King Day.

John McCain keeps on his payroll white supremacists, race-baiting swiftboaters and lobbyists for dictators and terrorists.

John McCain endorsed George Wallace, Jr., a favorite speaker among white supremacists.

He fought to keep the Confederate battle flag flying over South Carolina.

He seems to subscribe to a brand of religion-inspired bellicosity that calls for the U.S. to wage war for the sake of imparting our values upon humanity. McCain promised to immediately start wars in North Korea, Libya, and Iraq during his first presidential campaign, and in 2008 he has promised new wars to come. He sent his own money to the contra guerillas, and even visited their illegal war camp.

War is the way of John McCain, and racial bias makes it easy to execute those wars. Long before George W. Bush became president, McCain planned an invasion of Iraq. He lobbied for an Iraq invasion just days after 9/11, and when it came time to convince the American people, he insisted that the Iraq War would be easily won.

The combination of racism and warmongering are perfectly encapsulated in gook, a racist term formed during numerous U.S. wars, from the invasion of the Philippines (1898-1902) to the occupation of Haiti in 1920, to the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

John McCain used this anti-Asian slur freely with the media until he was forced to stop for fear of sabotaging his own presidential ambitions. The portrait of John McCain painted in Gook is far more disturbing than any racial epithet. A central thesis of Gook: war fertilizes racism, and racism justifies wars and the killing of civilians. This dynamic thrives within the most dangerous leaders of the world.

Is John McCain one of them?

About the Author
Irwin A. Tang holds an M.A. in Asian Studies. He is the co-author of When Invisible Children Sing: a true story of five street children, an idealistic young doctor, and their dangerous hope. He is the principal author and editor of Asian Texans: Our Histories and Our Lives. He is the author of the hilarious story collection, How I Became a Black Man and Other Metamorphoses and author of the nonfiction book, The Texas Aggie Bonfire: Tradition and Tragedy at Texas A&M.

A native of East Texas, Tang has had personal experiences struggling against the terroristic acts of the white supremacy groups he writes about in Gook: John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters.

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: The it Works / Paul Revere Books; First edition (July 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967943345
• ISBN-13: 978-0967943343
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,208,031 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Critical Look at McCain's Character, June 29, 2008

By	Catherine Hester "lilireader" (austin, tx) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Less of a personal attack on McCain than a call to awareness, Gook deftly examines the relationship between racism and bellicosity. The author not only documents McCain's blatant expressions of racism, he also explores the historical development of the term "gook" and its direct link to brutal acts of war. I was especially horrified to learn about the atrocities commiteed by the US during the Spanish-American War, atrocities that the author contends were made more palatable by seeing Filipinos as "gooks" rather than humans. McCain's same mindset seems to be heading into more wars against other "gooks", no matter what their ethnicity migh be. Highly accessible to the uninitiated, and not without some humor, Gook's well substantiated claims about McCain and his visions for this country are necessary reading for anyone who hopes for a better country.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very important book, October 14, 2008

By	HereInPhilly (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

I purchased this book after doing a google search on "John McCain" and "racism." Tang not only documents McCain's defense of the term "gook" to describe the Vietnamese, but how McCain's racism informs his world view.

And this view translates to: it's okay to kill hundreds of thousands of people, including civilians (who are often unfortunate collateral), in just wars, as long as the people are Asian, black, brown, swarthy, or tanned.

McCain's backing of known white supremacists and the Council of Conservative Citizens, a KKK-lookalike, is apparently nothing McCain has ever been ashamed of.

His literal promise to start "more wars" in his presidency frankly makes him sound unstable and an enormous liability to the Republican party. When Chris Matthews asked John McCain about congressional support of a strategic attack on weaponry in Iran, McCain answered that he would "at minimum consult with the leaders of Congress." Given that the Constitution requires congressional support for a declaration of war, Tang wonders to which congressional "leaders" McCain refers. Committee chairs?

Tang says: "It should be obvious that John McCain is more likely than the vast majority of elected officials in the Western world to use all-out war as a tool of negotiation."

The mainstream media continue to act as stenographers, jotting down every falsehood McCain and Palin can cook up about Barack Obama's loose associations with unsavory types, while leaving the real reporting in this country to sites like salon.com, political blogs, and books like this one.

The amazing thing about this book is that Tang simply reports on what is in the public record. He takes stenography one step further and practices journalism.