Drift by Rachel Maddow

Drift
by
Rachel Maddow
read by
Rachel Maddow

I didn't know what to expect going into this book. I knew Maddow was left of center, but not how far or to what ends. I had heard her described once as the foil to Rush Limbaugh. I had no idea what that meant at the time. I think I might now. I had seen her once on the Daily Show with John Stewart. She seemed funny in an intelligent kind of way, and had a radio voice, which made more sense when she revealed in the book that she worked for Air America.
This book is scary. Maddow never says things like "secret government" or "cabal" but you get the strong feeling that there is one, and not the kind we are used to, run by the politicians or religious leaders, but rather by the military, well ex-military really, and the captains of industry, to which I probably should have been thinking "junta".
This is not a book that claims that all Republican Presidents are bad and all Democratic Presidents are good. It is pretty much that they all suck. What's that old axiom about power corrupting?
I was asked when finished if I would recommend this, and I didn't even hesitate. I told her "no". Well written, well thought-out, well presented, and I believe largely very accurate. All of which make this book uber-depressing. This isn't one of those books where you feel empowered at the end, you know, go out and register some voters, call your Representative. I felt quite the opposite as a matter of fact. But, maybe I should have recommended it to her, and ask her to pass it on to her friends and I could write about it on facebook and we could mobilize and start a movement, one that our Representatives and Senators would have to listen to, right until they hired some contractors who are still being ignored by Big Media to come and quiet us, the kind of quieting that you never speak up from again. And while I could fight the fight, or whatever, I wouldn't put my friend and her friends and my facebook friends through this. Part of me thinks I am writing this to be silly to put a point on what I am saying - the argument from absurdity - but an equal part of me thinks that's really how it would go if we became the squeaky wheel.
Bleh. Today I am a pessimist, or maybe a realist, or maybe they're the same thing after all.