A chilling, subtle hint from Kerry in recent PBS doc.

[Artemis Bunyon]

[Artemis Bunyon]

1. Sorry for the quality of the cap, btw. I'll try to get a better one.

But it's clearly visible in the broadcast version.

The net version will be online later this evening, at PBS.org.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

2. Have you read it?

It's a great book.

[Artemis Bunyon]

33. Not yet, but thanks to the DU folks who linked the online version, I will.

x

[Ladyhawk]

38. Link?

Although my eyes don't like online books for some reason...blink...blink...blink...man, I feel like the Pretzeldent.

[Artemis Bunyon]

47. Here...

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/

[jdj]

39. I'm telling you what, that Sinclair Lewis kicked serious ass.

I read just about everything he ever wrote, this man was a prophet/genius, glad to see him getting some props.

[skypilot]

3. Well, I know what the next book I'm going to buy is.

*

[Artemis Bunyon]

4. Good luck! It's been out of print for years, despite being a classic.

And finding it in libraries these days is surprisingly iffy. At least, around where I live.

Gee... I wonder why?

[skypilot]

15. No worries.

I work for a university and I just looked it up. We have copies of it.

[timtom]

40. I just saw it in Barnes & Noble

This evening. On a table in the main aisle. Palm Beach Gardens, FL. I suspect that merchandising is somewhat driven by general localities, though I might be wrong.

[susanna]

61. I found it at a flea market...

...of all places. A friend had recommended it, but I couldn't track it down in any local libraries or bookstores.

By chance I went to an antique show/flea market and there it was. I bought it on the spot. Fascinating book.

Sharp eye on whoever caught that from the Frontline piece!

[JanMichael]

64. I have a copy. It was given to me by a newspaper reporter last year.

I gave him Iron Heel in return.

We both are somewhat paraniod now.

[liberal N proud]

5. Could have been a study guide to learn as much as possible

about the current regime.

[Artemis Bunyon]

8. That's what I'm suggesting.

Think that's an overreaction?

[liberal N proud]

10. Hope it works!

[realisticphish]

6. what a fantastic book

everyone should read it. it should be required reading in every high school


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[charlie]

7. Good catch!

The book is available online here:

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/

[Artemis Bunyon]

9. You... frickin... RAWK!!!

I've been looking all over town for that damn book. Thank you so much.

[glitch]

12. You are FAST! nt

[DemBones DemBones]

42. Hurray! I'm looking forward to reading the entire

book, having just skimmed through Chapter 1. It promises to be very amusing and all too relevant.

Thanks for the link!

[glitch]

11. You can read it online

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/complete.html

[Rockholm]

21. How cool is this site! Thanks!

[Wind Dancer]

13. Wow, that is interesting!

You can download here:

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/chapter1.html

[Cat Atomic]

14. Maybe. Or it could be Kerry's version of the Bush/halo pictures.

You know- the Republicans mix all sorts of messages into their staged presentations, from obscure biblical references to religious iconography, to coded language like Bush's Dredd Scott remarks. All of it intended to give the message, "I'm like you".

These things go right by most people unnoticed, but the base picks up on it. Kerry could've been doing the same thing, but for readers (a group the Republicans gave up on long ago).

Or maybe he's just reading the book. It's certainly appropriate now.

[Artemis Bunyon]

17. I see what you're saying. But even to admit that "it's appropriate now"...

...is not exactly something that is, shall we say, "in the main stream"?

[Cat Atomic]

18. Good point.

:)

[wicket]

16. Holy cow, nice catch!!!!!!

:thumbsup:

[Artemis Bunyon]

19. You know, what first caught my eye was the book beneath it.

It looked like it said "TREASON" and I thought to myself, there is no way in Hell that John Kerry is reading Ann Coulter's garbage. So I squinted and saw that it was REASON, not Treason. Then I noticed that the book above it was It Can't Happen Here, I think my heart stopped for a second. This bit of unimportant trivia struck me as important, somehow.

Probably an overreaction, but I had to share!

[Generator]

20. Wow

Kerry did say "Orwellian" the debate before last. He's no dummy. He gets it. I have no doubt.

[Artemis Bunyon]

23. Orwell. Kafka. And now, Sinclair Lewis.

What's next? Iron Heel?

[atommom]

22. I've been thinking about that book a lot lately. It comforts me in some

strange way to see that Kerry is reading it!

[Artemis Bunyon]

24. Cold comfort indeed.

x

[cosmicvortex20]

25. Dont think for a second every frame in front of the cameras -

isnt scripted by both sides...

I dont think he fears saying anything. If anything, hes came out and alluded to this very thing in a few of his speeches.

[Minstrel Boy]

26. "even with an army of slaves,

it was necessary to persuade them that they were freemen and fighters for the principal of freedom, or otherwise the scoundrels might cross over and join the enemy."

Read it 20 years ago, and still keep it close. Thought it hadn't aged well when I first read it, but not anymore.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

27. Whats the second book? Treason?

By Anne Coulter?

[charlie]

28. Looks like

Robert Reich's book Reason : Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America.

[RainDog]

37. No. It's REASON.

I think the author is Robert Reich, and it's about how liberals will win the war for America's soul.

[JohnLocke]

58. It's "Reason" by Robert Reich

[Tsiyu]

65. Cool. Just checked this book out...

Subtitled: "Why Liberals will win the battle for America."

And "Babbit" was always a favorite of mine. Helped me understand what makes those pudgy Caucasion males tick.

[goforit]

29. WOW!!!!.......He's really on the ball.

[maryallen]

50. Yeah, Kerry actually READS ...

Imagine that ...

A President who reads ...

What a concept!

[meganmonkey]

51. hey - bush reads too!

my pet goat. i'm sure there are some great political lessons in it!

[Octafish]

30. The book shows Kerry's on our side.

Something to think about:

In Francis Ford Coppola's movie about good and evil and the Vietnam War (the title of which I will not utter or write down as it brings a luck worse than an actor uttering the Scottish play's name), the main character rides a boat up a branch of the river to encounter and "terminate" the renegade Colonel Kurtz. After several ordeals, the protagonist Army (CIA?) Capt. Williard finally meets his intended victim.

The few books on Kurtz's small bookstand were a Bible, a work IIRC by Walt Whitman and "The Golden Bough" by James G. Frazer. Like Sinclair's "It Can't Happen Here," Frazer's work is an early global study of ancient religions. It also identified certain similarities of people around the world when it came to the transference of power.

In the old days, and in Coppola's movie, the ritual killing of the king meant that the spiritual powers of God or the gods was transferred from the old king to the new who would now occupy the holy grove, guardian of the revered tree, the Golden Bough.

Things aren't really that different today. A ritual process must be followed to ensure that power is transferred correctly. Our "election" is only one facet that we can see. The game Bush and Kerry are playing is for much more than mere power or life and death. They play for the power to determine the future.

[Artemis Bunyon]

31. Kick for the nightowls

x

[ibegurpard]

32. Wow

An awfully BIG coincidence, if that's all it is... which something in my gut tells me it's not. Thanks for posting this.

[Lorien]

34. Ebay has a few copies

This one looks like the same edition:

http://search.ebay.com/It-cant-happen-here_Books_W0QQfromZR8QQsacategoryZ267QQsatitleZItQ20canQ27tQ20happenQ20hereQQsokeywordredirectZ1

[Artemis Bunyon]

35. That's awesome. Thanks for that!

x

[Disturbed]

36. Kerry had to dumb down his speech...

for the debates. Of course, he knows what has transpired and what is at stake for Amerika.

W was a History Major in college. He once compared Iraq situation with the Philipines, a US colony. Anybody think that w came up with the Dred Scott reference by himself?

[DemBones DemBones]

43. What was Kerry's major at Yale? I'm not sure

I've ever heard.

[JohnKleeb]

46. Law I think

[JohnKleeb]

41. I can't read those titles

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, wow good reading, I was recommended that and the one below that is Bob Reich's book about how liberals will win the battle for America, hah I suspected and knew he was a liberal. Whast the bottom book?

[Artemis Bunyon]

45. Check out post 34.

It's the same book. Plus, on TV, it was clear as day.

[Steelangel]

44. Awesome. Very awesome

I definitely am going to look up these titles to obtain. Thanks!

[seemslikeadream]

48. kick

[sandnsea]

49. "most lying...crooked bunch"

Hell yes he knows. I imagine he can barely contain his anger.

[Octafish]

54. Kerry responded, informally and off camera:

"Let me tell you, we've just begun to fight. We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,113882,00.html

How true.

[Capn Sunshine]

52. Not an accident

Everything they allow in the frames is vetted. There's a subtle message here to the observant people in his base.

If nothing else, read Lewis' book. His other books resulted in laws being passed and Federal agencies being created to address the problems he saw in society at the time.

[Chuck DiFimp]

63. sorry to correct you, but

I think you may be confusing Sinclair Lewis with the muckraker Upton Sinclair, best known as author of an expose of the meatpacking industry, "The Jungle", which lead to the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) and the Meat Inspection Act (1906).

[wrate]

53. absofuckinglutely!!! n/t

[datasuspect]

55. hmmm. . . "liberty cabbage"

from the Sinclair Lewis book:

"Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut ‘Liberty cabbage’ and somebody actually proposed calling German measles ‘Liberty measles’?"

i guess referring to WW1.

never knew that before.

the more things change the more they stay the same.

conservatism is retrogression in it nakedest form.

[wellstone dem]

56. And just think

he was born just 30 miles up the road.

[yella_dawg]

57. The ultimate place to find out of print books...

is Addall.com They search databases of online booksellers. They list 131 entries for "It Can't Happen Here", ranging from a few bucks to $1500 for rare editions.

All book lovers need to know about this site.

[karlrschneider]

59. Hey, thanks for that link! I found an old book I've been searching for

YEARS there! :D

[Artemis Bunyon]

60. Here's a Buzzflash editorial that lists all the creepy synchronicities...

...between Lewis's novel and what's happening now.

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/09/far04030.html

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

62. WEB VERSION - COMPLETE BOOK ONLINE

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/

Thank you, Aussies! :toast: