Note New Website Page: “Links to Interviews”
Within this tab I’ve included some of my later interviews, including a video done by Jason Goodman and four audio interviews with Midnight Writer News anchor S. T. Patrick.
These are all fairly lengthy, but some folks tell me that by playing them in the background as they do other things they needn’t devote exclusive attention to them.
Also, I want to bring to your attention a highly recommended essay by David Martin (“DCDave”) who brings much-needed perspective to why the “blockbuster” best selling book “Hillbilly Elegy” is not worthy of either your time or money.
In fact, the book’s premise is blatantly false on many levels as Mr. Martin explains. Notably, the author J. D. Vance seemingly admits as much in the first words of the Introduction that he has accomplished “nothing.” The following excerpts speak volumes about his own attitudes: “I find the existence of the book . . . somewhat absurd. . . . certainly nothing that would justify a complete stranger paying money to read about it.”
I agree with author Vance: The paradox of this best-selling, albeit contrived-premise, book — lauded by the heaviest-hitting MSM reporters — one which purportedly attempts to explain Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory was due to deluded hillbillies and their dysfunctional progeny, is “somewhat absurd.”
There are far more worthwhile books published that actually bring honest and provable truth to those hungry for “real-world” mysteries but which have been intentionally ignored by that same, transparently phony, MSM. It is no wonder why wildly-fictionalized novels consistently outsell even the most well-written non-fiction books.
David Martin’s essay begins with:
“The first time I ever heard of the new young author, J.D. Vance, I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR) sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign, and he was the subject of an interview. The NPR interviewer seemed to love the guy and his message. The subject at hand was his newly published book at the time, Hillbilly Elegy:A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. To say that the book has received a great deal of media attention and that it has been wildly popular is almost an understatement. As of this writing it has received 11,692 customer reviews on Amazon, with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. It has also received generally favorable reviews across the mainstream political spectrum, such as that spectrum may be.
“Presented as a straightforward memoir of the grandson of migrants from coal country in the heart of Eastern Kentucky’s mountains, the little town of Parker, to the steel town of Middletown, Ohio, so named because it is about halfway between Cincinnati and Dayton, the book is also heavily political, which largely explains its popularity, either real or ginned up. Lots of people like J.D.’s grandparents have moved out of their home region to industrial cities in the Rust Bowl area from the Great Depression on, and the lesson we are to draw from the book is that J.D.’s pretty thoroughly messed up family is representative of not just the ones who have moved, but also the ones who were left behind.
“Vance represents himself at this stage of his life as very much a conservative Republican, and that should not be very surprising, because the message that comes across in his book is one that we have heard from conservative Republicans for as long as I can remember. It is a message that irritated my liberal Democratic father no end. It is that poor down and out people are generally in that condition because of their own many shortcomings. In a land of opportunity such as ours everyone should be able to make it, and those who don’t shouldn’t be pointing the finger of blame at other people and always expecting the government to come to their rescue.
“Searching the Web I find that Vance first attained a degree of prominence all the way back in the summer of 2013 as a regular columnist for the conservative National Review. (For some reason, that part of his budding career is not mentioned on his Wikipedia page.) Considering the content of his famous book we should not be at all surprised to see him being embraced by the National Review crowd.
Read on . . .http://dcdave.com/article5/181227.htm
LBJ: Master of Deceit 