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Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First
 
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Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (Hardcover)

by Mona Charen (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 308 pages
  • Publisher: Regnery Publishing Inc (1 Mar 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0895261391
  • ISBN-13: 978-0895261397
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.2 x 2.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,498,656 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Product Description
In this book, Mona Charen holds liberals accountable -- and reveals the horrifying crimes that these liberals helped defend and cover up for the Communists. Meet the 'useful idiots': Jane Fonda, Dan Rather, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, and all the other liberals who were -- and are -- always willing to blame America first and defend its enemies as simply 'misunderstood'. These are the liberals who flocked to Castro's Cuba and called it paradise, just as a previous generation of liberals visited the Soviet Union and proclaimed its glorious future. They are the liberals who saw Communist Vietnam and Cambodia -- in fact, Communism everywhere -- as generally a beneficial force, and blamed America as a gross, blind, and blundering giant. Now that the Cold War has been won, these liberals, amazingly, are proud to claim credit for the victory -- conveniently forgetting their apologies for the Communists and their spluttering attacks on Cold Warriors like Ronald Reagan.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A very readable right wing look at the Cold War., 18 Feb 2004
By Wandering Dave (Lancashire) - See all my reviews
This book is right wing- almost shockingly so. The author is confindent that American aggression is always the right course of action. She also argues that any president willing to follow an active and aggressive foreign policy is doing so in order to protect american interests, but above all for the good of the world.

This book focuses on the reactions of liberals in America to various communist governements. The author argues that because these communist states were so brutal (which is a very valid point) anyone who defended them in American society was a "useful idiot." The term apparantly was used by Lenin to describe people in the West who were blind to the "realities" of Communism.

The book's historical accounts are very readable, and interesting. The main argument however is that because Communist states were so evil the American's who opposed them must, by default, be good. Following this logic any Americans who spoke out against these good anti-communist policies (a group of people described as anti-anticommunists) are by default wrong.

This book is well worth reading, but the arguments are far from convincing, and her conclusions are weak. Furthermore a blind acceptace that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction already seems rather outdated and naive.

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34 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Intersting, 7 Sep 2003
By A Customer
Thank you Ms. Charen for putting in print what I have just now begun to understand about the left. They are, quite simply, hypocrits. One day, they disavow the "Cold War" as simply a figment of US paranoia and a lie perpetuated by the US to justify its frenetic arms build-up. The very next day (or next decade), once there is no USSR, these same people claim victory over the "evil" Soviet empire. Talk about rewriting history.

These are the same people who treat Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro as "mad geniuses" yet they have the audacity to SCREAM about poverty and civil rights in the US. Huh? One of the more disturbing stories in the book (disturbing only because of its timeliness) is John Kerry's amazing "flip flop." Here's a guy I thought actually had a brain and a heart. Now, I'm not so sure. John Kerry was a decorated Vietnam Vet who came back from that war and joined the anti-war movement. He even threw his medals away in a defiant gesture against the war. That's all well and good -- I have no problem with someone who learns from a personal experience and changes his mind. What I find objectionable, and what Ms. Charon takes great pains to point out, is that no sooner had the anti-war movement in this country subsided than Mr. Kerry was now, suddenly, a great war hero exuding pride about his military and (alas!) with all his medals intact. So, he's anti-war when the country is predominantly anti-war, but he's "pro-miliary" when patriotism is in vogue? Pretty disgusting.

Like another enlightened reviewer, I am awaiting the sequel.

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8 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Unintentionally hilarious, 26 May 2005
This is surely one of the worst books ever written. This was a best-seller in the US?! Read it and weep. The book's title is remarkably significant, using the phrase "useful idiots" to describe those on the left in non-communist countries, apparently because that's what Lenin called them. Except that he didn't... "Lenin may never have actually uttered the phrase", the author useful mentions on page 10. Hilarious! I might well write my own book in the future, called "Simple-minded Idiots", because Ronald Reagan once said that about Republicans. (Well, he might have done.)

This book is actually useful as an illustration of the delusional power of ideology. Charen's attempted trashing of leftist views involves her deploying some highly dubious assertions, which simply don't accord with historical accuracy. For instance, the suggestion that American soldiers were not "particularly nasty" to Vietnamese peasants, and that South Vietnam was a viable democratic state (other than an artificial creation borne of the US supporting French colonialism after 1945). (Read George C. Herring's 'The Longest War' for a reasonable account of Vietnam, or else John Pilger's brilliant analysis in 'Heroes'.)

I have given sections of this book to my History students after we have discussed aspects of the Cold War so that they can see how contemporary right-wing Amerians think, and they are truly shocked. It reads as plausible argument, but it's only when you read proper history books that you can see how insidious it really is. The frightening thing is that so many Americans are willing to be taken in by this rubbish. But that's the power of ideology for you!
['ideology': ideas serving as weapons for social interests. (Berger & Luckman 1966: The Social Construction of Reality, p.18)]

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