Serge, Dan Brown and Baigent & Leigh are relevant here. While I pay as little attention as possible to Brown, I've gathered that he read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, believed it was true or truish because it was published as non-fiction, and wrote his remarkably badly written novel. Then Baigent & Leigh sued him because the only good things in his book are theirs. But Baigent and Leigh are in a bit of a trap, because they can't say they ran with an old hoax because it looked like a fun way for writers to make beaucoup bucks.
Maybe this will help to clarify the nature of non-fiction. It's like "not guilty," which doesn't mean you're innocent; it only means you're not declared guilty. Non-fiction is "not fiction", which doesn't mean it's true; it only means it's not declared fiction.
The didact in me maintains that believing and not believing what you claim as true should stay subsets of non-fiction; declaring the latter to be bullshit isn't much use, because we decide for ourselves what's bullshit. Ariana Huffington and Co. may want to recategorize Frey, but their success would open the door to Republicans wanting lefty work in fiction, Catholics wanting Baigent and Leigh in fiction, and so on.
The artist in me says all writers try to make their writing as true as it can be on its own terms. It's just a shame that some of them don't realize that when we speak of truth, we want metaphorical and literal truth to be the same, or to be acknowledged as different.
James, literature includes fiction and non-fiction, perhaps because of examples like those.
Theophylact, it doesn't matter whether the author believes something is true. I would argue that L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith were lying their asses off. What matters is the presentation.
The nice thing about "non-fiction" is that defining it is easy: It's anything that isn't fiction.
Defining fiction is what's tricky. When an author adds a foreword to a fantastic story claiming it was told by someone who has since gone on, is that story non-fiction? Depends on whether the author asks the publisher to present it as fiction or non-fiction.
Fiction: prose that the author claims is false.
Non-fiction: prose that the author claims is true.
So long as Frey says he thinks he wrote a memoir, it should be in non-fiction. Ditto for Streiber's life with aliens.
Both progressive and conservative historians have argued that Japan felt pushed to war by the U.S. For the conservative take, see Patrick Buchanan's WND Exclusive Commentary Why did Japan attack us? In Howard Zinn's Just and Unjust War, he says,Our Open Door Policy of 1901 accepted that ganging up of the great powers on China. The United States had exchanged notes with Japan in 1917 saying, "the Government of the United States recognizes that Japan has special interests in China," and in 1928, American consuls in China supported the coming of Japanese troops.
It was only when Japan threatened potential U.S. markets by its attempted takeover of China, but especially as it moved toward the tin, rubber, and oil of Southeast Asia, that the United States became alarmed and took those measures that led to the Japanese attack: a total embargo on scrap iron and a total embargo on oil in the summer of 1941."
Serge, universal health care isn't an exclusively Democratic issue; Clinton followed in Nixon's footsteps by coming up with a plan that no one liked. The first Bush couldn't get NAFTA through, but Clinton could. Where Clinton didn't advance Republican agendas, he bungled Democratic ones: To legalize gays in the military, he only had to do what Truman did to integrate blacks: make the order. I keep wanting to respect Clinton for something, but all I can respect him for is having a sense of humor.
Serge, Clinton was the exception to that rule.
Damn. Decided I should get a quick overview of Feingold's career, so I hit his Wikipedia entry. I like him too much. He's doomed.
(The most interesting part for me is under "Ideological rankings." I'd like to think that being endorsed by the Concord Coalition would help him with conservative Democrats. And his gun position is remarkably sensible. Yes, the NRA gave him a D, but they'll give a D to anyone who opposes giving Kalashnikovs to kindergarteners.)
Patrick, if Feingold does well, the DLC can rationalize his principles as proceduralism and support him. Didn't mean to suggest that the DLC would support him early on. There's just not enough moderate Republican in Feingold to make the DLC love him.
Oh, I found DIRECTORY OF
U.S. POLITICAL PARTIES, which reminded me of the wonderfully wacky world of US politics: the Christian Falangist Party of America, the Prohibition Party, the I-kid-you-not-but-maybe-they're-kidding-us Libertarian National Socialist Green Party.... I mention this because the site supports Feingold and considers him a traditional liberal. The writer divides the Dems into the "near Euro-style democratic-socialist left (Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich and the Congressional Progressive Caucus) and traditional liberals (Russ Feingold, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin and John Kerry) to the Dem center-right (Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Harry Reid and the New Democrat Network)."
Patrick, true, and he's not quite a moderate Democrat, either. But his respect for procedure might help him with the DLCers.
Patrick, seems to me if your mugger takes you with a pistol and then shows up with a shotgun, you're right to worry about the shotgun, but you might remember he's still got that pistol.
Lizzy L, Russ Feingold's a decent man, and his record during the Bush putsch isn't too embarrassing.
Serge, you seem to keep forgetting that Gore won. Nothing wrong with tactics that win. The problem was the antidemocratic Electoral College. But the fact remains: you can't say there was anything wrong with Gore's campaign when he won by half a million votes.
Randolph, I think the work needs to be done at both levels. It's no different than giving women the vote: you need state and national action.
Serge, Gore could've had the second chance. He just quit.
CHip, given that every poll I've noticed says that the majority of Americans favor getting rid of the Electoral College, it would give the Democrats a "plus" in that particular checkbox on most voters' scorecards. It's another issue to thwack Republicans with: We believe in democracy, but the Republicans continue to support special interests and deny the will of the people. If Gore came back, it would let him trumpet his position: "The people wanted me in 2000, but our archaic system gave the presidency to Bush, and you've seen what that did. Don't vote for me because you want good government for four or eight years. Vote for me because you want the USA to be a government by the people so long as the nation exists!"
And there's a very practical reason: In all of the undisputed Electoral College thwartings of democracy, the Democrats suffered. Fighting the Electoral College would tell the world that they don't like losing. Which, frankly, has been hard to see since 2000.
The Democrats have another advantage for fighting this one. They can say they believe in living up to their name.
Serge, there's a fair history of folks getting screwed by the Electoral College, then coming back to win. Andrew Jackson was first. Which added to my surprise that Gore didn't run in 2004. For two centuries, Electoral College presidents who beat the popular vote were kicked out after a term. Another surprise in 2004. But maybe Gore was the only guy who could've beat Bush then.
I still don't understand why democratic Democrats continue to ignore the Electoral College. But since they're in a party that's reluctant to oppose a war that the people don't want, I have to accept that this is just another thing I don't get.
Juli, crossposted. My message above was a response to your earlier post. If I'd read your:
My point above was that using the word "racism" can cut off all conversation, and lose an amazing opportunity to open people's eyes to the system.
I would've just said, "Well said!"
Juli, "racism" means many different things to many differrent people because it's a word like "Adoptionism": You have to accept an underlying theory for the word to make sense. So people's ideas of "race" will affect their ideas of "racism."
In case I forgot to mention it earlier, that's another reason to address class rather than race: "Race" and "racism" are so emotionally weighted that even talking about accepting or rejecting the words can infuriate people.
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|---|---|
| 2006 | 6 |
| 2005 | 45 |
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