Sore Winners : (And the Rest of Us) in George Bush's America

Rating:
Summary: Why Bush is just the tip of the cultural iceberg
Review: For most of the last two decades, I've ran to pick up each LA Weekly just to read John Powers amazing, righteous, witty and truthful columns about movies, the arts, politics and culture. Finally the world outside LA can read his brilliant work, with this book - which is all new, not a collection of his prior work! And he's taken on the most important issue of all for us right now. Not the obvious - which is to beat the crap out of Bush, something already being done early and often elsewhere - though Powers does it brilliantly here. But the more important work, which few others are doing, of analyzing why we have Bush, and how what's really frightening about him is that he is merely an extension of the zeitgeist - the trends in our mass culture which his presidency is the product of. Powers incisively surveys the cultural world around us, and he makes hilarious - and terrifying - sense. In ways that don't just preach to the converted. Every point he makes hits home, and you find yourself looking around you with new eyes, knowing now you should have seen this coming. On Bush World, even if you've tried the rest - now read the best!

Rating:
Summary: Sore from reading sore winners
Review: I am usually indecisive about a book like this but now I am not so sure. It reads like a conversation manual for the worst sort of people who think they are liberals. For those who study foreign languages you know what sort of headache you get after spending too much time with the foreign vocabulary. I suppose if you practice this vocabulary long enough it might become second nature - or worse, in which case any pretense towards a subjectively objective point of view is lost. Beware the adjectives that make even "compliments" derogatory. Even the idea that anyone is a "sore" winner demonstrates this. Note that this is not only a technique or practice used against specific individuals, such as POTUS, but even works on things such as "faith-based" social programs. Example: "The basic problem with "faith-based" social programs is that, although well-meaning, they often become a pretext for gutting government programs while putting nothing in their place." (p. 39) Consider the first assumption that there is a "basic problem" with "faith-based" social programs, and that they might be "well-meaning" but become a "pretext" for "gutting". (No mention of Charles Murray's "Losing Ground" and the serious conclusion that government social welfare programs make things worse and they should go back to the control of "faith-based" institutions that do a good job - so of course government is not going to put anything in their place. Why replace failure with more of the same?) As a contrast, the adjectives used to describe Osama bin Laden are often positive - "he wasn't just a high priest of holy war, he was a princely financier." (p. 64) We also get a dose of adjectives that describe human character in a way that reflects a distinct difference from conservative or educated liberal language: "Any child can understand why a man might want to be so powerful that he could grab all the treasure, bed any woman he fancies, and build monuments to himself." (p. 66) (Shouldn't we be raising our children so that they would not understand this?) Speaking this language fluently means living the "values" it contains. Perhaps reading too much of this could be bad for your mental health, like eating too much hot pepper can ... give you other problems. Even Amazon.com gets a poor review since the bestsellers on Amazon.com are "unsettling" (p. 73) presumably because of the level of intelligence they reflect. "So much for the belief that being `Western' automatically protects you from being steeped in medieval stupefaction."(p. 73) Notice in this regard that one reviewer below writes:
Wow!, August 3, 2004
I have only read one book this year, and thank God that it was this one!

In response to the question, "Was this review helpful to you?" I replied "Yes."
I will stop before this book makes my head too sore.


Rating:
Summary: Good insights into American culture, but it disappointed me.
Review: I could only rate this book with 4 stars for the following reason: I started out loving the book, but soon grew weary of the author's constant self-references, his attempts to show off his erudition (who cares?), and his wishy-washy opinions about both liberals and conservatives.

He makes some interesting points and shows a lot of insight into current American culture, but do we really need the arcane words he bandies about or the references to highly obscure films? Do we really need the constant remarks as to HIS opinions on the subjects discussed? Do we really need the snarky attacks on the Left? Powers repeatedly claims in this book to be a liberal, but he is far too soft on the Bush administration, and far too hard on liberals and liberal ideas. Oh wait...maybe he's just trying to be "fair and balanced", like Fox News claims to be.

If Doubleday would re-edit this book and re-release it, it would be much better. It needs to be read by every American, if only for the insights into the "sore winner" syndrome and other aspects of culture in "Bush World."

Rating:
Summary: Not just another Bush bashing
Review: I have long enjoyed John Powers' brilliant columns in the L.A. Weekly. It almost doesn't matter what the subject is--he has something insightful and provocative to say. And as a writer myself, I appreciate his easy-to-digest, witty, precise style. I learn something new every time I read Powers, and SORE WINNERS is no exception. I've just started the book, but I'm already intrigued by his recapitulation of Social Darwinism and how it's being played out again by the Bushies. More fuel--intellectual fuel--for our ire against the direction this administration is taking us. I'm looking forward to the rest of this highly informative work.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I have only read one book this year, and thank God that it was this one!

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for his column alone, but the book is fantastic
Review: I wonder what newspapers, magazines and television shows the PW reviewer reads and watches, because I've been reading Powers' LA Weekly column for some time now, and I've never found his perspective to be obvious or predictable. Certainly not an overrepresented one, at any rate. I've always liked the broad strokes with which the acerbic and funny Powers paints the media landscape and pop culture. I've just started the book, and I'm impressed by the scope of it. Provocative and entertaining stuff - I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: THE NINE LIVES OF GEORGE BUSH
Review: If you read anything about Bush you've have to read this. It's not your typical Bush bashing diatribe but a well written analysis of how in the world a guy who has failed at everything could succeed at being president. The kinetics of W's inner circle is explored with a great expose on Colin Powell who seems to be virtually powerless in the face of Rumsfield and Cheney. ---A++ John Powers writing style shines throughout!!

Rating:
Summary: You Want to Understand the Bush Era? This is The Book
Review: It would be easy in this day and age to pen yet another anti-Bush diatribe, just as it would a pro-Bush one (just look at the best-seller list if you don't believe me). But John Powers takes a step back from the rhetoric and looks at the culture as a whole in this post-9/11 world. It might be overstating the point at this juncture, but "Sore Winners" may well become the primary source for future generations seeking to understand why we are the way we are since that terrible day in September.

Powers spares no one with his withering attacks (or his unusual defenses, such as that for George W. Bush from those who think he's homophobic), and his prose grabs you right off the bat and makes for a compulsive read. But there's more going on here, too: for all his ruminations on the nature of "American Idol" or Dave Eggers's career, Powers never loses sight of his focus on the way the Bush administration has influenced culture these past four years. Through all his wanderings, he comes back to a distinct thought: As Bush has been defined by 9/11 and Iraq, so too has the country through Bush's behaviour.

Conservatives will have plenty to grumble about (especially his warrented dismissals of Ann Coulter and Fox News), but the left doesn't come up smelling like roses, either. In fact, it would be fair to say that Powers is an equal-opportunity offender. On occasion, his statements can seem childish, but often he comes through with a laser-sharp remark (like calling Sean Hannity the "guy who didn't get Jimmy Kimmel's job on 'The Man Show'.") that makes it worthwhile.

There will no doubt be more scholarly works attempting to discern the nature of American culture at this peculiar time (our obsession with consumerism at a time when we're under attack will inspire some good ole-fashioned Socialist revisionism), but for now, Powers' is a good text to start with. Through all the verbal jokes and throwaway statements, Powers's book nonetheless is very serious about our post-9/11 culture and the impact of having neo-cons in control has had on our world. He ends with a call to vote out the bastards which seems achingly painful in the wake of reading this post-2004 elections, but the message is still applicable: you don't have to take this crap lying down.

In many ways, this book reminded me of Tony Hendra's "Going Too Far", in the sense that it analyzes a wide spectrum of topics under a particular unifying theme. In fact, I'd venture that the two could be companion volumes, for Hendra's book doesn't just address satire but the nation into which it took effect after WWII. It would be fair to say that satire has died a slow death during George W. Bush's watch.

The world is a weird and confusing place now, and it may be easy to get caught up in the emotions of our time. But "Sore Winners" lays bare the course of events that have brought us to a point where we choose fear over common sense. For that, it will continue to resonate long after the figures it discusses are heaped upon the dustbin of history.

Rating:
Summary: A lucid look at a culture in crisis
Review: It's easy to pen a diatribe against the Bush regime, but John Powers does something different. His witty, opinionated (yet even-handed) and amazingly wide ranging critique of political and popular culture during this dark patch of American history is a remarkable acheivement. It's a heartening book that contextualizes not only the president and his cronies, but reality TV, Michael Moore, dour leftists, and various other seemingly unhinged aspects of American media. Powers pulls his material together seamlessly, creating an important book of our moment.

Rating:
Summary: Powers Takes On . . . Bush World
Review: John Powers is a reasonable person. Reason has virtually disappeared from American political life, replaced by screaming and Bible-thumping and blind partisanship; much like special effects have replaced dialogue in Hollywood movies. As a movie critic for L.A. Weekly, Vogue and NPR -- and one of the best critics in the country -- Powers is familiar with the big loud bangs that distract from the nonsense of a script. It's not so different with American culture today: lots of noise, very little sense. And nobody diagnoses that problem like Powers.
"Sore Winners" is entertaining and consistently hilarious. It is ambitious. It is dense and it's lucid. It's local and global. It treats small things and large things. It's confessional and philosophical; it's factual and intelligent and broadly informed. It is also supremely reasonable. Powers' complicated liberal-left leanings are clear, but his main platform is Reason. The American right and the left are both praised and kicked. Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore get their dues and boos. He quotes Lyndon Johnson and Che Guevara. Nothing is sacred, except the things that should be, like truth, progressive change, and a national conscience -- and a few other things that've been drowned out by the screaming.
"Sore Winners" is an unusual book, and an important one. Run out and read it now.
-- Helen Knode