Rating  - Good.
Although Al Gore makes me cringe inside a little, I found him in this book to be articulating a sentiment that has been troubling me: public discourse (to the extent it exists in this country) is not ruled by reason. Nonetheless, I was a little disappointed that Gore focused much of the book on the Bush administration, rather than on the deeper problem of our (the general populous') inability make decisions and choices based on relevant evidence. While recent politics is both a major symptom as well as cause of this societal trend, I would like to have seen an exploration of this underlying problem that the majority of our population is not just uninformed but unable to effectively process and evaluate what little information we may have.
Rating  - Refreshingly honest
As a therapist who sees everyday Americans on a daily basis, it is quite apparent that each and every one of us is literally worried sick by the turn of events in this country over the past few years. When I read Mr. Gore's book, I was enlightened as to the details (who, what, when, where) of our decline. Nevertheless, disturbing as it was to learn the truth, I am grateful to finally know it.
Rating - Should be a high school textbook
This book is the literary equivalent of having a bucket of cold water thrown on you while you sleep, and its exactly what we all need right now. As i read through this book I found myself getting angry, angry because I realized that I had given up my right to change the course of this country by allowing someone else to make the decisions for me. For allowing the television to make up my mind instead of studying the facts and having meanful discussions with friends and family based on those facts. I'm angry because I allow our govenment to lie, cheat, steal and torture witout being completely livid. This book could very well change the world, and its sad that every word is simple common sense aimed at everyone of us.
Chapter by chapter it reminds us of the ways we have let our freedoms go and become subservient to a government that no longer works for us. I challenge everyone to read this book and see if they dont feel empowered to stand up and say no more! Lets get our nation back along with our minds.
Rating - The Assault on Reason
Don Stacy
Kunming, Yunnan Province, China
August 13, 2008
Al Gore
Nashville, TN, USA
Dear Mr Gore,
Ocassionally I will be prompted to write to an author whose work I
found interesting or informative or of exceptional literary value. I
have been deeply moved by what you have said so far in The Assault on
Reason. Obviously you are the only person who could have written this
very unusual critique of the present weakened state of public
discourse.
Not only have you produced an unassailable indictment of the
fault-filled Bush years in the White House, and of his appalling
disregard for authortative reports from various people to whom he
should have paid careful attention, but you have also easily
vindicated yourself for America's failure to elect you as President in
2000.
Before I moved to China to teach English at a "software college" in
Yunnan Province, I had been studying computer science at a small
university in Idaho. I was particularly interested in your metaphore
of a massively parallel system in comparison to the public workings of
Democracy and Capitalism. I thought it rather illuminating--but then
your entire book is exceedingly illuminating and I must thank you for
having written it.
I hope that not a few Conservatives will have the simple courage and
good sense to read your book, thus innoculating themselves against the
further tendency to immerse their heads in the moist warm sand of
willful neglect of the truth. But of course there are those, some whom
you refer to, the radio hosts and so forth, who will deride you as
before hoping to seek a laugh from their gullible audience, who smugly
retain their shallow views and unwittingly mock Truth itself in doing
so.
When you pointed out that Capitalism has proven to be a far more
efficiently workable economic system than Communism, you illustrated
this with the emaciation that is North Korea, and the lumbering
corruption-ridden former Soviet Union. You might have also mentioned
Cuba. The one country you did not mention--which would have interfered
with your argument--is China, a timely topic right now, considering the
Olympic Games.
I've only read a few books about the modern political history of
China, most recently a biography of one of their Presidents, Zhang
Zhemin. Now, we are all perfectly aware thanks to TV coverage of the
Olympics just what China has become in so astonishingly short a time.
The Chinese are accustomed to change like no other people on the
planet, I believe. And thanks to Deng Xiao Ping and his hand-picked
successor, Zhang Zhemin, the country is now on its way to surpassing
the United States as an economic power, a thought which would have
been inconceivable twenty years ago.
I'd be curious to know your views on China. Perhaps someday you will
publish a book which touches upon the relations between the United
States and this protean nation so crowded with people, so determined
toward prosperity, so different from anything we have seen before.
Respectfully yours,
Don Stacy
Rating - A Profound, Insightful and Jaw-Dropping Book
Regardless of your political disposition, everyone should read this book. It is NOT about global warming, it is about the current state of our democracy, and what we can do to improve it. Highly recommended!
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