Great Mistakes

I finished reading Deadstream, and it has easily secured itself as the worst thing I've ever read.  I don't even know what would be number 2, because I've never read anything before that was written so poorly that it made me angry.  And I think I know why.  I did a little research on Xlibris, the publisher who had ostensibly paid this guy to print his book, and discovered that they don't sign contracts with authors , but they charge for any crazy zealot on the street to have his manifesto printed.  Needless to say, they do not copy edit.  So we can all rest assured that a book like this would never be published by any respected publishing house.  That said, if you find, it read it.  But don't buy.

Also, anyone who opts to take the "knowledge is power" road over the "ignorance is bliss" option must read A People's History.  I've only read the first two chapters and feel a great weight of guilt.  Guilt for our treatment of the original inhabitants of this land upon arrival and for the long period (1619 -1863) during which we depended on slavery (that's 244 years of legal slavery, 147 years and counting of emancipation.  Not a great track record for a country whose first major political document states that "all men are created equal").  Also, in the earliest years of our colonization, the first settlers were struggling even to survive.  They occasionally resorted to cannibalism.  It was those first slaves brought over in the early 17th century that saved them.  It is stirring to discover just how heavy and deeply-rooted the foundation of slavery is, upon which the American empire is built.  Zinn cites that, in Virginia, at the end of the 17th century, one-twelfth of the population were slaves.  By 1763, it was fifty percent.  He asserts on the first page of chapter two that "there is not a country in world history in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as in the United States." (23)