Coming to a bookstore near you:
The Dec. 10 one-man filibuster that propelled Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) to folk-hero status on the left is about to be published for the ages.
That’s right. The Vermont socialist’s eight-and-a-half-hour attack on tax cuts for the rich will be released by Nation Books in mid-February, with an e-book edition available Jan. 28. It will be titled, “The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class.”
Mixed feelings. Is this overselling it, especially since it wasn’t really a filibuster (given that it didn’t impact the voting on cloture or the bill itself), but was rather a marathon speech. It was a good thing, as I argued at HuffPo, but I’d hate to see it retroactively cast as some sort of sales gimmick. That would be a shame.
On the other hand, it could also be seen as a creative way for our Junior Senator to launch his message into a medium with more staying power than the mass media’s lens on Washington, which is a fleeting thing. Bernie’s points deserve to be more than fleeting.
So I’m agnostic about the move to the bookstore racks, for now, but I’m dreadfully curious to what readers here think. Hey, at least the audiobook is already recorded.
I think it’s fine. That speech was historically notable for it’s own reasons. It means little else, and accomplished little else.
Am I wrong though, in thinking that instead of
That should be “The Speech: An Historic Filibuster…
Not sure if it will shift your opinion either way, but just so everyone knows, any profits on Bernie’s part from the book will be going to charity.
Good heavens, a politician publishing a book that has ideas and information of actual value to the reader? We should encourage this. Putting it in text format allows it to be studied and used in class assignments, and maybe we can get it enough publicity so that it would actually be read and discussed by the chattering class. (Nah — too much optimism engendered by first cup of coffee.) I don’t think this reads as “sales gimmick –” I think it reads as “someone in Congress has actual ideas and they are worth publishing.” We can hope that it will inspire other speech makers to try to think and say things worth reading thoughtfully at a later date. (Well, I did say it was a HOPE!)
Since I’m incapable of sitting through an 8-hour movie, I’m happy to have a book I can read at a pace that likes me.
And it should kinda outclass any offering Salmon might come up with in a potential campaign, eh?
I like this idea, even if the hype’s a little much. Instead of “A Historic Filibuster . . . ” (by the way, it’s “AN Historic Filibuster”), which it isn’t, how about marketing it as an important public policy statement. Not as sexy, granted, but with more gravitas.
But if this gets more attention to these issues, more power to the Senator. It’s certainly worthier of reading than all the piles of swill that come off the presses from the Right.
There’s a whole lot of important info in that speech, and it will be a great tool for my kids’ modern history studies.