Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

While getting people all riled up about 'the muslims' the American right is often the same ones in bed with them for the purposes of getting cheap oil to run American cars. This power arrangement has existed since the 1970's--if not earlier. But our government does not want to disclose this to a gullible American public. Their remaining in office, and in power rests on maintaining a delicate power balance over the American people. Fear of an 'unknown' people and culture then keeps the American people subserviently voting in those who promise to keep the country 'safe'. Interestingly, we do not stop to question the politics/structure of this very arrangement. Because if we did, we would discover some lurking similarities between the two governments. Maintenance of 'safety' comes through control of social customs including gender/sexual roles. 'Disparate' American Christian conservatives and Muslim Saudi Arabian conservatives are ultimately linked together in much simmilarity by their distrust of a sexuality comming outside of a very narrow and male heterosexual boundary. The two seemingly different groups have more alike than initially appears. I read this book as the friend of somebody who had been in New York during 9/11 and those people are themselves a member of a 'minority religion' often attacked by several of the American Christian fundamentalists now rushing to oppose a mosque. And I'm also coming as the relative of servicemembers whose Middle East tour of duty enlightened them to other perspectives and religions. Learning about a religion different from their own Roman Catholicism was an unexpected benefit of military service. This book is really informative. It of course would be a good read for a government public affairs class. But a gender studies class with an emphasis on government should also utilize it. The thesis and supporting evidence is very timely.