Such Men Are Dangerous: The Fanatics of 1692 and 2004

This book compares the men behind the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 to the Bush II Administration. The comparisons are distressingly close. Massachusetts of the 1690s was a very rigid sort of place. Those in power were ideologues who believed that their version of Calvinism was the only way and the only truth. Everyone who came to Massachusetts was required by law to attend Puritan services. Belonging to any other church was forbidden, on pain of banishment or hanging. All dissent was equated to bonding with the devil. The Puritans believed you were "either with us or against us." Since Massachusetts thought itself a place where anyone could find work, poverty was considered a sign of general immorality and probable damnation. America in 2004 is a place where those on the bottom are blamed instead of helped. Prisons are full of victims of poverty, and each year scores of Americans are legally executed. It stems from a point of view of self-seeking masquerading as righteousness, without regard for social justice. Selfishness is a virtue. Those who can't make it economically are wicked and contemptible. Today's leaders are as inhumane and self-righteous as those of 300 years ago. Paul Wolfowitz and Minister Cotton Mather tried to emulate their famous fathers. They both also see only what they want to see, and are slippery and self-serving in argument. Deputy Governor William Stoughton and Donald Rumsfeld both hold rigid ideological views, lack humanity and mercy, and are war mongers and hypocrites. Stoughton and Dick Cheney are willing to bend their view of the world to accommodate their pursuit of wealth and power. Magistrate John Hathorne and Richard perle were not part of their respective elites, but they were the first to push their respective agendas. Governor William Phips and George Bush were intellectually lacking, but they did have a talent for forming alliances and cultivating people. They also had very foul mouths and furious tempers, and owed everything to family connections. It's disheartening to know that Americans have evolved so little in 300 years. This is quite an eye-opener of a book. An interest in Massachusetts of the 1690s would be a big help, but this is still fascinating and thought-provoking. Highly recommended.

Such Men Are Dangerous: The Fanatics Of 1692 And 2004 is a chilling commentary that compares political figures such as Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush with the ideologues of 1692 colonial America who led the Salem witch hunts. Comparing the government's manipulations of American reactions to September 11th with the Puritans' twist on popular fear of "spectral" forces to commit murder and bolster their own wealth, Such Men Are Dangerous takes a bold stand but is chilling in its uncanny comparisons. A scathing expose that forces the reader to take a cold, hard look at America's current leaders.

Read this book! Whether you are a seething democrat, a bilious republican - or just a normal person - this book gives an historical perspective on the current day Bush administration by drawing parallels with the Salem Witch Trials and those who instigated them. The fear of the witch is replaced by the fear of the terrorist.Frances Hill has created a powerful argument that draws the two regimes together through individual comparisons, and a minutely forensic approach in teasing out the similarities. Even the 'good' or 'believable' members of President Bush's and Governor Phips' teams are seen to be weak and pliable.There is anger at the roughshod methods of both regimes; but anger tempered by incontrovertible facts. How has the US lost its way as a beacon of democratic freedom in the world? Why are the poorer being disadvantaged while the rich benefit?Michael Moore may be funnier, but Frances Hill delivers a more devastating polemic.The comparisons are uncanny; the initial outcomes chilling. The only question remaining is left at the very end... how will the world respond to the neocons' callous ministrations?

Who better than Frances Hill, an authority on the Salem Witch Hysteria, to recognize the chilling parallels between the men in power in 1692 and the Bush administration. Character by character, Frances Hill builds her case, describing in detail the self-righteous, greedy ideologues who led Massachusetts Bay Colony into the horror of 1692 and those who as early as September 17, 2001, began plans to invade Iraq.

There are quite a few good books about the Bush administration, some of which re-cover familiar territory. This one is different. Frances Hill, a noted journalist and historian, strives to find another time in American history when leadership took such bizarre twists, and has to go back to the witch trials of 1692. She shows, convincingly, that generations from now, Americans will look back in amazement at the wrong-headed turns of their country's history. That is, if America survives for future generations.