What's the Matter with California?: Cultural Rumbles from the Golden State and Why the Rest of Us Should Be Shaking

Cashill gives a brilliant response to Thomas Frank's hate letter to Middle America, "What's the Matter with Kansas?". This witty, insightful, and prophetic book, "What's the Matter with California?" is a must-read! The leftist goons at Publisher's Weekly, who can rarely see past their own bias, would love nothing more than to sneer at Cashill's meticulous research (check out the extensive footnoting) and clear-eyed insights in order to stifle this book and its message. Despite the best efforts of those who cherish the bankrupt values that this book exposes, many good Californians and Americans are discovering - and loving - this book. Author Cashill is ingeneous in his usage of the tectonic plate metaphor to describe the cultural earthquakes that have rumbled across the California landscape over the past 50 years. I read this book immediately after having read Simon Winchester's intriguing "A Crack in the Edge of the World," and found the two books to be fascinating bookends on California's natural and social history. Looking back at "What's the Matter with Kansas?" we can see that the gist of that book was that people in predominantly conservative, "traditional values" states such as Kansas were too stupid to understand that they were "voting against their own self-interests" whenever they failed to vote for secularist or left-leaning candidates. Frank's sneering and elitist prose indicated that issues such as faith, values, family, or Second Amendment rights were the refuge of people too unsophisticated to grasp the "real causes" of their economic or social pain. This idea, long an article of faith among many secularist academics, social engineers, media elites, and entertainers, has gained further currency via Frank's book. Jack Cashill blows Frank's feeble assertions out of the water. He starts by exploding Frank's own presumptions about Kansas and moves quickly into a compelling narrative that manages somehow to be both sprawling and coherent. In the same vein as Ben Stein's documentary film, "Expelled", Cashill challenges the new "conventional wisdom" and the strangling political correctness that has covered up root causes of so much chaos and destruction. A colorful parade of characters such as Charles Manson, Anton LaVey, Gavin Newsome, and Jim Jones populate and provide context for some of these massive cultural battles ... and their outcomes. For millions of good Californians and Americans who wonder at the sometimes bizarre direction that "official" California politics and society seem to take, the book offers clear understanding and answers that are guaranteed to be controversial and deeply angering in many high places. The book closes with a very moving and encouraging picture of one California town that is successfully swimming against the tide of decadence and corruption. It's a very important read ... if you dare! The intellectually lazy and cultural cowards need not apply.

If you care about the State of California... read this book. The State is a mess, thanks to the bozo's in Sacramento and Hollywood. Of course, there is also the San Francisco Bay area's influence... remember, this is where the benefactors of Nancy Pelosi, Pete Stark, Barbara Boxer and the divine Diane Feinstein reside ..... and let's not forget Gavin Newsome, the pied piper of a sinking San Francisco... oh yeah, according to our Omniscient Attorney General, Moonbeam Brown, who says global warming will flood the SFO and OAK airports under water by the year 2030. Solutions? Sacramento is looking at a bill that mandates we all must have smaller feet to solve the carbon footprint issue. We are waiting for word from our Berkeley Tree Sitters on what they think will work.

Jack Cashill has become the conservative movement's great sociologist, and this is perhaps his best work. Amazing detail.

The Publisher's Weekly reviewer gives so little indication of having read the book that he embarrasses the good name of Publisher's Weekly. As I count it, for instance, Cashill speaks of eight movies in some depth and only one does he attack, Pleasantville. Six of the eight-including Crash, Thirteen, and Boyz 'N The Hood- he praises. Did the reviewer not see Cashill's list of the best 20 movies about California?? Cashill talks about how he consciously counted flags during long walks through Berkeley and the Castro. This isn't "anecdotal." It is observational and important. As to Charles Manson, Cashill writes, "The concept of 'Susan Atkins' has considerably more explanatory potential than 'Charles Manson," which is an answer to no particularly useful question." And then he moves on to talk about Atkins and the other women because they are relevant. As to James Jones, I never knew he was a communist, and that is Cashill's point: Jones' story has been purposefully mistold. If these are "familiar right-wing talking points," they come as news to this right winger. So much of this book is fresh and new and insightful I was constantly taken aback. Plus, Cashill's amiable style is so unlike Ann Coulter's that the comparison makes NO SENSE AT ALL! Read the book next time, Mac! Save your left-wing boilerplate for books that you did more than thumb through.

Very good book describing the root cause of the tremendous social problems in california and why exactly people who don't live in california should be concerned to the extent this phenomenon spreads to the rest of the country. Every liberal should read this book so that they understand the real world consequences of their beliefs and behaviors. As a former liberal myself, I can attest firsthand about what Jack Cashill is getting at with his book. I can also tell you how effective books like this are at getting liberals to abandon liberalism. My one criticism is that Cashill does not make this point strongly enough. 90% of liberals are well meaning people who don't know the truth about liberalism. They've been manipulated by evil people into supporting a fascist (and I don't mean this as a euphemism....the manipulators are specifically national socialist in their bent and their association) agenda. Once a liberal realizes this, especially when exposed to the real world consequences, he immediately abandons the cause. This is starting to happen in california. Witness how one of the strongest anti-liberal presidential candidates, Duncan Hunter, is from california. How did he get that way? Specifically, by having to find solutions to the horrible problems foisted on the community by liberals. For example, the San Diego border fence. Huge problems with crime, drugs, and even paramilitary thugs because of the open borders lobby. Hunter sees what is going on, understands the issue thoroughly, because he has to deal INTIMATELY with the consequences. He successfully lobbys for a realistic solution and makes sure it is implemented. And it works. More, Hunter knows what Cashill knows....that california is measure of things to come for the rest of the country. But also, it is a measure of the SOLUTIONS that will work for the rest of the country (hence his platform of building the same fence over much of the US border). This also is something Cashill doesn't make clear enough in his book. California is the vanguard of the problems facing the US in the near future. But, it is also the crucible in which the solutions to those problems will come to be.