I asked both Singular and Hern about the financial arrangements for the book. Both dodged my question. Hern told me that it was a good question, and then he referred me to his website where he said I’d see all the complicated details that he just didn’t have time to explain. I just looked and can’t find anything about his connection with Singular.
In 1987 Stephen Singular published his first book (“writing it was the best (business?) decision I ever made” he told us today), it was Talked to Death, about Denver talk show host, Alan Berg. On his website Singular says that first book “described how nine, obviously-fanatical neo-Nazis plotted to kill Berg and launch a white power revolution, designed to rid America of minorities.”
Singular has just written this new book because, he continues on his website, ”for the past decade, I’ve wanted to revisit this subject because highly disturbing pieces of the mindset -- the anger, fear, blame, hatred, and absolutist thinking -- of those who assassinated Berg have gradually crept from the fringes of our society into the American mainstream. They’ve become normalized inside major religions, the corporate media, and political leaders at the highest levels of our society.”
Singular’s new book is called The Wichita Divide. It’s about all these problems Singular sees with these major religions, the corporate media, and political leaders, the result, as Singular sees it, of the neo-Nazis who have taken over the country. He tells this through the dramatic device of the story of the misguided soul that killed Dr. George Tiller, a shooting triggered by the failed efforts of the Kansas Attorney General to stop Tiller from killing unborn babies. Incredibly (how could Singular have the nerve to put out this book with out it?) Dr. Tiller’s widow would not talk with Singular, and Singular was anything but even handed in his handling of this explosive issue that divides so much of America.
This book seems to be all heat and no light on the direct issue of concern to me and I’d guess to most people, abortion. About all Singular had to say about abortion was that a lot of women get in trouble, we should leave it up to medical doctors to decide what to do since they have had the training.
Lots of legislation is on the horizon to protect the unborn, Singular says it’s the result of Tiller’s death. The abortion issue is perhaps the most difficult issue faced by this country since the Civil War. It doesn’t sound like there was anything in this new book that will help resolve it.
In fact, it seems to me that No Labels www.NoLabels.org should throw a yellow flag on this obvious attempt to demonize a legitimate point of view.
