Posted 11:05 AM by Scoobie Davis

BookWatch
I was in the Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica and I came upon two books that caught my attention for very different reasons: The Radical Center by Ted Halstead and Michael Lind and the graphic novel Left Behind. The Radical Center points out why both parties are out of touch with the needs of Americans. It proposes an alternate way that transcends the ossified policies of both the Democrats and the Republicans. My personal favorite by Michael Lind is Up From Conservatism: Why The Right Is Wrong For America in which Lind discusses his own excommunication from the ranks of American conservatism for his reasoned criticisms of the Reverend Pat Robertson’s whacked-out conspiracy theories.

While we’re on the topic of whacked-out conspiracy theories, the second book that caught my eye was the graphic novel, Left Behind. It deals with what fundamentalist Christians call the Rapture. According to fundamentalist beliefs, with the Second Coming of Christ, believers will be transported instantaneously to Heaven, leaving unbelievers to do double takes while the clothes of believers fall to the ground. You’ve probably seen the fundamentalist bumper sticker “IN CASE OF RAPTURE THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED” as well as the counterpart sported on the bumpers of unbelievers, “IN CASE OF RAPTURE I’M GOING TO STEAL YOUR CAR.”

Left Behind author Tim LaHaye has had a long career in New Right politics. He co-founded the Moral Majority and assisted in the formation of the Institute for Creation Research, a creationist think tank (is that an oxymoron or what?); his wife Beverly founded the anti-feminist group, Concerned Women for America. His best-selling book, The Battle for the Mind put forth the theory that American society was controlled by godless secular humanists. Anyhow, even though Left Behind is in comic book style, it doesn't give the reader the unintentional laughs of a Jack Chick comic tract, but it does make for good straight camp. Since a graphic novel is nothing more than a glorified comic book, I suppose that Marshal McLuhan was right when he said, "the medium is the message": a comic book is the most appropriate way for a comic book philosophy to be expressed.