There are many ways that RW conservatives can try to counter your good progressive writings, but here's a particularly blatant and potentially damaging dirty trick used on one of our own Kossacks who had just published a carefully-reasoned book on progressive economics.
After the long, intensive labor involved in producing a timely e-book for distribution on Amazon, one is left at the mercy of reviewers who can rate it on a 1-5 scale. The starred scale appears prominently alongside the image of one's book and can be a deterrent to a potential reader's looking into or buying the book if the rating is low.
"Fixing the Debt Without Breaking America" was published this month as an Amazon e-book by Kossack Letsgetitdone, aka Joseph Firestone. The book examines our dysfunctional economy from the progressive viewpoint of Modern Money Theory (MMT), showing how austerity, poverty, joblessness and all manner of other societal ills are really unnecessary, and are evil side effects of an economic system governed by those who either do not understand the realities of economics or who are content with gaining monetary wealth at the expense of the poor, the sick, the elderly, the disenfranchised and whatever other underdogs are available for persecution.
On Amazon the book received a 5-star positive review from an appreciative reader. But on the other hand, a highly negative review was submitted, sharing equal time with the positive. This reviewer rated the book at the lowest level, one star. That produced an average rating of three stars. The two first reviews stood side-by-side under the book title, creating some cognitive dissonance, some uncertainty in a potential reader. "If this book is rated so low by someone, there must be something wrong with it. I will not consider it further."
It turned out that the negative reviewer had nothing to say or rebut concerning the actual content of the book. He found some typos. He criticized some of the author's stylistic mechanisms. One can only conclude that he was vehemently opposed to the author's realistic economic arguments, but could not find ideas to express in opposition. One wonders whether he would have rejected the original US Constitution because he found a misspelling in it.
At this point I wrote a review of the book, as follows:
A must-read to understand the real economy
March 11, 2013
By Psyched
Our economy does not have to be dysfunctional. Money and the economy were created long ago by naive people lacking in modern concepts that would allow them to see how their creation could serve mankind in positive ways instead of tearing people and nations apart with income inequality, class warfare, poverty and suffering. Modern Money Theory is the clear, realistic look at economics that can resolve so many of the world's problems that are at bottom about wealth distribution. These MMT concepts are being absorbed slowly by the world's economic and financial leaders and once they are widely adopted we will see clearly positive changes in the welfare of populations.
Concluding my review, I wrote:
Dr. Firestone's book Fixing the Debt without Breaking America: Austerity, the Trillion Dollar Coin, and Ending Debt Ceiling, Sequester, and Budgetary Crises http://www.amazon.com/... will be a reference for future historians seeking to understand either how we succeeded or failed at unraveling our knotted economic binds. It should be read now to help us influence those who have the power to do the unraveling before it's too late.
My review and 5-star rating brought the average up to 3.7. The average rose less than one point. The lone 1-point rating had had a major effect upon how the book is initially seen by those browsing for answers to the economic problems of the current day.
This was an obvious attempt to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of progressive communication. How many other less obvious actions are constantly being taken to stifle the voices of progress?
Thank you for reading.
psyched
Letsgetitdone's book: http://www.amazon.com/...