Growing Up Red: Outing Red America from the Inside

By Tim Schilke

Book Overview

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, author Tim Schilke knew that his concerns about some generally accepted suburban truths were often left unanswered. He later learned that a carefully crafted Red-suburban version of reality isolated him from nearly everything real.

"Red truth" was a strange morph of God, Patriotism, and Republicans. When this uniquely Red-suburban mentality played a role in winning President George W. Bush a second term in late 2004, Schilke began an investigation into the driving factors behind his Red upbringing, which still persist and thrive today in suburban and rural America.

From carefully-guarded moral relativism, to the Army's questionable recruiting techniques; from Major League Baseball's tainted home run records, to the myth of the Ownership Society; Schilke maps these current events back into the perspective of his Red upbringing.

Why does Red-suburban middle-America consistently vote against its own interests in election after election? Growing Up Red attempts to show that, in Red America, it is simply the patriotic thing to do. In Red America, raw Faith trumps Knowledge. Carefully-tweaked irrational fear drives never-ending consumption. A Republican President marches arm-in-arm with God down Main Street every Fourth of July.

What happens when actual reality starts to bleed through the carefully-protected fences of suburbia? Find out in Growing Up Red.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595671381
• ISBN13: 9780595671380
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Very well done.

I read the book several months ago, but I decided to give it a once over after reading some of the reviews here. In particular, I was interested in a comment about the blog-to-book quality and the validity of referenced materials. On first read, I had caught one or two typos and maybe a couple of passages that I might have worded differently for clarity. My second pass through the book did not confirm the assertion that it reads like a blog-to-book. As I mentioned, there are a very moderate number of editing errors, but I can forgive that for the aggressive time to print. The book begins as a response to the November, 2004 elections and has a publication date of March 29, 2005. That's just shy of 5 months from inception to publication. Perhaps the rush to publication gives the book that feeling of a blog, but it could also be due to the relative immediacy of the contents as compared to traditional books. I personally found the political and social commentary to be very well organized and intertwined with the personal narratives of Mr. Schilke's upbringing. To be clear, this is not a book to be compared to Dave Barry... it is much more substantial than that. Finally, with respect to the reference materials, it does the author a great injustice to claim that many of the sources are "also blogs". First, it should be noted that while Mr. Schilkie does frequently post diaries to the daily KOS site, he has no blog of his own that I could locate. None of his KOS diaries make up the substance of this work. More importantly, a detailed look at the reference material illustrates that of the 44 pages of references, only 5 items refer to blogs. In fact, many of the sources are original, and not from the filter of the press. I grant that the book does not solve all of the problems in the current political climate. It does, however, illuminate many of the underpinnings of the great political divide in a way that is unique in current literature. This book is clearly driven by personal conviction and not by popular political rhetoric. I highly recommend it.

The perfect gift book for open-minded fence-sitting friends

The author, Tim Schilke, acknowledges that he probably won't convince very many confirmed Republicans. Nonetheless this book contains some of the most deftly and concise factually based arguments for the liberal-democratic cause I ever have come across. It is clear that the author loves his extended family in spite of their political leanings and is grateful to his parents for instilling him with the values of community and compassion that lead him to become a liberal and a Democrat. Mr. Schilke interweaves a brief autobiography of his conservative Republican heritage as he appeals both to reason and morality covering a range of subjects from the Iraq war, "free trade", gay rights and assistance to the less fortunate. I strongly recommend this book for any liberal who wants to understand how right-wingers are able to wrap faith in God and country into an ideology of unfettered militarism, selfishness and cruelty. This is especially confounding when we find that many of these same people (such as Mr. Schilke's mother and father) are otherwise both kindly and intelligent. While it might be pointless to pass this book on to a confirmed Republican--it would be quite worthwhile to pass it on or give it as gift to someone who is also questioning their rightwing leanings.

Very good insight

This book allows the average person to be able to get factual based information on the current political climate.

Terrific!!

Growing Up Red is a terrific account of America's political climate today. It encapsulates the wide divide between the Red and Blue states and the turning of our Democracy into a Theocracy. New author, Mr. Schilke, writes with clarity and a refreshing candid style about his personal epipiphany of turning Democrat after a confusing upbringing as a close-minded Republican. With lots of references and historical points, Tim takes us through his life and the the Bush Administration's rise to power and highlights the chaotic, hypocritical extreme political right's views and controling hold on those who blindly follow the Red-line. Growing Up Red will grab your attention from beginning to end.