A notable new book in the seemingly endless stream of socio-political-foreign-policy fair is Susan Faludi’s “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America”. She offers up a unique (some calling feminist) perspective which casts the roles of gender and myth into our current national climate of fear and paranoia.

From Truthdig:

“The enemy that hit us on September 11 was real,” Faludi writes. “But our citizenry wasn’t asked to confront a real enemy.” Out of terror, American culture howled its way back into a territory that looked familiar. “The arrest and prosecution of our antagonists seemed to be of only secondary concern. Instead, we were enlisted in a symbolic war at home, a war to repair and restore our national myth of invincibility.” From this myth, “we dreamed ourselves into a penny-dreadful plot that had little to do with the actual world in which we must live.” We dreamed ourselves back into it. The terror dream, it turned out, had been dreamed long before —centuries before—the event. Like boys building forts in the woods, we opted for cultural comfort. We sleepwalked into “homeland security” schemes that had as much to do with fantasy as with practical benefits. We entranced ourselves into a preventive war against a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. If you look at this mania in the eerie light of history, you can see that all this deceit and delusion was the work of a cultural Dracula dragging itself once more out of its shallow grave. History repeated itself behind our backs. Welcome to war against an Axis of Injuns to protect the honor of the wimmenfolk.

When I first heard of the book last month I thought for sure she’d be making the rounds on the radio-tv-chat wire. Interestingly though, I haven’t heard of her on much of anything. Are people really still afraid of anything even remotely feminist?

Regardless, I’d say this coupled with Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctorine” should be enough to send anyone’s head spinning.