The Right Wing: The Good, The Bad, and the Crazy

About the Book

The book “The Right Wing: the Good, the Bad, and the Crazy” discusses the political right in the United States from Prohibition through recent speculation concerning the presidential campaign of 2016. A chapter is devoted to each U.S. President from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to George W. Bush. Many references are contained in the book concerning right wing personalities such as Robert Welch, Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, Rush Limbaugh, Darrel Issa and others. Right wing organizations such as the John Birch Society, Fox News, and the Tea Party are analyzed. The Afterword section contains the author’s solution to issues such as gun control, the U.S. Debt, the need for additional federal revenues, and the lack of medium and large U.S. corporations’ tax support of the U.S. government. Controversial issues such as sex education, immigration, and the present large gap between wealthy and middle class income are discussed in the book. The influence of the religious right in politics is analyzed. The author, Charles Rider, analyzes some of the above issues from an attorney’s perspective. The book contains facts not generally known by readers such as Senator McCarthy, the communist witch hunter, subpoenaed many witnesses and forced them to testify in front of the Senate Permanent Sub Committee on Investigations. None of the witnesses ever went to jail or prison for communist activity. McCarthy’s committee records of witnesses’ testimony and background disappeared from the FBI files and the National Archives. During the Afghan War, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld created a monetary reward program for information as to names of terrorists. Leaflets were distributed that the U.S. Government would pay up to $15,000 for names of terrorists. People turned in their enemies and sometimes goat herders and store clerks ended up in Guantanamo.

About the Author

After I received a degree in Music Education from Ball State University, I taught music in Indiana, Michigan, and California. When I was teaching in Fresno County, California I attended evening law school. When I passed the California Bar Exam, I began working for the Imperial County, California Public Defender’s Office. My first day of work began in the misdemeanor court annex. That day I turned fifty years old. The phone rang in the annex around ten o’clock and the bailiff announced that an attorney had been stabbed at the main courthouse. I worked in the Public Defender’s office seventeen and one-half years doing over 100 jury trials. This is my first book.