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Ah, Kansas, the home of hard working, god-fearing, regular average Americans. You would never know that if you read Thomas Frank's bestselling book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Frank paints the picture of the plains state as a land of conservative morons who self abuse themselves by following evil Republicans, who use trickery to create a backlash effect to past liberal doctrines. As a Kansan who read Frank's book cover to cover, and had been besmirched by the demeaning description of Kansas conservatives therein, my preliminary critique of his book was that it was of the same quality as what comes off my boots after a terrible misstep in the cattle pasture. However, I saved my final critique until I had actually watched Frank in person lecture on his "famed" book, and it was then that I could say without any doubt that "What's The Matter With Kansas?" was, indeed, a giant pile of you-know-what.

Now, Frank's book creation has been made into a documentary in which filmmakers Joe Winston and Laura Cohen will attempt to take his negative propaganda message about conservatives to the next level. The usual Hollywood embrace was given to the film by movie critics, such as Roger Ebert (who defended the movie as having no axe to grind), with a glowing review that starts with the obvious words of detached professionalism in Ebert saying, "As a liberal, I..."  For most thinking people, it's time to scrape your boots again.

Despite the fact that this documentary will most likely be a film more accurately depicting the image of Michael Moore than the people of Kansas, I defend its creation and dissemination as I do its inspiration in Thomas Frank's book. Why? Because, the ultimate value in this case, beyond the necessity of free speech in a free country, is that the educated viewer has the opportunity to learn important insights into the people that create books and movies on sensitive subjects for the purposes of advancing personal agendas.

I must admit that it is hard to get beyond the frustration that a book like "What's The Matter With Kansas?" brings to the majority of Kansans, let alone Christians, capitalists, free market lovers, and the list goes on and on. I am with those that share anger for people who would attack American values in this way; however, simply rejecting a radical propagandist will do little to understand and identify others down the road. In other words, there is much more we can learn by taking a deeper look at these individuals. First and foremost, to the beginning of this educational journey we must learn to humanize the radical propagandists. This takes away the false mystic aura we often place around those who do and believe things we can't fathom.  In the case of Frank, he tells readers that he was not always the way he is today - that is, a liberal socialist. His book tells a very common, self described, story of liberal transformation.

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