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.'.:::::::`. Petros Katiforis (Πέτρος Κατηφόρης)
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\ | / \ This post was published on the 29th of October, 2023
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I recently read through the entirety of Ben Shapiro's action novel, True Allegiance. The writing was evidently mediocre, but nonetheless the following article will solely focus on the book's content per se. Ben Shapiro has been an influential American conservative figure among teens and young adults. He's maintaining an ever-growing YouTube following and he advocates right-wing politics and traditional values by means of, em, reacting to viral videos and trends. I was informed about his book's existence during a conversation with a friend and it certainly sparked my interest. Here's what I learned:
The world is undoubtedly following the wrong course. Despite humanity's recent technological advances a considerable portion of our planet's population is still starving to death. Climate change is looming on the horizon but both American and European governments are hardly taking any measures to prevent the destruction of Earth and the extinction of our species. Inflation is high all while salaries remain constant: I'm only scratching the surface here! Throughout his narration, Ben refuses to recognize any of our modern deficiencies and instead tries to accumulate attention on an artificial danger, with the sole purpose of supporting and justifying his racist and fascist bigotry. A Mexican immigration crisis cannot possibly mean the end of the world. Nor does a so-called failed *invasion* of Afghanistan, a country thousands of kilometers away from motherland. This books is precisely an attempt of an American nationalist (just like most proclaimed "patriots") to associate American imperialism with heroism and altruistic benevolence. The sheer fact that most people out there believe that an invasion of an Asian country with the pretext of ending terrorism is logically coherent is mind-boggling. As if that wasn't enough, Ben chooses to portray the only African-American character of his novel as a wicked bully, who intentionally and falsely accuses the protagonist of calling him a Negro just so he can justify the subsequent beating of his enemy classmates. I wouldn't be mad if it weren't for it being such an apparent attempt to frame most black people as being privileged and arbitrary hateful towards whites. White conservatives are frequently victimized throughout all chapters. Soldiers, filthy capitalists and racist mayors are all praised as saintly martyrs of an unjust attack towards everything tradition-respecting.
The book is what you would typically expect from a cheap novelization of an action movie with a shallow American point of view. I'm personally surprised to learn that a conspicuous Jew like Shapiro can have such a large following among hyper-Christian conservatives. His power and influence is evident once you consider that I, a Greek without much knowledge of neither Internet culture nor American politics, has deemed it worthy to write a gemlog entry about him. In conclusion, he's just another scaremonger trying to get some bucks out of his unsuspecting viewers and readers. Needless to say that my version of his book was pirated, I would have never given a single penny to promote his blather. Just like you don't pay a single penny to read *my* blather ;)