re: this comment from the author:

> I believe that just about every technical book comes with a body of politics, an ideology that governs and usually restricts its example set. We don't notice the political slant because it reflects the dominant viewpoint in our society and is thus invisible.

It's not just mainstream technical books that are immersed in a dominant political ideology. In his book "Disciplined Minds", Jeff Schmidt makes a strong argument that political and ideological training and qualification play a major part in the process of creating new professional workers:

> Unlike employees whose actions can be prescribed in unlimited detail, these workers have to understand their employer's interests, because there are moments when that understanding is all they have to go on. Employers designate these special nonmanagement workers "professionals".

> Preparing to become a professional is fundamentally different from preparing to become a nonprofessional, because the blank sheet professionals face holds an infinity of possibilities, and there is no way to teach or even list them all. Professional training therefore centers around ideology, because ideology guides the subtle decisions and creative choices that the professional makes as she fills the blank sheet. (The professional's work, in turn, propagates the ideology that guides it.) Even those whose range of discretion is humiliatingly insignificant require the special preparation: The system apparently considers ideology to be of paramount importance. Thus, if the work of a particular occupation is in part creative -- that is, if the decisions are not _purely_ routine or rote -- preparing and qualifying for that occupation will include a _major_ ideological component involving years of postsecondary schooling, even if the creative work is a _minor_ part of the job.

> This accounts for the seeming disparity between amount of preparation and authority on the job. ("After all the schooling I went through, they hardly let me make a difference around here.") And it accounts for the seemingly irrelevant part of the schooling required to get the paper credentials that allow one to work as a professional. Despite years of student opposition, these qualifying assignments are still imposed, precisely because they are _not_ irrelevant. They get the individual used to the kind of political framework within which the skills and techniques of the profession are applied.

> When employers designate certain jobs "professional" and insist that employees have professional training -- not just the technical skills that seem sufficient to do the work -- they must have more in mind that efficiency. Hierarchical organizations need professionals, because through professionals those at the top control the political content of what is produced, and because professionals contribute to the bosses' control of the workforce itself. It is crucial for the functioning and survival of the institution -- and the hierarchical system of production as a whole -- that the employees who make decisions do so in the interests of the employer. As we will see, the employer's control of the professional's creative work is assured by the ideological discipline developed during professional training. And the employer's control of the workforce is maintained in part through the professional's elitism and support for hierarchy in the workplace. The preparation process develops, and the qualification process measures, the student's willingness and ability to accept ideological direction from future employers. The one who has met the requirements -- the "qualified professional" -- can be trusted to do what is "politically correct" when making decisions and creative choices at work.

Schmidt's book is is fantastic, and I thoroughly recommend it. See e.g. http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/