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| 0231183410
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| 0231183410
| 4.15
| 13
| unknown
| Mar 08, 2022
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really liked it
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This book is documentary. As such it can be a dry read, but it is valuable in laying out the long history of a propaganda project that has been succes
This book is documentary. As such it can be a dry read, but it is valuable in laying out the long history of a propaganda project that has been successful. Israel, like the United States, exists on land taken in infamy. Both countries came into their territory by either force or theft or some combination of the two. Because early Americans were fleeing persecution in England and because Jews had been the victims of the holocaust are not justifications for going to a foreign land and taking it from the natives. Manifest Destiny and Zionism have much in common raising self-righteousness to the point of blindness. With the United States, propaganda had a role but it was brute force from start to finish that obtained the land. With Israel, propaganda along with networking among the rich and powerful have been vital tools for taking the land. This book takes the reader step by step through the decades as Hollywood stars, studio moguls and Israelis stir the propaganda pot to sway the American people into ignoring the native Arabs of Palestine in favor of white Europeans who could be portrayed as "just like us" with Paul Newman, John Wayne and a host of other big names lending a hand. Though the studio moguls placed profit first and were reluctant to use Israel for movie production when other places were cheaper, or thought scripts about Israel might have little appeal in the U.S., they did jump in from time to time, first with Biblical epics in the 1950's and then scoring a big win with the movie, Exodus as slanted a story and as lavishly produced as Hollywood could make. Any reader familiar with the plight of the Palestinians through the entire lifetime of Zionism, will see in this book how history can be manipulated, one side ignored and a story presented that makes heroes, builds self-righteousness to a fever pitch, presents a conqueror as victim and wins support through a carefully and continually promoted story successfully swaying the views of a nation of hundreds of millions in the interest of a country of a few million. Starting with the founding of Israel and ending its account at about 2018 with Israeli Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, the reader will find every big name in Hollywood singing the praises of Israel and only a very few risking all (seeing a career abruptly end and be called an anti-semite) to say something for the Palestinians. Only with Spielberg's Munich did a major production begin to admit another side was involved. As with a spoiled child, Israel has gone from bad to worse, moving ever further to the right due to unstinting support from the United States so that today the Israeli government contains fanatics who claim openly that all of the occupied territory taken by force in 1967 belongs to Jews only. Illegal settlements expand and thrive. Palestinian farmers are beaten and their olive trees destroyed by rampaging settlers. But it is modest homemade videos, not Hollywood, that are getting the truth out. Whereas Hollywood has almost without exception told "the story of Israel" as Israel would have it told, with Israeli officials often reviewing scripts and films for acceptability before release, many smartphone cameras are now getting the truth out offering the possibility that justice may be done for a people who have for too long been invisible or maligned on the silver screen. ...more |
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Jan 09, 2023
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Jan 09, 2023
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| 1523085991
| 9781523085996
| 1523085991
| 4.09
| 298
| unknown
| Jun 04, 2019
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it was amazing
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I'm old enough to recall Jack Webb in the TV show Dragnet asking for "just the facts, Ma'm" when interviewing a witness to a crime who was running on
I'm old enough to recall Jack Webb in the TV show Dragnet asking for "just the facts, Ma'm" when interviewing a witness to a crime who was running on with irrelevant information. The public scene on any important topic is loaded with uninformed opinions, clever phrases that in their simplicity catch on and voices that speak for profit rather than the public good. Thom Hartmann is a progressive talk show host that decided to clear the air on important issues by writing short books that stick to the facts. That America has reached a point where not only are there mass shootings, but also a call for everyone to be armed, is a glaring contradiction that baffles me. I wanted straight shooting on guns and found it in this little book. The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as legitimizing the right of every American to have a gun. In the 5-4 majority opinion written by Antonin Scalia it is claimed that the right to defend hearth and home was in the minds of those who wrote the 2nd Amendment. In fact, as Thom Hartmann relates, in a month of debate about composing the 2nd Amendment, not once was this defense of the home mentioned. On the minds of the composers were two issues. The first was the danger of a standing army to the new country. Fear that such an army could overthrow the government had people eager to come up with an alternative. The alternative was a citizen militia that could be called up from the citizenry in an emergency, but would otherwise be latent in the population. Thus reference is made in the amendment to "a well regulated militia." The second concern driving the creation of the 2nd Amendment was the fear in the southern states of slave uprisings. These states wanted to continue the slave patrols they had been using to keep any uprising under control. It is for this reason that James Madison changed the word "country" to "state" in the amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State. the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." (italics mine) Again, not a word about protecting the home or of citizens having a right to forcibly overthrow an oppressive government. Shay's Rebellion (1786-7), a genuine citizen uprising against government taxation, had no one mentioning such a right to overthrow as surely they would if the idea were present as modern interpreters would have us believe. Thus does Hartmann contradict by way of actual history the two principle false claims made by some Americans today that the 2nd Amendment supports a right to armed overthrow of the government, or that citizens are to be armed to defend their homes. Simply put, the 2nd Amendment means what it says and no more. Antonin Scalia wished to read more into it and did. Hartmann shows how the modern interpretation has been driven by the firearms industry in league with the National Rifle Association (NRA) that it supports, as NRA supporters in the legislature provide the laws to protect the industry. Typical of this is the Dickey Amendment put through in 1996 by Arkansas Representative Jay Dickey that makes it illegal for the CDC to be given any funds to track or analyze gun violence. Dickey himself later felt remorse, but the law stands. But there is so much more. Hartmann mentions how insurance is required of car owners to cover any injury they may cause while driving, yet no insurance is required for gun owners though they possess a tool specifically intended to injure or kill. He mentions how there is a design that prevents anyone other than the owner of a gun from firing it, but attempts to implement this in law have failed and the company the makes the system has been threatened. We get two histories. The first a factual account of the use of firearms against slaves, native-Americans, blacks, and striking laborers both by private "security" companies such as the Pinkertons and by police. Included is the woeful history of the KKK, important enough to openly stage a march of hooded men in 1928 Washington DC. Then we get a second history of the imagery of guns. There is the portrayal of brutal groups such as the Texas Rangers as heroic, and countless western novels, TV shows and movies in which the gun metes out justice and thugs such as Jesse James and Billy the Kid come off as heroic, continuing on into modern times with Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and Wyatt Earp appearing as they never were in reality. The heroic individual cannot be without his weapon. The rise of the NRA from an organization in favor of gun control, into a lobbying and promotional front group for gun manufacturers is recounted, all made possible by two Supreme Court rulings that effectively allowed gun manufacturers to buy politicians. Citizens United has only added on to this. Hartmann tells of how the 1930's rash of mob gun violence in America resulted in prohibition of the sale of automatic weapons and sawed off shotguns to individuals. But then, despite the ever increasing incidence of mass shootings starting with Charles Whitman in the U of T tower in 1966, the failure of any attempt to regulate guns since even in the face of school children being slaughtered. To the contrary, guns are promoted in the face of all the evidence for their being controlled. This book confirms what we all know: Congress is captive to special interests of which the gun industry is only one. Nothing will change until corporate and private wealth is not allowed to finance election campaigns. Significantly, no potential presidential candidate is drawing attention to this. Impressed by his effort at clarification of a topic, I intended to get another of the books in Thom Hartmann's series ...more |
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Nov 07, 2022
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Nov 07, 2022
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| 1599474697
| 9781599474694
| 1599474697
| 3.44
| 425
| unknown
| Sep 12, 2016
|
liked it
|
Special notice: If you want to be able to read the graphics that are in this book, buy the paperback and not the Kindle edition. The Kindle e-reader w
Special notice: If you want to be able to read the graphics that are in this book, buy the paperback and not the Kindle edition. The Kindle e-reader will not produce the graphics at readable size and you will not be able to print any graphic from the Kindle or print it from any Kindle highlights that you save. Links are provided for each graphic but getting to many of them involves more than simply going to a link as I discovered. In recent years I have seen so many help-wanted signs that I have wondered what is going on; why aren't there more job seekers? I bought this book to find out and my question was answered. There are a large number of people who could take jobs, but they are not interested in doing so. To be more specific, there are four times as many people out of the workforce by choice than there are people looking for work but not finding it. This book is full of facts and graphs documenting the long term rise in the number of men who are not looking for work, a trend Nicholas Eberstadt shows began in the mid 1960's and has continued to increase ever since regardless of recessions or economic booms. He rightly criticizes the way media and government do not account for this group when reporting on unemployment. The impression given is that the labor market is tight because there aren't enough people to take the jobs that, while technically true, ignores the fact is that there are more than enough people to take the jobs who will not do so. Eberstadt credits disability payments for supporting the living expenses of those not wanting to work, either benefits directly received or received by another member of the household. He rightly states that this is an unintentional implementation of the universal basic income idea that would pay everyone whether or not they work. The lifestyle of the non-workers (he calls them un-workers) is not enviable but they are able to survive. He doesn't attempt to distinguish those who are genuinely unable to work from those who could if they wished to do so, stating that government disability programs are not coordinated or documented in a way that a researcher could tap to get more information. Eberstadt rightly mentions that as national wealth has greatly increased, the percentage of the workforce that is working has dropped, but he notably fails to mention that this large increase in wealth has gone overwhelmingly to the wealthy investor class, who, in their own way, speculate rather than work. He doesn't mention that this rewarding of the non-workers at the top of the income scale may be a disincentive to people who, if they took the kind of work they could get, would be laboring much while receiving little and in routine mindless jobs (flipping burgers) that provide no personal satisfaction. It's clear that the author is bothered by the large number of people who are doing nothing while being paid by the government, forgetting the well established fact that our government spends with no need for tax income, that deficits don't matter to a government that can print money at will and that issues the world's reserve currency. Inflation alone limits the printing press. He approvingly mentions the work ethic of old where self-respect and the lack of a safety net would drive everyone to work not matter how little could be earned. We know that gambling in the stock market and pulling stunts with borrowed money to "leverage" buyouts of companies in order to strip their assets for personal profit has long been common practice among the wealthy. This is not work that produces anything, but to the contrary can destroy productive companies for private profit that then goes into mansions and yachts. We also know that investors are bailed out by the government while the little guy is left hanging as seen in the mortgage disaster of 2008-9. While this raiding of businesses and preying upon the little guy as the banks have done goes on in plain sight without sanction, it is hard for me to look down on people who prefer to scrape by on government funds rather than work long hours for little reward. Eberstadt mentions the large number of men with felonies on their records, 1 our of every 7 American males. He cites the average prison time for felons as two years. That means 90% of felons are out of prison and among us. These men find it very difficult if not impossible to get a job, putting them truly out of the labor force. Might it not be better to provide them with minimal support than have then look to crime to survive? As with those on disability, Eberstadt does not separate the felons from the total of those not looking for work. Correcting for this might significantly reduce the number of those he claims could work but will not. Only briefly mentioned are the flight of production overseas, the destruction of unions and the shedding of benefits such as health insurance and pensions by business in general. Whereas in the 1950's a worker could appreciate what his union was doing for him and what his company was doing to support him, this sharing of power that showed respect for the individual has disappeared with the government actively de-regulating if not passively looking on. President Obama told the bankers after the mortgage disaster that he was the only thing between them and the pitchforks before he went on to have the Fed pay them in full for their otherwise worthless holdings. Much has changed since 1965 when the upward trend of the non-working population started to grow. This population has grown three times faster than has the working population since. I think Eberhardt would like to see some sense of shame drive the non-workers back to looking for work, but in view of all that has happened to enrich the rich at the expense of the worker that continues today, I can't join in his disapproval. This book is a valuable data source and I agree with the author that the issue is kept well under the radar in reports on the economy and in the news. ...more |
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Oct 10, 2022
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Oct 10, 2022
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Paperback
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| 0684833271
| 9780684833279
| 0684833271
| 3.96
| 1,364
| 1922
| Jun 12, 1997
|
it was amazing
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Walter Lippman calls democracy as thought of in America a myth. In this careful examination of the subject he provides factual evidence for his thinki
Walter Lippman calls democracy as thought of in America a myth. In this careful examination of the subject he provides factual evidence for his thinking that I believe is irrefutable. The democracy that we believe ours to be would only be possible in a small community where everyone is directly and daily in contact with the local environment and the problems that must be dealt with, therefor having the necessary knowledge of all that needs to be known to decide the proper course of action. Each member of the small community would be, certainly could be, omni-competent, able to think reasonably about the world they know thereby able to have an informed opinion to put to use deciding public issues in group assembly. In a democracy that rules over a continental area and contains a third of a billion people, none of what I just described is possible. No citizen can take in all of the facts, all of the situations and technicalities that must be considered in order to build an informed opinion on an issue of national or even statewide importance. We all know about information overload and can avoid it only by ignoring a large majority of what goes on each day. The "news" is almost entirely a headline service that in itself cannot help but ignore a multitude of events even in a large city. Lippman goes into detail about how we form stereotypes, necessary in order to avoid paralysis in our thinking. We form opinions based on these stereotypes, not on the particulars of a situation the details of which we cannot know. We only have so many hours in a day and we have a variety of interests among which staying informed in order to vote intelligently could easily take every waking minute and demand more. We carry around our stereotypes and have prejudices for each one driven by our emotions, not reason. Our egos are defensive and resist challenges to stereotype. If we see something that confirms a stereotype we are quick to feel satisfaction in the confirmation because, yes, we are right, while contradictory evidence is easily ignored leaving the stereotype intact. While it is possible to escape this easy auto-pilot thinking, it takes effort to remain open minded and and in the majority of cases we must admit to ourselves that we simply don't know enough or anything about this or that. This admission of ignorance is truthful and courageous, but it is not comforting because it admits we cannot control our world. Lippman, a journalist, demonstrates how impossible it is for the newspapers to inform public opinion rather than pander to it. The press wants to interest the reader, to avoid boring him and most certainly not to lose him. Stories conform to stereotypes, do not go into depth, do not offend advertisers or important people who may be sources of news. This is a bleak picture and reading this book of unvarnished truth makes one realize why the public is uninformed and interested in entertainment and sports over public affairs, local or national. Lippman's suggestion is that those who know the subject research (without lobby influence) problems and come up with alternatives to address them by government action. Then leadership, which is carefully separated from and has no influence over the researchers, makes a decision to act from the choices the researchers have provided. The public at the voting booth decides only if the leaders have done well enough to deserve return to office. Rejecting the old idea that the voice of people is the voice of god and recognizing the fact that the public is ill informed, ridden by stereotypical thinking, unqualified to judge issues on the facts of the case and prone to emotional voting over personal characteristics of candidates rather than the issues, Lippman hopes to have the democracy we have function in accord with reality rather than myth. Though this book was written 100 years ago, I conclude with a paragraph from the book, as I ask if you don't find a resonance with American life today... "The private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator in the back row, who ought to keep his mind on the mystery off there, but cannot quite manage to keep awake. He knows he is somehow affected by what is going on. Rules and regulations continually, taxes annually and wars occasionally remind him that he is being swept along by great drifts of circumstance. Yet these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs. They are for the most part invisible. They are managed, if they are managed at all, at distant centers, from behind the scenes, by unnamed powers. As a private person he does not know for certain what is going on, or who is doing it, or where he is being carried. No newspaper reports his environment so that he can grasp it; no school has taught him how to imagine it; his ideals, often, do not fit it; listening to speeches, uttering opinions and voting do not, he finds, enable him to govern it. He lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct." ...more |
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Oct 06, 2022
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| 0804138214
| 9780804138215
| 0804138214
| 3.95
| 143
| May 24, 2016
| May 24, 2016
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it was amazing
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The collapse of the WTC towers on 9/11 was a horrible thing, but the reaction of the United States both immediately and for years afterward was a disa
The collapse of the WTC towers on 9/11 was a horrible thing, but the reaction of the United States both immediately and for years afterward was a disaster for the country with regard to its own laws, one that could only have pleased Osama bin Laden. Karen Greenberg gives us an account of the speed with which the G. W. Bush administration threw out the Constitution, preferring to go to "the dark side" as Vice-President Cheney termed it, going with preposterous legal rulings of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the executive department agency charged with giving the President legal advice. There, a zealot for increased presidential power, John Yoo, was happy to approve torture by smothering it in euphemisms. Because the CIA had not been informed of the FBI's knowledge of a guy taking flight training with no interest in learning how to land prior to 9/11, there was a frenzy to break down the wall between domestic crime investigations and international intelligence gathering. This wall was in place to prevent Americans from coming under surveillance with the excuse of national security. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created the FISA court to hold hearings on any request to monitor Americans for national security reasons and the Bush administration set about to defeat this firewall purpose. As a result the FISA court went from rarely holding hearings and denying requests for warrants, to allowing almost anything to result in a warrant (an approval for surveillance). All restraint was dropped. "Special renditions" to CIA black sites for torture opened as people were grabbed, labeled as unlawful combatants and locked away indefinitely. The CIA was more than eager to run the program even though the FBI wanted nothing to do with torture. The prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba allowed the farce of the US doing un-Constitutional things because it was not on US territory, the same reasoning that allowed the torture black sites in Europe and the middle east. Habeas corpus, the requirement that a person not be kept in prison without a hearing on the charges against him/her was fought over in the courts even as the suspects rotted in solitary confinement for years. As for being kept in the dark, so were the American people. The NSA began its wholesale mopping up of personal communications. Denials of this, lies, were made before Congress by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper when he was asked directly if the American people were being monitored. The deception continued until Edward Snowden exposed the truth. Throughout the book, the reader follows the courtroom activities that would generally wave through all the government wanted to do with a few courageous judges providing exceptions. Greenberg shows how powerful fear and government are when combined to push through things that contradict the Constitution. And in the end, all the perpetrators, the violators of the highest law of the land, escaped with the blessing of President Obama. The lesson he learned being that capturing people and bringing them to trial, though far more effective that torture, is messy, potentially embarrassing for the government and far more risky than the simple act of killing by drone that needs only the President's approval, even if is an American being assassinated. Thus, in addition to being commander in chief, the President is now an assassin and this has been accepted with little objection by a Congress happy to avoid its Constitutional responsibilities and defer to the President. I finished this book far better informed of what happened, all laid out clearly by Karen Greenberg. I couldn't help but note that the CIA had been taken to task by the Church Commission back in the 1970's and limitations were placed on what the agency could do. Then came 9/11 and the CIA committed more misdeeds followed by another Congressional investigation showing how the agency had again gone off the rails with nothing to show for it. I can only wonder what good the CIA has done in the 75 years of its existence. And Edward Snowden...has any one individual ever done so much for his country? Yet our government wants to get him behind bars for exposing that government's lies that deceived us all. How many thousands of Americans were content to let the Constitution be subverted without anyone saying a word about it! ...more |
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May 16, 2022
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May 16, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 0822323435
| 9780822323433
| 0822323435
| 3.86
| 220
| 1996
| Dec 23, 1998
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really liked it
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Laura Kipnis likes to pop the hood on culture and examine it carefully to find out why we act as we do. What hides beneath our behavior, driving it? W
Laura Kipnis likes to pop the hood on culture and examine it carefully to find out why we act as we do. What hides beneath our behavior, driving it? What are we really achieving when we follow norms and what do we discover about ourselves when we flout them? With her fluid writing style, she takes on pornography, the thing that is universally condemned and universally consumed and so is the perfect subject for analysis regarding the psyche. She starts with a case of FBI entrapment. Two men are enticed by FBI agents to conspire to abduct, sexually abuse and then murder a child. No child is abducted, molested or killed, it is all about getting two people (necessary for a conspiracy) to make plans to do so. Execution of the plan is not needed. Even though one of the two men repeatedly fails to show up for planning meetings and the other even says he doesn't want to go through with it when the planning has advanced, a jury is so repulsed by the situation that it has no problem with convicting one of the men and a judge has no problem with sentencing that man to 30 years in prison. No victim, no criminal act, 30 years. Kipnis relates the sex life of the man sent to prison. He is gay and looks for domination and humiliation in sex which he admits has much to do with a father that did not treat him as he felt a father should. Thus the door to psychiatry is opened with all of the more or less conscious or unconscious motivations that have so much to do with what pleases or offends regarding sex. Pornography permits vicarious experience without penalty or exposure of the drives that few dare to openly expose with another person but can safely let go in private. Kipnis quite logically takes on Larry Flynt (d. 2021) and his pornographic magazine, Hustler, designed to push against good taste through articles and pictorials that delight in offending anyone and everyone, but particularly the powerful. Hustler was a kind of Mad Magazine with no restraints that raised a storm of criticism while selling well. We are told that censorship is a bad thing, that while there are examples of pornography that are demeaning and abusive, it is a window on our inner selves that contains truths worth examining that cannot be easily seen in any other way but psychiatry. It is a low class art form serving up an aesthetic for the common people what expensive high art (concerts, opera, etc.) does for the wealthy. It is a largely harmless pleasure for the multitude with little evidence that what is experienced vicariously will stimulate those who partake to try to make the scenarios real. Above all, Laura Kipnis wants the reader to understand that pornography is far from meaningless obscenity. As something that appeals to our sex drive and our fantasies, which are inseparable, it speaks to us at a deep level if we are willing to look. It is also a great equalizer where no body type or preference is excluded. A visit to the pornhub site where free pornography is on offer will confirm this variety with dozens of categories, some of which are bound to repulse any person, but some of which will attract the same person. Nobody (pun intended) can be unaffected. The real danger is addiction. Just as alcohol and tobacco can ruin a person, so can pornography steal too much of one's life. And, as a coworker of mine said many years ago upon seeing a copy of Playboy, "why should I look at perfect bodies when I am married to a particular person with whom I intend to spend my life"? A question for him might be whether viewing pornography would have anything to do with thoughts of a partner with a perfect body. What need is being met with pornography? Is there a more productive and rewarding way to meet the need? Freud told us of sublimation, the libido being re-directed productively but often inadequately by refusing to admit a place for sex. The Church always denounced sex for squandering what should be a spiritual approach to God with lowly bodily satisfaction. The author of this book would hope that each of us will not condemn pornography, but coolly ask ourselves, not in shame, what pornography does for us. Interestingly, this book is not held by any of the local libraries where I checked for it. I had to go to the Chicago Public Library to check out their solitary copy. Could it be that even as pornography takes up a very large part of Internet bandwidth, for the reading public it is considered too hot to handle? Being very informative and far from prurient, it shouldn't be. ...more |
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May 03, 2022
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May 03, 2022
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| 0471678783
| 9780471678786
| 0471678783
| 4.29
| 9,729
| Jul 17, 2003
| Jan 01, 2004
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it was amazing
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The United States in the 20th and 21st centuries has been home to American exceptionalism, the idea that the country is the possessor of the best econ
The United States in the 20th and 21st centuries has been home to American exceptionalism, the idea that the country is the possessor of the best economic and political system on the planet and that it has an obligation to spread this best system worldwide, more recently by the unilateral use of armed force than by diplomacy or clandestine operations. It is telling of the power of American exceptionalism that former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney has said that in spite of all that is now known about the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq, he would do it again. This push of what is seen by U.S. administrations as good against evil began in earnest after WW2, the "good war" in which the raw aggression of Germany and Japan was crushed in concert with the Soviet Union, the home of communism that soon became enemy number one for the U.S. in the Cold War. But the Cold War was far from cold in the places around the globe where proxy wars were fought and regimes were either supported or opposed by the United States based solely on the American perception of the danger there of a fall to communism. As this book makes clear, President Truman was the last occupant of the office to hold back on United States involvement in Iran. In the face of great pressure by Great Britain to oppose the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian oil company (today knows as BP), Truman would not side with a colonial power, though such was the case regarding France in Vietnam. Stephen Kinzer recounts a history of Iran, ancient Persia, that chronicles the downfall of a mighty empire to become a playground for other empires, in particular those of Britain and the USSR, thanks to compliant Iranian rulers who eagerly sold out their country for personal wealth. The USSR, not out for capitalist exploitation, was eager to secure its border with Iran while Britain was out to extract any and all wealth that it could in the form of coffee, tobacco and in particular oil. The British built and maintained the refinery complex at Abadan supplying the Royal Navy with fuel. Iranians were not allowed to be trained on any technical work there. Iranian oil was considered necessary to empire just as later on the U.S. was to take the same position regarding Saudi Arabia. On its own, Iran was able to establish a democracy, the peculiar character of Mohammed Mossadegh becoming prime minister on a pledge of nationalizing the nation's oil along with the British infrastructure that extracted and exported it. The highly educated, eloquent and emotional Mossadegh was wildly popular not just in Iran, becoming a symbol of national liberation as the age of European colonialism was ending. He toured the United States to great acclaim and appeared on the cover of Time magazine as its man of the year in 1951. However, the fear of communism in the U.S. was soon to have American democracy bring Iranian democracy to a close, replaced by yet another willing servant of imperialism in return for personal power and glory, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Immediately upon leaving office, the restraint of Harry Truman regarding Iran was gone, The reluctance of Eisenhower to get involved was soon overcome by the crusading Dulles brothers, John Foster as Secretary of State and Allen as director of the newly created CIA. Anti-communism was the order of the day. The CIA jumped into action eagerly, successfully starting a train of CIA actions after Iran that steadily lowered the very high global reputation of America held at the end of WW2. Undeterred to date, American exceptionalism has eclipsed any respect for international law or the opinions of other nations. All the Shah's Men is an excellent companion to The Shadow Commander which I have also reviewed. The former gives the history that accounts for the Iranian anti-American rage that came to a head with the story told in the latter. ...more |
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| 1786079445
| 9781786079442
| 1786079445
| 3.51
| 317
| unknown
| Nov 24, 2020
|
it was amazing
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This book is the story of a warrior who grew from a childhood in back-country Iran (ear-RON) to a bold, courageous commander loved by his followers fo
This book is the story of a warrior who grew from a childhood in back-country Iran (ear-RON) to a bold, courageous commander loved by his followers for his fearlessness and devotion to the cause. It is also a fascinating account of the years leading up to and following the 1979 overthrow of the Shah, the man put into power and beloved of Washington though hated by his people. Five stars are deserved for both the personal story and the story of a country that Americans are told to hate by their government. Arash Azizi, an Iranian, tells both stories without falling into adulation or denunciation. Soleimani was always eager to be at the center of action, no matter how dangerous that might be. He also had a talent for respecting local people; making them feel appreciated and needed for military support. This was the case throughout the long Iran/Iraq (ear-ROCK)war and continued into the chaotic years of the American invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring (Iranians are mostly Persian, not Arab) the disintegration of Syria and the rise of ISIS. For all of his fearlessness and ability, Soleimani met his end torn to bits in a situation where his personal traits could not help him; assassinated in Iraq by President Trump. For any American reader, constantly fed with a worshipful account of the invasion of Palestine by Zionists and the hatred called up during the hostage taking of Americans by the Republican Guard in 1979, this book is a treasury of information not slanted by emotion. One learns the details of Ayatollah Khomeini's rise to power and of the man behind the scowling visage. The personalities and programs of Iranian leaders that Americans knew in name only are detailed, all in an intense account that never flags while keeping Soleimani's life the central theme. He was an admirable man, whether or not one agrees with the cause to which he dedicated his life: support of the Islamic revolution that began in Iran and its expansion within the Muslim world. ...more |
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| B004IPPINW
| 3.73
| 79,000
| Apr 03, 2007
| Apr 03, 2007
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it was amazing
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A style of writing perfected, this short story addresses the reader as the listener sitting at a table being addressed directly by the author, with th
A style of writing perfected, this short story addresses the reader as the listener sitting at a table being addressed directly by the author, with that listener's responses implied by comments made. It is all one-way and fascinating to read, drawing the reader into an intimate account of the life of a twenty-something Pakistani man living in America at the time of the 9/11 attack. I can't think of a more effective way to place a reader on the side of the protagonist, a highly educated man who speaks in a formal almost British way that one would expect of a foreign graduate of an Ivy League school. Consumed with a passion for success, he races up the ladder of his profession to achieve the American dream before doubts surface prompted by American and his own reaction to 9/11. While almost consumed with his work, he is also attracted to an American woman, Erica, who is suffering from the loss of a lifelong love and sinking psychologically. Changez (the young man) is filled with satisfaction at his work but disturbed by the course Erica is taking, showing a very touching sensitivity to her condition. Amid beautiful turns of phrase, we follow the course of a true gentleman while wondering at the identity of the American with whom he shares dinner. Mystery, love, acute observations on social relations told with complete honesty all work together to make this a very enjoyable read. ...more |
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| 0671657151
| 9780671657154
| 0671657151
| 3.75
| 5,691
| Dec 1987
| May 15, 1988
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it was amazing
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I've never been less hesitant in giving a book five stars. This is the work of a brilliant mind and it shows with insight on almost every page. By insi I've never been less hesitant in giving a book five stars. This is the work of a brilliant mind and it shows with insight on almost every page. By insight, I mean the ability to take what one knows to look beneath the surface of a subject and show it in a different way from what is apparent on the surface. Bloom is employing a learned ability exactly as he would wish everyone to be able to do, but that, as he shows in his text, is something that they can no longer do for themselves due to the lack of an education that is no longer available. It isn't that people are stupid these days, it is that their minds no longer are given the nourishment needed to stimulate the thoughts that would allow them to swim beyond the wading end of the pool of thought. The Closing of the American Mind is a tragic book because it documents a loss that cannot be regained. The thoughts of the greats in Western philosophy are left in books unopened by a shallow culture that places natural science above all. If science cannot tell us about something, then there is nothing worth knowing about it. Since reading the works of the philosophers is a challenge, why bother to make the effort when they could not know what we know now so have nothing to say to our situation? How wrong this attitude is the book proves by showing how modern thinking has come to be, developed over the years since the Renaissance, becoming more clearly defined during the Enlightenment and ending in the coup de grace provided by deconstruction which tells us that not only can the reader not know the thinking of an author, the author him/herself is equally unable to express the reason for his/her own text. We the ignorant do not realize that those musty philosophers directly addressed the conflicting ways of looking at the world that has now become so dominated by a single outlook that for things to be different, except in science fiction, is almost beyond the modern imagination. We are unable to think of any other way of living than what we are given. In this way we truly are at the end of history. The thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche, an extremely difficult philosopher to read, play a prominent part in this book and it is a joy for the reader that his thoughts are made crystal clear and put into context with the thoughts of Rousseau, Locke, Descartes, and Machiavelli (and others) to provide a grand tour of Western thinking. Literature plays a part as well with Shakespeare and Swift, to name only two of many authors, woven into the story. Let's not forget Freud and Weber. Bloom presents it all as the development it has been leading up to now. A particular philosopher thought X, another thought Y. Events showed that there were problems with each line of thinking. Then another philosopher had a new idea that caught fire. Never has a better story of philosophy been told. This epic account of the life of the mind is nothing if not stimulating and exciting. Yes, Bloom tells us, there is a reason we have arrived where we are, but it is a sorry state coming at the end of an efflorescence of reason over recent centuries after a long sleep since the daring thoughts of the ancient Greeks showed the way. The excitement of a circus of the mind has ended in nothing but the faint traces of where the tent used to stand with no concept of the acts that took place within. There's an account of the history of the university, the place where Bloom spent his working life, with a deadly and humorous account of the different departments in relation to each other. The author tells of how the humanities, with philosophy in particular, were once at the height of scholarship breaking ground time and again in the conceptualization of humanity. Now, the humanities department is usually small, primarily a storehouse of old books and with a faculty at a loss for how to present the great works to a the student body bored by them. Meanwhile natural science blazes a path and students flock to business schools to make a buck with the pretense of understanding how people behave as homo economicus. The meaning of education is never far from Bloom's mind. There is the dichotomy of passion and reason. It had been thought that sublimation of passion was an excellent way of turning on youth to reason by providing the mind with activity driven by the power of sexual awakening. The scheme is laid out in detail in Rousseau's classic Emile. The climax of intercourse is not to be experienced until the mind is set in the ways of reason. The youth is not to know how his longing can be quickly satisfied by the oppose sex until after he has been stimulated to think deeply, an occupation for a lifetime, before enjoying the momentary stimulation of the body. The hints of this educational thinking can still be seen in concrete over the entrances to very old school buildings, one labeled BOYS and another GIRLS. But today sex is routine at college and by no means a big deal. You learn stuff and you enjoy sex with no connection seen between the two. The great mystery of sex is laughable, though it must be admitted relationships are transitory and it can be hard for each sex to figure out what goes beyond the immediate desires of the other. Bloom takes time to look at the modern student and laments the lack of vision, the acceptance of what is as what must be, the inability to imagine there being any alternative. College as a place to deepen the character with courses in the humanities that start one on a lifetime of becoming one's best self by examining what one does with an enlightened mind is history. You go, you have fun, you learn a specialty, you go to work. Education flattened. The Closing of the American Mind is a great achievement, the result of anguish over loss, a last stand, a cry from the heart of a brilliant man to minds no longer open to a joy which has always been unique to man, still remains, but for which the young are no longer primed. Among many hundreds of books, it is one of if not the most important I have read. I am reminded of the story of a friend of mine who has bad vision. This was for some reason not detected for some time when he was young. He was accustomed to everything being blurry when he received his first glasses. He recalls the excitement and joy when he put them on and the world was new. Allan Bloom might make the analogy that we are like my friend in the development of the mind, but unlike it was for my fortunate friend, how to make glasses has been forgotten. ...more |
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| 9781476731902
| 147673190X
| 4.14
| 27,228
| Sep 23, 2014
| Sep 23, 2014
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it was amazing
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Options in life start being determined at the moment of conception. The health and situation of the parents, genetics and the country where the child
Options in life start being determined at the moment of conception. The health and situation of the parents, genetics and the country where the child will be born are primary, but more come into play as a life is lived. There are few places in America where options are more limited than in the impoverished inner cities and this is where, near Newark NJ, Robert Peace was born. Against the odds for the area, Rob not only had a father present in his early life but one devoted to Rob, helping with homework and shepherding the boy around the neighborhood. Rob's mother, Jackie, was nothing if not dedicated to his welfare. She refused to move in with Rob's father due to the father's free wheeling ways, but did not object to a close relationship between father and son. Rob lived with her as she did everything she could to help him on his way in an environment with dangerous attractions on all sides, even managing to come up with the money to put him in a private Catholic high school. Rob, in turn, was a loving and devoted child to both of his parents right into adulthood, dedicated to supporting them in any and every way he could. Rob was a standout intellectually with an insatiable curiosity driving him to learn why things work the way they do. His love of reading brought him knowledge far beyond that of his peers and his dedication to learning brought not only high grades but the attention of a wealthy benefactor of his high school that offered to pay his tuition to Yale. Against the odds options opened for Rob even as they were narrowed for all around him in the neighborhood. A 4.0 average at Yale with a BA in molecular biology only confirmed the exceptional ability of this diamond in the rough. But every one of us has to deal with our own issues, nobody getting a smooth ride over self-imposed hurdles that can be far more difficult to deal with than what others might put in our way. This was Rob's tragedy and a big part of it was his refusal to take advice, not surprisingly feeling that he, on his own, could find the best way to deal with things. Up to a point this had proven true for him. Intensely social and supportive of his many friends he enjoyed and was appreciated for his ability to lend an ear and make suggestions. The irony of his life was that he could not take the advice of his best friend to "be smart" in charting a course in life. Though he rocketed to the top graduating from Yale, he had no clear idea of how to proceed. His love of socializing and seeing the world drew him aside from proceeding to graduate school with all the expense that would involve and small hope of a resulting income that would allow him to do what he loved to do. The ever-present lure of easy money dealing drugs (marijuana) seemed to offer a solution starting while he attended Yale, one that did not deter Rob from planning other ways of making money after graduation such as teaching at his old high school, flipping houses or handling baggage at an airline for the free world travel it allowed. All of these were easy for him, a guy with an ability to work hard, stay high, and still get the job done. He arrived at a fork in the road of his life and took the wrong way, because initially it was so easy to do. Finally realizing his mistake, that his options were closing, it was too late. Jeff Hobbs, white, from an affluent family and a roommate of Rob's at Yale, brings Rob to life in this wonderfully open book that explores what it means to be black in America, walking a line between two limited worlds as Rob did, loving friends and family who have known one since childhood in a world restricted by poverty, while engaging at the highest level in another world restricted by wealth. Hobbs did the work of interviewing a multitude of Rob's friends to paint as complete a picture of the man as one could hope to have while also presenting the intricacies of race in America. This is a book deserving of all the praise it has received. It is a work of love and a finer tribute I could not imagine. ...more |
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Media Benjamin is a well known activist who for years has been speaking out boldly and acting in person against injustice. She is probably best known
Media Benjamin is a well known activist who for years has been speaking out boldly and acting in person against injustice. She is probably best known for her association with CODEPINK, the group she cofounded back in the days of the absurd national terrorism alert system that used colors to indicate the supposed danger to the US from terrorists. She has a habit of popping up unexpectedly to embarrass the powerful. I recall her standing up and calling out Henry Kissinger, quite properly, as a war criminal bringing a denunciation as "low life scum" from Senator John McCain. She is a tireless campaigner against war and injustice, be it the US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq or US support of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. I attended one of her many talks around the country and had her autograph this book that I purchased at the event. Not being a fan of sarcasm, I found this book a bit heavy on it in the early chapters, but otherwise Benjamin provides a very good background on armed drones. Though she doesn't mention it, before 9/11 the US with Clinton as President was extremely hesitant to and did not launch a drone attack on the compound in which Osama bin Laden resided in Afghanistan for fear of killing innocent people including his wives and children. That hesitation is long gone and Benjamin documents the use of drones armed with Hellfire missiles becoming routine. With seemingly endless Pentagon announcements of a top person in Al-Qaeda or the Taliban having been executed by drone it was remarked that nobody should be left to take the job. After telling the history of drone development and describing the job of the drone pilot who kills someone thousands of miles away from his control console, Benjamin goes into the legal aspects of drone warfare, the morality of it and finally the actions that have been taken to oppose the practice. Though she doesn't mention it, crews stationed in ICBM silos pioneered the role of one or two people having the ability to kill hundreds of thousands upon command. The big difference is that the idea of ICBM launches is abhorrent while killing by drone is so routine that the President is, from one administration to the next, an assassin by drone and the subject isn't even discussed by the media. As she reports, Obama increased the number of drone strikes ten times over what GW Bush had ordered. Trump continued it and there's no reason to believe any change has come with Joe Biden. The policy of the President as assassin is not even worth debate. Power on high is clearly at ease with this killing by drone regardless of a host of questions that surround it. Where is any responsibility for the killing of innocents that almost always accompanies a drone strike? If there is such a thing as international law, how can one country, the US, completely disregard the sovereignty of another such as Pakistan and launch drone strikes without permission from the country where the killing takes place? When there is no declared war, how can individuals be executed with no trial, including American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki killed by an American drone in Yemen? The appeal of drone strikes to power is great. Why go to the trouble and possible embarrassment of capturing and bringing to trial some person who can simply be eliminated? Why risk even one American life to get a wanted man? Why send in troops when surveillance can be maintained 24 hours a day from the sky? There is no down side to drone strikes for US administrations, or to Israel which engages in exactly the same thing, when no counterstrikes are possible. I do think GW Bush was missing the mark when remarking that "they hate us for our freedoms." This privilege of only two militaries in the world will not continue indefinitely. Harry Truman once said that the Golden Rule should be the standard of foreign policy, but the reality at present is that great power may do things that it would not tolerate coming from the another country. Media Benjamin has written an easy to read and short account that can inform the American public on a very questionable practice done in the name of that public. There is a more recent edition than the 2012 edition I read. When I encountered the name of this or that organization that was either pro or anti-drone I looked it up on the net. I found that more often than not the groups either no longer existed or had websites that were years out of date. Clearly there is little concern with the routine killing done by our Presidents and that in itself is alarming if not surprising. I think many may think that if troops can be kept at home then go right ahead and execute in distant lands, forgetting the horror of being on the receiving end of drone strikes and the anxiety for everyone on the ground who must hear the sound of drones constantly without knowing where or when another attack will come. Americans do not want a Big Brother watching us. People in distant lands do not want Uncle Sam watching either, particularly with the additional ability to kill instantly and unpredictably without appeal. In 2021, 9 years after the publication of this book, on it goes. ...more |
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| 0312424930
| 9780312424930
| 0312424930
| 3.92
| 5,246
| Apr 01, 1993
| May 01, 2005
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it was amazing
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Flat lands are invitations to invade. Mountains are fortresses to defend. Conquest beckons the powerful but brings resentment in the conquered. Central Flat lands are invitations to invade. Mountains are fortresses to defend. Conquest beckons the powerful but brings resentment in the conquered. Central Europe, flat, has been a historic pathway for invasion, with horrors of conquest over the centuries culminating in the invasion of the USSR by Germany and then the invasion of Germany by the USSR in WW2. The book to read on this is Bloodlands. Balkan Ghosts takes a look at the lands to the south, the Balkans, with the author touring the mountainous regions that often but not always provided refuge from the invasion of one country or people by another. These relatively small countries, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and the lands that made up the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia) packed closely together Slavs and Serbs, Greeks and Turks, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians and Muslims in a mix ready to combust. As Robert Kaplan puts it so well, each group, each nation, has considers the time when it ruled over the most territory as the golden age and longs for that time to return. Unlike the United States and Britain, countries that have enjoyed empire without being overrun by invasion of the homeland, the Balkan states have all been invaded, repeatedly, with hatred planted and nourished by every episode. As the author travels around interviewing people, he often hears that "you Americans cannot understand our situation" and that cannot be denied, yet in each case the person speaking clearly cannot understand any but his/her own situation. Kaplan visited over a period of years from 1980 through the end of Soviet control in 1990, making his home in Greece at the time, finding a litany of resentment and righteous indignation concerning events from ancient history right up to the time he visited. With each country he delves into the history of conflict that characterize each, the period of Ottoman rule standing out strongly for oppression though it ended over a century ago. Each nation has a story to tell of slaughter and of alignment with or against now this, now that invading power. The holocaust of the Jews in the 1940's was of course as much a part of Balkan history as it was of central and eastern Europe to the north. Dictators such as Yugoslavia's Tito, Serbia's Milosovic, and Romania's Ceausescu are covered in full along with the most remarkable character of all, Andreas Papandreou of Greece, a man who went from being a PhD at Harvard to become the chairman of the department of economics at UC Berkeley and then the prime minister of Greece, along the way turning a blind eye to terrorism, enjoying the support of Libya's Ghaddafi and needling the United States at every opportunity. From the descriptions Kaplan provides from 1990 Balkan life was very bleak, poverty was common and the general lack of joy in life that characterized USSR style communism still smothered all of the countries with the exception of Greece, a democracy open as it is to the West through the Mediterranean. The author doesn't hesitate to analyze cultural issues, relating the great increase in tourism to Greece from America prompted by the movies Never on Sunday and Zorba the Greek. He makes a point of Americans seeing the mystical, exotic, irrational east as an exciting and enticing place of escape from the rational, coinciding with the sexual revolution in the 1960's. Things have improved for the people of the Balkans since this book was written, though Serbia under Milosovic went on a rampage in the 1990's bringing the military intervention of NATO. For someone as ignorant of the region as I was, this book enthralled. The complexity of the ethnic and religious scene is impossible for me to convey. The USSR kept a tight lid on it all. Many years ago I would hear shortwave radio broadcasts from the Balkans; Radio Sofia, Radio Bucharest, etc. uniform in the dreary presentation style of Radio Moscow, relating none of the colorful cultures of the countries. Using the internet to look at street scenes in the Balkans today, it is clear that material life has greatly improved. I can only hope that this will continue as the suffering endured by those living in the Balkans, due to invasions from all sides is matched only by the European countries to the north. ...more |
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| 1541742400
| 9781541742406
| 1541742400
| 4.61
| 10,649
| May 19, 2020
| May 19, 2020
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really liked it
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Like most Americans well into my adulthood, in fact well into middle age, I was completely ignorant of what my country was doing abroad. I easily acce
Like most Americans well into my adulthood, in fact well into middle age, I was completely ignorant of what my country was doing abroad. I easily accepted the story of good vs evil that explained the Cold War in a phrase. People who lived under communism were captives and those who lived under capitalism were free. We who were free had a noble obligation to see that communism was contained if not ended so that all people could enjoy the life we lived. Such a simple outlook never considered that other people in other places might have their own ideas about how to live. The Berlin wall and the tight rein that the USSR kept on the countries of eastern Europe provided a foundation for fear and loathing of communism. But this ignored the fact that communism was not monolithic and conditions varied greatly among countries that called themselves communist. After all, colonialism was thoroughly capitalist and it should not have been surprising that those victimized under it should look for a different way. There was an effort called the Third World Movement that sought a middle pathway between the communism of the USSR and the capitalism of the United States. This effort was represented by India and Indonesia, in the latter by Sukarno, a gifted speaker who energized the people in countries newly emerged from colonialism. JFK toured the world while a member of Congress educating himself on the way other countries desired to tread their own paths, but he was exceptional and for almost all others in our government, the United States had a duty to push others our way, regardless of the cost to them and with no middle way tolerated. The Jakarta Method tells the sad story of how this effort by the U.S. had tragic consequences for many foreign countries and it is personalized by the accounts of individuals who were witnesses and victims of programs influenced if not directed by the CIA in cold calculation that communism should be destroyed wherever found. The reader interested in a concise country-by-country summary of CIA efforts should read Killing Hope by William Blum. Vincent Bevins concentrates on Indonesia and Brazil. In Indonesia in the 1950's the U.S. first tried supporting a war by proxy to overthrow Sukarno, but was caught in the act when a CIA agent/bomber pilot with full identification was shot down and held captive. The Indonesian military sided with Sukarno and the effort failed, but with over one hundred million people in this nation of ten thousand islands the U.S. was determined not to lose the most populous country in SE Asia to communism, a county considered far more important than Vietnam on the international chessboard. Continuing to thread a line, Sukarno deftly kept communists from gaining political control while allowing them participation, but a mysterious movement kidnapped and killed several generals of the Indonesian military. While it is not known if this was engineered by the CIA, the reaction of the military was swift and had full CIA backing. A campaign of mass killing of anyone associated with communism in Indonesia began with lists of names provided by the CIA. The result was hundreds of thousands of deaths and a nation cleansed of communism to the delight of the United States. Thus was born the Jakarta Method: team up with a national military and employ death squads to get the desired result by direct terror. By the way, if seeing is believing the reader is directed to the movie, The Act of Killing, which interviews those who willingly, even eagerly, executed their fellow citizens in Indonesia. What worked in Indonesia was an action plan for South America where Brazil and Chile were at risk of not following the U.S. line. The CIA, with a successful 1956 coup in Guatemala under its belt and the added success of Indonesia in 1965 then supported similar action in Brazil and Chile. Posters began appearing "Jakarta is coming" to terrorize the left. Salvadore Allende, a socialist elected democratically in Chile was overthrown, killing himself before capture. It was another success for the United States. This book is a horror story that has even greater impact for the fact that it took place during the time when America was rocking to Elvis Presley and enjoying the surf music of The Beach Boys. It involved the deaths of many innocent people at the direction of the country proclaiming liberty and justice for all. It is a history that should be known by all Americans, disturbing though it is, and quite distinct in the truth it tells from the mythology presented about the Cold War, not cold by any means for those hundreds of thousands murdered in an effort to extinguish communism. ...more |
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| 0989312526
| 9780989312523
| 0989312526
| 4.17
| 53
| Jan 07, 2014
| Jan 07, 2014
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it was amazing
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There will be no more tank battles between equals. There will be no more dogfights between equals in the air. There will be no more naval engagements
There will be no more tank battles between equals. There will be no more dogfights between equals in the air. There will be no more naval engagements of the kind common in WW2. In short, there will never be another war like WW2. Nuclear weapons make any kind of opposing mass formations of either men or machines impossible because such formations would be instantly annihilated. This was previewed in the Cold War standoff between the huge Red Army and the "New Look" U.S. army of Ike backed by nuclear weapons. War never broke out because both sides knew it would be suicidal. Nevertheless, the United States continues to operate the military organizationally as if another war like WW2 with neatly uniformed armies in well marked out areas of control won by maneuver ordered up through the command structure can be expected. Vietnam showed the impossible task of guerrilla warfare for a traditional army, regardless of our monopoly of modern weaponry. LBJ, quite rightly, had a constant worry that China would get involved. But the failure in Vietnam was not seen as questioning the idea of maintaining large armed forces for foreign intervention. What was taken as the lesson instead was that the draft had to go and with volunteers, interventions could proceed with gusto, coming to naught in Afghanistan where only after twenty years of enriching military contractors is the pointless effort being ended. Historically warfare is all about organization, chain of command and areas of responsibility. Though it might seem strange to say, war was very well structured, goals were clear, land and sea could be taken and held. It was an elaboration of the childhood game of capture the flag. Yes, there was chaos in combat, but even so the soldier knew the enemy had undergone very similar training and could be expected to behave in certain ways, most important by surrendering after the capture of large forces. That's over and with it the good probability that combat soldiers could return to society in good mental health. This is the background of Afghan Post, the story of a technically advanced but anachronistic military going into combat on physical and cultural ground so alien it could be (as the author remarks) another planet. Adrian Bonenberger uses the technique of personal correspondence to tell the story of his education in a rigid world as he climbs up the ladder of ranks and privileges apart from the larger society as he struggles to keep relationships going with girlfriends he can visit only rarely. Do this quickly, do that without complaint and you advance. He conforms to the military plan of transforming a young man or woman searching for meaning and purpose in life into someone who finds it in a sheltered controlled way, becoming part of a tightly knit structure where rigorous training brings pride and eagerness to take on increasing responsibility. In just a few years, hardly more than the four required to get through high school, Bonenberger advances from bewildered newbie in officer candidate school to a company commander in charge of a post in Afghanistan with hundreds of people under him. Following procedure out comes the product. Within the world of command and obey, team spirit is built. The military knows exactly what it is doing to psychologically mold the individual. Though I have not been in the military, I have seen it happen. The individual forced into close quarters with any given collection of strangers can be transformed with them into a tight group of "great guys" who bond no matter what their backgrounds because their situation is identical. The fighting unit is formed and the ego is satisfied with proudly worn badges and uniforms that show how far one has progressed in the system. Being a replaceable identical part in a machine is scarcely noticed beneath esprit de corps, by design. But then comes engagement. Personalities clash, stupid things are done, chance rules, things done by the book don't work, command authority is limited in the face of orders from above or rules of engagement that do not bind the enemy. Translators can't translate local dialects so fake it. Cultural norms leave Americans bewildered, clueless and prone to bigotry toward the people they are supposedly supporting. And of course lots of pieces of hard metal go flying in every direction regardless of any soft flesh in the way. Clean, clear organization meets reality and then comes the doubt as the real difference appears between American involvement in WW2 and everything since. Questions eat at the mind. Why are we here? What purpose are we serving? What is victory? Do Americans at home give a shit about us or our task? Whose idea was this anyway? The entire top down structure upon which one has risen suddenly wobbles. Bonenberger is always comparing his own activity to that of previous generations...they had their righteous fight, now it is his turn. But they fought after an attack on the country, now it is all about wars of choice, pre-emptive actions and, in the case of Afghanistan, a full out war against people who had nothing to do with 9/11 while the homeland of the 9/11 perpetrators is a pampered pet of Uncle Sam. Where is reason in this? If reason cannot be found for risking one's life will not sanity soon to be lost as well? When a country, or more accurately its leaders, gets drunk with power and aggressively builds empire, putting up the smoke screen of national defense and "support our troops" in lieu of having any attack that would demand sending soldiers to possible injury or death, the glory of war is stripped away. Replacing it is the pointless waste we've witnessed, repeatedly. The United States has blown the immense prestige it had in 1945 to become thought to be, as worldwide polls reveal, the greatest threat to peace in the world. This book tells how this all comes down to the individual in a way far more powerful than a straight historical account. Bonenberger's honesty deserves to be widely read. ...more |
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| 9781250065636
| 1250065631
| 3.84
| 2,787
| Jan 27, 2015
| Jan 27, 2015
|
it was amazing
|
This is a complete guide to cryptocurrency, in particular to the granddaddy of them all, Bitcoin. Because the subject is covered in all aspects and do
This is a complete guide to cryptocurrency, in particular to the granddaddy of them all, Bitcoin. Because the subject is covered in all aspects and done with both enthusiasm and skepticism, it is the prefect tutorial and overview in an easy read. Five stars come easily. It was written in 2015 so it doesn't handle the wild rise of Bitcoin in value since that time. The big question is whether cryptocurrency will become so common as to live up to the dream of its founders, the "cypherpunks," by replacing the banks that as a centralized intermediary between buyers and sellers have proven quite capable of bringing the economy down through greed only to fall into a safety net provided by the public, the same party that they took for a ride. The big banks are in the rentier (RON-tee-a in French) position, that take a cut simply by being in a position to do so, much as the old European landed aristocracy could sit on the land and take rent for the use of it, or like toll takers in early America who could take money from anyone coming down a road before allowing travelers to continue on their way. Ideally, a bank will stand at the center of a market assuring both parties in a transaction that it can be trusted to guarantee that transaction. We use Visa and Mastercard without thought of a vendor not providing what we are paying for because the banks behind the credit cards will make good on any transaction if the seller doesn't provide the service/product for which payment is made. If you or I are not satisfied with what we buy, we are given a refund and we don't need to worry about the vendor taking our money and giving us nothing in return. This is a good thing and millions of users have been more than willing to use credit cards freely, knowing that as buyers the fee we pay for the service comes in higher prices that sellers charge to offset the 2-3% fee on each transaction that they must pay to the banks. There have been attempts to get sellers to charge less for cash sales, but that effort has failed meaning that when you buy something for cash you are providing extra profit for any merchant that takes credit cards. I have long accepted this and use cash wherever possible preferring to have the 2-3% amount go to the seller rather than the banks. Cryptocurrencies could remove the banks as middlemen. Bitcoin works with an underlying system called the blockchain. This system keeps track of every Bitcoin transaction ever made in a ledger maintained by the Bitcoin miners that you have undoubtedly heard about. There are many miners and each one holds a perfect copy of the same back-to-the-beginning ledger that lets each and every user of Bitcoin know how every Bitcoin ever created is distributed. The ledger is public, anyone can examine it to see how the total amount of Bitcoin is distributed among all the holders of "wallets," but every wallet is anonymous with no way of knowing who holds each wallet. There can be no cheating, no creation of money out of thin air as the banks do when issuing loans. If the ledger says a party doesn't have the amount of Bitcoin needed for a transaction then the transaction cannot take place. There is no central authority (the banks) keeping a ledger but a multitude of decentralized parties all with the same ledger that authenticates every payment. There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins and these are created increasing difficulty by design with the final Bitcoin being awarded in 2140. The miners are paid for the work of maintaining the ledger by the award of Bitcoins on a random basis. A great amount of computing power is needed to do the number crunching that qualifies a miner to be in the pool for the next randomly assigned Bitcoin. As of the spring of 2021, Bitcoin mining was using about the same amount of electricity as Argentina. Yes, it is a gold rush with all the frenzy for the next "find" that will not be a lode in the earth but a digital code on the Internet. Don't forget there is no physical Bitcoin. This brief account from what I learned in the book gives an idea of what cryptocurrencies are, but Paul Vigna goes far beyond the technical to tell the reader of the founders, of those who are pushing cryptocurrencies, of the farms run by venture capitalists where coders toil to produce variations and new applications of the concept. He writes of the challenges, of the competing digital currencies, of the infamous failure of Mt. Gox, of the attitude of governments toward this new threat to government control over currency. China has banned it. A major problem that I see with Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency is it must be widely held in order to offer a real challenge to the banks. Before that time comes, if it ever does, a user of Bitcoin that intends to use it in transactions rather than simply holding it must continually be exchanging Bitcoin for dollars (or renminbi or yen, etc.). Because the value of Bitcoin in dollars is wildly fluctuating, this exchange is fraught. I might sell something to you for Bitcoin and find just a month, or even a week later that my Bitcoin is worth a fraction of what it was when we made our transaction. It's true that the dollar also fluctuates in value but by a tiny amount and unless one is dealing with foreign currencies, these small fluctuations don't matter, they are not a threat to value. Bitcoin value must stabilize for the currency to go mainstream and until it goes mainstream it will not stabilize. That makes it wildly speculative for the foreseeable future. This doesn't make it a scam, but it does mean that some people are going to be very rich from speculation. In the end, does the public care to have a replacement for the relatively small cost and great convenience of what the backs offer now? It would be satisfying to see the end of banking billionaires but would the public see any everyday benefit? What of inflation? Bitcoin production is absolutely fixed at 21 million. Would we be back to the situation we had with gold? Unlike in the days of the gold standard, governments could not issue paper money that would cause inflation devaluing that paper. Nor could governments horde Bitcoin as they did gold. If the world were on one cryptocurrency standard there would be nothing to be issued that could devalue it. This is one area that the book doesn't address in providing an otherwise excellent education ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Apr 04, 2021
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Apr 04, 2021
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0679752064
| 9780679752066
| 0679752064
| 3.98
| 1,639
| 2005
| Feb 14, 2006
|
it was amazing
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A novelist writes with the eye of god because he/she is the creator and animator of all the characters in the story. It's impossible for the non-ficti
A novelist writes with the eye of god because he/she is the creator and animator of all the characters in the story. It's impossible for the non-fiction writer to have that eye, but Steve Bogira thanks to his thorough interviews with and observation of all the people involved in a courtroom comes quite close with this fascinating, informative, emotionally moving and at many points funny book. I don't hesitate to award it five stars. Bogira spends over a year examining all that goes on in one courtroom in Cook County, Illinois (Chicago). The central character is the judge, Dan Locallo, who presides over this particular courtroom sitting in authority over literally thousands of cases that come before him. But the judge is only one of a large cast of characters that range from the defendants through the attorneys for the prosecution and defense, the sheriff's deputies, and the family members and friends of the accused. Throughout the book we are tutored on every aspect of the highly flawed judicial system about which most Americans are either ignorant or misinformed by movies and TV dramatizations. The tutorials are short and easily digested, seamlessly placed in the ongoing story. For example, a grand jury sits to determine if charges should be brought against someone. Why do we have grand juries and how do they work? Two or three paragraphs follow to get you up to speed on this feature of our justice system that has been abandoned by almost all other countries. A person cannot make bail. Why do we have bail and how does it work? Bogira masterfully educates as he tells his stories of those paraded before the court. And what of the system as a whole? The bible tells us that god says justice is his alone and after reading this book you may find that perhaps it should be left to Him. Nothing human can be without flaws. Law enforcement is made up of people inescapably subject to the interests, the grudges, the preferences, the prejudices, the emotions that make us human. Who among us doesn't want to advance in a career? Who doesn't get bored? Who fails to follow up on all the details? Who doesn't like or dislike someone on first sight and then act accordingly? As for the truth being discovered in court, the saying is mentioned that there are always three sides to any question...my side, your side and what really happened. Of course the courts have developed to try to minimize all of the human factors I've mentioned but Bogira will leave you wondering if all that work has produced only modest gains. We can all agree that a trial is superior to a king summarily executing or imprisoning someone, but prosecuting and defending attorneys have their agendas. The judges themselves have a desire to dispose of as many cases as possible with the minimum of effort. Trials are highly discouraged. Plea bargaining is always preferred. Just get the case through the system, whether or not the accused is innocent of the crime. Bogira does a wonderful job of building up excitement in the reader. He starts with the routine assembly line processing of the have-nots, almost entirely black, with which the Cook County system is deluged. Move 'em through, get them to plead guilty then give them probation or short time to avoid loading the already over-loaded prison system. Yes, they may demand a trial, but do all you can to discourage that by suggesting a trial will bring a long sentence, then bargain a guaranteed short sentence right now for a guilty plea. This works and cases are closed in mere minutes. Innocent unless proven guilty is forgotten in favor of not stopping the conveyor belt. Bogira proceeds to more complex cases while telling the abbreviated life stories of the many helpless and hopeless people continually passing through the courts as the careers of judges and attorneys advance on the efficiency of the processing. The climax of the book comes with the murder trial of a kid from racist Bridgeport, the home of the mayors Daley, whose mob connected father is able to spend for a full trial complete with a team of defense attorneys, not the public defenders that the poor must rely on. It is this kind of trial, known as a heater for all the public attention it brings that gets juices flowing in judges and attorneys because of the way it brings their performance into the spotlight. We know from movies and TV that trials can be entertaining, but do they establish the truth? I'm always impressed with how a movie can present a person in any light. Make a character a protagonist and the audience leaves with a good feeling about that character. Leni Riefenstahl did wonders with Hitler, though we now know the truth about him. In just this way there is a prosecution movie and a defense movie. The jury decides which movie it likes better. Truth may or may not be involved. As a man I much admired once said, it is a court of law, not of justice. This book says amen to that. It was written twenty years ago and just now (to take effect in 2023) Illinois has finally passed a bill that addresses several of the problems the book exposes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Mar 13, 2021
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Mar 13, 2021
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Paperback
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| 1620975270
| 9781620975275
| 1620975270
| 4.39
| 709
| Oct 29, 2019
| Oct 29, 2019
|
it was amazing
|
Do you believe we have a true justice system in America that conforms to rules laid out in the Constitution and to Supreme Court rulings? If so, you c
Do you believe we have a true justice system in America that conforms to rules laid out in the Constitution and to Supreme Court rulings? If so, you could not be more wrong and this very short book should be on your reading list. There is good news from Illinois. It has become the first state to pass a law that, among several other good provisions, is ending the practice of money bail which has resulted in poor people going to jail because they could not afford to pay the bail amount. This is incarceration before trial, which should be impossible under our system that assumes innocence until guilt is proven, but throughout the states it is common practice. Karakatsanis relates the case of a woman jailed in this way who remained there for three years as the "justice" system took its time analyzing the small quantity of marijuana she had been arrested for carrying. He tells us that several hundred thousand people are in jail every day before they have gone to trial and for the same inability to make bail. Incredibly, there is a Supreme Court ruling that prohibits this, but it is ignored. The author of Usual Cruelty, Alec Karakatsanis, is a lawyer who seeing the title of this book as an inherent part of the court system in the United States, set out to change it by confronting the courts with the glaring contradiction between standard practice and the true justice they claim to provide. His organization, the Civil Rights Corps, has challenged pre-trial incarceration using the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, winning the case in seven southern states and Kansas, setting the stage for what Illinois has just done. The issue is a prosecutorial system the feeds on the bodies of the poor with no restraints while defense for the indigent comes down to underfunded and manpower strapped public defender offices giving their lawyers far too many cases to handle with regard to justice for clients that society finds no trouble ignoring. How bad are things? Consider the following information from the book about the so-called reform in the offices of prosecutors of which Kamala Harris was said to be one. (Italics mine.) "It is remarkable how little these prosecutors have tried to do so far considering that we would need eighty percent reductions in human caging to return to historical U.S . levels and to those of other comparable countries. None of them have reported reducing prosecutions by more than a few percentage points , and most of them have not reported any reductions at all. > None of them are calling for smaller prosecutor offices or fewer police. > None of them are seeking a massive shift in investigative resources away from investigating the crimes of the poor to investigating the crimes of the rich. > None of them have prosecuted a single one of their own employees for withholding evidence or obstruction of justice. > None of them have announced a policy of declining to prosecute all drug possession. > None of them have stopped prosecuting children as adults. > None of them have sought to eliminate fines and fees for the indigent. > None of them have opened a systemic civil rights investigation into the brutality, neglect, and crimes against confined people that are rampant in their local jails. > None of them have set up a truth and reconciliation commission to confront the past racism and barbarism of their offices and local police. > None of them have taken serious steps to transition their approach to a restorative justice model." The author's most telling claim is that there is no proof that what we do in the United States regarding "law enforcement" has positive effects either in reducing crime or preventing recidivism while the conditions in prisons are inhumane and yet not changed. In short, what is being accomplished for the good of society? Prosecutors make the decision on who to go after and from the very top, from President Obama, came the statement upon looking at what was done during the G. W. Bush years by that administration and by the big banks that "we must look forward, not backward." As Karakatsanis remarks, the statement has never been addressed to anyone who has committed a low level crime and it never will be. Our justice system daily tells us by who it goes after that some people will be relentlessly pursued for minor crimes and deprived of their liberty even before trial while others who commit major crimes will not even be questioned, nor will any investigation be started. We have a grotesque income disparity that is matched by a justice disparity and they both run smoothly when looked at by those whose lives are not touched by them. How far this is from liberty and justice for all. Read this book. Get outraged by exposure to the truth. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Mar 02, 2021
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Mar 01, 2021
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1620972255
| 9781620972250
| 1620972255
| 4.11
| 16,587
| Sep 06, 2016
| Sep 06, 2016
|
really liked it
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I was in DC and at Mt. Rushmore not long after 9/11. Armed men with rifles were everywhere. At the Capitol Building they were on the roof and at the w
I was in DC and at Mt. Rushmore not long after 9/11. Armed men with rifles were everywhere. At the Capitol Building they were on the roof and at the wall that we saw people climbing yesterday (Jan 6, 2021). It was disconcerting to me to be walking past these armed men as I went on a tour inside the building. Would anyone at the time have been able to predict that it would not be the kind of terrorists planned for at the time, but Americans who would be storming the building and that it would be the president that would have urged them on? Strangers in Their Own Land is authored by Arlie Hochschild, a professor from UC Berkeley, who went to Louisiana in an attempt to understand the thinking of the people there. She wanted to jump over the cultural divide in an attempt to bring Americans together. A sociologist, she does an excellent job of building trust with those she meets. They open up to her. She gives them full opportunity to express their thoughts and even constructs what she thinks (and they agree) is a good analogy to their situation, that of people standing in line while seeing others jump in ahead of them. By chance the book was completed just after Trump had taken office, over which she found the Louisianans she had lived during the writing of the book ecstatic. While she tries to see the viewpoints of those with whom she disagrees, what she finds, though she does not say this, is psychopathology, one of people squarely in an environment that contradicts their views but holding to those views regardless. The people are living amid toxic waste producing industries seeing family members coming down with cancer all around, seeing jobs leave as the factories become automated and in the face of it calling for less regulation of business while cheering on the 1% as capitalist success stories that they might join if only the opportunities were available. At the time they had Bobby Jindal as governor cutting taxes for business at the same time offering public money to lure more businesses in. Cuts in social programs were happening apace. The guiding principle and it deserves to be in all caps is RESENTMENT. The fantasy persists of black welfare mothers having the easy life on the dole though everyone has either taken welfare payments or has family members who do. As the petrochemical industry destroys Louisiana’s wetlands and causes “Cancer Alley” along the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the people say that the companies couldn’t have foreseen this and are taking the blame. Everyone makes mistakes, so we can’t blame them because surely the companies didn’t want spills or explosions, or often both at once, to happen. When you have reality right before your eyes creating a host of problems yet you refuse to indict the parties directly responsible at the same time opposing regulation and insist on imaginative enemies (the government and minorities) with whom you have no contact being out to destroy you and your family and your way of life…what could be better evidence of insanity? It is an insanity that is sustained by a group of people who share it and reinforce each other in it while most important a media giant feeds it daily for profit. I would add Fox News to the industries that prey on the people we meet in this book. These Louisianans hate the idea of victimhood and like to point out how many groups are claiming it: women, blacks, gays. Yet those doing the denouncing are indisputably victims who excuse and support those who make them so! This book is Trumpism on full display and it is something that only enlightenment, a change of mindset, can overcome. I wish I could see how people who are so defiantly blind, who appear to lack introspection, can be helped to see. For all her empathy, the author had no real impact though she made many friends. Like most people, Louisianans enjoy socializing and value family. While they despise conjured enemies, they are warm and open to people they encounter in person. This makes their situation so much more a tragedy. They have created an other which contains no element of themselves. Hochschild groups those she finds into three categories, the Cowboys, the Loyalists and the Worshipers. The Cowboys take an "I can take it, I'm strong" view. The Loyalists say "the company gives me a job and I'll do my best and be grateful." The Worshipers say that god will provide and salvation will come with The Rapture. None of these attitudes shows any willingness to rise up and protest the causes of the malaise that afflicts them all. Instead anger is impotently directed at enemies beyond reach, oppressors of the imagination. Maybe the assault on the Capitol will shock some into recognition of their Trumpism, but I doubt it. It runs broad and deep and is almost entirely emotional and thoughtless. Self-righteousness has found itself a prince. This book will acquaint you with the mindset that so strangely sustains people for whom all else is being or has already been lost right down to their homes, their health and the natural world where they live that has been degraded right before their eyes. They willingly tell of the loss of clean water, of animals and friends after the arrival of corporate neighbors they rush to defend. The book contains an appendix that covers each of the suppositions held by the people we meet in the book followed by facts that debunk every one of those suppositions. For all of these people I wish in a non-religious sense what is expressed by a song I'd bet they all know... Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind, but now I see ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 08, 2021
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Jan 08, 2021
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| 4.15
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really liked it
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Jan 09, 2023
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Jan 09, 2023
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| 4.09
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it was amazing
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Nov 07, 2022
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Nov 07, 2022
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| 3.44
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liked it
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Oct 10, 2022
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Oct 10, 2022
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| 3.96
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it was amazing
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Oct 06, 2022
not set
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Oct 06, 2022
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| 3.95
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it was amazing
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May 16, 2022
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May 16, 2022
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| 3.86
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really liked it
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May 03, 2022
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May 03, 2022
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| 4.29
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it was amazing
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Apr 03, 2022
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Apr 03, 2022
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| 3.51
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it was amazing
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Mar 19, 2022
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Mar 19, 2022
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| 3.73
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it was amazing
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Jan 2022
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Jan 10, 2022
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| 3.75
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it was amazing
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Nov 21, 2021
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Nov 21, 2021
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| 4.14
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it was amazing
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Nov 09, 2021
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Nov 09, 2021
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| 3.76
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really liked it
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not set
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Sep 04, 2021
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| 3.41
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liked it
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Aug 29, 2021
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Aug 29, 2021
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| 3.92
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it was amazing
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Aug 04, 2021
not set
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Aug 04, 2021
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| 4.61
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really liked it
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Jun 14, 2021
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Jun 14, 2021
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| 4.17
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it was amazing
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May 11, 2021
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May 11, 2021
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| 3.84
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it was amazing
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Apr 04, 2021
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Apr 04, 2021
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| 3.98
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it was amazing
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Mar 13, 2021
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Mar 13, 2021
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| 4.39
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it was amazing
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Mar 02, 2021
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Mar 01, 2021
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| 4.11
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really liked it
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Jan 08, 2021
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Jan 08, 2021
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