Preamble: --This brings back fond memories of the beginnings of my self-learning, when I would meet uUS Military insider: in the belly of the beast...
Preamble: --This brings back fond memories of the beginnings of my self-learning, when I would meet up with some friends for “documentary nights” to explore what we were not taught in school/work/news, in particular “foreign policy” and “the economy”. After all, my generation grew up during the “War on Terror” and started our professional careers during the 2008 Financial Crisis. --We soon stopped watching documentaries (often too diluted and sensationalized, ex. Adam Curtis) and relied on denser lectures/interviews. I stumbled across such videos by “The Real News Network” where Paul Jay was the anchor at the time (he has since left to start TheAnalysis.News), introducing me to many of my favourite thinkers through his interviews including: i) Vijay Prashad (The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World): by far the most helpful for learning about geopolitics not merely from a Western perspective (ex. “foreign policy”; “Middle East”), but from Global South perspectives. ii) Daniel Ellsberg (The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner): legend whistleblower (“Pentagon Papers” during the war on Vietnam), lesser known for his crucial insights on the continued threat of nuclear weapons proliferation from US aggression (as Chomsky also emphasizes: Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe), made even worse given the lack of public awareness since the end of the Cold War. iii) Jane F. McAlevey (No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age).
Highlights: --This book is a compilation of interviews with another frequent guest, Lawrence Wilkerson, retired US Army Colonel and former Chief of Staff to the US Secretary of State Colin Powell (Bush Jr. administration, including Powell’s speech to the UN claiming Iraq had WMD’s). So, a real insider and “serious person” from the US military industrial complex. …There’s little point in breaking this review into “The Good” and “The Bad” because they are often one-and-the-same; Wilkerson’s problematic status quo baggage is exactly what makes him a useful resource to engage with. Wilkerson can more easily get in the minds and hearts of the US ruling elite/intelligentsia, which most activists (being outsiders) can only speculate on:
i) Life-long Republican, believing the party stands for individualism/meritocracy, with Eisenhower placed on a pedestal representing “Enlightened internationalism”. ii) Sees the US military as an institution with the US’s best racial integration, and meritocratic. iii) Believed in the War on Vietnam from the framing of Cold War anti-communism. Voted for Reagan twice. And of course, was in the Bush Jr. administration. Still seems to see Jeb Bush as a reasonable option. Calls himself a “slow learner”; obviously the US Exceptionalism baggage is heavy here; see: -Chomsky’s Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies and Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance -Zinn’s A People's History of the United States -American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News―From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror -Retired US Army Major Danny Sjursen’sA True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism iv) Given the US Exceptionalism baggage, contrasts “federal democratic republic” vs. “national security state” (going through a structural decline of empire and turning to a fascination with war). v) Contrasts enlightened capitalism vs. decaying to become “predatory capitalism”/“the kind of capitalism that runs amok”.
…see comments below for rest of the review......more
Loading...
