reed writes

For reasons which are beyond my control, but which have to do with my long-standing respect for democracy and the responsibility we citizens have for ensuring its continued health and viability, I will not be posting any political messages on this blog until October 15th.

Instead, RW will post a daily quote and/or anecdote from recent history.

Most of the quotes you will see over the next days will be from a book I recommend. It’s by Nicholson Baker and it’s called "Human Smoke".

Thank you for your indulgence.

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Quote of the Day…from Human Smoke, by Nicholson Baker

It was 1914.

"The British Blockade," Churchill later wrote, "treated the whole of Germany as if it were a beleaguered fortress and avowedly sought to starve the whole population — men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound — into submission."

Russia, the U.S. Britain…these are the real terrorist states, enabled by their handmaidens in Canada and Europe.

The best book I have ever read on the background and terrorist history of these western countries plus Russia, is by Noam Chomsky – the linguistics professor from M.I.T. It’s called simply, "Noam Chomsky, 9-11" and consists of his answers to a series of questions about potential reaction to the terrorist acts of bin Laden’s criminal gang in 2001.

Chomsky’s answers are prescient and absolutely right on the mark. They were made in 2001, following the attacks in New York and Washington. And that makes them all the more remarkable.

Interestingly, the good professor spells out precisely what would happen – what actions the U.S. would likely take – and what would be the consequences. It’s not a very big book but it is certainly chock full of relevant information and deeply informed opinion.

My view on Russia

(As far as Russia and its behaviour in Chechnya and Georgia are concerned… merely a carbon copy of America with a slavic face.)

In any event, I am recommending this book very highly.

I ought to have mentioned in my post of june 17th, that I had just finished reading a remarkable book – The Jesus Sayings: The Quest for His Authentic Message – by Rex Weyler and the posting simply flowed out. By the time I had reached the half way point in the book I knew that I wanted to review it.

It’s more than just an inspiring book, it’s one that opens doors for the reader and offers insights into our history that are refreshing and candid.

Weyler comes out of a deeply Christian upbringing, childhood, youth, young adulthood and became a student of how the Bible and particularly the Jesus part of the New Testament came into being.

The book raises intriguing questions about the humanity of Jesus and traces the fragmentation of the "Jesus Movement" following his death.

It raises important questions about the motives of Christian leaders, officials and instutions in altering and even abandoning the fundamental Jesus message.

"The Jesus Sayings" is not just a book about Jesus. It’s not just a book about Christianity or even religion…it’s a book about us. About where we have been, where we are now and where we might go if we can just get our act together.

You can read other comments on this book here.

It’s a great book.

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A more complete biography can be found at wikipedia.

Bill Moyers has written about the crisis in American democracy in his latest book, "Moyers On Democracy".

He says, "I have been lucky enough to spend my adult life as a journalist, acquiring a priceless education in the ways of the world, actually getting paid to practice one of my craft’s essential imperatives: connect the dots".

He points out that an essential quality of democracy is equality for all. Then he quotes Edward R. Murrow, "No one can eliminate prejudices — just recognize them."

But Moyers, like Murrow before him, is part of a social elite, privileged to observe, criticize and recommend. He imagines himself to be in touch with the average person, but how can he be? He sits in the comfortable anchor chair of the American Public Television Network, P.B.S.

He says, "Extremes of wealth and poverty cannot be reconciled with a genuinely democratic politics". And yet, like Murrow, he has lived all of his professional life in the upper third of rich America.

What Moyers fails to grasp in his yearning for the idealism he imagines in America’s past, is that democracy can be shattered by the very people who claim so eloquently, to defend it. For example, Moyers quotes Abraham Lincoln at length as the great democrat.. And yet it was Lincoln who assisted in the destruction of democracy in America, by leading the country into a civil war. That act had the effect of creating a brand new class of corrupt Americans, who grew rich on the arms trade and subsequently came to dominate American society in most spheres of business. War taught America how to  amass great fortunes.

Instead of following a genuinely democratic path and permitting the unhappy southerners to secede – perhaps by means of a plebiscite or referendum, Lincoln chose violence…the most undemocratic of all choices.

War never solves problems; it only creates more. When a majority of southern Americans wanted to secede from the union, Lincoln as President, ought to have let them go. He could then have used peaceful means to change their minds. He could have encourage those held in slavery to seek refuge in the North.  Instead, he chose to do violence by declaring war on the secessionists . 

The American Civil War was a pivotal point in U.S. history. It gave rise to the belief that the solution to human problems might lie in waging war.

He eulogises Roosevelt as the herald of a "progressive era". When in fact, Roosevelt was a racist who declared to his friend Henry Stimson, "This is a protestant country.Catholics and Jews are here on sufferance".

Mr. Moyers is a decent man and a good journalist. He was a loyal servant of government as spokesman for Lyndon Johnson.

But in this book,  he gives us an over-idealized view of the history of democracy in America. 

Benny Morris, a professor at Ben Gurion University, is an Israeli historian and scholar. This month will mark the sixtieth anniversary of the creation of the Israeli state and Morris marks it with a new book called 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War That was the year of Israel’s birth.

It’s a definitive and heavily documented account of the circumstances around Israel’s "War of Independence", something that Palestinians refer to as "Al Nakba" or "The Catastrophe".

The book is a detailed look at a historic event that has been mythologised by those who wish that Israel had been born only in purity and beauty. The hard facts are that the country was born out of a bitter and cruel war, which Morris strongly implies accounts for the continuing violent resistance by Palestinian Arabs 60 years on.

Morris documents massacres of defenceless or lightly-armed Arabs and pulls no punches when it comes to demolishing the myth that  European Jews had come to "a land without people for a people without land". Following the defeat of the Arabs, there was a truce, during which Israeli soldiers carried out what was euphemistically called Operation Cleaning. On one occasion, an Israeli patrol discovered that a large group of Arabs had returned home to their village, to tend their animals and harvest their crops. The soldiers killed the Arab civilians and burned their homes. In all, approximately 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes or were forcibly expelled during and after the fighting. Most of them – their children and grand-children remain refugees today.

Professor Morris is not optimistic about the future. Near the close of the book he says this: “Whether 1948 was a passing fancy or has permanently etched the region remains to be seen”.

It’s clear from the book however, that the war, which resulted in the formation of a European-style state in The Middle East is not over yet. The echoes can be heard in every Muslim State in the region. As Aaron Miller, a former senior U.S. government official puts it…”In a hopelessly divided and largely dysfunctional Arab world, no single issue still resonates everywhere more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book is the fact that it was written by an Israeli, proving one thing beyond any doubt: authors, critics, politicians and scholars in Israel can be far more blunt, realistic and critical than their counterparts on the outside.

I give this book Five Stars.

Other writings by Professor Morris

The Road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews

Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949

There are some bargains in this list of books by Proffesor Morris