What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Benjamin Frank]

I just finished reading Sylvia Nasar's "Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius."

[Benjamin Frank]

The Pelican Economic History of Britain Volume Two: 1530-1780: Reformation to Industrial Revolution by Christopher Hill

https://www.amazon.ca/Economic-History-Britain-Reformation-Industrial/dp/0140208976

[Benjamin Frank]

George Bernard Shaw, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism

[Benjamin Frank]

Still reading A Road to Serfdom

You like nonsensical fiction I see.

[Benjamin Frank]

Murdered by Milkshake:  An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer

I've been trying to finish Thinking, Fast and Slow which I had read about half of before misplacing it (it should be required reading in high school) but my eyes are struggling to read the small type now. 

[Benjamin Frank]

Finished both Archer short story collections last evening. I also read the chapter on the military from Conrad's book but have now put it away for the time being. Currently, I'm reading God's Own Party by Daniel K. Williams - I've been wanting to for a bit - and am in Chapter 1. Quite interesting so far. I didn't actually know this, but Jerry Falwell was apparently pro-segregation. After this I intend to read one more Archer collection (The Short, The Long and the Tall), as well as Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon.

Have read the first two chapters of God's Own Party.

Very interesting. Basically, Christian conservatives who were prior alienated from politics used anticommunism as their bridge to mainstream America (which was, of course, very anticommunist and borderline paranoid about communism, in the 1950s). They tied Christianity to capitalism and linked atheism to communism. Billy Graham was able to perfect this art to the point that he had Eisenhower's ear while he was president. However, as Chapter 2 demonstrates, southern fundamentalists (such as Jerry Falwell) were still more alienated from the rest of the country than southern baptists and northern evangelicals, because while northern evangelicals and southern baptists were cautiously pro-civil-rights, southern fundamentalists were (surprise, surprise) ardently segregationist (including Jerry Falwell). Graham was pro-civil rights, which obviously didn't hurt his relationship with Eisenhower and the mainstream public (and politicians), but one of the reasons was that the USSR was able to attack the US over being segregated, and Graham thought it was best to gradually and carefully liberalize on the issue. Southern fundamentalists were highly segregationist and somehow connected integration with big government, the New Deal, socialism, communism, etcetra. This kept them at arm's length from mainstream America and non-segregationist politicians. It really is surprising to read a book where 'evangelical' is considered moderate (though it's not too surprising, either, given the comparison is to pro-segregation 'fundamentalists'). Will be reading Chapter 3 next, about 'God and Country During the Kennedy Presidency'. Should be an interesting read.

Eisenhower had the same view as Graham: Eisenhower was pro Civil Rights, but he was anti Civil Rights legislation.

Eisenhower was very unhappy with the Supreme Court decision on desegregation in Little Rock schools and mused privately, and I believe at least occasionally publicly, how 'Southern whites' were misunderstood and deserved as much sympathy as Southern blacks.

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/why-dont-we-ike-civil-rights-msna329796


I presume chapter 3 of the book is at least partly if not largely about right wing radio talk show host preacher Carl McIntyre (and the Polish ham boycott!)  This is an, it seems, largely forgotten part of American history wherein President Kennedy used some fairly underhanded means to shut down (cancel/censor) right wing talk radio.

https://www.cato.org/policy-report/march/april-2020/how-jfk-censored-right-wing-radio

[Benjamin Frank]

Revolution in History edited by Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich.

By 'history' the book is referring to the study of history.

https://www.amazon.ca/Revolution-History-Roy-Porter/dp/0521277841

[Benjamin Frank]

Now reading the chapter 'The Coming Revolt of the Guards' in Zinn's book. It is very, very well written and I strongly recommend reading it. The chapter vividly reveals how the top 1% have maintained their grip on power and money through dividing the 99% in crafty and artful ways (one instance: the rich themselves evade taxes through loopholes and other forms, but they have the middle class largely help the poor - thus pitting the middle and lower classes against each other, and leaving the real culprits - the ultra-rich - scot free), and by 'uniting' them all by diverting their attention onto imaginary foreign 'enemies' and around patriotic slogans and fervour. These people have divided the 99% such that said 99% are unable to see their common enemy - the top 1% - and instead focus on each other (the poor, racial minorities, women, immigrants, criminals that are a symptom of the way the government has failed the common people) or imaginary forces. Zinn discusses how a national mindset that we need national leaders to rescue/save us (FDR during the Great Depression, Lincoln during the Civil War, etcetera) has been cultivated (Zinn also talks about how mainstream textbooks tend to be excessively deferential to the establishment and to government/state, and too dismissive of revolution, and how his book is a counterforce of sorts inthat it takes the opposite side), but how occasionally people break through that mindset and rebel against a System and an Establishment that exploits them in favour of the 1%. He points to examples of revolt and protest such as the 1960s - but how, inevitably, such protests fade away as our attentions are diverted to other things. He demonstrates how the government has tactically given people just enough for enough of them to be satisfied, and few enough to  be vocally unsatisfied, to keep the government going, and to keep the top 1% as the ruling class.

Another book in this vein, if you're not familiar with it, is 'A History of the Modern World' originally written by Robert Roswell Palmer.  It's been revised a number of times but I have one of the earlier editions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_the_Modern_World

By 'modern world' the author meant fom approximately 1500. The author uses neutral language throughout but takes sides on some issue (I think ending colonization when he finally says something like 'if awareness of history doesn't radicalize you, nothing will.')

The book radicalized me more than I ever thought it could and it's informed my position on how the modern Republican Party, owned by the genuine elite wealthy and the owners of the mega churches, are indeed a modern neoFeudalist and fascist party.

Although it seems these elites in the place of the original Feudalism, Europe, have accepted democracy, it's very clear that the genuine elites in the United States have not. I think this is mostly over their unwillingness to pay taxes in general, and specifically to maintain the 'welfare state' but I think, as I've written before on this board many times, that their opposition stems from the original dual founding myths of the United States: rugged individualism and the Calvinist prosperity gospel, which, in both cases, make 'greed is good' into some kind of moral cause.

[Benjamin Frank]

Finished The Kill Order. In its place I intend to read (at least a couple of chapters of) A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.

I earlier read the chapter, 'The Clinton Presidency', the second last chapter in the book. Right now, I decided to begin by rereading it. It is the sort of text that really reinforces and drives home what Klobmentum says - that the Democrats weren't and aren't really that liberal at all, particularly Bill Clinton. The author's ideology appears to be similar to that of Klobmentum and especially Big Abraham. But the points are very well articulated. Reread half the chapter, and the gist of it is that Clinton was a conciliatory moderate who caved into Republicans on most issues, despite public opinion to the contrary. His 'welfare reform' was basically throwing everyone on welfare under the bus, including the many who genuinely require it. He cut necessary programs helping the poor, the young, the old, the sick and the needy, but, to appease the rich and the defence industry, he neither increased taxes on the rich, nor decreased the military budget or tried to tackle the growing military industrial complex. Under his watch, the United States sponsored and sold weapons to groups and governments with terrible human rights records, for the sake of $$$ and profit. His foreign policy was messed up and the US government committed, or allowed, the murder of many in places like Iraq and Somalia, crises unreported, leading to more agitation and anti-American sentiments in those places. And all that is really the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot of shocking information just in this one chapter, and if reading that Bernie Sanders book moved me to the left so much, I can hardly even imagine what reading a few select chapters of this book will do in moving me politically.

President Clinton did raise taxes on the rich, at least those who pay income taxes, which is actually quite a lot of them (or was at that time.) The top rate was increased from 36% to 39.6%

[Benjamin Frank]

Just read the book Divided Loyalties: the Liberal Party of Canada from 1984-2008 by Brooke Jeffrey. I'm going to post my book review right now.

[Benjamin Frank]

Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. Recommend it.

[Benjamin Frank]

Started reading Freakonomics again, mostly to reply to the podcast If Books Could Kill.

What got me about the 10 minutes of their podcast on Freakonomics that I've listened to so far was that they claimed to be against 'airplane books' that are meant to seem academic and smart but that really just promote lazy thinking or anti intellectualism, but in the 10 minutes, they did nothing but make sophomoric comments and referred to the book as 'neoliberal' which could not be more lazy in thinking or anti intellectual.