SOCIETY – REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

Decisions We Make

Our decisions, when faced with good and bad events, make us who we are in life.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Midnight Library (A Novel)

Author: Matt Haig

Narration by: Carey Muligan

Matt Haig (Author, English journalist.)

Looking back at one’s life one wonders what our lives may have been if we chose differently. “The Midnight Library” cleverly explores that idea with a character named Nora. Nora decides to commit suicide by overdosing. With the effect of whatever drugs Nora has chosen, she enters a state between life and death. The reader/listener and Nora enter a surreal library filled with books about Nora’s many lives. It is called “The Midnight Library”. It is a library of books about an infinity of lives that Nora has lived and different decisions she has made when faced with good and bad events in her life.

The decisions we make as we grow older change our lives in an infinite number of ways. Every book in “The Midnight Library” is based on different lives Nora has lived. Her age and experience in each book differ based on decisions she has made during each life she has lived. Her decisions and their consequences are recorded in the books of her “…Midnight Library”.

Nora enters an in-between world managed by a librarian named Mrs. Elm. Elm is a guide or gatekeeper of Nora’s many lives based on decisions she has made in each singular life. Mrs. Elm is a re-creation of Nora’s school librarian who had given her attention, advice, and care as a schoolgirl. Mrs. Elm becomes Nora’s guide in “The Midnight Library”. The library is filled with books of an infinite number of Nora’s lives based on different personal decisions she has made in her nuclear family, i.e., in each library book, Nora is a daughter with the same mother, father, and brother.

History of one person’s life with many different outcomes.

One’s life experience has consequences.

Mrs. Elm appears to be the embodiment of Nora’s will to live and would undoubtedly disappear if Nora dies from her attempt at suicide. It seems Elm is trying to show Nora life’ opportunities are infinite based on the smallest and biggest decisions she makes in her life. Of course, this is meant to suggest a truth about all lives. However, one wonders how human beings can know their future based on decisions they have made in their life. Knowing that one will either regret, despair, or benefit from big and small decisions seems dependent on too many variables for our intelligence or nature to know or predict.

The author argues every decision we make has a consequence in our lives.

A midnight library illustrates the value of knowing the results of our decisions in life, but it tells little about the cumulative impact of regrets that accompany those decisions. Making decisions in life may end with regret because of unexpected consequences to ourselves or those close to us. The result of decisions we make in our lives unfold slowly. In that unfolding, we change our minds, we adapt to new circumstances that were unforeseen. There are too many things that happen in the course of one’s life to assure any end result we seek. Perfect understanding of the consequences of decisions we make is impossible to know. What Haig infers is that life and living are imperfect, often filled with pain, and unanticipated consequences. It is how we deal with good and bad events in our life that make us who we become.

Nora risks her life to enter “The Midnight Library”. The consequence of overdose can be incapacity, brain damage, or death.

One continues to listen to Haig’s story and wonders if Nora survives her overdose. One may think this is a novel about a “many worlds” hypothesis created by Hugh Everett III in 1957, but it is not a story about alternative universes. It is a story about human beings on earth with a point of view about human decision making and its consequence in our lives. One comes away from “The Midnight Library” knowing no life is perfect. Just being alive and learning how to cope with what is good and bad in life is all that counts.

All humans make decisions based on incomplete information. Our ability to cope, our curiosity, and participation in life keeps us connected with society. Haig implies being connected to our humanity is the best we can do as human beings. Our decisions, when faced with good and bad events, make us who we are in life.

A CONSCIOUS WORLD

Van Pelt shows human connection comes from unexpected places. Her story shows what it means to belong to a family and how truth, as painful as it may be, is something one must accept and move on. One can imagine the book being read to or by all generations.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Remarkably Bright Creatures (A Novel)

Author: Shelby Van Pelt

Narration by: Marin Ireland, Michael Urie

Shelby Van Pelt (Author, debut novel for American author who was raised in the Pacific NW but now lives in the Chicago area with her husband and children.)

Van Pelt’s first book is an entertaining novel about every generation of conscious living things in the world. The main characters are Tova Sullivan, Cameron Cassmore (both of which are humans), and Marcellus who is an octopus living in an aquarium. One can imagine reader/listeners from children to adults being entertained by the author’s view of sentient life.

Van Pelt’s story is about every generation of life.

Tova is a 70-year-old widow who works as a cleaner for an aquarium in which Marcellus, the octopus, lives. Tova has lost her husband and son but chooses to work at an aquarium until she has a tripping accident that makes her realize it is time to retire. Tova learns of Marcellus’s consciousness when the octopus reaches out to grasp her arm. He leaves suction marks on her arm but does no harm.

Cameron Cassmore is 30, mostly unemployed and a directionless adult looking for a father he has never known. He is abandoned by his mother at age 9 to an aunt that looks after him and wonders about a father he knows nothing about. He finds his mother’s high school yearbook to find a picture that suggests his mother dated a boy that might be his father. The boy who might be his father had become a well-known and successful developer in the state of Washington, so he decides to track him down.

A story about life and living.

A reader/listener gets drawn into the story because of Marcellus, the octopus, that happens to be in the Washington town Cameron travels to in search of his father. Cameron is characterized as a person with high intelligence and a photographic memory. He needs a job when he arrives in Washington because his effort to find his father is taking more time than expected. He contacts his alleged father’s corporation, but contact is delayed by the corporation’s slow response to his request for a meeting. The reason for the delay is unclear but eventually they meet.

Octopus aquarium.

The job Cameron finds in the meantime is at the Washington aquarium while Tovah is recovering from an injury to her ankle that keeps her from her job as a custodian. Cameron is introduced to Marcellus who preternaturally knows about a secret about Tovah’s relationship to Cameron. Tovah is Cameron’s grandmother.

The story retains its interest because of the characterization of Marcellus and the fate of Cameron and his grandmother, but its complexity is a bit tiresome. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” is a story that suggests all life in the animal kingdom has consciousness that is underestimated by human beings.

FAMILY.

Gender Inequality

Raising children is the responsibility of all, i.e., both mothers and fathers, and the society in which they live. The future depends on our children.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Lessons in Chemistry (A Novel)

Author: Bonnie Garmus

Narration by: Miranda Raison & 2 more

Bonnie Garmus (American author and former copywriter.)

Bonnie Garmus’s main character represents the truth of gender inequality in society. The author’s main character, Elisabeth Zott, is an example of a woman who achieves success despite gender discrimination. As an idealized character, Zott represents a brilliant woman who is smarter, more self-motivated, and confident than any other character in “Lessons in Chemistry”. Zott is a self-educated woman who overcomes the ignorance of personal and social inequality. She is an aspiring scientist who is derailed in her career by male associates who steal her research and claim it as their own. It is presumed by the research firm for which she works that her science papers come from association with her male partner’s accomplishments rather than her own work. Zott’s value is believed to be her attractive appearance rather than her intellect, personal work, and ambition.

Equal opportunity in society is a fiction.

Zott’s male partner is a renowned scientist in the same scientific research firm for which Zott is employed. They become an intimate couple with marriage on the mind of the man, but independence insisted upon by Zott. Her companion dies in an accident and Zott is left with what is an unexpected pregnancy. Alone with a child, Zott presumes she will continue to work at the research firm but is fired by the male director of the enterprise because of her having a baby out of wedlock. Zott uses what financial savings she has to create a research lab in her house, raise her child, and find another source of employment. The author illustrates how motherhood, particularly for a single woman, limit women’s opportunity in society. The responsibilities of life for a woman with child and no partner often trap women in poverty.

How Zott escapes a life of poverty is a meaningful fairy tale in Garmus’s story.

Zott is hired by a TV production manager to host a cooking show. Zott’s intelligence and experience as a chemist combine with her drive for independence to make the show a success. What Bonnie Garmus shows is the mountain for success one climbs as a single woman is steeper and more difficult than it is for men. The “Lessons in Chemistry” are that a woman’s right to think, work, and live independently are denied because equal opportunity and equal pay is thwarted by gender-related discrimination.

All in society, both male and female, need to step up to their responsibility for raising children.

The “Lessons in Chemistry” suggest men need to step up in society and take responsibility for gender inequality by providing an environment that allows women to achieve the same level of success as men–whatever that success may be to the individual. Raising children is the responsibility of all, i.e., both mothers and fathers, and the society in which they live. The future depends on our children.

VERIFIABLE TRUTH

Schweizer presents a book that has little substantiated proof about immigration in America. His book has become popular. “The Invisible Coup” has improved his economic well-being at the expense of knowledge based on verifiable fact.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Invisible Coup (How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon)

Author: Peter Schweizer

Narration by: Charles Constant

Peter Franz Schweizer (American political consultant and writer. Editor-at-large for far-right media organization Breitbart News. Former fellow of the Hoover Institution.)

“The Invisible Coup” is a popular book that explains why world peace is a pipe dream in today’s world. Schweizer shows why Donald Trump has a popular following that continues to support his Presidency despite ICE tactics to identify immigrants based on the color of their skin, and his attack on Iran without authorization from Congress or cooperation from America’s allies.

Schweizer has written a paranoid polemic on the causes and purpose of immigration to the United States by non-white immigrants.

Schweizer argues immigration is a coordinated “weapon” of foreign governments and American power brokers to influence and ultimately overthrow America’s way of life. He refuses to note people come to America to create a better life for themselves and their families. This is not to suggest there is no effort by immigrants to sneak into the U.S. or to game the American welfare system but to realize abuse of welfare is a problem whether American citizens or immigrants abuse the system. This is an American welfare management problem, not an immigrant issue.

America is founded on immigration.

Schweizer argues immigrants from China, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil are gaming America’s welfare system and undermining the national purpose of a democratic government at the direction of foreign government leaders. He suggests the purpose of these foreign government’s leaders is to weaken the national character of America and destabilize its government. Schweizer writes of anonymous U.S. intelligence officials that say China encourages Chinese nationals with military intelligence to cross into America to gather intelligence. He offers no documentary evidence, no named officials, or verifiable data. He cites anonymous sources for all these countries to make his arguments totally unverifiable

Immigrants are seeking a better life in America.

To believe there is a coordinated foreign attack on American democracy by foreign governments through the use of illegal immigration is a distortion of a primary truth, i.e., immigrants are seeking a better life. Conspiracy to destroy American democracy through illegal immigration is absurd on its face. This is not to say some foreign governments would like to see America fail but for reasons of money, power, and world domination which have nothing to do with emigration. Schweizer generalizes real incidents of immigrant criminals to make the absurd argument that a cabal of foreign governments are using illegal immigration to undermine American institutions. His arguments are based on confidential documents and unnamed sources. He writes of “leaked intelligence” or “internal government documents” that are classified and cannot be produced to prove his point. Anonymous intelligence and law-enforcement officials are frequently used to substantiate his claims. Schweizer makes evidence-free assertions with political points that have no basis in verifiable fact.

Immigrant crime rates.

The history of immigration in America has improved economic growth. America is a nation of immigrants. The truth is immigrants commit crime at lower rates than native-born Americans. There is no denying the U.S. immigration system is flawed. Cartels do exploit illegal immigration to make money and some governments pressure America by increasing migration from their countries to the United States. Immigration is a regulatory problem but viewing it as foreign nation-states’ geopolitical attack is ridiculous on its face. The troubling part of Schweizer’s view is that world peace is an ideal that may never be achieved because of the nature of human beings. Mistakes are made when people correlate undocumented facts with causes. Truth has little value without independent verification of facts.

CURING DISEASE

Green questions the profit motive of drug companies that ignore the benefits of drugs that poor societies cannot afford that would cure tuberculosis. At the same time, Green implies the political will of all nations fail to provide known curative drugs for tuberculosis.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Everything is Tuberculosis (The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection)

Author: John Green

Narration by: John Green

John Green (Author, YouTuber, and philanthropist.)

“Everything is Tuberculosis” is an apt title for John Green’s book but unlikely to attract many listener/readers. However, those who have read John Green’s books are attracted to his story because of the humor and insight he offers to living life. Green offers an interesting human perspective about a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year and is both preventable and curable. Recognizing this critic’s own biases, “Everything is Tuberculosis” is a belief that there are only two important issues for human species’ survival, i.e., world peace and personal health. “Everything is Tuberculosis” deals with the principal of health while others write about world peace.

Tuberculosis transmission.

Peace is only indirectly addressed in “Everything is Tuberculosis” while health is the primary focus of Green’s book. Today, approximately 1.23 million people die from tuberculosis every year. Surprisingly, it remains the deadliest curable infectious disease in the world. An estimated 10.7 million people are presently diagnosed with tuberculosis. This high infection rate is for a disease that is curable and preventable. Green explains in countries with high rates of poverty, undernutrition, overcrowding, high HIV infections, and poor medical services tuberculosis becomes a greater killer of human beings than any other infectious disease.

The fear and anxiety of Covid mimics the fear of tuberculosis.

Green personalizes his story by being its main character. He writes in the first person and uses his personal anxiety driven thoughts to explain tuberculosis’ illness and vulnerability. As a child, Green recalls his own illnesses and anxieties that required hospitalization. He contrasts his life of economic security with the lives of many people in the world that have little to no economic security. He views tuberculosis, not as a scientist or patient, but as an observer of poverty in Sierra Leone and the personal life of a young boy with the disease.

The cost of medication.

The young boy’s recovery experience is on-again/off-again, in part because of his father’s skepticism about the effectiveness of drugs and his belief in God, but also because of a failure of experimental drug treatments from other tuberculosis patients that die. There is a happy ending when a new drug cure is found and started; the boy recovers, resulting in eradication of the infection. He finishes high school and goes on to college. Other stories of the disease in Sierra Leone show distances patients have to travel, the cost of treatments, and different economically challenged families who are discouraged by continued treatment. Those patients that do not continue the medical treatment often see regrowth of the Tuberculosis bacteria which ends their sons, daughters, fathers, or mother’s lives.

Green’s point is that human beings are dying from tuberculosis, a curable disease that kills; not because it is often fatal, but because of a human-systems’ failure.

TB deaths are a predictable outcome of poverty, undernutrition, overcrowding, political neglect, and global indifference. Green gets at the heart of the problem of societal indifference. The indifference is both political and economic. The political indifference comes from every government that is only concerned about their country’s health and welfare. The economic difference is similar but more pronounced in capitalist countries that focus on profit more than societal benefit. Political difference is in nation-state’ leadership whether countries are democratic or other.

WORLD INIQUITY

One comes away from Trevor Reed’s book with the feeling he tilted at Don Quixote’s windmill. One’s heart goes out to Ukraine and their fight against an implacable Russian President who tilts at a different windmill.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Retribution (A US Marine’s Fight for Justice, from the Russian Gulag to Ukraine’s Front Lines

Author: Trevor Reed, Jim DeFelice

Narration by: Roger Wayne, Joey Reed

Trevor Reed (on the left) is the subject of Retribution. It is co-written with the novelist Jim DeFelice (on the right).

U.S. Marine infantry.

Trevor Reed is a former Marine infantry soldier who was imprisoned for being drunk and disorderly in Russia. He became a victim of Russia’s hostage exchange system. The story of his young life and how he became a marine and a Ukrainian combatant against Russia is explained in “Retribution”. As a strong-willed youth who challenged parental control, he became an athletic wrestling champion in high school. His disciplined physical work ethic made him a 145 lb. highly self-confident young man who decided (contrary to his father’s council as an ex-marine) to enlist in the marine infantry.

The risk of travel to foreign countries.

Reed’s story of being arrested in Russia is a lesson about the risks of traveling to a foreign country that disagrees with America’s form of government. Reed became romantically involved with a young woman in Russia who he had corresponded with after completing his 4-year commitment in the Marines. Alina Tsybulnik, his Russian girlfriend, visited America, became a friend of his family, and invited Trevor to Russia. They became intimate friends.

Alina Tsybulnik and Trevor Reed.

Tsybulnik is enrolled in a Russian college to become an attorney. When Trevor visits her in Russia, they go out on the town. Trevor gets drunk and disorderly and is arrested by the Russian police in 2019. In what is characterized as a gross exaggeration of Trevor’s actions on their night on the town, Trevor is sentenced to prison for nine years in a Russian penal colony. In April 2022, after three years, Trevor is released in a prisoner exchange.

Trevor Reed’s parents.

Reed shows himself to be a tough-minded person who refuses to cooperate with the Russian prison guards’ orders to work while being unfairly imprisoned in a work camp. He is visited by his father who works to have the Biden administration get his son released. Alina Tsybulnik uses her legal experience with the Russian legal system to get Reed released. The corruption and purpose of incarceration in Russia is shown to be political by Reed’s story. Reed explains how even some Russian administrators, not to mention his girlfriend, resist the political ministrations of the system but are unable to change its policies.

Alexei Navalny, a Russian dissident, is sentenced to an Arctic penal colony and is poisoned. He dies in that Arctic colony at the age of 47 in 2024.

The last chapters of Reed’s book recount his effort to get a level of revenge against Russia’s injustice by volunteering in Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion. Reed had become a fluent Russian language user because of his intellect, his relationship with Tsybulnik, and his imprisonment. He used that skill to join the Ukrainian resistance. One comes away from Trevor Reed’s book with the feeling he tilted at Don Quixote’s windmill. One’s heart goes out to Ukraine and their fight against an implacable Russian President who tilts at a different windmill.

COVERT OR OVERT

“The Fort Bragg Cartel” exposes a glaring weakness in a secret service meant to protect American citizens. The ironic truth in Trump’s Iran bombing campaign is that every American has a chance to decide.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Fort Bragg Cartel (Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces)

Author: Seth Harp

Narration by: Dan John Miller

Seth Harp (Author, investigative journalist, foreign correspondent, contributor to Rolling Stone, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas.)

“The Fort Bragg Cartel” is a frightening look at the gray world of a special forces’ organization that recruits and trains American residents who have undoubtedly aided but also undermined the ideals of justice and freedom in America. Personally, as a military veteran, this is a particularly disappointing story of an important governmental organization in America.

Abdul Saoud Mohamed in 1989.

Ali Mohamed (aka Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed) was a Fort Bragg soldier, a former Egyptian Army officer who Harp identifies as a man who trained al-Qaeda. Mohamed was a participant in a special program for foreign officers at Fort Bragg in the early 1980s. He enlisted as a U.S. Army soldier at Fort Bragg in the 1980s. Harp infers “…Fort Bragg…” has trained and protected a small minority of soldiers who may have contributed to one of the worst disasters in American history, i.e., the disaster of 9/11 that killed 2,996 people in the collapse of World Trade Center in New York City.

Harp’s story begins with a confrontation between an unstable character named William Lavigne (pictured on the left below) and Freddie Huff, two soldiers trained at Fort Brag. Lavigne pulls a gun and threatens to kill Huff. Huff disarms Lavigne and calls the MPs, but the confrontation is covered up. It illustrates how dangerous Lavigne could be and how the military covers up a confrontation that should lead to an arrest and formal investigation. This incident characterizes a disregard for justice by America’s secret service.

Decorated Delta force operator and Army vet (inset) found murdered on Fort Bragg grounds.

Timothy Moss

The murder of a special force’s operator named William Lavigne II and a quartermaster named Timothy Dumas (inset picture above) is an entangled story of drug use, drug dealing, and weapons trafficking in the American military. A quartermaster is responsible for managing weapons, gear, and equipment for military operations. Lavigne’s fellow special force’s partner is Timothy Dumas Sr., a quartermaster who uses his role to enrich himself and others who have knowledge of his role and intentions. He threatens to blackmail Afghanistan’ special forces operation because of their criminal activity in cocaine smuggling. Lavigne is not in tune with Dumas’s scheme. Whether Lavigne is not in tune because of his own involvement with drug and weapons trafficking in Afghanistan or because of a patriot’s conscience is unknown.

During the Biden administration, Fort Bragg is renamed Fort Liberty. When Trump is re-elected, the name of Fort Bragg is resurrected. Once again, it became Fort Bragg.

Both Lavigne and Dumas are murdered and dumped in a Fort Brag training area. Harp’s investigation of their deaths becomes the story of his book. The author exposes drug use and trafficking networks at Fort Bragg. Harp notes corrupt law-enforcement ties, unsolved deaths, disproportionately high military personnel overdoses, and institutional cover ups at Fort Bragg darken the image of covert actions by the American military. Harp’s story implies criminality is as evident in the military as it is in civilian life. The difference is that there seems little accountability for those who are guilty of drug crimes in the secret service, i.e., at least as shown in this investigation of Fort Bragg.

The flawed nature of human beings.

The military as well as the civilian population of any government are made up of flawed human beings. Those flaws are mitigated by checks and balances designed to protect the general public from the abuse of inherent human rights. Covert and unchecked power in governance is a threat to society because of the nature of human beings. Use of the military as a bully in the playground of nations is psychologically and morally wrong but is proportionately a greater wrong when done covertly.

The Ayatollah of Iran was equally guilty of covert actions against other nations.

The covert actions of both Iran and America in the past are examples of what Harp’s story reveals about the danger of secret military plans and acts. Overt bombing of Iran may either be approved or rejected by the public. There is no chance to decide when governments act covertly and illegally if secret service agents are exempt from prosecution. “The Fort Bragg Cartel” exposes a glaring weakness in a secret service meant to protect American citizens. The ironic truth in Trump’s Iran bombing campaign is that every American has a chance to decide.

IRAN’S COLLAPSE

One’s heart goes out to the citizens of Iran and wonders what hope there is for their future. Iran seems trapped between rock and a hard place, a choice between the bombs of war and religious fundamentalism.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

King of Kings (The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation)

Author: Scott Anderson

Narration by: Malcolm Hillgartner & 1 more

Scott Anderson is a novelist and veteran war correspondent. His previous novels include Moonlight Hotel and The Man Who Tried to Save the World.

“King of Kings” is an informative historical account of the collapse of Iran as a former monarchy and current theocracy. The hubris of the King and the Ayatollahs have no one to blame but themselves for their government’s failure. What Anderson shows is that what royal and theological leaders have in common. Both neglect the wellbeing of the Iranian people. The King squandered the wealth created by the oil industry to buy a false sense of security. The “King of Kings” made excessive investments in weapons and a spy service called SVAK rather than invest in Iran’s economy for the betterment of its citizens. The King’s SVAK turned into MOIS in the Ayatollah’ regimes. Neither regime invested in the people’s welfare. Both secret services were designed to spy on Iran’s citizens and reinforce the delusion of serving the people when in fact they were designed to preserve their governments’ power and control.

Iran’s leadership as a monarchy and theocracy have failed its people.

Anderson shows the “King of Kings” initially improves the general welfare of Iran’s citizens but because of inept leadership and the privileges of power, the Shah failed the Iranian people. The Shah’s incompetence as a manager of Iran’s great oil wealth is a wasted opportunity that could have provided a better life for its citizens. Rather than encouraging economic growth, the Shah chose to invest in weaponry and other countries products to sustain Iran’s economy.

The Iranian people were not farming or creating their own industries to sustain and grow their economy.

The King’s failure to invest oil revenues in the economy and Ayatollahs who cared little about economic investment, impoverished the Iranian people. When other countries like Saudi Arabia flooded the market with oil, the economy of Iran collapsed. That loss of oil income impoverished the people of Iran. Iran had become dependent on other countries produce rather than the work of their own farmers and industrialists to support their lives and families. That impoverishment drove many back to the ideal of a Muslim religion that believes hardships of life are only preparation for heaven.

The rule of the Ayatollahs seems as incompetent as the Shah’s.

The Ayatollahs fail to improve the economy and rely on a secret service that victimizes all who criticize their rule. It seems they believe the hardship of life is no concern because heaven awaits all those who believe in the Ayatollah’s governance. Anyone who fails to support the Shia Muslim autocracy is murdered or imprisoned based on the Ayatollahs’ belief in the hereafter. Iranians may believe in the Ayatollahs’ teaching and are willing to support their government, but a substantial portion of the Iranian people are discontented with their poverty and hunger.

Iranian oil fields supported the wealth of Iran before Saudi Arabia’s entry into the market.

Anderson explains how Iran became a troubled country. Neither rule as a monarchy or theocracy offered a solution to poverty and hunger. The answer may not be capitalism or democracy, but the present and past Iranian governments have not served the needs of its people. One’s heart goes out to the citizens of Iran and wonders what hope there is for their future. Iran seems trapped between rock and a hard place, a choice between the bombs of war and religious fundamentalism.

BOMBING IRAN

America’s self-interest is to see Iran as an independent State that does not murder Americans. Regime change may be a small step toward that goal or a step into quicksand that will only swallow more American lives.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

King of Kings (The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation)

Author: Scott Anderson

Narration by: Malcolm Hillgartner & 1 more

Scott Anderson (Author, novelist, non-fiction writer, war correspondent who has written for the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and Vanity Fair. Was raised in Taiwan and Korea, received an M.F.A. in creative writing from University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop.)

This review is only a glimpse of Anderson’s book, but the bombing of Iran gives this reviewer a sense of urgency about President Trump’s decision to bomb and kill the current leader of Iran.

Anderson, having been raised in a non-American culture, has written an interesting history of Iran that offers some perspective on Iran’s Persian culture and its tumultuous transition from royal leadership to an Islamic Republic. Iran’s monarchy had survived for 2500 years. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini deposed the “King of Kings”, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, in 1979.

In 2024, President Trump directed America’s bombing of Iran that killed Iran’s second leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The purported reason for the bombing is to save the Iranian people from the tyranny of its current leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei had become Iran’s leader after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Anderson infers Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, though a Shia Muslim himself, was too detached from the Muslim religion practiced by a majority of Iranian society. The Shah pursued modernization without bringing Iran’s Shia Muslim believers into the “Sturm and Drang” of modernity. Despite improving the economic condition of Iran’s citizens, the Shah ignored the importance of a religion that reaches back to 651 CE with the Arab Muslim conquest of Persia. Even though the economic benefit of modernization is documentable, the gap between rich and poor, along with belief in a religion that emphasizes an afterlife, made too many citizens of Iran unhappy with the Shah.

Sunni and Shite Muslim Difference.

Muslimism began in the early 7th century and spread across the Arabian Peninsula. An estimated 68 million Iranians, approximately 89% of the country, are Shia Muslim believers. Anderson believes the Shah’s failure to understand the importance of his own religion led to the 1979 revolution that toppled the “King of Kings”. Anderson suggests too little effort was made to bring religion into the Shah’s management of the Iranian people. Putting aside that failure, one wonders could any leader bring his people to believe in life today when their religion emphasizes an afterlife is the only goal of existence. Whether any leader of Iran could have ameliorated citizen discontent in Iran is hard to argue. Because of America’s decision to kill Iran’s leader, that speculation is moot.

It is not a matter of being or not being Religious but a matter of having a pragmatic and compassionate understanding of humanity.

Now, America is faced with the Shah of Iran’s dilemma of bringing religion into the administration of Iran’s government. Americans have solved that problem with the separation of church and state. Is that possible in Iran? That separation is something Anderson suggests is the mistake made by the Shah. Is America more or less likely to solve that problem than an Iranian? President Trump believes he should have the power to approve the next leader of Iran. Problem solved???????

The Shah of Iran is fascinated by American military hardware. In that infatuation, the Shah fails to serve the domestic needs of Iran’s citizens.

TESTING DEMOCRACY

Does American Democracy have the resilience to adjust to a massive change in its economy from Artificial Intelligence? That is the essence of Turley’s concern about “The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution”.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Rage and the Republic (The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution)

Author: Jonathan Turley

Narration by: Jonathan Turley

Jonathan Turley (Author, American attorney, legal scholar, commentator, professor at George Washington University Law School.)

As George Santayana wrote in “The Life of Reason” in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Jonathan Turley served on the board that judged whether Clinton and Trump should be impeached. His history in “Rage and the Republic” is a scholarly assessment of America’s struggle with democracy and “rule of the many” rather than the “One”. Turley reviews the histories of the American and French revolutions to show how they were fundamentally different and what that difference shows in the present and implies for the future.

President Trump is testing the limits of democracy.

Trump is not the first nor the last President who has taken liberties with the ideals of Democracy. President Franklin Roosevelt was heavily criticized for his public works decisions during the depression just as President Trump is heavily criticized for his imperial actions on immigration and the bombing of Iran. As one listens/reads to Turley’s “Rage and the Republic”, one is comforted by the history of America’s struggle with the framework of democracy as it is defined by the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Democracy has been challenged by many in the history of its establishment but has managed to right itself from the trials it presents for belief in liberty and equality for all.

An inherent difficulty of Democracy is in balancing freedom with authority.

Turley reminds listener/readers of the early days of American independence and men (because they were mostly men) like Thomas Paine who railed against abuse of power by Governors of independent States like Pennsylvania, and the government of the early American states. Paine’s history is of a flawed human being who rose to be an American patriot. Paine reinforced belief in Democracy with his political actions and beliefs reported in his publication of “Common Sense”. Paine railed against the Governor of Pennsylvania for profiting from his role as a head of state just as many criticize Trump today for doing the same as President of the United States.

Despite Paine’s “Rights of Man”, every President, Republican or Democrat, has sided with corporate interests. Some Presidents undoubtedly benefited from those interests.

Turley explains Paine’s imprisonment in France during the French revolution. The irony of Paine’s imprisonment in France is America’s neglect of his predicament, and the rage of the French Revolution which may be harbingers of a future for American citizens. Just as “Trump’s induced” riot of January 6, 2021, and today’s public reactions to ICE’ immigration and Iran’s bombing, public reactions may be warnings of America’s future.

One hopes America’s rage does not devolve into anything like the French revolution.

America remains a land of immigrants. In today’s world, Turley notes it is common for Americans to have more than one citizenship. He notes a French citizen who becomes an American farmer in the United States. Despite being a French citizen, he adapts to a different way of life and grows to identify himself as an American. That adaptation will be greater for all Americans in the 21st century.

Turley’s interesting history of public rage is a warning about the massive transition governments will have to make because of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on employment. Does American Democracy have the resilience to adjust to a massive change in its economy from Artificial Intelligence? That is the essence of Turley’s concern about “The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution”.

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