Barry Holstun Lopez (American author, essayist, fiction writer. News this Friday, 12/25/20 Barry Lopez died at age 75.)
As a first exposure to Barry Lopez’s writing, “Horizon” is a disturbing review of the state of nature.
There is a “Let It Be” determinism about the environment in Lopez’s memoir of travels around the world.
Barry Lopez fractures both Biden’s and Trump’s approach to global warming. Biden cares; Trump doesn’t. To Lopez, Biden and Trump end in the same place.
Of course, Lopez is in his 70 s. To many, Biden’s age offers hope. Trump’s advanced age offers nothing
Thunberg is 16. Her generation is more likely to feel the consequence of world’ ecological change. One doubts pessimism is the intent of Lopez’s recollections. But pessimism is a sense some may get from a 23-hour narration of “Horizon”.
There seems little rage in “Horizon” about the decline of earth’s environment. Particularly in comparison to Greta Thunberg’s accusations against spoilers of the world.
From Lopez’s varied experience as a writer, historian, amateur archaeologist, and world traveler, he concludes humankind may be destined for a sixth extinction.
Lopez lives a peripatetic life that exposes him to the remains of animal species lost; the evolutionary fragments of human remains, and the disparate changes of weather around the world.
Lopez visits parts of the world discovered by explorers. Particularly men like John Cabot, Christopher Columbus, James Cook, and others. Lopez writes many vignettes about James Cook and his obsession–to map the world.
Man’s inhumanity to man has been recorded many times by many writers. Lopez regrets the passing of native populations, and suggests their passing is because early explorers paved the way for new civilizations. In recalling various expeditions, Lopez makes one aware of the nature of human beings.
The American Indian’s “Trail of Tears” are repeated in many civilizations.
Lopez notes the lows of human beings with a story of two older men who want him to ghost write an essay about their experience with underage girls in Thailand. In a bigger historical picture, Lopez explains the nature of explorers who destroy as well as initiate new civilizations.
Lopez infers human civilization is trapped in a cycle of self-destruction. Every society desires stability and longevity. Lopez infers human nature gets in the way of those desires.
Lopez writes about Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the arbitrariness of genetic selection that sustains human life. Lopez holds the view that Darwin’s theory may be key to human’s future survival.
Lopez infers a chance genetic modification will seed human survival as the world ecological system changes. Lopez notes many civilizations are gone; others are headed for extinction. Today, human advancement is a product of greed and self-interest. Tomorrow, human advancement may be dependent on love and care for others.
Just as greed and self-interest are genetic markers for today’s world cultures, a new genetic marker might offer love and care for others for tomorrow’s world cultures.
Lopez illustrates slavery still plagues the conscience of 21st century civilization. Discrimination because of race, color, or creed are evident in every nation of the world.
Jews, Palestinians, Houthi, Saudi Arabians, Taliban, Afghani, Iranians, Pakistanis, Indians, Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Inuit, Canadians, Americans, Chinese, Asians, Russians and others feed into humanities self-destruction. There is blame to go around with a mentality of “my way is the only way”.
Though Lopez’s book is published prior to the Covid19 pandemic, there seems application for his pessimism about what is happening today.
Is the world economy opening too soon? Greed and self-interest unduly influence American public policy.
From Oregon to Antarctica; from Africa to California, to New York to Australia, to the Galapagos Islands, and back to Oregon, Lopez reflects on the state of the world.
Cortes Conquest of the Aztec Empire.
What can break humanity’s cycle of self-destruction?
Lopez suggests the world will go on, but humans may be the sixth extinction. The question is—is it up to us, fate, nature, or a Supreme Being?
Lopez leaves a slender hope that the evolution of human beings will rescue humanity. He is neither optimistic nor pessimistic.
Among many themes in Tolstoy’s classic, “War and Peace”, is the denial of the “great man” theory of history.
Volodymry Zelensky (President of Ukraine.
Zelensky may just be a person in the right place at the right time, but one cannot diminish his leadership in this moment of history.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s greatness is not because of his resistance to Putin’s war but because of the leadership reflected in his interview by the “Economist” in April 2022. When asked “What does Mr. Zelensky believe victory will look like?” His response is “Our land is important, yes, but ultimately, it’s just territory.” “Victory is being able to save as many lives as possible…because without this nothing would make sense.”
In terms of America, Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt are historically recognized as great men. For women, it might be Abigail Adams, Sojourner Truth, and Frances Perkins. Each were men or women of their time who stood firm in their belief about what is right. Many of their decisions were unpopular at the time of their implementation, but history proves many of their actions improved the lives of Americans.
In Tolstoy’s view leaders are great because they rise to the circumstances of their times; not because they are wiser, more intelligent, all powerful, or omniscient, but because their decisions appear right in light of history.
As Presidents go, the question for some is whether America has a leader in President Trump who meets a similar or lower standard than most American Presidents? Is he just a reflection of our times or a “great man”?
The crises of today, and President Trump’s results:
Resolution of a trade war with China (unresolved)
Immigration Policy (unresolved)
North Korean nuclear armament (unresolved)
Afghanistan military withdrawal (unresolved)
An acceptable Taliban treaty (unresolved)
Peaceful government transition in Iraq (unresolved)
Climate change policy (withdrew from Paris Accords on climate)
Gun control legislation (unresolved)
International alliance building (Signaled lack of cooperation with traditional allies of the United States with America First Program)
Health care for the uninsured (Reduced number of people eligible for insurance coverage)
American homelessness (Unresolved)
The opioid crises (1.8 billion dollar funding to attack crises-a work in process.)
Control of an “out of control” budget deficit. (Reduced taxes that benefit the rich more than the poor and middle class and set the table for the largest deficit in American history.)
A coronavirus pandemic response (Unprepared in the beginning and unresolved as of October 2020.)
Tolstoy writes of conditions in 1812 Russia. He focuses on human spirit that can make individuals great enough to meet the circumstances of their time. How does Trump measure up? Is he great enough to meet the circumstances of today’s crises?
Trump’s leadership turning point internationally is withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, and diplomatic relations with traditional European Allies.
Trump’s leadership turning point domestically is in little recognition of universal health care as an American right, and resolution of the coronavirus pandemic.
Borodino is a small town outside of Moscow. In Tolstoy’s book, it is a site of a spiritual triumph of the Russian army over Napoleon, interpreted by some as a Russian military victory.
Leaders of the Russian army did not militarily defeat Napoleon at Borodino, but neither did Napoleon decisively defeat Russia. Napoleon moves on to Moscow but the government and its defenders leave the city to hide in the countryside.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, Emperor of the French 1804-1814)
In history and in Tolstoy’s story, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army moves to occupy Moscow but his army abandons Russia without victory, and returns to France. Tolstoy makes Borodino a turning point in Russia’s battle with Napoleon’s army.
It raises the question of whether a leader’s decision is a reflection of what a country stands for or what an erratic poser decides.
Napoleon lost 70,000 of his 250,000 soldiers in the Borodino battle. This is over 25% of the attacking French force in Borodino. He loses many more soldiers in the winter of his withdrawal from Moscow and his return to France.
Russian casualties from their invasion of Ukraine have the smell of Napoleon’s losses in the battle of Borodino as depicted by Tolstoy in “War and Peace”.
There are many characters and themes in “War and Peace”. The three most memorable characters are Andrew Bolkonski, Natasha Rostova, and Pierre Bezukhov.
Bolkonski is an elegant aristocrat with consummate personal honor, intelligence, and sophistication. However, Bolkonski elegance is found to be flawed. He fails to understand what is important in life until he is at death’s door.
Rostova is a young ingenue, thinking of a life with an aristocrat like Bolkonski. She is beautiful but ignorant of the meaning of life until its too late. She grows to understand her ignorance as Bolkonski dies.
Bezukhov is a bumbling naïf that inherits wealth, fumbles through a foolish marriage and divorce, and grows into a life of contentment and ease when he marries Rostova.
Tolstoy is not denying superiority of some over others but his story emphasizes man’s mortality, common fragility, and ephemeral existence. To Tolstoy, greatness dwells in all humankind with individual extra-ordinariness born of circumstance; not innate greatness.
Once again, this raises the question of Trump being an erratic anomaly or a reflection of who Americans have become. Trump lies in a hospital bed; in part because of inept management of the Covid-19 pandemic. Is this Trump’s and America’s fate or the result of human volition? Is there a great man making decisions or are circumstances compelling crises?
There is a large element of predetermination in Tolstoy’s characters.
Every character seems destined to live their lives according to a master’s plan. To Tolstoy, innate human frailties are determinants of man’s path in life.
Tolstoy implies happiness comes from an acceptance of fate, exemplified by the marriage of Bezuhov and Rostova after many tragedies and triumphs in their lives.
At the end of “War and Peace”, one gets some sense of what it means to be Russian or American. The exuberance of living life, working through hardship, believing in something greater than yourself are all evident in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace. These human qualities reflect Russian and American tolerance for inept leadership.
America does not have a great American President today, but at least 3 (maybe 4) have been 70% right in the last 243 years.
Peter Drucker (1919-2005, Austrian-born American management consultant)
Peter F. Drucker is a storied business management consultant (famously known as a consultant for General Motors in the 1940 s) who taught business administration and sociology at Claremont Graduate University in California. He died at the age of 95 in 2005.
Drucker’s management insight reverses the power structure of profit and non-profit enterprises; i.e. management down changes to management up with organization leaders determining direction but employees (knowledge workers) controlling productivity and effectiveness.
“Management Challenges for the 21st Century”, written in 1999, capsulizes Drucker’s view of the world and his management beliefs. He notes that for the first time in recorded history post-industrial nations are demographically becoming older rather than younger.
American, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Indian, and most European countries’ birth rates are lower than their death rates. There are more people nearing retirement than entering the work force (excepting countries with higher immigration rates that offset low birth rates).
This demographic change profoundly affects the future of modern economies. Drucker argues that retirement age will grow from age 65 to 75. Drucker observes that revenue from consumers’ discretionary spending rather than revenue from gross sales is the hall mark of growth industries.
Drucker explains private corporations need to treat employees like non-profits. They need to treat employees like volunteers by respecting employee abilities and placing them where they can be most productive.
The rise of the knowledge worker and the fall of manual labor changes the way managers manage.
Successful organizations will increasingly value employees as investments (as assets) as they recognize the real cost of employee turnover.
Good managers will continue to be leaders but employee jobs will be based on defined objectives (rather than job descriptions) that can be met by employee placement in jobs that require their specific skills and/or strengths.
Successful organizations will invest in employees by putting them in positions that capitalize on what they are good at or can be trained to be good at. With job placement that utilizes employee’ strengths, successful managers will stay out of the way by enabling rather than directing employee performance.
The manager’s role becomes one of defining organizational objectives, measuring productivity, and changing organization structure based on empowered employee roles.
Education is a critical component of Drucker’s philosophy of management but his approach contradicts the present direction of educational reform that focuses on teacher accountability for educating students in the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Drucker promotes a Montessori like approach to education. Drucker believes in structuring education based on student interest rather than a set curriculum.
Peter Drucker is an insightful sociologist and guru of American free enterprise. Managers who choose to follow his recommendations increase their odds for success in life, let alone organization management.
Charles Dickens’ wrote many works picturing life during the industrial revolution. His books motivated more than writers to write. They are chronicles of social change.
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstory (1828-1910)
Tolstoy, a master of social insight, said that Dickens’ literature was a source of motivation for him.
Dickens describes many of the negative consequences of the industrial revolution; particularly, child labor abuse and family-value deterioration. Dickens becomes a source of information for societal reform. His reflection on business profitability at any human cost tests the world.
The Covid19 pandemic is today’s test. World leaders struggle with opening their economies at the right time, in the right way, to avoid a return to rising death rates.
It seems America has failed.
All further information on this statistic can be found at Statista
“Dombey and Son” is a lesser known work of Dickens that pleases the senses and gladdens the heart. For anyone who has children, “Dombey and Son” teaches parenthood and touches on errors of parental commission and omission.
The consequence of hubris and greed in “Dombey and Son” are well told in this story of father/husband arrogance, and business manager misdeeds.
Like a Shakespearean play, Dickens writes about the difficulty of life with a dénouement of “Alls Well That Ends Well”. Dickens infers human cost must be weighed in determining value of any end. Human cost is the sine qua non of government leader’s decision on returning to economic prosperity after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The industrial revolution is in full swing in the 1800s with children working long hours for low wages.
In the mid 1800s, a patriarch and successful businessman, Paul Dombey, marries. A daughter is born to a father who pines for a son. Paul Dombey plans to call his growing company “Dombey and Son”. Fate chooses to provide a son but the boy loses his mother in child birth. The boy is sickly and destined to live a short life that never fulfills the desire of his father for a son to inherit the family business.
Paul Dombey only grieves for his son. He alienates and ignores his daughter, and marries again for appearance and convenience. Paul Dombey lacks empathy or understanding of others or himself.
Dombey’s loss of a son and his hubris get in the way of any
human compassion or love for others. He
is abandoned by his new wife. He accuses
his daughter of aiding the abandonment. Dombey
strikes his daughter and she runs away.
Through the connivance of his business manager, Dombey’s business is
bankrupted. Dombey spirals into a pit of
despair and self loathing.
The beauty of Dickens’ writing is in his character development. His skill is exhibited in multiple story lines that weave together to change the course of a story. Dickens juxtaposes pitiable despair with great joy.
When his daughter flees she begins a new life, presaged by an earlier encounter with an apprentice. The apprentice, after exile and ship wreck, becomes her husband.
The daughter, though neglected by her father, loves him deeply. She attempts to reconcile Paul Dombey with his second wife. Because of his second wife’s childhood miseries reconciliation is not possible, but Dickens suggests forgiveness is in Dombey’s future.
The relationship between father and daughter begins to
heal. Paul Dombey begins to understand himself;
i.e. he recognizes his failure as a father and husband and begins to rebuild
his life through his grandchildren.
The fracture of family values caused by yesterday’s industrialization is depicted in Dickens writing and well documented by sociologists and historians.
Looking back, after economic recovery from today’s pandemic, how will family values be recorded by tomorrow’s sociologists and historians?
America may have to live with the affects of Covid19, but lack of empathy from President Trump will be his legacy. It is a legacy memorialized by rising American deaths and millions of the less-privileged who will not receive any further help this year.
Fracturing of family values is exacerbated by today’s technological revolution. Adding a pandemic to technological change further reduces personal contact.
Dickens’ stories dramatize parental psychological abuse; an abuse that resonates with modern society. Much of the abuse is unintentionally caused by the demands of modernization, and human isolation.
The widening gap between rich and poor is harmful. The wealth gap reinforces human alienation. Less time is used to raise children because both parents work or are distracted by self-interest. Ironically, Covid-19 demands family re-connection, and empathy for others.
On one hand, Covid-19 compels families to reassess family values. On the other, 21st century technology continues to reduce physical contact. Some say the economy is in free fall today, but most have plans for tomorrow. It seems every good and bad historical event has unintended consequence. Hope is all that remains in Pandora’s box.
Hyperactivity in children is a blessing and curse.
Louis Zamperini (1917-2014, American WWII Veteran, participant in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.)
Every parent that faces life with a hyperactive child listens to Hillenbrand’s story of Louis Zamperini and thinks of what might be if their child’s high energy can be focused rather than blurred by the hurly-burly of life.
Hillenbrand vivifies Louis’s life with stories of his early years of running away, hopping trains, practical joking, stealing, and raising hell. Louis idolizes an older brother that lives a more conventional life but Louis refuses to follow the placid image of the good son; the obedient child.
Fortunately, Louis is blessed with a tolerant mother and a stern, but understanding, father who accepts Louis for himself rather than what he, or his mother, want him to be. Louis does not outgrow his hyperactivity but channels his energy into the discipline of a sport.
With that beginning description of Louis Zamperini, Hillenbrand tells the story of Zamperini’s advance as a world class runner; i.e. the youngest member of the near 4 minute mile club of the 1936 Olympics.
Louis meets Adolph Hitler, not as a winner of the race, but as an Olympic competitor that gives all he has-to be the best he can be.
Zamperini is alleged to have said “I was pretty naïve about world politics, and I thought he looked funny, like something out of a Laurel and Hardy film.”
Louis Zamperini returning from imprisonment as a POW with his mother (Louise) and father in the backrground.)
World War II strikes the United States at Pearl Harbor. Zamperini’s stellar running career is grounded. He returns home to be drafted by the Army/Air Force. He becomes a bombardier.
Zamperini is assigned to a B-24 Liberator as a bombardier.
The story of “Unbroken” begins with a rescue mission for a B-27 crew downed in the Pacific Ocean. The rescue crew includes Louis Zamperini.
The rescue crew is unsuccessful; i.e. the lost crew is not found.
On the return flight, engine trouble forces the rescue plane into the Ocean. Three men (possibly four out of 20 plus men) survive the crash. With a poorly provisioned life raft, two live to be placed in a Japanese prison camp, Louis and the rescue plane’s pilot.
This story of survival is inspirational. It can be listened to as a true adventure. One may also hear a cautionary tale about parenting.
It is difficult to raise children in an affluent society where both parents must work to pay the bills. One wonders about the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder).
Where does a parent draw the line on drug treatment for children with this diagnosis? Is the diagnosis real or is it a symptom of a society that does not have enough time to parent?
John Lewis Gaddis (Author, Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale.)
When Churchill gave his famous “iron curtain” speech in March 1946, George Kennan already understood the iron curtain’s implication and consequence. Kennan is known as “the father of containment” during the Cold War of 1947-1989.
The relevance of Kennan’s containment policy resonates with today’s American relationship with China. However, its relevance is one of contrast; not similarity. Today, there is no iron curtain that separates China from the rest of the world. The iron curtain has become a cloak. It is a cloak that obscures intent.
The age of the corona virus and China’s decision to delay world notification may or may not have changed America’s response. China’s cloaking of information will haunt the world’s corona virus survivors. Though there is no iron curtain today, secrecy and failure to disclose information fully replaces its physical barrier, and real world effect.
After the war, Kennan insisted on being relieved of duty in Russia and returned home to Wisconsin because President Truman was ignoring Kennan’s recommendations on a “sphere of influence” approach to the U.S.S.R.
As a deputy head of the Moscow ambassadorship, Kennan sent the famous “long telegram” to the then Secretary of State, James Byrnes, explaining how the Soviet Union should be handled after the end of WWII. The “long memorandum” makes Kennan famous because it capsulizes what became U.S./Russian foreign policy for the next 30 years.
Kennan recognizes Stalinist Russia’s pursuit of world domination as a Marxian belief of inevitability. With an eastern Russian’ ethos that endorsed persistence and patience (a quality we see in China today) Russia reveals its strength and weakness.
Kennan recognizes the threat of Russian domination in the 50 s and 60 s. However, he believes it can be managed with patient and persistent opposition by America. Within the limitations of military and economic might, the United States could directly intervene in Russian encroachment when feasible.
When direct confrontation was not feasible, overt cooperation could be undermined based on Machiavellian’ assessment of Russian expansion. In other words, Russian expansion could be contained and managed by a prudent use of force and guile by the United States. This approach worked with Russia. It is less likely to work with China.
China focuses on international domination through economic growth and influence.
Modern Russia has a similar ambition, but its domination is based on the threat of force and military intervention. Both countries expand their influence but Russia is constrained by a much weaker economy, and the limits of military threat and intervention.
China has little economic constraint on growth of the economy or military because of its growing prosperity, and broadening international influence.
China’s military strength is largely based on deterrent capability; backed by economic growth. Russia’s military growth is based on economic constraint, and the political limits of intervention and force.
Kennan argued Stalinist Russia’s ideology would fail because it is flawed. Kennan believed the gap between truth and lies would limit the U.S.S.R.’s reach and longevity.
Kennan believed that the role of the United States was to contain Russia until it collapsed from the weight of its’ mistaken ideological belief in the unerring truth of collectivism.
There is a strain of collectivist belief in Xi’s Chinese communism but it is tempered by economic freedoms that have improved millions of Chinese lives.
In spite of Xi’s emphasis on communist party rule, the genie of economic freedom has made China more pragmatic and less ideological.
The Stalinist ideology that the collective is more important than the individual evolves in Russia but its evolution retains belief in force (sometimes murder) and intervention as reliable tools for world domination. That belief is Putin’s Achilles heal.
In later years, Kennan’s containment argument for the U.S.S.R. is found to be correct but even he suggests the cost was too high. He believed Russia’s decline could have been accelerated. The flaw in today’s Russia is not in exclusive belief in the collective but in use of force as a first, rather than last, resort.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and intervention in Syria negatively influence world opinion.
In contrast, Xi’s “Road and Belt” initiative positively influences world opinion. (This is not to say all countries are enamored by Chinese largess because it increases their debt, but in many cases China is the financier of last resort.)
A duel, positive effect of Xi’s “Road and Belt” initiative is to create a wider market for Chinese goods. China chooses positive behavioral reinforcement while Russia chooses negative reinforcement (military action, limited energy resource distribution, cyber attacks on voting preferences in other countries) to achieve world influence.
Things change and remain the same. George Kennan’s containment policy is reified in 2021, but now it is spoken of in regard to China and the policies of Chairman Xi. A concern one may have–this is not the 20th century. Technology has changed the world. International connectedness, economic interdependence, and environmental degradation require less containment and more cooperation.
Xi’s “Road and Belt” initiative expands China’s influence in the world while Putin’s actions diminish Russia’s influence.
Kennan, born in Wisconsin, went to Princeton after attending Wisconsin’s
St. John’s Military Academy. After
receiving his undergraduate degree, rather than going to law school, he joined
the newly formed U.S. diplomatic “Foreign Service” and became a vice consul in
Geneva, Switzerland. However, on a
chance visit back home, Kennan met William C. Bullitt, the U.S. ambassador to
Moscow, and was asked to accompany him to the U.S. Embassy in Russia in 1933.
Because of Kennan’s extraordinary foreign language ability, he became a fluent Russian language expert on Soviet affairs. He was a student of pre and post-revolutionary Russian’ culture; he used that knowledge to forge an American foreign policy to deal with Russian expansion after WWII; i.e., his prescient grasp of Stalin’s mind, and the Russian culture, allowed the United States to contain the Russian empire within Eastern Europe by limiting American overt action and covert action through confrontation, black-ops, and diplomacy.
To Trump, international relations should be conducted on a give and take basis; leaving only winners and losers.
America’s President has no Kennan in mind. Trump looks at international relations as a transaction. Trumps thinks diplomacy is like a business. Government is not a business and governance always suffers when dollars and cents are the only criteria for measurement of success.
President Trump’s nomination of Jon Huntsman Jr. as ambassador to Russia is a case in point. Huntsman spoke Mandarin Chinese which made him a highly credible candidate for a stint as Ambassador to China during the Obama administration. Trump appoints Huntsman to Russia because he is a wealthy Republican business man. One doubts the appointment had anything to do with Huntsman’ understanding of Russia or its language.
Though containment was not entirely successful, Kennan’s assessment of its spread to Yugoslavia and China were recognized as independent power structures. Yugoslavia and China believed in the value of the collective but evolved into less doctrinaire belief in “the many being more important than the one”. Yugoslavia dissolved into different states with different economic principles, and China changed its economic philosophy by acknowledging the importance of one among many.
George Kennan’s biography reinforces a belief that understanding another culture requires emergence in that culture. Ambassadors that are not fluent in a culture’s language and fail to spend years in that culture’s environment cannot understand what policies America should adopt to protect itself and promote world peace and freedom. One wishes all American Presidents would recognize that need in Ambassadors representing the United States.
Kennan’s biography reveals the importance of self-interest in foreign policy and how a Machiavellian manipulation of events is essential for a reliable margin of success. Of course, some American Presidents have taken self-interest and Machiavellian manipulation to an extreme.
Trump is not the first American President to cross the line of truth and morality but he seems one of the most prolific.
Kennan is revealed as a human being in this biography, not perfectly right or entirely wrong; subject to mistakes, personal biases, and prejudice; but grounded by life in a real, not purely theoretical, world. Kennan lived through many great events in world history, from WWII to Vietnam. His active professional life gave the United States what it needed most; i.e., perspective and practical diplomatic advice.
An act of government that presumes it knows what is good for everyone mocks omniscience.
The GAO (Government Accountability Office) finds President Trump broke the law by delaying Ukrainian military aid.
Today, it is terrorism; yesterday, it was communism, day before yesterday, it was Japanese internment camps.
James Risen’s “Pay Any Price” exposes government hubris that tortures suspected terrorists and invades personal privacy to feed human greed and desire for power; all under the guise of protecting America.
Japanese internment during WWII.
Guantanamo tramples human rights; the red-scare of the 1950s breeds mistrust of elected officials, and Japanese internment camps during WWII stain the American’ conscience.
Greed and power are two of the three motivations for endless war.
The third is presumed status which leads to a false sense of omniscience and hubris.
Sadly, 9/11 is not the first or last terrorist event in America’s future but without a measure of human freedom, America loses more than it gains by suspecting everyone is a terrorist.
Government should protect Americans from the greed and power of the few over the many, rather than concoct wasteful government programs that only feed the worst parts of human nature.
President Trump believes he knows best and fails to seek the advice or counsel of those who are in a position to offer a more balanced perspective.
Few, if any, would suggest Qassem Soleimani was not a murderer of Americans. But what price has been paid by the world for Trump’s unilateral decision to have Soleimani assassinated?
There is no question–institutional discrimination exists in the United States, and it victimizes American minorities.
Demonstrations that destroy public property and federal government intervention are equally reprehensible events. Neither serves the goal of achieving equal opportunity for all Americans.
Violence is a consequence of a willingness to “Pay Any Price”.
Americana, A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
By Bhu Srinvasan
Narrated by Scott Brick, Bhu Srinvasan
Bhu Srinivasan (Author, American citizen born in India, Emigrated at age 8 to the United States with his mother.)
“Americana” is homage to the muscular success of capitalism in the United States. It appears it takes someone born outside America to unapologetically endorse the gift of capitalism to the world. It seems Bhu Srinvasan lives the American dream in the 21st century.
Srinvasan “leans in” by arguing libertarian-ism’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses. “Americana” speeds through the history of great men (because women’s contribution is largely ignored) who settle America in the 17th century. With the help of English entrepreneurs willing to risk investment in the voyage of the Mayflower, the egg of American capitalism is hatched.
Mayflower Replica
(The Original Mayflower Sailed September 6,1620 and landed on Cape Cod 66 days later, which was 500 miles north of its intended destination in Virginia.)
The investors expect a return on their investment. They finance the expedition based on an expectation of success from a settlement in Virginia. The first years of the Pilgrims’ progress is nearly a bust. The author explains the initial investment is nearly lost but recovered by an agreement among the settlers to buy out their Mayflower investors. The buyout is a success because the settlers find a ready market for American goods in England; particularly beaver furs which were provided to settlers by native inhabitants.
With growth of the fur trade, new settlers come to America.
The beaver fur business is expanded with new settlers who learn how the Indians ply their trade. Competition grows and undoubtedly many tribes are shut out of the trade.
This, as in many more stories told by Srinvasan, reminds one of the boon and bane of capitalism. That is not Srinvasan’s intent, but the effect of competition from acquired knowledge, new technology, and entrepreneurship is repeated many times. There are winners and losers in the growth of capitalism. What is one life worth?
There is an “end justifies means” theme in Srinvasan’s view of America. This is an attitude reflected by President Trump’s suggestion on March 24, 2020 to re-open America in April. The reality of quality-of-life improvements in America makes Srinvasan’s, and some would say Trump’s view, a worthy subject of contemplation. America is the most economically successful nation in the modern world.
Srinvasan glosses over issues of slavery, racism, and corporatism. Trump’s suggestion that America should be reopened for business in April of 2020 is a judgement that suggests ends justify means. The spread and human impact of the coronavirus is unknown.
Many of the harsh realities of a transactional economic system bare down on America with exposure to the coronavirus. Do ends justify the means?
Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Ford, Rockefeller, Morgan, Edison, Westinghouse, Watson, Gates, and Jobs are a few examples given for the success of American Capitalism.
What is missed is the “blood in the water” from changes wrought by these men of steel, automobiles, energy, finance, communications, transportation, and technology. With each advance in American ingenuity, there is a general rise in America’s standard of living. Indeed, Bhu Srinvasan himself is a tribute to the success one can have in 21st century America. But, Srinvasan tells only one side of the story.
Homelessness in America is a disgrace. Rat infested ghettos in large American cities perpetuate poverty and crime. A deteriorating education system is gamed by the wealthy who neglect what can be done to help the poorly educated.
Corporations have a duty to educate people displaced by technology. Government needs to move beyond the transactional value of health care to provide basic health services to all Americans. Environmental degradation needs to be abated before the world’s 6th extinction.
To ignore the price paid by a growing underclass in America, is side-stepped by Srivasan’s “…History of American Capitalism”.
America capitalism can do better. We are no longer a struggling economy like that which existed in the days of the Pilgrims and later so-called robber barons.
Srinvasan is an excellent primer on capitalism but that is history; not a prediction of a future where homelessness, a deteriorating environment, a failing education system, inadequate health care, and racial injustice are ignored.
American history shows lower taxes encourage higher production and job creation. What is missed by tax reduction is that it exacerbates income inequality. Tax reduction incentivizes corporate leaders to devalue worker wages to increase profitability. Human self-interest leads to higher income for corporate owners and executives. The consequence magnifies the wealth gap between have and have-nots.
A Concise History
of the Middle East, Ninth Edition
By Arthur
Goldschmidt and Lawrence Davidson
Narrated by Tom Weiner
Messieurs Goldschmidt and Davidson have created an insightful overview of the origins and impacts of an area of the world not well known or understood by much of the American public.
Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. (Author, historian)
Lawrence Davidson (Author, History professor)
History is made up of facts but never the whole truth. Events are reported out of the context of their historical era, a time which can never be fully explained; even by the most knowledgeable historian.
So, why is understanding the Middle East important?
In the Middle East, more than a million human lives have been lost from war since 2001.
Since 2001, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syrian conflicts have killed over 6,700 Americans, nearly 3,000 NATO coalition soldiers, an unpublished number of Russian and Turkish soldiers, 182,000 Iraqis, 111,000 Afghans, and 400,000 to 570,000 Syrians.
MORE REASONS ABOUND
OIL
From an economic perspective, there is the importance of oil imports from the Middle East.
IRAQ INVASION’S COST
There is the cost of military intervention in foreign countries. The cost is in both lives and international relations.
America’s reputation in the Middle East has fallen dramatically because of our invasion of Iraq. In 2o22 the center of Middle East attention has moved from the slim possibility of democracy to reification of authoritarianism.
The perception of militant interest groups has exacerbated Middle East conflict, largely because of religious difference and economic disparity. Two powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran have replaced America’s pre-Iraq influence in the Middle East. Syria is run by a brutal dictator supported by Russia. The plight of the Middle East is for many to live in poverty under authoritarian leaders interested in power and eternal control, more than their citizen’s general welfare.
RELIGION
From a religious and cultural perspective, the Muslim religion is the second most common in the world. Iran is principally Shite, while Saudi Arabia and Syria are Sunni.
SYRIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY (Turkey spends $30 billion on Syrian refugees.)
Countries like Turkey are overwhelmed by the cost of housing and feeding refugees from the Syrian war.
From a humanitarian perspective, hundreds of thousands of refugees have been created. Where do they go? How will they live. There are many consequential reasons for a better understanding of the Middle East.
This audio book provides some history and, more importantly, perspective on religious belief, ethnicities, and secularism in the Middle East; i.e., it explains some of the differences within and among Middle Eastern countries.
Goldschmidt and Davidson help one understand the difference between a Muslim Sunni and a Muslim Shiite. Their history gives the listener a better appreciation of the importance of an Imam to a Shiite and what happens in Shiite dominated Iran versus what might occur in a majority Sunni country like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Syria is somewhat of an outlier because the Alawite, a minority in the Sunni religion, is in control of the government.
Goldschmidt and Davidson point out that Shiite’ beliefs are evolving because they are Imam’ interpretations of the Koran while Sunni’s beliefs are more static and grounded in literal readings of the Koran.
The authors reflect on religious conflicts among believers in Islam, the creation and growth of the state of Israel, the secular leanings of Turkey, the Kurdish conflicts between Turkey and Iraq, the history of Iraq and its makeup of Kurds, Shiite, Sunni, and Christian factions. They report on the Hezbollah and Palestinian movements surrounding Israel which are supported by Iran. They touch on our 2001 New York tragedy and the hostility of al-Qaeda and its influence on American perception of the Middle East.
“A Concise History of the Middle East” is an eye opening journey through centuries of border conflicts, colonialism, nation building, and evolving nationalism.
There is little doubt, considering what has happened in Iran (and is presently happening in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Syria), that there is a growing discontent in the Middle East, a burgeoning desire for freedom; a freedom that is forged by a variety of belief systems, tempered by the will of its indigenous people.
Goldschmidt and Davidson help one understand that, like America, there are many conflicting beliefs in the Middle East that have led to misconceptions, tragic mistakes, civil wars, and violent actions perpetrated and perpetuated by committed believers and brutal authoritarian leaders. Both believers and authoritarians are either vilified or commended by the passing of time and the distance of recorded history.
ANCIENT MIDDLE EASTERN MAP
The Middle East is shown as the world power it once was; its devolution into a variety of colonial and/or monarchical nation states; and its re-growth as an oil producing behemoth.
The Middle East is working its way into the 21st century as a new world power. One is drawn to the conclusion that this new world power is in a state of creation from a variety of competing Middle Eastern nation states that may or may not survive the 21st century.
What Goldschmidt and Davidson remind one of is the folly of outside military intervention in countries of which one has little understanding.
Goldschmidt and Davidson’s writing is a gift that makes reports of the Middle East more accessible to the general public.
Ronald Chernow (American writer, journalist, historian, and biographer, Pulitzer Prize winer.)
Fans of Ron Chernow, other reviewers, most readers, and the Pulitzer Prize panel of judges, obviously disagree with this review; not that Chernow would care.
Chernow is a respected biographer. He has written biographies of J.P. Morgan, The Warburgs, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Hamilton, and now “Washington: A Life”, a 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner for biography.
In fairness, Chernow writes better descriptive phrases in “Washington…” but any phrasing unworthy of a Pulitzer Prize winning book should be edited out.
In spite of its Pulitzer standing, some phrasing in “Washington A Life” is amateurish.
Describing a person as one with “intelligent eyes” lacks clarity and concreteness. What do “intelligent eyes” look like?
Much of what Chernow writes is a recitation of facts with little of the color of its era.
Unquestionably, “Washington: A Life” is a well-researched biography of a pivotal hero in America’s history. but it suffers from a common failing of more memorable biographies. Every fact may be documented but motive is obscure because motive is wrapped in a social and human context that is missing.
Like the Pulitzer Prize winning history of Cleopatra, Chernow slips into cliché, or a “just the facts” phrasing characteristic of a Dragnet TV detective.
When Chernow strays from the facts, he sounds like an apologist for Washington. Chernow misses the essence of Washington’s rationalization of slavery’s contradiction of humanity.
Washington is plainly a slave holder, albeit less punitive than Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fictional Simon Legree. But, like Legree, Washington treats his slaves as property to be bought, and sold, and when they escape, tracked down, and punished.
Chernow writes “Washington rarely whipped his slaves and tried to keep slave families together”. That makes Washington better than Simon Legree but Washington does not stand above that era’s generally accepted and wrong-headed social mores. Washington’s “warts” are blurred in Chernow’s biography.
Chernow’s characterization of Washington’s dalliance with Sally Fairfax (a married woman) as a non-sexual infatuation stretches credulity. Part of Chernow’s evidence is Martha Washington’s acceptance of Sally Fairfax as a personal friend rather than former paramour of George Washington.
Chernow spends a great deal of time explaining how Washington led a life of image that is difficult to penetrate. As Chernow clearly explains, Washington assiduously represses emotions that boil beneath his facial expression; i.e. Washington could easily don a mask to hide romantic indiscretion.
Putting these negative comments aside, Chernow provides a lot of facts about Washington’s life that are not generally known. Information about America’s great revolution makes Chernow’s near-1000 page book worth listening to, but far from understanding America’s first President.
Like Schiff’s biography of “Cleopatra”, a reader/listener does learn a great deal about documented facts of a great historical figure. But Washington, like Cleopatra to this reviewer, remains a mystery.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (American composer, lyricist, rapper, singer, actor, playwright, and producer of Broadway Musicals In the Heights and Hamilton)
Chernow needs another Lin-Manuel Miranda to contextualize his uninspiring biography of Washington.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 