Annotated (mostly) Bibliography

“How can I reason with an unread man ?” – John Adams.

Just as there are no old movies – just good movies you haven’t seen yet (Peter Bogdonovich); so also are there are no old books, just good ones you haven’t read yet!
– Ligon Law

Politicians read (and exploit) books like The True Believer, The Crowd, and The Psychological Rape of the Masses, and The Mental Life of the Crowd.  Statesmen read books like The 9/11 Commission Report; How Democracies Perish, The Rise and Fall of States, The Great Deformation and The Flight From Truth.  Citizens should read both because neither a free citizen nor a free republic can last without being educated on them.  – Ligon Law

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, 1988; 307 pgs.  The title was intriguing considering the massive conspiratorial collaboration of the mass media with the Obama and Biden’s weaponized administration against Trump. 
     Chomsky is an avowed anarchist. His pro-communist sympathies and Soviet-style propaganda reporting is blatant throughout his case studies which he describes as his “propaganda model” of the media’s bias toward administrations of the Right.  In a totally opposite perspective of the today’s media, believes the media was a propaganda arm of the Reagan administration. He cites several examples of U.S. interventionist policies throughout the world from a Socialist, pro-communist viewpoint. It was so biased it was difficult to get through to the end.
     However, among the one-sided “facts” are kernels of Truth supporting his view of the media in general and particularly in the last twenty years as a “propaganda model” of the Left.
     He makes valid political points regarding the hypocrisy of US foreign policy regarding US treatment of “worthy victims” and “unworthy victims.” I would not like to face Chomsky across the aisle in a court of law. But I would like him very much as a defense attorney. (compare with: Disinformation by Ion Mihai Pacepa

Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann, 1922; 262pgs. This book should be in the library of every journalist, politician and politically involved citizen. Lippmann describes how public opinion is created and/or organized. His treatise on how Truth can be obtained through a search for objective facts should be taught in every journalism school today. The recent editorial by Bezos of the Washington Post appears to be an honest attempt to restore Lippmann’s model for unbiased journalism.

Frenzied Finance: The Crime of Amalgamated by Thomas William Lawson, 1905; reprinted in 1968. A first-person depiction of the moral and financial corruption by Rockefeller’s Standard Oil by the author, a lawyer intimately involved in the “making money out of nothing” scandal involving Amalgamated Copper Company resulting in the financial ruin of millions of citizens’ investments – much like the 2008 Mortgage Collapse. In fact, the author warns us in the present of such corrupt manipulations from his experience back then by writing this book. Lawson describes in detail how Rockefeller and his tightknit cabal of hucksters used the average workers’ savings in banks to obtain loans from those banks – most of which he owned – to artificially inflate stocks’ value to which he bought other banks, independent oil companies, politicians and judges then sold the same stock back to the public at one third their value. By this technique, Rockefeller and his cabal made 36 million dollars in one day – the losses being born by the average worker losing most of his savings. 
     It reminds me of a comment made by Mitt Romney secretly videoed in which he was addressing a group of financiers during his campaign for president. Romney, a venture capitalist by profession was well versed in reading businesses actuarials and determining their economic health. He asked the group of financiers what all “this” (Wall Street, The Fed, etc. was “based on?” He was told “Nothing.” He asked, “How do you answer to the public?” They said, “Deny, Deny, Deny; Delay, Delay, Delay.”
     Adding credence to this is David A. Stockman‘s book The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, 2013; and Brooksley Borne‘s Frontline interview The Warning August 28,2009.

The Treason of the Senate by David Graham Phillips, 1906; reprinted in 1964. As a senior at university I chanced to take an elective to complete my requirements for graduation: Organizational Behavior taught by Steven Covey, renowned author of 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and successful consultant to Fortune 500 companies. The auditorium of approximately 200 students gave him three spontaneous standing ovations during that semester. One of his many axioms was “If it weren’t for bad husbands, there would be no women’s liberation movement; if it weren’t for bad management, there would be no need for organized labor.” I believe that is a bit utopian but not without much merit. I have found much of the early Socialist movement to originate with the abuses by “robber barons” of the Industrial Age. I’m surprised by how many dedicated Socialists eventually became conservatives as they matured in life , i.e. Frederick Engels, John Spargo and progressive Jeanne Kirkpatrick. 
     I’m also aware how myopic the Republican Party of today is toward their own involvement in those abuses and how intolerant they are of differing viewpoints today. As many have said in America’s history – there isn’t any difference between the GOP and the DNC. I believe the GOP would have withered and died had it not been for Trump deciding to run for President as a Republican. The fact there are significant numbers of GOP elite who are “never Trumpers” bears witness to that. 
     The Treason of the Senate is a nauseating historical account of how politicians get elected. It hasn’t changed in the last 118 years – with the exception of Donald Trump; and that’s why I think he will not be allowed to become president again through “any means necessary.” 
I hope I’m the most wrong person in America in November – but I fear I’m not. 

Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities, 1902. One of a group of muckrackers at the beginning of the 20th century who exposed the economic, social, and moral cost of corruption by elected municipal authorities. The author delves deeply into municipal corruption, how it comes to be, and why it still persists despite efforts at periodic reform. Although the title refers to several of America’s largest cities, it’s expose’ could easily apply to our federal government today. (see: The Treason of the Senate by David Graham Phillips, 1906.)
     It also provides strong justification for divorcing oneself from the tyranny of Political Parties over free and independent thought. One of the most demoralizing, incessant political texts I’ve received this campaign year is: “If you contribute just $10 we can win the election.” That sums it up. It’s all about money. Winning depends on raising money – not on principle. Perhaps that is why the polls show such razer thin margins in a contest in which the moral differences have never been so distinct – and the abortion issue being credited with Trump losing in 2020. 
     God will not be mocked – and he will not bless any nation that kills His innocent children.

On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes, 1840 by William Ellery Channing, (1780-1842); . Who he was and his title can be read online – and should be by every citizen. I rarely – almost never – read anything in which I feel like highlighting every sentence and write “Q” in the margins for future quoting in one piece of literature. Reading Thomas More’s Utopia one can sense the futility of such a place – even without knowing the word itself is an oxymoron. Channing’s On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes is the road map to realistically reach – not an engineered Utopia – but a real Heaven on earth and in the life to come.
     Channing’s “…the Laboring Classes” is practical, achievable counsel on how to improve the whole human race not just the working class men and women in America. Channing’s speech / counsel / sermon – all wrapped in one 58-page common sense, spiritually inspiring pamphlet is one of the most powerful speeches I’ve ever read. I ran across it reading the Annals of America. I bought the work at a price that is a micro fraction of its’ worth – if the reader would implement his simple but life-changing principles. He correlates raising the mentality of the average worker with being an enlightened citizen which results in better government. He explains how raising our mental state to a higher level brings us not only freedom but a closer relationship to God – the ultimate hope of a loving heavenly Father and the goal of every one of his sons and daughters. 
     Channing makes all the paid clergy today spewing flattering, uninspired, irreverent rhetoric today appear to be the charlatans they are. Channing’s exhortation for all mankind to seek the Truth from a loving God – and how to reverently do so, is a breath of fresh, spiritual air in a world polluted by priests of popularity.
    See also: Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. 1974; The Alexandr Solzhenitsyn Center: solzhenitsyncenter.org   

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850); “The Law,” “The State,” and Other Political Writings: 1843-1850; The Collected Works of Frederic Bastiat; Jacques de Guenin, General Editor; 415 pgs.  This book is a treasure trove of economic common sense on a national scale. It should be the textbook used in every institution of higher learning and taught to every student – even if they are not majoring in economics. Bastiat has been widely acclaimed as “the most intelligent political economist who ever lived.” He differs from most economists then and now in that he can be understood by the common man.  His treatises on freedom versus legal plunder, capitalism versus communism among others are as True and as important today as when they were written one hundred and twenty-six years ago. 

     Too bad our current politicians don’t read him.

Federic Bastiat (1801-1850); Economic Sophisms: The Complete Works; 1845 -1848; edited by Stephen Reuel, 2018.  “The most complete case for free trade yet penned… The absurdity of men expecting everything from Government and trusting to public employment rather than to individual exertion.  . . . the State is only an aggregate of individuals, it can give nothing to the people but what it has previously taken from them. . . . explodes the distinction between immediate effects and ultimate consequences, between surface appearances [economically] and substantial realities.”
     “No one has ever stated more clearly in a single phrase the central difficulty of a rational economic policy and. . . the decisive argument for economic freedom.” – F.A. Hayek

Robert Jacques Turgot (10 May 1727-18 March 1781) French economist and statesman;  On Progress, Sociology and Economics, translated, edited and with an introduction by Ronald L. Meek, 1973; 182 pgs. Originally published by Turgot in 1750 the best essay is the first: A Philosophical Review of the Successive Advances of the Human Mind. Cogent observations on the nature of man and society:
– ‘Athens, where Pericles taught its’ leaders how to buy the State at the expense of the State itself, and how to dissipate its treasures in order to exempt themselves from giving an account of them. Athens, where the art of governing the people was the art of amusing them, the art of feasting their ears, their eyes, and their curiosity always greedy for novelties, with festivities, pleasures, and constant spectacles. Athens owed to the very vices of its government that which made it succumb to Rome.’
– The larger the State the easier despotism is, and greater the difficulty in establishing a moderate government.’

The DisUniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society by Arthur M. Schlesinger, 1991; 138 pgs. “The bonds of cohesion in our society are sufficiently fragile that it makes no sense to strain them by encouraging and exalting cultural and linguistic apartheid. Out task is to combine appreciation of the splendid diversity of the nation with due emphasis on the great unifying Western ideas of individual freedom and political democracy. These are the ideas that define the American nationality.”

Burning Money: The Waste of Your Tax Dollars by J. Peter Grace, Chairman of the President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (The Grace Commission), 1984; 188pgs. 
“A $2,000,000,000 (trillion) deficit by 2000? It could happen!” “Remember that Congressional instinct [of BOTH PARTIES] is to spend, never to save. We need to administer shock treatment to our elected representatives and let them know that their continual fiscal irresponsibility can no longer be tolerated. Much like Howard Beale in the movie Network, we’re asking you to join with us in telling them “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!”
     I contacted the Reagan Library for a copy of The Grace Commission Report – the only serious attempt by any president in our history to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in government spending. Aimee Muller, (aimee.muller@nara.gov; (805) 577-4054) Reagan Library archivist, answered my request with the document within 24 hours!

Friendly Spies: How America’s Allies Are Using Economic Espionage To Steal Our Secrets by Peter Schweizer, 1993; 309 pgs. “If you don’t think we’re being exploited by friends and enemies, Buster, you’re crazy.” – the late Walter Deeley, Deputy Director, NSA. 
“What does not seem likely is any major effort by U.S. intelligence to match foreign practices by collecting and distributing operations intelligence to U.S. companies [to prevent corporate espionage]. Does this mean U.S. companies will remain at a disadvantage vis-a’-vis our foreign counterparts, which will themselves continue to receive intelligence assistance directly from their governments? In a word, yes.”

The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant, Volumes 1-11.  Should be more accurately titled The Story of Western Civilization. The Volume on the Renaissance almost ended my quest to read the entire set (BOring!).  Including the peccadillos of personalities seemed voyeuristic and unnecessary. I gained a very deep disrespect for the corporation called the Catholic Church. It should be more properly identified as a Political Action Committee – at a minimum. At most it is guilty of the first western historical example of genocide in its’ treatment of just about everyone who didn’t agree with them – politically or spiritually (see: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, The Spanish Inquisition, etc.).  Having to pay a cleric for spiritual administrations, baptizing babies who are born innocent, banning literature (banning reading!), taking money from the poor to live in luxury, and a myriad other non-Christ interpretations for the purpose of maintaining control . . . how can the Catholic Church claim to be THE authority for Christ? Yet Durant credits it with being a “stabilizing” influence in Europe. All religions at the time period were full of hate based on political control. If anyone doubts the fullness of the Gospel didn’t end with the original 12 Apostles, read Gibbon, Durant and any book on the Crusades. 

Handbook on Abortion by Dr. & Mrs. J.C. Willke, Hayes Publishing Co. Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio; 45237. May 1971; 201 pgs. This book should be in the hands of every Pro-Life advocate, parent, pastor, teacher and school counselor. But it won’t be. It tells the horrible, “Inconvenient Truth” about abortion that pro-abortionists don’t want you to know. If the results of abortion were allowed to be published – as the photographs in this book are– I believe most Americans would be shocked. Abortion is truly America’s Holocaust and this book explains in excruciating detail why.
     The fact that the Biden Justice Department is sending pro-Life citizens to prison for protesting such genocide of unborn babies is a stain and a curse on the character of this country. God will not be mocked. If neither the law nor the morality of a nation will protect God’s unborn children then woe is this nation. 

The Blue Steppes: Adventures Among Russians by George Frankham Shelley (1891-1980), 1925; 268 pgs.  An account of the author’s time spent in Russia immediately prior to and during the Revolution of 1917 (see Amazon’s overview). To me the book began with beautiful descriptive prose of the Russian countryside as he journeys to his destination – a retired general’s house in the steppes. It degrades rapidly into tragedy as the Red Terror of the Russian revolution takes effect. The author points out two significant things that are not often mentioned in histories of that societal upheaval: the pandemic hypocrisy of those implementing the “Socialist Utopia” resulting in the deaths of millions by murder and starvation while the “Animals more equal than other animals” dined and stole their way to power; and the equally widespread moral depravity that existed pre-revolution among the nobility carried to its’ utmost extreme by the communists – to the point of a bill being introduced to make women part of communal property to be used and discarded like other objects of “materialism.” 
     Not only is this reminiscent of the moral decay that led to the fall of the Roman Empire (see Gibbon) and the French Revolution (see Durant) – but portends the end state of  America with the same obtuse moral compass. Marx appears to have been prophetic is this aspect as the root cause in the fall of capitalism. 
See Also:
A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes, 1996; 824 pgs.
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Courtois, Werth, Panne’, Paczkowshi, Bartosek, and Margolin; 1999; 757 pgs.
Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life by Jonathan Sperber, 2013; 560 pgs.   

Logic or the Art of Thinking by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, 1662; translated by Jill Vance Buroker; 1997.  I obtained this book through my local library’s Interlibrary Loan program from Texas Tech University Library due to its cost online exceeding my parsimony.  However, once finding this book contains so many Truisms, I found a copy at a better cost and bought a leather bound edition. I can’t wait to receive it and fill it with marginalia upon a second reading.  If this “art of thinking” were taught in junior and senior high schools and continued in college, Americans’ lives would be more Enlightened and therefore happier and freer. Americans wouldn’t be so susceptible to the MSM brainwashing that emotion-led viewers are so susceptible too. Americans wouldn’t be so enslaved by the two Political Parties  having this information enabling them to reason and decide for themselves.  Ergo we would have better candidates for political office at all levels.
     As de Tocqueville warned in the 1820s, a republic’s success, the freedom of the people, is dependent upon them being informed. The Art of Thinking educates us on how to think, judge and act closer to rational thought – to Truth versus propaganda. Our public education system having been coopted by Liars will never introduce this process into our children’s minds – that would liberate them into independent, rational thinkers dooming the “progressive” idiocracy. 

U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat by Lawrence Freedman, 1977, 1986. A depressing exposure of the political influences on intelligence analysis and how it affects our national defense. Dated but more true today than when it was printed. 

Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court by Jan Crawford Greenburg, 2007.  Nukes the concept that politics has no place in the judiciary.  One has to wonder how the U.S. has existed so long under its Constitution.6,

Voyages and Discoveries: The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation by Richard Hakluyt (1589-90); this collection of documents made in the sixteenth century is about a tenth of Hakluyt’s work. Ships logs, secret economic intelligence, captured enemy documents and a plethora of first person, detailed accounts of setting foot on foreign, unexplored lands. Don’t read it like a book. Bounce around serendipitously at your leisure. 

The History of the World by Sir Walter Raleigh, 1614; edited by C.A. Patrides, 397 pgs.
“…Termed the ‘first serious attempt in England, and one of the first in modern Europe, at a history the scope of which should be universal in both time and space.” (Intro. p.15)
“Raleigh’s importance is that he employed a secular and critical approach to the study of world history which was in very large part a study of Biblical history; so that he contributed to that segregation of the spiritual from the secular which was the achievement of the seventeenth century.” (Intro p. 26)
  It is world history from the Creation until 168 B.C. at which time the work was abandoned – perhaps by his impending execution. It was written in the Old English of the time: u being used as v “whosoeuer”; and vice versa, double ll at the end of words, i or j “ioyne,” (join) etc.  He describes the massive pyramids both in Latin and English as “The best archer standing on the top of one of these Pyramides, and shooting an arrow from thence into the aier as farre as he can, with great difficulty shall be able so to force the same, but that it will fall upon some of the degrees or steppes.”  He describes the various currents of the Red Sea and how Moses crossed at the direction of the Lord; that the tracks of the Egyptian chariots could be seen in the sand for 400 years after the event; and where the drowned Egyptian bodies washed ashore. 
      Sir Walter Raleigh was a most interesting figure of his time and did not deserve his final end. Often accused of using “the best wits of England” in collating the information, Raleigh actually did his own research and writing. “Raleigh was by nature ‘an indefatigable reader’: even before his imprisonment, we are told, he never embarked on the high seas but he ‘carried always a Trunke of Books along with him’. 

From St. Francis to Dante: Translations from the Chronicle of the Franciscan Salimbene’ (1221-1288) by G.G. Coulton; 349pgs.  I learned a new word reading Coulton: simony.
     “I have tried to show, through a faithful summary of Salimbene’s autobiography how life would have looked to us if we had been born in the age of St. Francis and Dante. If I seem to have laid undue stress on the darker side, I plead two considerations. First, if I had contented myself with a bare translation the picture would still have seemed almost incredibly dark to the modern English reader. Imagination staggers at the moral gulf that yawns between that age and ours.  . . . Dante’s great poem crys out ‘Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?’  Salimbene’s chronicle . . . shows us more clearly than any other what was the “Body of Death’ [the unimaginable corruption and oppression of the Catholic church that reigned over Europe for a thousand years].   
     “One tenth of the [clerical] abuses that reigned in the 13th century would have sufficed to wreck any Church in a less barbarous age. The Inquisition ruthlessly murdered every non-Roman organization in its cradle. Wycliff was the first great philosopher and theologian to confess frankly that the Medieval Catholic Church would never have been reformed except by a revolution from within and by violent pressure from the laity without.” – G.G. Coulton, conclusion p. 349 
     Coulton contradicts those who believe Medieval artists must have been better men than we by their works. “This argument from art to morals is utterly false.” While touring in Rome my sister, niece and grand niece toured the Vatican (knowing the history of the Catholic Church I refused to even enter the Vatican).  They reported seeing life-sized murals of former Popes nude embracing nude young boys within previous Popes’ bedchambers.  I met a man in my town who had been a janitor for the local Catholic Church for over twenty years. He told me it wasn’t a religion – it was a business.
     If “by their works shall ye know them” is an admonition of Christ, I find it difficult to believe the head of the Catholic Church is the “vicar” of our Savior. Considering their history and their immoral amount of accumulated wealth sitting idly in their subterranean caverns and political power – opposed to their “charitable” works (for a fee) – it appears to be just the opposite. 

The Riddle of Life: A Survey of Theories by William McDougall; 1938. This title seemed intriguing as I came across it in Will Durant’s Book IV of The Story of Civilization. More than eager to take a break from Durant’s collection that is nearly destroying my love of history, I obtained McDougall’s The Riddle of Life through my local library’s Inter-loan Library system. Unlike reading other more recent claims to discovering the answer to Life, I did not anticipate much revelatory information in this work. What I found in this 1938 book is basically the front end of the evolutionary v. creation argument – in very scholarly terms. I read the first 98 pages before tiring of the sequential disprovings of popular theories (“mechanistic” v. “teleological“) and, using Adler’s How to Read a Book, to get to the final chapter summarizing the previous ten chapters. These scholars were at a technological disadvantage compared to today regarding genetic architecture and brain structure to name just a few. I felt lucky to have encountered and read Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen C. Meyer, 2014; 560 pgs,  which answers better than any The Riddle of Life – and well worth the price to add it to your library. For McDougall’s work, while perhaps of historical value in the nascent phase of the evolution v. creation debate,  I can only say it made be glad to return to Durant. Back to the grindstone.

The Russian Revolution: The Overthrow of Tsarism and the Triumph of the Soviets  by Leon Trotsky (translated from the Russian by Max Eastman), 1959; 484pgs.  I have wondered for several decades how certain people and certain books have been directed onto my path by some higher power for reasons understood only afterward. I have been studying all types of warfare for over fifty years focusing mainly on counterinsurgency and revolutionary warfare. Studying Mexican history and their revolutions while working on the border helped me understand their current cultural catastrophe.  
     My interest in low-intensity conflict was self-interested upon returning from Vietnam as a Marine. I wanted to understand why it happened, did it have to happen, did we win or lose (we lost), and why an unwinnable war was tolerated so long by the American people. After reading everything I could lay my hands on about Vietnam it wasn’t until I read The Pentagon Papers that I found the truth about the war, understanding why it lasted so long, and the correct focus for my long suppressed anger at the outcome: “We have met the enemy and he is us!”  
     My interest became professional when I later enlisted in the army and served on a Special Forces operational detachment – later as an infantry officer (11A) then transitioned to Special Forces officer (18A) when it became its’ own branch and I served as a detachment commander.  My conclusion after deploying to many countries in the Middle East, Central America and Africa is that our efforts at “Foreign Internal Defense” were a waste of time. The solutions to those countries’ internal conflicts were political and social. But the roots to those were spiritual. Human nature isn’t going to change until the Second Coming no matter how much money or how many guns, troops, equipment are given by our government to countries infected with moral cancer.
     My interest became deeply personal when my three sons enlisted in the Marine Corps infantry and deployed to two unwinnable, twenty-year wars started by the hubris of a Yale cheerleader. I supported them (and all the troops) in their efforts to be good patriots and warriors (those who weren’t in it for the pay & benefits and safe jobs in the “rear with the gear’). But my anger became exponential at the risk Bush, Jr. put my sons and every other parents’ children at risk with such a dismissive lack of intelligent planning, poor preparation and blissful ignorance of how to conduct the proper kind of war against that specific kind of low-intensity threat.  The Pentagon has become so enraptured with empire building through deepening the cash trough they’ve intentionally ignored previous master’s of low-intensity warfare doctrine. I’m speaking of subject matter experts who participated in the post-WW II wars of national liberation: Sir Robert K. Thompson, David Galula, Frank Kitson, General Grivas, etc.  Anything published after the 1980s on counterinsurgency is simply plagiarism (especially by Mattis and Petraeus!) 
     I couldn’t believe my disgust could get any worse after reading The Pentagon Papers – until I read The Afghanistan Papers (below).  The degree to which the American people have been repeatedly lied to by our elected representatives in the White House and Congress is surreal to someone raised in an allegedly free society.
     To have supposedly “defended” this country and provided three stalwart sons to its’ defense only to have been stabbed in the back by the most recent administrations strains patriotism to the breaking point. It’s not patriotic to defend corrupt government. It is patriotic to defend the Constitution. And sometimes defending the Constitution may require – in the words of Jefferson: “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government…  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government...”
     “The only way to destroy oppression is to copy it.” – Sergei Chakotin,
With the recent constitutional usurpations by almost every branch of our government, national media and the concomitant social chaos being allowed by lesser political institutions, I was compelled to ponder on how to counter this insurgency being conducted against the American people and our historical narrative. 
     The solution to ending the chaos in the streets isn’t rocket science. Only the city leaders lack the will to implement the immediately effective measures that would end rampant rioting and looting. The Korean business community knows how and has during the last several L.A. riots. 
     The solution to altering the national-level usurpation of our constitutional rights is more intricate. 
     It is for that understanding that I read Leon Trotsky‘s The Russian Revolution. 
It was worth it. 

The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock, 2021; 275 pgs. Even I, who opposed the wars from the beginning because I recognized the exact same pattern as in Vietnam, was shocked at the information revealed in Whitlock’s book. There is nothing secret about the monumental debacle(s) given us by George “the Yale Cheerleader” Bush, Jr.  – except perhaps the fact that every commander from battalion to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew those wars weren’t winnable…and continued to tow the Party Line and lie to the American people. 
As if we needed another reason to tar and feather every government salaried employee in D.C., this book should be read by every American citizen (if they can read at all) and realize how deep the deception by the government goes. Two twenty-year lost wars! 
     Afghanistan wasn’t just another “Vietnam“.  It was a Xerox copy of Vietnam…as was Iraq.  The technology, terrain, and enemy were different but the same hubris-at-the-cost-of-others’-sons-and-daughters was exactly the same. The same war paradigms were violated: Lack of perceived legitimacy by the population; lack of a clearly defined mission, and no articulated end state.
    Q. “How long is it necessary to philosophize? A. Until our armies are no longer commanded by fools.” Crates, 365-285 B.C. 
   I hope Bush, Jr. Obama, Trump and everyone involved in the conspiracy of silence about the futility of “exporting democracy” to the “graveyard of empires” (Afghanistan) and a “terribly divided Arab country” Iraq (according to Bush, Sr.) burns in the 9th Circle of Hell for what they did to America. Read the book. I think you’ll agree with me. 
     “While the first person to make a mistake can still be an object of pity, the second person to make the same mistake is simply incredibly stupid. So what do you call political and military leaders who place career over Truth costing the lives of thousands of their troops? Butchers.” – Unrestricted Warfare, by p. 55 

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835, 1840; 676 pgs. “Democracy in America is at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book written on America.” – Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, Editors’ introduction.  I personally have found this to be true. I’m reading it for the second time and gleaning as many pearls of wisdom as I did the first time reading it. Every citizen should read it to know America’s strengths and weaknesses – to understand how we arrived at the dire circumstances we are now experiencing and to know how it should be.  AT emphasizes the critical importance of an enlightened citizenry participating in the political process to ensure the survival of the republic. 

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, 1957; 1070pgs. ““Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars.      Atlas Shrugged and 1984 were written by prophets screaming for relevance to our day. Both are more true about America today than when they were written. 

1984 by George Orwell, 1948; 315pgs. ““Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Nurses Who Led the Way: Real Life Stories of Courageous Women in an Exciting Profession; by Adele and Cateau De Leeuw; 1961, 210 pgs.  I bought this book in hopes of it being a gesture of reconciliation with my R.N. daughter whom I love and deeply respect. I  hope to give it to her should we ever meet again in this Life. Each biography in the book is a poignant portrayal of pure, Christian charity by women who each will be blessed by Angels Above Who Are Silent Notes Taking. Surely there must be more women in Heaven than men!

The Valor of Ignorance, by Homer Lea, 1909; 341 pgs. 

• “This book has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. We do not know of any work in military literature published in the United States more deserving the attention of men who study the history of the United States and the Science of War than this. It is quite in order to invite citizens who control in military matters of the nation, as they do in other important national affairs, to “know thyself. No Nation offers more numerous opportunities for invasion by a foreign nation than does the United States.”  – Lieutenant-General Adna R. Chaffee
• “The title does not indicate the scope of the undertaking, which is a military work that should be carefully read by every intelligent and patriotic citizen of the United States.” “Civilization has not changed human nature. The nature of man makes war inevitable. Words extolling peace are worthless for national defense, and a too clamorous gospel of peace may paralyze the best efforts to meet our military necessities.”  – Major-General J.P. Story

None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen, 1971; This book has been scorned by the Left and either dismissed or denigrated by so-called conservative pundits since its’ publication. I was given a copy of this book upon my return from my tour in Vietnam. I couldn’t read all of it because it was “too fantastic to be true” and depressing. However, as I grew older and observed the course of recent history I see this book being exonerated by current events. I call it “The Exoneration of Conspiracy.”  Even a blind man could see the theft of our 2020 election by those very same people Allen spoke of in 1971.  There is too much corroborating, direct evidence to dismiss the facts in this book.  Allen’s journey to discovery is not unlike most Americans who’s eyes have been opened by the Socialism and anarchy we are currently witnessing. 

Trading with the Enemy: An Expose’ of the Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933-1949 by Charles Higham, 1983.  “The extraordinary but true story of the American businessmen who dealt with the Nazis and continued to do so throughout and after WW II.” This is the understatement of the millenium. Hitler could not have conducted his war without the financial backing of wealthy, American industrialists from 1933 and who continued to profit from Nazi defeat until 1949.  These men should have been tried, condemned and executed at the Nuremburg War Tribunal.  WW II was enabled by American industrialists. These are the same industrialists who offered the president of the AFL-CIO the position of “World Union President” when the Nazis won the war. The same industrialist REPUBLICANS who asked retired Commandant of the Marine Corps Smedley Butler to conduct a military coup against the Roosevelt administration.

Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter, Alex Pentland: January 17, 2015:   This book is Facebook on crack – insidious in its intellectualism.  “The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is.  Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious.” – Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Dorn, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading.  

     You don’t have to be a beaver counting math geek thrashing about in a cubicle seeking social relevance at tax payer expense to glean the ominous implications from Alex Pentland’s Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter. Pentland tellingly invokes the Greek god Prometheus as an analogy for his theory.  “Prometheus is a Titan god of fire credited with the creation of humanity…who defies the gods by stealing fire – a divine spark in the possession of the gods alone.”- wikipedia.  In fact, Pentland compares his “Big Data” to “god’s eye”.  The only commonalities between Pentland and Prometheus is hubris and, perhaps, theft.  His ad nauseum use of the first person pronoun, his failure to list Tracy Heibeck as co-author due to “the vagaries of the publishing world” (sounding like masked misogyny), and his lackadaisical acknowledgement of contributors make reading Pentland barely tolerable. You don’t see any of these egoisms in Socrates, Einstein, Asimov or Adler.  In fact, Adler, in a brilliant literary riddle, has a tiny, barely discernible image of Daedelus (or is it Icarus?) on the blank page of How to Read a Book.  

What’s insidious about the title is his concept doesn’t make “us” smarter.  It only encourages plagiaristic behavior – something that has been occurring on every college campus for fifty years.  The “Us” that gets smarter is the owners of “Big Data” who use their invasive information to manipulate the flow of information so the population follows the desired path. Philosophers, social “scientists” and mathematicians have been trying to quantify mankind’s behavior for millennia.  In the 19th century it was called Marxism.  In 20th century it was called eugenics, Socialism – The Final Solution.  Pentland’s Social Physics is merely the 21st century’s social media version of its’ predecessors – they all have us look to the State for the “better way” of behaving…of thinking. One can’t help wonder if the ideal end result of Pentland’s theory is Soylent Green.

“If the natural world, however shaped by human use, is too unwieldly in its “raw” form for administrative manipulation, so too are the actual social patterns of human interaction with nature bureaucratically indigestible in their raw form.  No administrative system is capable of representing any existing social community except through a heroic and greatly schematized process of abstraction and simplification.  It is not simply a question of capacity, although, like a forest, a human community is surely far too complicated and variable to easily yield its secrets to bureaucratic formulas.  It is also a question of purpose.  State agents have no interest – nor should they– in describing an entire social reality, any more than the scientific forester has an interest in describing the ecology of a forest in detail.”   – James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, 2020; p. 22

Pentland’s bibliography is broad but shallow.  It shows two things: Pentland is not widely read (if the objective is to explain how humans make choices), and Social Physics is not new – not even in applying math to social issues. Pentland succumbs to Maslow’s Hammer: a cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool – more commonly known as “If the only tool you have is a hammer you tend to treat every problem as if it were a nail.”  There are less invasive approaches to raising a person’s decision making abilities: 1. restore Classical education (including Western Civilization) to education; 2. Management by Objective, Organizational Behavior (I had a semester taught by Steven Covey in 1975 – as inspirational as Adler!); 3. avoid drugs and alcohol – America has become an inebriated and addicted society; 4. watch less TV and read more good books. This would require reversing the popular trend toward seeking solutions from the government for our problems and restoring personal responsibility.  Not looking good.  

The fawning reviews proves Adler: “Books win the plaudits of the critics and gain widespread popular attention almost to the extent they flout the truth – the more outrageously they do so, the better.  Many readers, and most particularly those who review current publications, employ other standards for judging, and praising or condemning, the books they read – their novelty, their sensationalism, their seductiveness, their force, and even their power to bemuse or befuddle the mind, but not their Truth, their clarity, or their power to enlighten.  They have, perhaps, been brought to this pass by the fact that so much of current writing outside the sphere of the exact sciences manifests so little concern with Truth.” 

Pentland’s secular Socialism is subtly weaved throughout his book:   

• “We can no longer think of ourselves as only individuals reaching carefully considered decisions; we must include (I MUST OBEY) the dynamic social effects that influence our individual decisions and drive economic bubbles, political revolutions, ….” 
• He counters the tendency to “GroupThink” by offering “incentives” for the recalcitrant to “get on board”.  Kind of like COVID-19 payments.
• “Sociometric badges” monitoring our every move, reflex, utterance.  The State Department actually considered implanting tracking chips in American travelers (and the military) overseas back in the ’80s / ’90s.  Apple watches do the same today.  
• Multiple references to “collective thinking” and “collective learning” sound eerily like Hillary Clinton’s (a reluctant mother) It Takes a Village to Raise a Child – you know, like the Soviets did with their children. 
• Pentland actually cites circumstances in which capitalism becomes “as dehumanizing” as Marxism or communism.”  If nothing else, this proves Pentland is looking at the world through a very small straw.  If he believes capitalism has EVER been remotely as dehumanizing as Communism he is severely brain damaged from repeated blows by Maslow’s Hammer.  
• His “New Deal on Data” is wrong for the same reason FDR’s New Deal was overthrown by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1932 – it overreached its’ authority.  
• “The Social Evolution and Friends and Family Studies …binds us together into a sort of collective intelligence.”  This is a subtle reference to Darwin’s Origin of Species a theory that keeps raising its head despite the massive science that has disproven it (see Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer)
• Social Physics is just another attempt at adding another floor to the Tower of Babel. I recommend reading The Five Foot Bookshelf instead.  By doing so, one may maintain privacy and freedom as well as experience exhilarating enlightenment.  This will elevate you and society.  This is the strategy our Founding Fathers had in mind.
• Pentland’s “Lab of Life” sounds more like East German Stazi surveillance on steroids. 
• Though Pentland disparages History, Adler says “History is the story of what led up to now.  Read a history not only to learn what happened at a particular time and place in the past but also to learn the way men act at all times and places.” -Adler, How to Read a Book, p. 236. 

“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.” – John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Man the Individual

“The elite’s attempts to reach Utopia through Social engineering has never bode well for the common man.  In fact, they have always created the “greatest Hells” – Barry Goldwater. 

“I am frankly skeptical when people working on the study of societies begin arming themselves with scalpels, slide-rules and test-tubes. For they are promising more than they can possibly fulfill. The protestations of complete objectivity that we have been hearing from students of society in the past quarter century take on a religious note: it is as if they were washing themselves in the blood of the scientific lamb.” – Max Lerner

“The brain’s fundamental secret will be laid open one day.  But even when it has the wonder of it will remain – that mere wet stuff can make this bright inward cinema of thought, of sight, and sound, and touch.  Could it ever be explained how matter becomes conscious?” – Hugh McKuen, Saturday (from NetFlix Words and Pictures)

“In it’s second century the effort of American democracy – from the progressive reforms of the 19th century to the New Deal- was directed towards limiting and controlling the excessive power of financial and industrial capitalism.  In the third century this objective is joined by the desire to control the excessive power of the new technocratic, bureaucratic, and intellectual elites.  This is one of the most important themes in the American debate today.” – Ugo Stilla, Corriere Della Sera, Milan, Italy, 1976

One can only hope Pentland shares the same fate as Prometheus.

See Also:   

• Social Dilemma, NetFlix; written by Orlowski, Davis Coombs, and Vickie Curtis, 2020
• The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon, 1938
• The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer, 1951
• Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Propaganda by Serge Chakotin, 1939
• Propaganda by Edward Bernays, 1928

The Promised Land by Mary Antin. 1912; 286pgs. Be sure to read the Appendix on page 295!  I rarely use the word “delightful.” I’m afraid if I did I would have to cut my man-card in half…or at least cut a corner of it off.  So, risking that, I opine categorically that The Promised Land is a delightful book to read.  This is even more shocking as I am a jaded, retired Immigration Inspector on the U.S. / Mexico border.  This book is about a 12 year old, Russian Jewish girl’s experience in Russia and her immigration to the United States (the slums of Boston) in 1892.  It is a literary masterpiece. Her memories are detailed and articulate in the extreme. I judge a book by the quantity of scholicisms I write in it. The Promised Land is full of them. This should be required reading in English Literature classes in high schools and colleges throughout America. I laughed and I wept at her experiences. She transfers her thoughts and emotions into print in such a manner as to read it as a movie in your mind. Her metaphors are many, original and entertaining. Her narration is a real voice in your head. She is Ann Frank if Ann Frank had lived (“I speak for thousands [millions!] who can’t speak for themselves.”) 

The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, USMC.  One of the best books written on fighting war in a different more effective way. It’s been awhile since I read it and I enter it here because of the invasion of Ukraine (see blog: Ukraine’s Most Powerful Weapon).  Colonel Hammes has the best summation of American exceptionalism I’ve ever read in the last paragraph of his book. 

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time by Will Durant, 2002; 118 pgs.  The Pulitzer Prize winning author has a sterling reputation for historical research. The author writes as advertised but reading his book is like being under fire from 7.62mm mini-gun firing thousands of rounds a minute. I can’t decide if the author is trying to provide as much information as possible in as few pages as possible or he is not-so-subtly showing off his depth of knowledge – approaching TMI. His list of greatest minds, greatest poets, etc. is arguable in that his criteria is different from mine. That’s to be expected from a humanist/secularist. It shows in his criteria and some of his comments – particularly regarding Darwin. Does he really think Darwin “gave new beauty to the world, or counseled it to a gentler humanity” by declaring humans came from apes? (see Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer); or Aquinas’ Summae made any sense?  Durant is a master wordsmith and I enjoyed a few of his descriptive phrases (which I filed).  He provides interesting bits of biographical information for several of his picks.  I found myself reading it through in one sitting because I wanted to get it over with. You can only drink from the fire hose for so long.  

Alien Nation:  Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster by Peter Brimelow, 1990, 384 pgs.  Brimelow was a Canadian when he wrote this.  He opens with the line: “Simply by virtue of my daughters being born in the U.S. they are automatically U.S. citizens.  This has to stop.”  President Reagan said it best: “America has lost control of its borders. …NO country can continue like this.” 

The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater, 1960; 74 pgs.  If the Republican Party lived the concepts contained in this book I would still be a registered Republican – and so would millions of other Independents or Unaffiliated Voters.  This short but value-laden book is a treasure trove of conservative concepts forgotten by the RNC fifty years ago -a fact Goldwater asserts in his book.  Goldwater was Reagan before Reagan and Trump before Trump.   

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, 1943; 81 pgs.  Subtitled “Reflections on education with special references to the teaching of English…”   It uses that as a starting point for a defense of objective value and natural law as well as a warning about the consequences of doing away with them.  It defends “man’s power over nature” as something worth pursuing but criticizes the use of it to debunk values – the value of science among them.” – Wikipedia.   An easy read, miring down in definition a little in the middle but worth reading and having as a basis for defense of moral values in Lewis’ own inimitable manner.  Always entertaining particularly the first chapter.  I laughed aloud at his original terminology mocking liberals and other non-thinkers.  

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott, 1998; 357 pgs.  I enjoyed Scott’s acknowledgements (polar opposite to Pentland’s or Schrodinger’s) and the self-directed sense of humor at its end.  The text begins oddly with an explanation of Johann Gottleib Beckmann’s monocultural scientific forest.  If you stick with it Scott’s allusion to social engineering is clear and pertinent. He describes a German utopian plan for nature as a metaphor for totalitarian states’ utopia forced onto their “standardized trees” citizenry.  It’s a perfect metaphor. 

•      “Restoration forestry” attempted with mixed results to create a virtual ecology, while denying its chief sustaining condition: diversity.” [the same reason Biosphere II failed]  
•      [In a warning to Pentland, orthorexics and COVID Gestapo], Scott quotes Richard Plochmann, “the ecology of the natural plant associations became unbalanced.  Outside the natural habitat, and when planted in pure stands, the physical condition of the single tree weakens and resistance against enemies decreases.  A diverse [free], complex forest, however, with its many species of trees, its full complement of birds, insects, and mammals, is far more resilient – far more able to withstand and recover from such injuries – than the pure stands.  Its very diversity and complexity help to inoculate it against devastation… .”
•      “If the natural world, however shaped by human use, is too unwieldly in its “raw” form for administrative manipulation, so too are the actual social patterns of human interaction with nature bureaucratically indigestible in their raw form.  No administrative system is capable of representing any existing social community except through a heroic and greatly schematicized process of abstraction and simplification.  It is not simply a question of capacity, although, like a forest, a human community is surely far too complicated and variable to easily yield its secrets to bureaucratic formulae.  It is also a question of purpose.  State agents have no interest – nor should they– in describing an entire social reality, any more than the scientific forester has an interest in describing the ecology of a forest in detail.  Their abstractions and simplifications are disciplined by a small number of objectives, …the most prominent of these were typically taxation, political control, and conscription.”  Scott segues into several examples of social experiments that have devastated mankind – their continued reappearance today a sure sign of previous and future failure.

It is not necessarily Santayana’s “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  It is the wicked nature of Man for power, wealth and control that ignores failed historical experiments in hopes of being gods themselves. Just like Satan their Master.  

What Is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger, 184 pgs.  The book failed to answer the intriguing title’s question or, if it did, the answer was so camouflaged by egoistic intellectualism as to be incomprehensible by…just about everybody.   I have seldom felt this angry having invested time and energy seeking enlightenment and failing to do so.  I expected an Einstein The Evolution of Physics approach to one of the most important questions in life and instead found snobbery.  The mental gymnastics reminded me of Chaos Theory.  I almost threw this book in the trash several times.  I’ve only done that once in my life.  Having read Adler’s How to Read a Book I felt obligated to keep searching for the answer to the author’s title.  I found nothing.  Schrodinger is a Darwinistic nominalist.  Both theories were debunked decades ago – nominalism most effectively by Adler’s “10 Greatest Mistakes in Philosophy and Their Consequences”  Schrodinger didn’t posit his premise until page 100 and frequently offered theories without supporting evidence (like many Liberal elite today).  Schrodinger is German and, like most pseudo-Teutonics, very proud of it.  It shows not least by the addition of “Autobiographical Sketches” included at the end of his esoteric proclivity for prolixity.  

Writing to Learn: How to Write – and Think – Clearly About Any Subject At All by William Zinsser, 236 pgs.  This book is a gem containing a writing-across-the-curriculum concept that should be incorporated into every educational system of writing age.  Schrodinger should have read Zinsser.                                                                                see also: On Writing Well and Writing About Your Life

The Flight From Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information, Jean-Francois Revel, 1991, 387 pgs.  Revel does credit to otherwise dubious historic “New Age” French philosophers that really screwed up the thinking of the Western World centuries past – but still linger on in their ideological cancer.  Revel is spot on in his analysis of how the West is as averse to the Truth as orthorexic millienial mothers are to whole milk.  He gives a lot of examples that boggles the mind.  When you think “This world is upside down” or “Good is being called evil and Evil called good” Revel explains why.  

The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin, Fifth Edition, June, 2020.  This “inconvenient truth about the felonious conduct of the establishment and operation of our “august” Federal Reserve will give you nightmares.  How can they do this with our money and not be sent to prison or lined up against a wall and shot for treason?  Detractors belittle it as just another conspiracy theory.  There are several problems with this criticism: Griffin cites primary sources for every fact in the book; and I am currently reading independent confirmation of his message in the Annals of America, Volume 13.  As the Industrial Revolution mushroomed in the United States J.P. Morgan began taking over whole industries related and unrelated to the oil business.  He bought influence in Congress who passed laws favoring him and ignored the feckless Sherman Anti-Trust Act (“Trust” , ironically was the term used then for “monopoly”).  He controlled several national banks (New York Mutual, Chicago City Bank, etc. and placed 72 of his representatives on boards of directors of 36 companies.  If companies didn’t vote his way they didn’t get loans or charters.  He owned several Federal, State and U.S. Supreme Court Justices.  It was when Ida M.Tarbell, America’s pioneer investigative journalist, wrote of J.P.’s corrupt Standard Oil Company’s monopolization of America’s industry and finances that public opinion forced Congress to put some teeth into the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.  Teddy Roosevelt helped during his second run for the presidency by running as a candidate in the “Progressive” Party.  He lost but his stance against monopolies eventually was passed into law.  It was then the robber barons met at Jekyll Island in such great secrecy to circumvent federal law by becoming a Federal agency. If you wonder why Wall Street CEOs seem to always make their way into the Federal Reserve (like recidivist criminals they have their “revolving door too) and the U.S. Treasury this is why.

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer, 1951. 168 pgs.  This is the second time I’ve read this book.  The voice in my head said read it again while I was pondering the causes of the COVID-19 / mask hysteria.  There is a lot I disagree with this dockworker-“philosopher”.  His inclusion of Christianity and people of faith with the radical “masses” is his opinion and I would guess he’s an agnostic at best.  But there is much of his opinion that rings true and coincides with Sergei Chakotin’s  The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda and Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.  Chakotin and LeBon are easier to read and more specific even though written thirty or more years prior.  I’m surprised Hoffer didn’t cite them as sources in his book.  His bibliography is thin, repetitious and cites some sources that are discredited by those who would know. He didn’t leave me with the “Wow” factor like the other two.  It’s only 168 pages but I couldn’t wait to get it over with. The main premise (I believe) is individuals with little or no self-esteem are vulnerable to propaganda and seek ways of restoring faith in themselves by participating in causes that manipulate their low self-esteem.  Hitler wasn’t the only one who was a master at this.  The leadership of all political parties do it.   

How Democracies Perish by Jean-Francois Revel, 1983, 368 pgs.  I have a habit of either highlighting in yellow or underlining in ink passages and “dog-earing” pages I want to identify for future use.  This book is full of those markings.  Obviously the author is French.  This is not usually a plus to me.  But he is a recanted member of the French communist party who has written an informed and unbiased view of the incredibly -almost criminal- ineptitude of “the West’s” (meaning the United States) foreign policy conducted by the habitually feckless State Department.  America’s future has to be in the hands of God or the State Department would have offered us up to the Russians already.  Here’s a clue: “pre-negotiation concessions”!  Put this with The Fourth Floor by Earl Smith, U.S. ambassador to Cuba during the Castro take-over, A Knife in the Heart by Mario Lazo, and Diplomat Among Warriors by Robert Murphy and one wonders how we aren’t speaking German or Russian as our national language.   

 The Parties versus The People by Mickey Edwards.  This book explain why Americans are getting screwed politically by our so-called “representatives”. The nomination system is rigged by the  elitist leadership of both parties. The other problem is decent, intelligent and successful people don’t run for political office.  So we get people who fail in life being office seekers  – like Brandon Martin, GOP candidate for AZ CD 2.  Moreover, neither party wants independent thinkers.  They want someone they can control.  This is why politicians are lower in public esteem than used car salesmen.  They are lower than whale shit – and that’s at the bottom of the ocean!  (see The Great Deformation and Financial Crisis below)

The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America by David Stockman, 2013.  The second in the trilogy of why Americans are being led down the road to ruin (see Financial Crisis below and Edwards above).  This book details the history of America’s financial decline – all due to politicians of both parties and their incestuous (and immoral) relationship with Wall Street.  The only reason I couldn’t write illegal is because your politicians have made criminality in the financial world legal.  And you are paying for it.  

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report: Final Report of the National Committee on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crises in the United States, 2011.  This is one of a trilogy of books (see Stockman and Edwards above) every taxpayer should read.  Because if we don’t read this and the other two – and don’t do something about it- then the financial and economic destruction of America will continue at an accelerated rate until Americans are standing in bread lines asking “What happened?”  It will be your fault because you were too busy gratifying your own interests o demand that the institution that allows you to live your lives was being destroyed by the political and corporate cannibals you elected to office.  

The Complete Histories of Polybius, translated by W.R. Paton; 605pgs.  Simply the best book on Political / Military history I’ve ever read.  Such men – Hannibal and Scipio! Would that we had such men today!  Our Founding Fathers read Polybius and it influenced their ideas in developing a totally new idea of government that we now have.  This book would make an excellent Cecil B. DeMille movie.  This book proves several things: 1. the nature of man is wicked (covetous, vain, greedy and power hungry) and has been since the Fall of Adam unless exerted upon by a higher moral authority; and 2. there really is nothing new under the sun – and mankind suffers the same horrendous consequences as his ancestors for the same reasons because mankind’s basic nature does not change and we refuse to learn from history.  For a multitude of examples see Quotes.

The Annals of America, Vols. 1-21 by Mortimer J. Adler (Editor-in-Chief) and Charles Van Doren (Executive Editor), etc. of the Board of Encyclopedia Britannica.  I was feeling as elated and enlightened reading these books about American history comprised of personal letters, official transcripts, personal diaries (i.e. Capt. John Smith of Jamestown), Congressional records, etc. as I did reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Complete Works of Josephus.  I was also feeling very smug that I accomplished reading each of those 500-600 word volumes from the diary of Captain John Smith to the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams in their final years (1830s) until I googled them to get the authors’ names (so I didn’t have to get out of my recliner) and discovered there are a total of 21 volumes.  This collection should be THE required history texts of every school in America. Our kids would be better citizens and human beings for it.  The editors recommended the “Five-Foot Bookshelf” because they were deeply concerned about the future of this country’s disappearing education of Western Civilization …..in 1953.  BTW, volume 21 ends with the nation’s bicentenniel and an interesting collage of how others see us.  

     I was talking with someone about the fascinating, first-hand accounts written by Josephus during Jerusalem’s final battle against the Romans (and his accounts of Jesus’ miracles).  The person asked incredulously “How can anyone really know these things?”  It’s quite simple.  Because the records as they wrote them at the time still exist.  For example, we still have writings of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine.  That’s why we know The Hippocratic Oath (the Code of Conduct for health professionals today) specifically forbids abortion.  There are Phds at Oxford and other esteemed universities who spend their lives translating these records – and have almost since the original authors wrote them.  That’s how Kings James obtained what we call the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible (as far as it is translated correctly).  Ptolemy (100 AD) created the largest library in the world in Alexandria, Egypt and employed twelve Jewish High Priests to translate their history since the Garden of Eden among others of the most intelligent thinkers throughout the known world of that time.  The records of the Greeks and Romans are even older and more extensive.  And more of them survived the ravages of time and war.  So the truth is out there if you care to seek it – as long as politically and monetarily-motivated, theologically covetous clergy don’t steal them and store them in an underground vault to protect their livelihood and power from the actual facts.  

The Rise and Fall of States According to Greek Authors by Jacqueline de Romilly, 1977; 84 pgs.  Many modern historians  and informed citizens believe “As Rome went, so goes America” usually in relation to moral decline. Gibbon provides many factors.  Romilly’s research brings out the same diverse factors for Greece as Rome but the Greek authors reduce all those factors to hubris (Hybris) which defined means the same – a decline in moral values, first by leadership then by citizens.  

• “Supreme power, which everybody longs to acquire, is indeed hard to manage, and it breeds folly in those that court it, for its nature can be compared with that of the prostitutes, who compel people to fall in love with them, but ruin those who indulge in their intercourse.” Thucydides in Peace 102-3; Romilly p.18
• “Prosperous situations [military victories], …are attained and maintained not by those who have the largest and most beautiful fortifications, or by those who can group the greatest number of men, but by those who have, in their State, the best and wisest administration.” – Isocrates, Aerop p. 13-14; Romilly p. 34
• “The beginning of the downfall of States usually begins when it achieves security and prosperity.” – Romilly, p.37.    
• “The qualities that enable the State to oppose the natural [de]volution from success to moral corruption, and thence to decline and fall…rest on self-control;  they enable people not to be effeminated by wealth, divided by personal ambition, or carried too far by national ambition [foreign wars].  Constitutions help in fostering these virtues, but they cannot produce them directly.” – Polybius; Romilly p.40
• “The sociology of power has but recently replaced the pedagogy of good policy, resting on one man’s morality and responsibility.” – Romilly, p.42
• “Political mistakes arise from a decline in civic morality.” – Romilly, p.49
• “Athens was ruined because of her [internal] divisions.  Samos [California, New York] would obviously give the Ionian region and the Hellespont to the enemy.
• …Neither the orators [politicians] nor the people in general were considering the interest of the State before their own any more…
• …the people not only lost their civic morality but their ideal and the faith they had formerly placed in their own greatness…
• …a sort of regular decline in idealism accompanied by a progress of greed and by a more and more realistic emphasis on power…
• …as the war[s] went on, Athen’s tyranny became more oppressive [Dept. of Homeland Security]…
• …it bred self-complacency and left the people lazy, devoid of courage or ambition…
• …what counts more than anything in the preservation of power is morality – both for the individuals and the State…
• …it explains the passage from power to downfall by the corrupting influence of security, prosperity, and power…
• …the arrival of wealth was one of the causes that ruined Sparta…and Rome.  Private luxury leads to indolence, idleness, and insubordination… 
• …the first step toward obtaining a State’s respect and love of its citizens is to change advisors (elected officials).” – Isocrates, Thucydides, Demosthenes, and all the authors! Romilly, pgs. 54-57.

Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism by James Burnham, 2014 (first published in 1964); 351 pgs.   Of interest is his definition of Ideology – which can apply to conservatives as well.  In Chapter 3 he lists the 11 basic principles of Liberalism.  He explains why Liberal Ideology, Communism and the United Nations are so sympatico and why American Liberals often vote against American interests. 

Diplomat Among Warriors by Robert Murphy, 1964; 451 pgs.  The author joined the Foreign Service on April 23, 1917 seventeen days after the United States joined in WW I.  He was intimately involved in every major foreign crisis America until just before the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis.  He lived across the street from Adolph Hitler in the ’30s.  He describes the behind-the-scenes political considerations made by every president from FDR to Eisenhower.  He worked with the generals of the Africa and Italy invasion forces – including “Wild Bill” Donovan), the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War.  If you read this book you should also read Dagger in the Heart by Mario Lazo to confirm the Liberal/Socialist bias of the State Department.  

Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court  by Jan Crawford Greensburg; 2008; 329 pgs.  This is the legal version of watching sausage being made.  It begins with the Justices rendering their verdicts on two cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments and of the terminally ill Chief Justice Rehnquist.  Interesting if you’re into the personalities and political factors that go into selecting Supreme Court Justices.  

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby, 2008;  An ironic title by an author who’s secular bias permeates her pages.  I tried to finish this book but couldn’t.  Her book reminded me of a neighbor’s master’s thesis.  The neighbor was an elementary school teacher who asked me to review her thesis.  I don’t remember her main thesis but my opinion after reading all fifteen pages was “Where’s the scholarship?”  She had only two sources listed and one of them was a five minute interview with me.  Her “thesis” was totally devoid of existing published data on the subject, no pros and cons, no quotes or references to authoritative sources, and contained no bibliography.  Jacoby’s book is not totally worthless.  She brings up good points about cultural dumbing down. “fat studies” that is college curriculum today, decline in appreciation for classical music, etc.  But her most venal and sarcastic criticisms (of which there are legion) are reserved for the religious (especially evangelicals – as “intentionally ignorant”) and creationists.  She states categorically that Darwin’s Theory is beyond question – and has been since he published it.  Jacoby seems “intentionally ignorant” of the very scholarly work Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer.  Those two repeated biases caused me to skip through the pages looking for less sarcasm and more scholarship.  I didn’t find either. 

Dagger in the Heart:  American Policy Failures in Cuba by Mario Lazo; 1968; 434 pgs.  Whatever Americans think they know about the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis is totally wrong – unless they have read this book. Attending a Pima County GOP luncheon in early June 2019 I chanced to meet a retired U of A professor and his lovely wife Oni, a Cuban immigrant.  I had just engaged in an interesting conversation with her husband about Reagan and communism during the luncheon.  Later I proudly shared with Oni my knowledge of Castro’s inspiring speech  “I Will Be Heard!” while imprisoned by Batista.  Oni wisely looked up at me and said “Castro didn’t write that speech.  My university professor  did!”  Oni, a sweet, diminutive eighty-ish lady, reluctantly but generously offered to let me borrow her only rare copy of Dagger in the Heart.  I appreciated her reluctance and politely declined pending my search for the book online.  Thankfully it has been reprinted and is available in limited copies.  Americans have been duped by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the New York Tass (I mean Times), the Washington Pravda (I mean Post) and other cover-theirs-and-JFK’s ass-apologists.  This book exposes the truth of why the Bay of Pigs invasion failed.  It was JFK and his intellectual elitist advisers who at the last minute fatally altered the perfect plan by the CIA’s military operators and doomed 1,900 loyal and dedicated Cuban men to death and imprisonment by Castro.  It was JFK’s vacillation about that invasion that emboldened Kruschev to start putting missiles in Cuba. And the facts about the Cuban Missile “Crisis” will astound (but not surprise) and, once again, anger you. (see Why Democracies Perish by Jean-Francois Revel).  There is so much needless human tragedy contained in this book caused by the betrayal of know-nothing State Department and other Liberal East Coast, Ivy League pseudo-intellectual, political-moral cowards it boggles the mind. And it continues to this day. (see Why Democracies Perish by Jean-Francois Revel).

Sacred Liberty:  America’s Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom  by Steven Waldman, 2019; 321 pgs.  This book intrigued me for several reasons.  As a 17 year old who became a Mormon I was very familiar with the anti-Mormon activities of various Protestant faiths in the early history of my church – Missouri Governor Boggs extermination order of 1847 wasn’t rescinded until about 1979, and the murder of Joseph Smith by a mob of various religious sects and law enforcement.  But I was also very personally familiar with it. One Sunday in the fall of 1968 I was walking across the football practice field at Northside High school in Warner Robins, GA.  Danny Carpenter and a few other of my fellow players from the football team were playing off season touch football.  Upon spying me they ran up and surrounded me demanding to know where I was going.  “To church.  You want to go with me?” I said.  Danny Carpenter, the best and most popular player on the team, took out a revolver and shot me in the right side of my face. 

     It was a starter pistol – luckily.  But I still  received powder burns to the side of my face. I don’t remember anything immediately afterward except that I was in church that day.  I never mentioned it to anyone.  In fact I totally blocked it out of my mind for fifty years.  I returned to my high school occasionally on leave from the Marines when Danny was the head football coach (he later became School Superintendent as did his younger brother David – no nepotism in that small Goergia town).  I even attended my 30 year class reunion.  Each time I couldn’t understand  Danny’s discomfort at my visits.  It was a scene in a NetFlix movie fifty years later that jolted the memory of Danny Carpenter shooting me in the face.  Everything became clearer.  I understood all his and others discomfort.  

 When I took over a Special Forces operational detachment (ODA 724, B/1/7) I was subjected to the most crass form of religious bigotry by the company commander Major Lenaghan and the company command sergeant major Lucero because I neither drank nor whored around.  Lucero would tape the most pornographic pictures on the table around the sign-in sheet in the chow hall during a deployment to Camp Blanding, Florida.  He and others would watch and laugh as I signed in – disappointed at not getting a visible reaction out of me.  I thought it was juvenile.  I was often told by enlisted members of that team “If you would just go drinking (and, by inference, whoring) with us we would trust you a lot more”.   I also did not participate in the common practice of having a second family in Honduras like Lucero and some of those enlisted on the team.  Major Lenaghan eventually charged me with violating a minor “offense” (driving alone to Palmerola to get slings for airmobile ops) to cover his ass for not bringing them to us on his way to whore around in Tegucigalpa.  This effectively ended my career and chance of making major.  It also changed the way I perceived Special Forces – at least of the 7th Special Forces Group (5th was not the morally bankrupt environment 7th was).  When I went to the Group Judge Advocate’s Office to fight the accusation they told me “Charging someone in Special Forces with adultery is like issuing a speeding ticket at Indianapolis Speedway”.  Despite being offered command of another detachment when the Group Commander, Col. Jacobelly, finally heard the truth, I chose to branch transfer to Military Intelligence to serve out what amount of time I could until being offered early retirement.  

When stationed in Korea a married warrant officer in our hootch was sleeping with a female sergeant in direct violation of the 501st MI Brigade commander’s policy (and the UCMJ) against fraternization.  The brigade commander had just court-martialed two sergeants first class for the same thing.  The second lieutenant in our hootch was the Brigade S-2 and asked me what he should do about it.  As the S-2 he was responsible for vetting and maintaining brigade members’ security clearances.  Adultery qualifies as “moral torpitude” and grounds for having one’s security clearance revoked or suspended.  I told him he should report it to the commander.  I backed him up when he did.  Because the warrant officer had gotten the brigade through an IG inspection -and he was black-the chain of command didn’t want to hear it.  This gave the warrant officer and a captain proctologist (he was really a podiatrist but he was a pain in the ass to me) liberty to harass me about not being “one of them.”  I attended the Mormon temple in Seoul every Saturday that year.  They started having toga parties in the front yard laughing at me when I returned in my church suit.  I used one toilet stall because it didn’t have the porn pictures plastered on the walls. They started cutting out newspaper articles describing the “murder of a Green Beret” and other not-so-subtle death threats and porn photos pasting them on the wall of “my” toilet stall.  They smeared shit on my bedroom door and pissed on it and on the floor in front of it.  I stayed very late at the office to avoid it all but late one evening as I entered the hootch the proctologist came out of his room and asked when I was moving out.  I told him I was the senior resident and if anyone was moving it was going to be him.  I also told him his commander had told him not to talk to me and he was violating a direct order.  Shortly after entering my bedroom I heard MPs’ radios crackling in the hallway.  One of them knocked on my door.  Without asking me one question he said I was under arrest for threatening to assault the ass doctor.  He handcuffed me and led me outside and into the back seat of the MP’s car – overhead lights flashing and in full view of every other officer living on officers’ row.  The desk sergeant at the MP station was also an insubordinate ass as I walked in.  I was put in a room and allowed to write my statement.  About 45 minutes later an SFC entered, apologized and said it was obvious the “others” (two of whom weren’t even there at the time) were lying.  I asked him if it was poor training of his subordinates that they didn’t ask my side of  the story in a domestic issue like I had done for years as a civilian cop and was standard procedure for any law enforcement officer or was it “just” religious bigotry because I was a Mormon that I was humiliated in front of my peers. The next day a jeep full of Green Beret NCOs from Det-K pulled up beside me as I walked to chow and asked if it was true I was arrested the night before.  I said yup.  They asked “You want us to come over and kick their asses….SIR?” So you understand why my interest was piqued by the title of this book. 

“On June 1, 1659 Mary Dyer, wearing a plain gray dress, cloak, and bonnet was walked from a prison to the Boston Commons.  A row of drummers played to drown out any words of encouragement or prevent her from talking to the crowd.  When the commander of the military guard declared she had brought this on herself by defying the law, she responded, “I came to keep blood-guiltiness from you, desiring you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust law.”  A rope was tied to a large elm tree (it would be ironic if it was the famed “Tree of Liberty”) and a ladder propped against it.  After she climbed it a noose was placed around her neck and her arms and feet were bound together.  The ladder was removed and 25-year old Mary Dyer was executed by the “Holy” Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the crime of….being a Quaker (pgs. 12-13).  She could have been hanged for being a Baptist as well.  The book mentions the irony of the hypocrisy by just about every religion different from the Puritans having been persecuted in the 16-1700s doing exactly the same thing to each other in the 18-1900s – in America…the Land of the Free.  

The religious bigotry of this nation is astounding.  Especially considering the hypocritical manner in which many of those who were formerly persecuted themselves persecuted others. It was often for political control – but not always.  The author does a good job of objectively presenting some uncomfortable facts about the struggle for religious freedom in this country.  I have issues with Muslims and their intolerant doctrine toward “infidels”.  But everyone should read this book to give us pause before we smear individuals with the broad paint brush of religious bias.  

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo F. Acuna; California State University at Northridge is the most widely taught textbook for Latino “cultural studies” in the United States.  This book, like all myopic radical Leftist ideology, uses race to indoctrinate the ignorant into a slanted view of history.  American taxpayers of every ethnicity should demand this book be removed from their local elementary, high school and university’s curriculum.  

“Cultural Studies” replaced teaching Western Civilization.  It originated from the ’60s radicals (the Black Panthers in particular) physically taking over university presidents’ offices and threatening to kill the presidents if they didn’t accede to their demands.  The curriculum, of course, was written and controlled by the Panthers or their Phd. accolytes.  The one Ivy League university president who refused was terminated and blacklisted from academia.  The academic cowardice in the ’60s was mind boggling and resulted in graduates from “esteemed” universities like Harvard and Yale who can neither read or write correct English nor have any idea of what it took to build the civilization we have today.  George Bush, Jr. and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes are just two glaring examples.  

Its interesting to see the current college admissions bribery scandal get such news coverage.  The racial blackmail that has been the norm at universities since the ’60s by the Black Panthers and La Raza or MeCha dwarfs the efforts of a few white, elitist Hollywood air heads.  On the opposite end of the spectrum there are the Asian-descended students who qualify for college the old-fashioned way – their parents demanded they excel in high school in order to legitimately qualify.  So far, Asian-American (and I know a lot don’t like that label) parents don’t feel its more important to be their childrens’ “friend” than it is to be a tough love parent (see Confessions of a Tiger Mom by Amy Chua versus Nation of Wimps by Annie Paul).

But back to Occupied America:  

You can tell a lot by just reading the Chapter headings: “Keeping America Blond and White”; “Greasers Go Home”, “Militarization of the INS’, “Police and Institutional Brutality”, “Government Legitimizes Racism”, ad nauseum.

p.141 – [in World War I] …Some Tejanos and Mexicans did not know how to read or write English and were supposedly exempt (from the draft), yet local boards drafted them.  Mexicans, along with other poor people, were often the only ones called upon to serve.”  At that time many, if not most, white Americans hardly knew how to read or write English (Sgt. York, awarded the Medal of Honor being one of them).  It wasn’t until after World War II that the average citizens’ education level rose above elementary school.   

p. 223 – “The Korean War: Historical Amnesia”.  “- the ‘so-called’ communist expansion’; “The U.S. Marines shipped these young Mexicans (not Americans) overseas with a scant two to three weeks of training…ten of the 231 Tucsonense Chicanos who fought in Korea lost their lives.”  Hell! Everyone who was sent to Korea received scant training!  Complaining because .04 percent died?  Really?  What happened to the six Anglo or white Marines in that “80% Chicano Marine unit?  Did they all die?  What percent of them lived?  This race baiting idea is similar to the claim by black activists (Jesse Jackson in particular) that a higher percentage of black servicemen were dying in Vietnam.  The truth was black servicemen were predominantly serving in support units and were not actually in combat!  This holds true in today’s army where they volunteer for support roles in droves.  

p. 230 – cites Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky as the guide for Latino community organizers.  

The whole book is written like it was published by USSR Press, Inc.  Acuna is just one more of the many Useful Idiots brainwashing American youth to subvert America – and we taxpayers are paying for it.    

I’m an admirer of Mexican guerrilla leader Emiliano Zapata.  He fought to make his country better (instead of deserting it by immigrating to the U.S.).  His famous quote: “Prefirio morir en mis pieds que vivir en mis rodillas! (if my Spanish is correct) translated means “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees”.  Why don’t these whining, sniveling, “Chicano” race baiters try living on their feet?  Or, if if it is so miserable here in the U.S., go to Mexico and try whining there? 

Understanding Physics, Volumes 1-3; by Isaac Asimov.   I was vaguely intrigued by the one Physics course I took in college. Forty seven years later I found Asimov’s book in a cardboard box at the Sierra Vista Friends of the Library Saturday sale for a dollar (I call this “pearl diving”). I figured I’d get to it sometime in the future.                                                       My mistake was reading the first few paragraphs on Mass, Energy & Motion. I was hooked. As I read these volumes I was amazed -awed, really- at two things: 1. How can anyone really believe this earth was just a coincidence of chemistry?  I frequently thought of Stephen C. Meyer’s Darwin’s Doubt as I delved deeper and deeper from Newton’s First Laws to atomic and sub-atomic structure to radioactivity and finally antimatter; and 2. the genius of the scientists who asked the deep questions then devised experiments to find out (like measuring the mass of neutrons for example) if their theories were correct – like what gaps were in the Periodic Table.  The comparison between Meyer’s source of data input to our DNA and Asimov’s descriptions of how our physical world was not only created but continues to exist – can only be attributed (IMO) to Intelligent Design (See also movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” by Ben Stein).  It was the hardest book I’ve ever finished in my life – not because of the math (Asimov actually makes it understandable to this math bonehead …but still, how do they know when and what to multiply and divide?) but because my brain was full!  The last 56 pages felt like cramming a hundred pounds of gear into my 50 pound brain housing group.  Yet it remained fascinating to the end.   I felt like a wide-eyed lad peering into his Father’s lab.  Maybe I was. 

“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”  Albert Einstein  

Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers’ Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids and Country by Rebecca Friedrichs;  She deserves the Pulitzer Prize for blowing the lid off the unions’ money and muscle to jam the Left’s / Democrats’ / Socialist agenda down our children’s throats.  She shows how parents and local school boards have lost control of their own children and students.

A Preface to Morals by Walter Lippmann, 1929.  The value of this book can be gleaned by just a few of the first headings of Chapter 1:

• The Problem of Unbelief
• God In the Modern World
• The Loss of Certainty
• The Acids of Modernity
• The Breakdown of Authority, etc. 

The title of Part I is The Dissolution of the Ancestral Order.  This book is ten times more relevant now than it was in 1929.  He even describes how one can legitimately tell an atheist to go to Hell later in the book.  His famous (or infamous) wit is weaved throughout his insight into human nature and his observations on the social entropy he sees around him. 

The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Conversation by Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler, editors of Colliers Encyclopedia, Inc., 1953.  the editors and staff of Colliers were worried about the progressive decline of education in America – particularly the disappearance of the history of Western Civilization being taught in schools.  They recommended a “five-foot bookshelf” of the greatest books by the greatest thinkers in the history of the world for those who sought a true classical education.  This is what sent me on my quest for knowledge.  I considered myself an eclectic and voracious reader all my life.  It was my way of escaping poverty and the white ghetto I lived in as a boy.  But it wasn’t until I learned of the five-foot bookshelf by Colliers that, at this senior phase of my life, I felt my knowledge of the world expanded exponentially.  It is invigorating, inspiring and fascinating how “the ancients” were so much more intelligent than almost all university professors of today.  My brain feels like a Mediterranean sponge. Sometimes I don’t know if my one brain can contain all of it.  The downside is it makes trivial conversations with the free-coffee crowd at McDonald’s (and many others) almost unbearable.  

“The West needs to recapture and re-emphasize and bring to bear upon its present problems the wisdom that lies in the works of its greatest thinkers and in the discussions that they have carried on…   We are as concerned as anybody else of the headlong plunge into the abyss that Western Civilization seems to be taking.” – preface to The Great Conversation, 1953.

“People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.”   – Edmund Burke

Six Great Ideas, by Mortimer J. Adler, 1981, 243 pgs.  

Truth, Goodness, Beauty – Ideas We Judge By

Liberty, Equality, Justice – Ideas We Act On

“Moral virtue is the firm habit that disposes the individual to make right choices” – p. 240.  Contains 28 chapters on not just great philosophical questions such as the effects of not voting (p. 192), socialism is not communism (p.181) and non-cognitive ethics: moral relativism (p.72)

Five Years to Freedom  by Colonel Nick Rowe

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace  by Robert A. Divine, 2000; 99pgs.  “The implications of a “Clinton Doctrine calling for the United States to base its foreign policy on defending human rights around the world is frightening.  …the adventure in Kosovo should not be held out as an example in the future.”

War is a Racket  by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler.  Former commandant of the Marine Corps, Butler saw in the early 1900s (way before Eisenhower’s famous speech) how the military-industrial-complex was dictating America’s foreign policy.  He testified before Congress of being asked by leading industrialists at the time to lead a coup d’etat against FDR’s socialist agenda.  Congress refused to indict them as “too big to fail.”  Sound familiar?  

Propaganda by Edward Bernays, 1928; 168pgs.  Bernays is the nephew of Sigmund Freud and inventor of manipulating public opinion -“engineering of consent.”  He is unapologetic in the use of propaganda on the American consumer.  He leaves it  up to the American consumer to “get more intelligent” so as to “raise the standard” of propaganda.  This book was used by Hitler’s propaganda chief Goebbels to brainwash the German people into supporting a world war and the extermination of the Jewish people.  He bragged “I’m going to use American techniques on an American scale.”  [America is 28 times larger than Germany]

The Crusades by Zoe Oldenbourg, 1966, 593pgs.  The human/political aspect of the first three crusades in the 12th century in which the West tried grafting a European state onto an Oriental environment.  To bad Bush, Jr. didn’t read this prior to “exporting democracy” (if he can read).  Page 570 second paragraph contains lines indicting Marine general Mattis  Those who don’t believe reading history can improve the future haven’t read history – if they can read at all.  

A Brief History of the Crusades: Islam and Christianity in the Struggle for World Supremacy by Geoffrey Hindley, 2003, 260pgs.  Having just read Oldenbourg’s lengthy book I wasn’t inclined to read another.  Very glad I did.  Pleasantly surprised how much more history of the crusades I learned and how “modern” Islamic countries still commemorate them.  

The Great Deformation: How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Free Markets and Democracy by David Stockman, 2013; 768pgs.  

“Former Michigan congressman and budget director for the Reagan administration David Stockman tells….how the nation’s conservative party fostered the great fiscal breakdown now upon the land and got away with it.  ….laments the failure of officials to permit the financial collapse of 2008 to run its course.  “Had this attack been allowed hundreds of billions in long-term debt and equity capital that underpinned the Wall Street-based speculation machines [he called them ‘gambling casinos in a whore house] would have been wiped out.  It also would have implanted a generational 1930s style lesson about the deadly dangers of leveraged specualation.  He chastises Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, as agents for Wall Street’s financial power.  He debunks the two myths of Reagan’s “conservatism”: massive deficit finance and deficits don’t matter.  He traces the roots of perennial deficits to Roosevelt taking America off the gold standard and Nixon’s ending the dollar-to-gold convertibility.” – Kirkus Review

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck, 1936; 270 pgs.  Jim is an “activist” attempting to organize abused farm laborers in order to gain fair wages and working conditions.  It feels like the book’s descriptions on the web avoid saying it is about  Communist  agitators who exploit the legitimate grievances of men working in California apple orchards.  The Growers’ Association repeatedly cut wages to sub-survival levels.  This is true.  They really did this.  While I absolutely HATE communists the working conditions for much of American labor during that period was abused by farm and industry alike.  Having been an abused laborer in my youth (and a union steward for a very, very short time) I empathized with both the laborers and the “agitators” in the story.  I could have been Jim.  But from the perspective of an anti-communist Special Forces trooper who dedicated my life to fighting communism (and any other brand of oppression) throughout the world the book is an excellent primer for understanding how the American Communist Party (which morphed into the American Civil Liberties Union) conducts their subversion of American Labor.  This is a matter of record from Lenin’s paper “What Is To Be Done?” written in 1917.   Steinbeck is quoted on Wikipedia wanting to do “an autobiography of a communist.”  This he does very well.  The negative aspect of communism is brought out by inference – that the ends justifies the means…and they will use and abuse the laborer to achieve those means.  The struggle between capitalists and “labor” is fairly presented.  What Steinbeck (and a lot of other American communist sympathizers of that era) could not realize at the time was the consequent horrors of Communism in power and the genocide of those same laborers they claimed to represent.  (see The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by  Andrzej Paczkowski, Jean-Louis Margolin, Jean-Louis Panne’, Karel Bartosek, and Nicolas Werth – all recanted communists.)

Guerrilla Economy: The Development of the Shensi-Kansa-Ninghsia Border Region, 1937-1945 by Peter Schran, State University of New York Press, 1976; 262 pgs.   You have to be REALLY interested in guerrilla warfare to read this book.  I am…but I didn’t read all of it.  The author admits frequently throughout that the figures he cites were provided by Mao’s guerrilla army and are therefore suspect (wow! a communist lying!  who woulda thunk it?).  Another problem was that Mao’s force was not a “guerrilla” unit per se as it was an occupying army conducting mobilized warfare against the Nationalists and the Japs at that time.  It does provide insight into the difficulty of implementing a wartime economic system supporting a rebel army.

Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin, 1977; 502 pgs.  The best known Russian revolutionary exile before 1917.  Born in 1842 into Russian aristocracy he grew up and worked within it for a third of his life.  Eventually broke with the corrupt Tsarist regime when he was almost 30 years old.  By 1886 he was the most famous anarchist in the world.  I read the book for two reasons: to find his point of conversion from Tsarist to Anarchist, and to learn the origin of anarchists’ tactics, techniques and procedures.  He didn’t originate anarchy but focused on intelligence and (surprisingly) against extremism (“moderate anarchy”? – an apparent oxymoron). He’s an excellent diarist describing some cultural experiences I’ve experienced myself overseas on rare occasions.  I agree with his opinions on how to reach students.  It’s a pity his obvious intelligence regarding geography was wasted in a misguided attempt to replace corrupt government with no government.  Too bad he didn’t have access to Chakotin’s book on propaganda’s effect on the masses. 

Common Sense, Rights of Man, and other Essential Writings of Thomas Paine   Signet Classics 200th Anniversary Edition;  Paine’s pamphlet is credited with galvanizing popular support of the American colonists behind complete independence from Britain.  He made a lot of enemies writing it by calling for the same basic human rights and liberation from monarchy and all other forms of tyranny around the world.  After the American Revolution he went to France and supported its’ revolution by writing articles contradicting Burke’s defense of monarchical government.  

 The Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke, Dover Thrift Edition 2002, 153pgs.  This book is of immense importance today because it explains where and why Americans obtained their freedoms and articulates the boundaries of religion and government.  Both are totally misconstrued by the Left today.  Locke was one of the most important political theorists in Western History.  This work has been the basis of social and political philosophy for over three hundred years – including an influence on our Founding Fathers that borders on plagiarism.  His treatise accomplished two revolutionary objectives: refuting the concept of Divine Right of monarchies and establishing a theory of government based on the ultimate sovereignty of the people. His letter on Toleration was based “on grounds similar to his treatise on political freedom, i.e. that all men are by nature ‘free, equal and independent’, and are entitled to freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of worship.

 Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dover Thrift Edition, 2004; 52pgs.  One day on the road to Vincennes, France the 37 year old Rousseau read that a contest was to be held by the Academy of Dijon for the best essay on the question: “Has the progress of the sciences and arts contributed to the corruption or to the improvement of human conduct?”  He wrote:

“All at once I found myself dazzled by a thousand sparkling lights; crowds of vivid ideas thronged into my head with a force and confusion that threw me into unspeakable agitation; I felt my head whirling in a giddiness like that of intoxication. Unable to walk for difficulty breathing, I sank down under one of the trees by the road, and passed half an hour there in such a condition of excitement that when I rose I saw that the front of my waistcoat was all wet with tears…Ah, if ever I could have written a quarter of what I saw and felt under that tree, with what clarity I should have brought out all the contradictions of our social system!  With what simplicity I should have demonstrated that man is by nature good, and that only our institutions have made him bad!”

   Meh, yes on the first half, no on the second.  Actually a good argument could be made to just the opposite – man is by nature wicked (and has been since the Fall of Adam).  It is only by voluntarily entering into and obeying the laws of societal institutions (commonwealths as Locke calls them) that man is distinguished from the “savages” or beasts –and enjoys the protection of himself and his property by those institutions that he is able to survive and prosper (Locke).  I agree with his premise it was only when primitive man began to possess land in which to invest labor that the lust for others’ possessions began to create inequality.  But it wasn’t the institutions per se that caused coveting,  it was man’s innate greed and desire to be better than and to gain power over his neighbor that caused the inequality (that’s why Cain slew Abel). 

• 1. For most of history societies evolved then devolved. 
• 2. Does not credit “savages” for innate intelligence or emotions. They have both or they would not survive in nature.  
• 3. No credit to God for His gifts of knowledge and resources to His children.
• 4. Blames the amorphous “society” and laws for creating the schism between weak and strong. P. 39.  (typical French projection)
• 5.  It is not “society”, possession of property or technology that causes war.  It is man’s choice to create reasons for war based on power mongering and coveting.  P. 40. 

6. “Learning” the consequences of good and bad conduct is false.  We are born with a knowledge of good and evil – and our agency to choose between the two.  It’s one of the reasons we came to this earth.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volumes 1-6 by Edward Gibbon. I finished reading the last volume this morning January 23, 2018. I consider it a life time capstone of my love of reading. The introduction containing a biography of Gibbon is 26 pages alone and quite interesting. I had heard many times during my life that the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a precursor to the future of the United States of America. It is that and more. It is an accurate view of the nature of mankind that exists in every civilization. Gibbon comments “…after reading this the reader may laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.” I don’t know how anyone could laugh at the degree of misery that a few greedy, power hungry, megalomaniacs (political and religious) cause so many other human beings. All of his footnotes are from original sources and many in original Latin and Greek. Yes, it IS a prophetic look at the dismal future of America…and the world. I’ve been angry a long time about the direction my country has been going. Reading Gibbon and Josephus has given me the knowledge to understand why the world is like it is – and the wisdom to stop raging against human nature.

The Collected Works of Josephus. Translated by William Whitson. Reading Josephus after Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire changed my life. Josephus not only mentions Jesus but confirms there were thousands of eye-witnesses to His miracles, His death and His resurrection. But that is only a very small part of his work. His personal witnessing of the fall of Jerusalem to Titus Ceasar was riveting and beyond horrible. One realizes the degree of contentiousness of the Jews and how they brought about their own destruction (including the burning of the Temple)- despite Roman general Titus’ efforts to prevent it. Earlier in the book he writes of Moses’ farewell speech to the children of Israel shortly before his death in which he declares “You have tried to kill me more often than our enemies!” There is some amazing details contained in this book that could only have been written by someone who was there and in a position to know first hand – as Josephus, both high priest and general, was. The Dissertations at the end easily rebut others’ criticisms of Josephus and show extensive correlation with KJV Bible texts.

The End of Poverty, Economic Possibilities for Our Time, by Jeffrey D. Sachs, The Penguin Press 2005, 368pgs. Considered by many to be one of the top five smartest men in the world. This man should be the U.N.’s economic czar. He has simple, logical solutions. But he forgets that neither men nor governments are honest idealists as he is – or refuses to let that dissuade him. I admire him for that. His enthusiasm is infectious for anyone who cares about humanity and seeks alternatives to war. .

Power Shift, Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21^st Century by Alvin Toffler; Bantam Books, 1990. 496 pgs. Contacted a retired FBI agent/now college professor mentioned in his book. Corresponded with him a few times re: future threats.

In Mortal Danger, The Battle for America’s Border and Security by Tom Tancredo, WND Books, 2006, 209pgs. The only Congressman raising the illegal alien situation to the awareness of the American public. It was probably due to his efforts that Congress’s “immigration reform” bill didn’t pass due to overwhelming opposition by the American public. Our spineless representatives who wanted to sell us out without our knowledge were finally pressured by public opinion into vetoing the bill. Prior to the bill being voted on, one of his assistants met with me over dinner about the problems in Douglas after he heard of my web site “CBP Freepress”

The Reaper’s Line, Life and Death Along the Arizona Border, by Lee Morgan, II; Rio Nuevo Press, I worked in the same sector he writes about (the Douglas Port of Entry). I’m amazed that an agent who names names like he does of some very powerful -and extremely corrupt- individuals in Douglas and Agua Prieta still chooses to live in the same town after retiring. They are going to get him one day. They have long memories. He idolizes himself a lot – too many “I’s” but he is very accurate about the corruption. And our government stabs us in the back for trying to enforce the law.

Once a Warrior King, Memories of an Officer in Vietnam by David Donovan, 314 pgs. McGraw-Hill, 1985

America Alone – The End of the World As We Know It by Mark Steyn, 214 pgs. Regnery Publishing, Inc. 2006. Steyn is very articulate and ofttimes funny in how he addresses the fact that the Muslim world is propagating much faster than the Non-Muslim world. In fact, non-muslims aren’t even in the contest. We’re going to pay for that in many bad ways.

Stalking the VietCong, Inside Operation Phoenix – A Personal Account by Stuart A. Herrington, 213 pgs. Presidio Press, 1997. Originally published as “Silence Was A Weapon” which I read about twenty years ago. Good CI reference material.

Munger Africana Notes #19, Report on Portugal’s War in Guinea-Bissau by Al J. Venter; California Institute of Technology, April 1973. 202 pgs. Located in the M.I. library, Ft. Huachuca, AZ this is an EXCELLENT report on the guerrilla war in GB. The Cubans were backing the guerrillas against the Portuguese. The author’s report is an outstanding example of Mission Analysis, IPB in Phase 4 (COIN) operations. Although 35 years old it is still a valid template for current COIN analyses. It bears follow-up on the Internet to see how it turned out. My how technology has improved information gathering! As an enlisted SF ODA team member, I used to have to conduct pre-mission area studies by actually READING BOOKS!!!

Intelligence Analysis: A Target-Centric Approach by Robt. M. Clark. Very academic. Short, paperback but full of good intel vignettes -particularly that the evidence for WMD turned out to be pipes for oil rigs, etc. Good reference to a British WW II Air intel officer who did good work against the Germans.

Blood From Stones by Douglas Farah. I introduced myself to the author when he visited the 304^th MI Bn MI Captain’s Career Course (MICCC) around May/June ‘07. He tells of the connection between international criminal enterprises and the “ideological” Islam radicals. Basically it’s the MONEY STUPID!!!! He contradicted a previous guest author who adamantly insisted it was all about “Faith and Blood!” – and had the proof to show the contradiction. The previous guest speaker was an Islamic influence agent. .

Fighting the War of Ideas Like a Real War by J. Michael Waller. His premise is that the U.S. isn’t even engaged in the war of words against radical islamists -and he’s right. He offers some interesting semantics to coopt the war of words in our favor. I.E. “Jihad” to most moderate muslims means a personal quest for self-improvement. He quotes the Quran many times to enable us to call the radicals what they really are “Al Hiraba” (criminal, terrorist) committing “Tajdeef” blasphemy – which, under the Quran is punishable by death. He quotes the Spanish Fatwa condemning the radical islamists. Good material. I still don’t know if his premise that “most” muslims are moderate is true.

The Strategy of Indirect Approach by H. Liddell-Hart. I learned that the Persians invaded Greece at Marathon to draw the Greek military away from Athens so that those in the Athenian government who favored the Persians could influence the government toward Persia. I also learned how Hitler used people’s ambition, power & party zeal to subvert the government -and his attempt to destroy his enemy’s MORAL fabric before engaging in open hostilities is STILL being used today by “Progressive” americans. i.e. the American Civil Liberties Union claiming to defend the underdog when it originated from members of the American Communist Party. Subversion is alive and well today in America. The author gives other good examples of winning battles by the “indirect approach”.

The Sword and the Pen by H. Liddell-Hart. 273 pgs. Hart is a renowned British author of many books on military history. I skipped the British internal battles discussed – too boring. But page 95 “Frederick the Great” has some good points; as do pages 102, 104, and 112. He discusses Mao’s “On War” – which too many U.S. military “leaders” have still not read, Adolf Hitler’s tactics -worth reading today- are on page 249; T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, Lenin, Trotsky, even an excellent descriptive scene from Stephen Crane’s “Red Badge of Courage” as well as one of Winston Churchill reports (“The River War”- page 224) as a correspondent – very well written. If he hadn’t soiled himself with politics he would have made a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

The Battle of New Orleans by Robert V. Remini, an excellent depiction of the Battle of New Orleans and a great speech by Andrew Jackson

***Counter-Guerrilla Operations – The Philippine Experience by Col. Napolean D. Valeriano, AFP (Ret.) and Lieutenant Colonel Charles T.R. Bohannan, AUS (Ret); Frederick A. Praeger Publisher, New York, 1962. What I thought was going to be a droll repeat of previously read COIN books turns out to be an extremely informative book on probably the world’s most successful counterinsurgency. Many excellent tactical examples of success plus an excellent recommended reading list in Appendix III.

Tactical Tracking Operations – The Essential Guide for Military and Police Trackers by David Scott-Donelson, Paladin Press, 1998. 170pgs. Excellent book on the subject by a SME who served with the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia tracking guerrillas. Good specific real-world examples.

The Magsaysay Story by Carlos P. Romulo and Marvin M. Gray, 1956. 307pgs. The biography of arguably the most effective counter-guerrilla leader of the 20^th century Ramon Magsaysay. Of poor beginnings he never forgot his roots or the ideals of the common man. He rose from poor agricultural and blacksmithing beginnings to become President of the Phillipines. He was the one man who saved the Phillippines from becoming another communist state. An amazing story. Romulo, one of the authors, was on the list of those to be executed by the Huks. Often compared to U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“We only know that with Magsaysay as its leader the young Philippine Republic within a few brief but crucial years has emerged through the test and trial with a message for the cause of democracy we should like to hear shouted from the pinnacles of the world”.

Magsaysay’s inaugural speech in December, 1953 “From this day the members of my administration, beginning with myself, shall cease to belong to our parties, to our families, even to ourselves. We shall belong only to the people.” He lived that promise to the day he died in a plane crash on March 17, 1957 eight months prior to his term of office as president of the Philippines ended. It is said that a politician thinks only of the next election whereas a statesman thinks of the next generation. Ramon Magsaysay was a true statesman. We need a Magsaysay in the United States today.

INFILTRATION: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington by Paul Sperry, 328pgs. Depressing portrayal of how “political correctness” (a façade for communism) is destroying America from within – just as the COMINTERN planned it in 1917.

The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers by Anat Berko 175pgs. Excellent source for getting inside the head of the suicide bombers. Author was an Israeli police officer who personally conducted the interviews with the bombers. She provides some interesting side details on Palestinian issues the Western media will never publish.

Ending Terrorism: Lessons for Defeating Al-Qaeda by Audrey Kurth Cronin, 72pgs. Short but very cogent strategic ways to let Al Qaeda implode. Good ideas for IO. Among the several centrifugal forces that influence the vast majority of groups that rely on terrorism to self-destruct are:

1. Catching or killing the leaders
2. infighting and factionalism
3. internal disputes over ideology or doctrine
4. a tendency to lose control over operations
5. reduction or elimination of popular support
   1. through: intimidation, better offers by the govt (amnesties, reform, employment programmes, etc.)
6. movement toward a legitimate political process

The author’s strategy for ending Al-Qaeda:

1. Demystify the movement – articulate exactly what it really is. Don’t assist it in it’s IO.
2. Understand and exploit internal cleavages
3. Disaggregate and hive off disparate elements within the group.
4. Highlight the group’s mistakes w/ an effective IO.
5. Encourage a popular backlash w/o being too obvious about it.

In the book “Fighting the War of Ideas Like a Real War” the author posits that bin Laden’s biggest fear is RIDICULE.

In another book I read that bin Laden was derisively referred to by other Saudis as “the servant’s son”. He is now viewed by most Muslims as the “Lion of Allah”. That is why millions of Muslims name their sons Osama – “the warrior”.

“Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution” by A.J. Langguth. 1988, 563 pgs. Every American should read this……use it for reference, teach it to his children and re-read it. It should be taught in every school in America. The author did a great service to his country writing this book – if we will but read it. See BradleyProject.com to see

Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Tyrannical Political Propaganda by Serge’ Chakotin (dedicated to H.G. Wells), 1939, 288 pages
– just as Pavlov’s dogs and mice can be trained to a specific conditioned response so can humans. The introduction of speech gives birth to a series of increasingly complicated conditional reflexes.
– Ignorance is thus the best medium for the formation of the masses who easily lend themselves to suggestion. This is a capital fact in the domain of politics and the social order; it has always been known, but thanks to Pavlov it is possible to understand the reasons for it.
– in one of his last works published before his death, Pavlov declared that the method of conditioned reflexes assures great possibilities in the training of the organ of thought (the mind – mind control!)

   – In 1932, during Germany’s presidential campaign, Hitler’s propagandist, Goebbels said he was going to “use American methods [of advertisement] on an American scale”

– “Universal symptoms show in all nations the rapid growth of the crowd. The advent of the crowd will, perhaps, Mark one the last stages of the Western civilization, a return to the periods of confusion and anarchy which precede the emergence of new societies.” – Gustave Le Bon

– Cherkotin says the contrary: ” the age in which we are now living is, on the contrary, a diminution in the real influence of collectivities on public life: they are growing more and more into docile instruments in the hands of usurpers, dictators, who unscrupulously make use of their more or less intuitive apprehension of psychological laws, together with their control of the formidable technical equipment afforded by the modern State to manipulate the individuals composing a people by a method which we have called psychical rape.”

I think they are both right.

– to maintain control of “psychic slaves” the Art of dictatorial rule is always composed of 2 phases: the gathering of masses into crowds, where they can be subjected to a psychical lash of the whip by means of violent harangues, associated with repetitive exhibition of social symbols [swastikas] which reawakens their faith in these symbols and, 2. The re dispersal of these crowds into masses who are then left for a time to act under the revivified influence of these symbols which surround them on all sides.

Cherkotin -as a communist – says this is beneficial if led by a Tribune who organizes the masses into a revolution (like Lenin). P. 36

– “The purpose of this book is to contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of the psychical oppression carried out by modern usurpers (capitalists) and, secondly, to place effective weapons in the hands of those who are ready to make any sacrifice in order to liberate humanity (anti-capitalists).”

– the “weapons”: excited sensibilities and psychical contagion. (Creating a mob mentality).

– “soul engineers” protagonist leaders who manipulate a crowd into a mob. P 38.

– a thing that is very characteristic of a crowd is the preponderance of any emotional over any intellectual appeal.

– education plays a part of first importance in the formation of man, determine a large part of his actions.

– in politics it is the multitudes that matter.

– pgs. 117-127 detail the mechanics of a successful political campaign based on the propaganda specifically analyzed and targeted toward sectors of populations.

– pg. 152 describes the origin of celebrating May Day: “for playing the trump card of menace to the bourgeoise world, making use unawares, by intuition, of the instinct for struggle. The bourgeoisie parties were panic stricken at the spectacle of the mounting of the working class tide, of trade unions and Socialism.”

P. 161. Why Hitler succeeded for so long: he threatened war and pushed toward it. Democracies wanted to avoid war at all costs rather than crush Hitler in his political infancy. “The hypnosis of the outer world” by Hitler’s bluff that all 75 million Germans were rabid supporters.

P 164. The ratio of those who are susceptible to emotive propaganda v. Those of higher intelligence who are not is 10:1….yet only 1 in 10 of the population is needed to effect change.

– P165: Lenin wrote “the revolutionary propagandist must think in terms of hundreds, the agitator in terms of tens of thousands, and the organizer and leader of the revolution in terms of millions!”

– p 166: the propagandist envisages two distinct categories of individuals: the “55,000”. (Majority) is formed by the indifferent – those who are lazy-minded or tired out, or whose whole attention is absorbed by the difficulties of everyday life. Adler considers these to be neurotics, people with an unstable nervous system, easily accessible to imperious suggestion, easily frightened, and often glad to be dominated or guided. It includes the great mass of the lower middle class, most women and young people.

– p 169. Ratio propaganda (based on the 2nd element: nutritive or economic) vs. Senso- propaganda (based on the first element of struggle / combative / fear.

– p 171/2. List of “Do’s” during mass meetings (used today by campaigning politicians and Walmart stockholders)

– p 176. “The greater the mass of the men whom it is desired to reach, the lower must be the intellectual level of the propaganda.” – Hitler, Mein Kempf.

– p 179. Terrorism will have success everywhere unless barred by equal terrorism!” Ibid

– p 236. Phases of a Propaganda Campaign

– p 238: Hitler’s tactics to power: Bluff,psychical rape, triumphed over reason, arak using the policy of tit for tat which alone could have broken the vicious circle.”

– p 239 Hitler took over Western Europe practically without firing a shot by “…the conditioned reflex of submission by the excitation through bloodshed of the reflex of fear”.

Chapter IX: Active Socialism: this is where Chakotin invokes the required cheerleading for communism – since he’s living in Russia under Lenin

– p 263: “undoubtedly capitalism as a ruling principle has had its day: human evolution has passed it by.” (Marx wrote behind his times and apparently Chakotin isn’t aware of this. Communists are so falsely optimistically tunnel visioned).

– p 264: the dictatorships, which largely owe their rise to power to capitalist support, cleverly and unscrupulously profiting by the perplexity of the money power in face of the mounting tide of Socialism and of the power of the working class organizations, have not denied that capitalism is on its death-bed.” [and yet a mere seven decades later under Reagan the Iron Curtain came down. It was Socialism that died a slow death – but now, 2019, Socialism is being resurrected by  the economically and politically spoiled and historically clueless generation.  

– p 265 “Karl Marx studied capitalism above all from the point of view of a scientist”. [Except he wasn’t a scientist – of any kind. His doctoral thesis was denied and he was never board certified by any department of academia. He was a failure as a disgruntled faux academician and as a man. He impregnated his maid, lived the life of a bourgeoisie at the expense of Engels and suffered most of his life from boils over his body. His mother cut him off financially in his twentys. He was a verbally inarticulate, “El Negro” because of his dark skin (perhaps his father’s maid?) miserable creature. He complained of the abuses of the Industrial Revolution at a time when technology and the industrialists behind it were raising the quality of living for hundreds of millions of people around the world.

– p 266. “Darwinism no longer holds against present-day scientific criticism”. [Imagine that! As far back as 1932 Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory was ill-thought of by the scientific community – even by a communist atheist!]

– p 267. Chakotin really blows his credibility here by claiming the Russian people [voluntarily?] endured years of the “harshest material sacrifices, and far from succumbing to it, it has ultimately benefited” (meaning the Five Year Plan of forced collectivization of every Russian family’s food, farm equipment, etc. that resulted in the starvation death and ethnic cleansing of 60 million Russians. Stalin told Roosevelt at the Potsdam Conference “I may have over done it a bit.”

What bullshit.

– p 269. “So long as people continue to “HOPE” that matters may settle themselves [pacifists], so long as they believe in the immutability of out-of-date dogmas, dogmas which life and the science of life have passed by, so long as they persist in inhibiting men’s tendency to take an active part in political life, inviting them to wait with unending patience and to put up with the consequences of the inertia of their leaders, so long, finally, as they shut their eyes to the new forms of political struggle and the new data of a science which advances unceasingly and is today becoming the very foundation of politics – there will be no positive advance, the situation will grow worse from day to day, and in the end there will come either destruction through war or the loss of the freedom for which men live and struggle.” Well said. That’s America today.

P 270. ###### “The will to resist is what is needed in order to overcome our reactions to stimulus applied by others to control our behavior.” This is to be accompished by education, ‘eubiotics’ ( the improvement of the conditions of existence), and ‘psychical prophylaxis’ – restoring faith in human progress and the principles of social duty”

– p 272; to attain this struggle is necessary. In this lies the decisive importance of Socialism. It has to be organized primarily for a destructive campaign. …this action can only be based on the “first instinct” that of struggle [aka combat, violence, fear, intimidation] by means of conditioned reflexes brought into action by means of conditioned reflexes brought into action by effective forms of propaganda, employing on one side menace and on the other side enthusiasm.”

NOTE: [In other words, by using Hitler’s methods.. This is where Chakotin connects using biological behavior to assure a desired political outcome. The Chinese communists version is called brainwashing – a la The Manchurian Candidate.

– p 273. “The propaganda of these ideas, hammered into men’s minds until they become an obsession, can be effected by the same method [Hitler’s] of ‘psychical rape’ “. “A violent propaganda of non-violence!”

[It would behoove these Socialists, Communists, etc. to follow a most basic rule of essay writing: let it sit for awhile then re read it looking for internal inconsistencies. They would astound themselves at the plethora of them.]

– p 274. The first thing to be done, THE KEY TO ALL THE REST, is to organize the PROPAGANDA OF PEACE… The idea of the Round Table of Peace ( United Nations), the pact of collective defense, the alliance of all the countries that are loyal to the idea of Freedom, of Humanity. …if necessary, a warning and threatening one!” ….what is needed is to re-establish Right in the world, reduce brute force to submission [by using brute force], and restore ‘psychic stability’ [Political Correctness], and HOPE IN HUMANITY.” [Obama’s and the Left’s agenda].

…based on the “humanitarian idea”

– p 275. .”..what we seek to do here is to sketch by way of example the general principles of organization for a common aim for all ANTI-FASCISTS…” [the precursor to the ANTIFA movement in America today]

Among the planks of the ANTI-FASCIST platform is exploitation of perceived – even if inaccurate- racial and religious inequities, and GROWING ARROGANCE IN FOREIGN POLICY.

Using the myth of the French Revolution as a democratic movement with its accompanying symbols – especially a weapon.

…using sound and movement like a salute…the extended arm and raised fist…

The highest form of emotive propaganda is shouting “FREEDOM!”

Clean House: Exposing Government’s Secrets and Lies by Tom Fitton

The Story of the Malakand Field Force by Winston Churchill, Dover Publications, Inc. republished in 2010; originally published 1916.  This is a must read for any military history buff.  Churchill was England’s Teddy Roosevelt – both volunteered for military service and saw combat when their social connections could have exempted them.  Both are master wordsmiths.  At a time when being well read and well written was considered admirable, Churchill stands out.  In this book he describes his experiences in the British army during the expedition to quell tribal uprisings in the northwest provinces of India in 1895.  His letters sent to the London Times describing the political, economic, social, geographic, logistical, and military aspects of the operation put today’s military “All-Source” intelligence analysts to shame.  I use General Flynn’s desired qualities of an intel analyst as a standard and the only other person who comes close to Churchill in meeting that standard is Robert Kaplan (Balkan Ghosts, etc.).  Although the publisher decry’s Churchill’s “period bigotry” his description of the tribal culture and the Islamic mind is as true today as it was then.  That should come as no surprise since the Islamist clerics have intentionally kept their adherents in the 7th century intellectually.  Anyone who has been to that part of the world will recognize Churchill’s assessment.  I consider this book one of my bibliographic treasures.

The River War by Winston Churchill  The second book comprising Churchill’s letters to the London Times describing his experiences as a member of the 21st Lancers – part of Kitchener’s “relief” of Khartoum, Sudan (though it took Parliament 13 years to decide Sudan and the Nile were worth the time and expense. to recover..a little late for Gordon).  In my opinion this book and his previous work deserved Nobel prizes in literature.  I had read Churchill’s mesmerizing description of his participation in the Lancer’s charge of the Mahdi’s Dervishes at Omdurman a few years ago and was impressed by Churchill’s descriptive acumen then.  This book details the political, social, and monumental geographic and logistical efforts leading up to the Battle of Omdurman.  It is believed Churchill’s appreciation of the building of the Nile River railway that was so critical to the success of the final battle enabled him to convince U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt to wait to invade Europe until sufficient logistics guaranteed success.

While a member of Special Forces detachment 572 in the early ’80s our team deployed to Sudan.  The first thing we saw when the C-130 ramp lowered was a uniformed North Korean airman standing a few feet away.  The second thing we saw was the North Korean MIG aircraft in the hangars at Omdurman air base.  The third thing we saw (other than the abject poverty of the place) was the inoperative Russian and Chinese tanks parked outside the barracks (just completed – the Sudanese “paratroopers” slept in tents until our departure later).  They really didn’t like us getting inside them trying to start them up and taking pictures of the instruments.  Their trucks had to be backed up onto small dirt berms when parked so they could roll start them in the mornings.  It was hot as hell (127 degrees) and the most desolate (other than the Sahara Desert) place I have ever been. The Nile (blue or white branch I didn’t know) was less than a mile away – we crossed over it on the bridge leading to Khartoum.  The airborne battalion we trained “with” had just returned from the south of Sudan in which a rebel force had held hostage several European missionaries.  They simply drove into the compound and killed every rebel in sight – all 300 of them.  Returning from our end of mission exercise – in which we enjoyed the support of a beloved AC-130’s 105mm howitzer and mini-gun.  SMAJ Cartwright said “If you want to take over this country all you have to do is shift the AC-130’s target one klick east …the Sudanese president and all of his military chiefs were sitting in the shade sipping lemonade.  We took a vote and decided none of us wanted any part of this shithole.  As we were retrograding across the desert in a large V formation,  a MIG jet zoomed NOE over our heads straight toward Khartoum in the distance where it dropped one bomb.  It was Libya’s Moamar Quadafi’s response to an alleged border incident by Sudanese troops.  At the end of our mission an armed security element took us on a tour of the Khartoum museum and the fort at Omdurman where Gordon was killed and Kitchener destroyed the Mahdi’ forces.  Our Sudanese jump wing certificates are in Arabic and translate roughly into “Tigers descending from the sky.”     Well said.

Marching Toward Hell:  America and Islam After Iraq by Michael Scheur;   Chief of the CIA Alec Team responsible for finding and killing Osama bin Laden.  While I agree totally with his assessment of our feckless politicians and State Department, I totally disagree with his comment “Nations don’t have a right to exist.  You take your chances.”  Scheur weaves his rational argument against entangling alliances (a view shared by George Washington in his Farewell Address) with brazen anti-Semitism.  He denies it but I don’t know how one could call it anything else – except a total absence of a personal moral code.  The book is so worth reading – ESPECIALLY THE FOOTNOTES.  I found one in which he stated they could have killed Osama bin Ladin MULTIPLE times  but in the eleven years he was Alec Team chief  not once did he receive the green light to do it.  This by several presidents for the most asinine excuses.

Breakthrough:  Our Guerrilla War to Expose Fraud and Save Democracy.  by James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas.  Remember the clandestine videos of Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics?  That was James.  He’s a national hero.  If you don’t thing our State enemies are out of control read what they did to him in New Orleans.  He got royally screwed by “our” government for doing a job the Main Stream Media should have been doing.

A Country I No Longer Recognize  edited by Robert J. Bork.  As I wrote on his book “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”, Bork’s razor sharp legal mind articulates the sources of America’s moral decline.  In this book he eviscerates the U.S. Supreme Court’s leftist legislation in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.  This should be taught in every high school, college and university….but therein lies the problem.  The intellectual elite -of which the USSC is a lobbyist – has already coopted the nation’s education.  He provides solutions but is not optimistic about a reversal.  As I said in my (unedited) YouTube video: we are on the verge of a civil war…..due in no small part to the activist Supreme Court.

The Generals by Thomas Ricks.  Surprisingly on the recommended reading list of the army’s Command & General Staff College.  Describes the evolution of how general’s are picked.  Like appointing Supreme Court justices, presidents, politicians, Secretaries of Defense, and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff can be wrong……and frequently are.  Reading this book is like watching sausage being made.  It will make you furious, sad and nauseaus – words you won’t hear from all the generals on the back cover who supposedly “reviewed” this book.  The author does point out the life-saving difference between some outstanding Marine principles and generals who constrasted sharply with their idiot army counterparts (Chosin, Vietnam, etc.)  This book reminds me of the British version……titled “On the Philosophy of Military Incompetence.” 

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife” Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam  by John A. Nagl & Peter J. Schoomaker

With Lawrence in Arabia, Lowell Thomas, 1921(?).  I have an original version of this .  One of my library jewels.

Revolt in the Desert, by T.E. Lawrence.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence.  This is a long book but well worth reading.  It is full of interesting anecdotes and lessons learned.

Lawrence, T.E. “The 27 Articles of T.E. Lawrence”  This was almost a hundred years before the U.S. military began relying on a fucking Australian for COIN advice.  The A.O. may change but the principles are eternal……despite the military-industrial-political complex’s penchant for reinventing the wheel so the power elite can get rich at the expense of muddy boots troops.

“Twixt Hell and Allah”  there are only two of these books still extent in the world – and I have one of them.  This should be made into a movie.  True story of a Brit who saw the movie “Beau Geste” (I recommend it), walked outside the theater in London down the street and joined the French Foreign Legion – 1918/19 …..when they still really “marched or died”!

Legionnaire: An Englishman in the French Foreign Legion,  by Simon Murray,  1978.  I read this paperback in one night.  The author was a well-educated, upper middle class Britisher who went to France alone at 19 years of age and signed his life away to the French Foreign Legion (1952-1956 I believe) during the latter years of the Algerian independence movement.

The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History by  Douglas Porch, 1991, 752pgs.    This book is phenomenal.  It includes some amazing incidents throughout the book and an especially poignant one during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu that lost Indochina for the French.

The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War by John J. McCuen, 1966

Counterinsurgency Warfare by John S. Pustay (USAF) 1965

Counter-Revolutionary Agent by Hans Tanner, 1962  (diary- Cuba 1961)

War and Anti-War, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, 1993

PowerShift: Knowledge. Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century by Alvin Toffler, 1990

A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes, 1997.

The Pentagon’s New Map by _____ Barnett

“The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time”  by Jeffrey D. Sachs.  With a forward by Bono.  In my opinion the quote by George Bernard Shaw “Some men see things as they are And ask “Why?”. I dream of things that never were And say, Why Not?” applies to this book.  Detailed and pragmatic approach to ending the root of so much misery in the world.

“Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare”  O’Neil, Bard. Potomac Books, 2001

Boot, Max, The Savage Wars of Peace”  Very Informative and often entertaining.  Should be paired with the Marine Corps’ “Small Wars Journal”

Emerson, Steve, “American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us”  I believe this was published in the mid to late ’90s.  The author articulates the very real domestic islamic threat  And it’s only gotten worse with a Muslim president in office.

Guevara, Che, Guerilla Warfare

“The Mini-Manual for Urban Guerilla Warfare” by Carlos Marighella.  If you can find it.  Another seminal, easy to read booklet.  Not many modern alleged “COIN” experts (Petraeus) know who Marighella is.

Hammes, Thomas, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century  (Hammes has the best summation of America’s historical narrative I’ve seen on the last (or next to last) page– a perfect theme to use in “Fighting the War of ideas Like A Real War”

Kaplan, Robert D., “The Ends of the Earth” (or anything else by Kaplan)

Anything by T.E. Lawrence – including the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” which has some cultural faux pas by the Brit major to King Faisal in his tent  if you pay attention.  I’m making watching this movie a homework assignment for anyone who reads this list!  (As I did for all my students at Ft. Huachuca –God Bless ‘em!)

Lawrence, T. E., U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and Combat Studies Institute, “The Evolution of a Revolt”. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, 1989

Linn, Brian McAllister, “The Philippine War, 1899–1902. University Press of Kansas, 2002”

“The Moro War:                  ”  This book should be on a CG’s Reading List.  It was America’s first counterinsurgency against Muslims – in the Philippines.  Many lessons could have been learned …..but, of course, weren’t.

MacDonald, Charles B., “Company Commander”

Van Creveld, Martin, “The Transformation of War”

Violent Politics, William Polks uses 11 tales of national turmoil for  insight into counter-insurgency efforts. Polk finds echoes of Vietnam and the  Soviet debacle in Afghanistan as he weighs U.S. policy in Iraq.  (This book is a good macro-to-micro analysis of all things COIN.)

Antal, John, “City Fights: Selected Histories of Urban Combat from World War II to Vietnam”  This is a much neglected aspect of combat.  I started an urban combat PowerPoint block of instruction for the 35F enlisted analyst course in 2007 but it never was accepted  (too “operational”)

Robertson, William G., CGSC, “Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban Operations”. Combat Studies Institute/CGSC Press, 2003

Bennis, Warren, “On Becoming a Leader”

Callwell, COL C.E., “Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice”. Charles River Books, 1977.  One of the original “bibles” on COIN.

Chaliand, Gerard, “Guerrilla Strategies”. University of California Press, 1983

*****Galula, David,” Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice”. New York: Praeger, 1964.  One of the seminal “bibles” on COIN.

Handel, Michael I., “Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought”, 3rd Edition.   Even though I’m a COINista, I believe a well-rounded military mind must study conventional war extensively as well – to know how to fight it, how potential threats fight it…….and how to avoid the strategic mistakes made so often by the fucking idiots inside the beltway.  I was trained on conventional warfare (even had to calculate nuclear falloout at the Infantry Officer’s Basic Course, Ft. Benning, Ga. 1983) and how to conduct intel support for conventional war at the Army’s Military Intelligence Captain’s Career Course in 1990.  The MI school and TRADOC, of course, have quit publishing the pertinent FMs containing the relevant OB, rates of march, weapons capabilities, etc. so they are now fumbling around with unqualified people trying to reinvent the intel wheel for conventional ops.  The MI school always seems to be chasing its’ tail doctrinally speaking.

Oliker, Olga, “Russia’s Chechen Wars 1994-2000: Lessons from Urban Combat”.  This has a hilarious (to the macabre-minded) incident where the Russians promised the Chechens they would allow them to withdraw from a city through a certain avenue of approach……then proceeded to shell the shit out them when the Chechens took them up on it.  The Russian commander said “I can’t believe they trusted us!”

Poole, H. John, “Tactics of the Crescent Moon; Militant Muslim Combat Methods”. Emerald Isle, NC: Posterity Press, 2004.  This is an excellent treatise on very specific ground tactics of Muslims

*****Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”, translated by Samuel Griffith.  If our fucking idiots in the District of Corruption would read and use Tzu’s concepts we would have fewer wars ……and win those we fought.

Van Creveld, Martin, “Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton”.  “An army moves and fights on its’ stomach”.  This is worth reading because it will help keep in mind S-4 strengths and weaknesses in mission planning – both ours and theirs.

Von Clausewitz, Carl, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.   Clausewitz has an interesting history.  He wasn’t an armchair theoretician.  But it’s long and not an easy read.  But his observations have driven the concept of conventional war for over two centuries.  Read this then read Mao’s book.  Mao read and refined Clausewitz.

Friedman, Thomas, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization”.

Kagan, Donald, “The Peloponnesian War”

Pressman,  Stephen (?) Balkan Ghosts…..all three of his books are outstanding about ancient warfare…..if you blow through the pronunciation of the names!

Knox, MacGregor, and Murray, Williamson, eds., “The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050”

McMaster, H.R., “Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam”     This book 2007…..obviously before Political Correctness petrified thought in the military.  This book, the RAND history of Vietnam and “About Face” turned my confused feelings about having served in Vietnam (albeit a shortened tour – survivor guilt) into seething rage.

Paret, Peter, ed., “Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age”.

Toffler, Alvin and Heidi, “War and Antiwar”

Waldrop, M. Mitchell, “Complexity — The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos”  When the bullshit “Analysis of Competing Hypothesis” was –and is – forced down our throats at the intel school it reminded me of chaos theory.

Farrar, “Blood From Stones” (and  Hammes and IO (Info Ops) Editorial by me: Recent guest speaker at the MI Captain’s Career Course ____ Farrar, author of “Blood from Stone” mentions the absence of ideological barriers between radical religious factions and other criminal and terrorist organizations.  He also cites a lack of participation by the U.S. in the Information War.  LCOL Hammes’ last paragraph in his book “The Sling and the Stone” gives the best IO theme I’ve seen in 25 years of COIN experience.  I’m also dismayed to hear from returning officers that PsyOps campaigns have to be approved by an echelon above Corps!  The approval process was so lengthy and cumbersome that by the time approval was given (if ever) the relevant exploitable incident was ancient history and unusable.  IO themes are effective but perishable  In the rare instances that a battalion commander has exercised his initiative and disseminated a locally-pertinent PsyOp theme to counter the flood of anti-U.S. propaganda it was very effective.

We’ve never been very good at beating our own drum.  Perhaps it’s because most Americans are raised taking for granted the freedoms enjoyed at so much cost.  We shouldn’t.  America is still a symbol of freedom to the world but it needs to be articulated and publicized WHY we are a symbol of freedom –down to the lowest, illiterate level of the oppressed world.  That’s where our threat is recruiting.  That is where we need to direct our IO.  We don’t need a Fifth Avenue public relations firm to do it.

Radical Islamists communicate their strategy via the internet with glaring specificity.  Our IO counter themes can be taken directly from their own discussions of their vulnerabilities.  For example,

I’m reminded of a briefing by LCOL Nick Rowe just prior to our Escape and Evasion portion of the SERE instructor course at Camp MacKall, North Carolina.  LCOL Rowe was a Special Forces captain captured by the Viet Cong and held for five years.  He escaped just prior to his scheduled execution.  He wrote a book entitled “Five Years to Freedom”.  During his briefing, LCOL Rowe mentioned that many American prisoners gave up when the North Vietnamese political officers told them “You are not a POW but a criminal.  The war could end tomorrow but you will never be going home because you are not subject to the Geneva Conventions”.  When they lost hope most of them died.

Mao has always emphasized the political over the military in revolutionary warfare.  If we really accept that assymetrical warfare requires a political solution we need to jump in more effectively with an information Campaign targeted at the threat’s vulnerabilities.  We need to get over this reticence about proclaiming the virtues of American society to the world.  I asked LCOL Rowe why the communist indoctrination tactics weren’t publicized not only within the military but in schools throughout America.  He told me it would be considered “brainwashing” by some.

“INFILTRATION: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington”  by Paul Sperry, 328pgs.  Depressing portrayal of how “political correctness” (a façade for communism) is destroying America from within – just as the COMINTERN planned it in 1917.

“The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers” by Anat Berko 175pgs.  Excellent source for getting inside the head of the suicide bombers.  Author was an Israeli police officer who personally conducted the interviews with the bombers.  She provides some interesting side details on Palestinian issues the Western media will never publish.

“Patriots:  The Men Who Started the American Revolution” by A.J. Langguth.  1988, 563 pgs.  Every American should read this……use it for reference, teach it to his children and re-read it.  It should be taught in every school in America.  The author did a great service to his country writing this book – if we will but read it.  See BradleyProject.com to see why.

“Terrain and Tactics” by Patrick O’Sullivan. 1991. 167pgs.  An excellent surprise.  Get past the droll recitation of the world’s different types of terrain and get into the effects of terrain on tactics.  Good section on COIN including a mathematical formula for determining the probability of success for a govt’s counterinsurgency operations.

“Brainwashing” by Edward Hunter, May 1956,  256 pgs.  This was a difficult book to read – the parts I read.  I started reading it in bed before falling asleep but began having nightmares about the book.  It’s difficult to think about human beings going through such torture.  It’s difficult to believe one human being can do those things to another human being.  But it’s all true.

The last two chapters (How It Can Be Beat and A Matter of Integrity) were very helpful….

I gave my COIN  class to some aspiring enlisted intel analysts just before reading this book and was introduced to a female student who told me her parents were die-hard communists (and American citizens –paradoxically).  Her instructor told me she disagreed with everything he said positive about America.  During my COIN class she would shake her head vigorously each time I pointed the contradictions between communism and the declaration of independence.  She should read this book.  I fear we have lost the war of subversion conducted by the radicals of the ‘60s – as evidenced by the election of the first Socialist as president of the United States.  God help us. God help us.

“The Complete Bolivian Diaries of Che’ Guevara and Other Captured Documents” edited by Daniel James, 1968. 329 pgs.  This is the best source of information on Che’.  As stated in the title it contains both his diaries and captured documents.  I didn’t read it because I’m tired of reading of him and his diaries are dull but it is an excellent reference source when added to the CIA message traffic re: his last days found on the Internet.

“One If By Land” by Mark Daniels.  Excellent portrayal of what those living on the border experience daily living on the nation’s busiest drug and alien smuggling route into the United States.

2. List of recommended solutions to border issues by the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers:  Google: NAFBPA

“Unlimited Access:  An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House” by Gary Aldrich.  If you think Bill and his wife (the real president of the U.S.) are decent people read this book.  It will change your mind.  If you think Hillary would make a good president – even AFTER the facts are fully disclosed regarding Benghazi- read this.  America can’t take much more of these kinds of people.

“1776” by David McCullough (or anything else by him).  Near the last page of the book Washington’s speech to the hungry, frozen soldiers to reenlist should be taught in every school and military education class.

“The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression” is a book written by several European academics (recanted communists themselves) and edited by Stéphane Courtois,[1] which documents a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and artificial famines. The book was originally published in 1997 in France under the title Le Livre noir du communisme: Crimes, terreur, répression by Éditions Robert Laffont. In the United States it is published by Harvard University Press.[2] The German edition, published by Piper Verlag, includes a chapter written by Joachim Gauck, who later went on to be President of Germany

Estimated number of victims:  

In the introduction, editor Stéphane Courtois states that “…Communist regimes… turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government”[3]. He claims that a death toll totals 94 million[4]. The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:

65 million in the People’s Republic of China

20 million in the Soviet Union

2 million in Cambodia

2 million in North Korea

1.7 million in Africa

1.5 million in Afghanistan

1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe

1 million in Vietnam

150,000 in Latin America (mainly Cuba)

10,000 deaths “resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power.”[4]

Courtois claims that Communist regimes are responsible for a greater number of deaths than any other political ideal or movement, including Nazism. The statistics of victims includes executions, famine, deaths resulting from deportations, physical confinement, or through forced labor.

Soviet repressions:

Repressions and famines occurring in the Soviet Union under the regimes of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin described in the book include:   the executions of tens of thousands of hostages and prisoners; the murder of hundreds of thousands of rebellious workers and peasants from 1918 to 1922; the Russian famine of 1921, which caused the death of 5 million people; the extermination and deportation of the Don Cossacks in 1920; the murder of tens of thousands in concentration camps in the period between 1918 and 1930; the Great Purge which killed almost 690,000 people; the deportation of 2 million so-called “kulaks” from 1930 to 1932; the deaths of 4 million Ukrainians (Holodomor) and 2 million others during the famine of 1932 and 1933; the deportations of Poles, Ukrainians, Moldavians and people from the Baltic Republics from 1939 to 1941 and from 1944 to 1945; the deportation of the Volga Germans in 1941; the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1943; the deportation of the Chechens in 1944; the deportation of the Ingush in 1944.[5] (see also Population transfer in the Soviet Union)

Comparison of Communism and Nazism :

Courtois considers Communism and Nazism slightly different totalitarian systems. He claims that Communist regimes have killed “approximately 100 million people in contrast to the approximately 25 million victims of Nazis”.[6] Courtois claims that Nazi Germany’s methods of mass extermination were adopted from Soviet methods. As an example, he cites Nazi state official Rudolf Höss who organized the infamous death camp in Auschwitz. According to Höss,

The Reich Security Head Office issued to the commandants a full collection of reports concerning the Russian concentration camps. These described in great detail the conditions in, and organization of, the Russian camps, as supplied by former prisoners who had managed to escape. Great emphasis was placed on the fact that the Russians, by their massive employment of forced labor, had destroyed whole peoples.

Courtois argues that the Soviet genocides of peoples living in the Caucasus and exterminations of large social groups in Russia were not very much different from similar policies by Nazis. Both Communist and Nazi systems deemed “a part of humanity unworthy of existence. The difference is that the Communist model is based on the class system, the Nazi model on race and territory.”[6] Courtois stated that

The “genocide of a “class” may well be tantamount to the genocide of a “race”—the deliberate starvation of a child of a Ukrainian kulak as a result of the famine caused by Stalin’s regime “is equal to” the starvation of a Jewish child in the Warsaw ghetto as a result of the famine caused by the Nazi regime.

He added that after 1945 the Jewish genocide became a byword for modern barbarism, the epitome of twentieth-century mass terror… more recently, a single-minded focus on the Jewish genocide in an attempt to characterize the Holocaust as a unique atrocity has also prevented the assessment of other episodes of comparable magnitude in the Communist world. After all, it seems scarcely plausible that the victors who had helped bring about the destruction of a genocidal apparatus might themselves have put the very same methods into practice. When faced with this paradox, people generally preferred to bury their heads in sand.

“The 9/11 Commission Report”  There are some absolutely shocking admissions, omissions and commissions of dereliction and outright depraved indifference (the title of my next book) by politicians and bureaucrats in the beltway that will infuriate you regarding 9/11 but also explain why the same power culture believes they can get away with (literally) murder today.

“A Patriot’s History of the United States”  by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen.  Interesting –and ignored facts of American history including the fact more Americans QUIT drinking during Prohibition than consumed alcohol.

“Outrage” by Dick Morris (self explanatory)

“Burning Money” by J. Peter Grace; (1984!).   Excellent expose’ on wasteful government spending.  Reagan asked Grace (a successful, lifelong Democrat to chair a voluntary panel of experts to ferret out wasteful government spending .  The found over two thousand programs of wasteful spending.  Congress ignored it.  Still appropro today – ten times more!

“Fat City:  How Washington Wastes Your Taxes” by Donald Lambro.  Written in 1980, it is a taxpayer’s report showing specifically how, where, and why the U.S. government misspends our money, and how it can reduce the amount it wastes.  Instead of $40,000 for floral service, $4.8 million for chauffeured VIP limousines, and $1 billion for fat consultant contracts (remember these are 1980 figures…..multiply by ten or twenty for current figures), the money could be used to increase the weekly take-home pay of working Americans.  In short, the more government spends, the less there is for everyone.  It’s time the spiral stopped.  “Fat City” is a good place to start.  (from the book’s front flap).  As Ronald Reagan once said “There is no more direct proof of eternal life than a government program.”  The abuses listed in this easy to read book still exist today in exponential proportions.  A day of reckoning -when the house of cards comes tumbling down on every American- is near.  One thing is certain.  Congress as presently constituted will not stop the impending train crash.

“Occupied America:  A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo F. Acuna.  This book will astound you when you remember that this is the most widely used “textbook” for English As Second Language and “Chicano Studies” nationwide.  It’s radicalism is second only to Lenin’s “What Is to Be Done?”

Education:

“Endangered Minds: Why Children Can’t Think and What We Can Do About It”  by Jane M. Healy, Ph.D

“Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform” by Diane Ravitch.  Details the insurgent “progressive” movement to take control of our education system.

“The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools” by Martin L. Gross.

Military:

“Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun” by Wess Roberts, Phd.   Combines interesting historical facts about the “Scourge of the West” with some basic common sense leadership principles.  An easy 110-page read and excellent for “hip-pocket” training during incessant “hurry-up-and-wait” times so infamous in the military.  I’ve actually used quotes from this and Patton’s (below) to rebuke incompetence at all ranks…….which is why I retired early.

“Patton’s One-Minute Messages” by Charles M. Province.  Although touted as “Tactical Leadership Skills for Business Managers” I found the 92 page paperback –like that of Attila (above) to be more than appropriate for military leaders of all levels.

“Weak Link” by

“Co-Ed Combat” by Kingsley Brown

“The Kinder,  Gentler Military:   Can America’s Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars?”  by Stephanie Gutmann 

“Jihad of the Pen: A Practioner’s Guide to Conducting Effective Influence Operations in an Insurgency” by G.L. Lamborn.   By the time this was written (2010) we had already lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years and the books message was moot.  Even with the publication and implementation of Petraeus’ plagiarized FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency Operations (which was never read by the MI school) the U.S. was doomed to lose the day they sent in massive ground troops.  Instead of using a strategic scalpel (combination of CIA and SF supporting indigenous resistance) that only Kennedy and Reagan seemed to understand, the Yale cheerleader Bush, Jr. solidified the war state of the military-industrial complex as a central factor in foreign policy and thus bankrupting our country – all with the hidden agenda of defense contractor pocket padding and a “jobs” program.  The book is heavy on PsyOps.  A good composite of FMs and doctrine taught to Special Forces troops for the last fifty years.  For the newbie to COIN, a good hip pocket training aid – IF they are applied to countries we invade WITHOUT violating the first three rules of war: 1. Have the moral high ground in the eyes of the population you are invading (which the U.S. hasn’t had since Korea), 2. Don’t try to change a culture – you can’t.  As Lamborn mentioned in his booklet “You don’t belong” syndrome was never more true than in the “graveyard of empires” Afghanistan (or anywhere in the Middle East); and, 3. Don’t play the enemy’s game.  Osama bin Laden said in an interview “I enjoy how the U.S. reacts to Al Qaeda [or any other perceived threat].  If Al Qaeda is mentioned there they send massive forces.  If Al Qaeda is mentioned somewhere else they do the same.  Like a cat chasing a spot of light on the floor.”

 

“Fighting the War of Ideas Like a Real War” by J. Michael Waller.  Excellent treatise using infowar to defeat Islamic fundamentalism – without going bankrupt and killing thousands of our best in the process.