The Book Shopper

Examining American Military Policy

For insights into the current military and political policy that keeps the United States in the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan, may I recommend Andrew J. Bacevich's concise and timely Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country (2013).

Bacevich is a retired Army colonel who served in both the Vietnam and Gulf Wars and is now a history professor at Boston University. He convincingly maintains that the severed relationship between the civilians and the military has led to endless conflict, wasteful spending and ineffective global policy.

He reminds us that no amount of “Support for the Troops” corporate-led cheering makes up for the fact that during “wartime” the civilian population sacrifices nothing (no draft, no rationing, no additional taxes). In other words, one percent of the population does the fighting for the other 99%.

Bacevich traces the current situation back to the Vietnam War and the formation of the All-Volunteer Army, which replaced civilian draftees. ( Military discipline in Southeast Asia had disintegrated to the point that the Army had become an ineffective fighting force.). He maintains that a populace with “skin in the game” is an important part of checks and balances needed for the military.

Referencing hundreds of articles and reports, Bacevich synthesizes the military mindset over the past 50 years—the love of technology, the replacement of the godless Soviet Union with the demonization of Islamic nations and the policy of starting a war to prevent a war—and reminds us as civilians, we are culpable as well:

With his affinity for missile-firing dromes, President Obama established targeted assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. National security policy. With his predilection for commandos, he expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which under Obama maintained an active prescence in some 120 countries...

In the meantime, for the president, the downside of targeted assassination appeared minimal. True, from time to time an errant U.S. Missile might kill the wrong people (to include children) or American commandos might “take out” some bystanders along with Mr. Big. Yet back home, reported incidents of this type elicited a muted response. As far as the American media were concerned, the death of a few nameless Somalis or Pakistanis carried about as much newsworthiness as a minor traffic accident. As a determinant of presidential standing, a U.S. fighter-bomber inadvertently wiping out an Afghan wedding party lagged far behind a slight uptick in unemployment rate.

Breach of Trust is a must primer for those who are willing to examine American military policy and how it reflects our society as a whole.

 

300 Postings: An Anthology

 

Lost in the media deification of Joan Rivers, is that the Book Shopper blog has reached its 300th posting milestone.

Little did I realize that when I began this blog in 2008 that I would still be cranking out a post at the rate of about once a week. It has evolved from being a shill for my book The Book Shopper: A Life in Review, which was published in 2009, to a Atlanta-Decatur book events review with paying sponsors, to something that is now ill-defined, but always personal. The best thing about blog-writing for me is that it keeps the pen to paper and the ideas flowing. I enjoy writing; I loathe the time-suck of getting published (or getting my thoughts out there). Blogging is a low-cost remedy.

On anniversaries, such as the 250th posting, the 200th posting and the 100th posting, I do a a recap of some of my favorite or popular postings since the last anniversary. Following that precedent, here are some you may have missed:

--Book Cover the Color of Lipstick. The story behind this photo (shown here) from The New York Times.

--Book reviews of Wilfrid Sheed and Francis Spufford.

--Meeting author of the World World II Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson.

There are also many postings about my obsession with William Tecumseh Sherman and Ambrose Bierce and books about maps, book shopping in Mexico that you can scroll through and find easily.

I can't really say that this book blog was a ground breaker like Joan Rivers (what about earlier comediennes such as Totie Fields, Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller?), but taking a page from Rivers legacy, sometimes you just have to hang around long enough to get the recognition you deserve--even if it is self-recognition.

Thanks for reading, you fabled few, and don't try to stop me.

 

 

 

 

 

Chelsea Lit Crawl

Last month I was in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan and took a few hours to do some book shopping and literary site seeing. My personal tour included walking past the Hotel Chelsea, which has been home to literary notables such as Arthur C. Clarke, Allen Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, to name but a few. The hotel is currently undergoing major rennovations and is not available to tourists or book bloggers.

Fortunately, I was more interested in some of the book stores. 192 Books is a deceptively small book store, with floor to ceiling shelves of books along with several tables. It is well stocked full of fiction, nonfiction, children's and young adultt fare. I saw plenty of books that interested me including a set of books by the French Conceptual Artist Sophie Calle.  After close to an hour of browsing I picked up Rebecca Solnit's River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild Wild West (2003) because Solnit never disappoints in her insightful musings on landscapes, culture and her own personal history.  I also purchased a hardback copy of John Rodrigo Dos Passos's USA Trilogy, which includes The 42nd Parallel, Nineteen Nineteen and The Big Money -- all written during The Great Depression.

I read the trilogy in the Signet paperback editions years ago, but remember it well. Dos Passos captures the energy, excitement and corruption of America in its rise to power in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Exploitation of the working class by the capitalists and a willingness to take up arms overseas were just two of the themes of Dos Passos books. Not much has changed. (Dos Passos's storytelling technique of mixing historical figures with fictional characters was groundbreaking as well). Dos Passos was empathetic to the plight of the workers, but later he became disallusioned with radical politics and was more conservative in his views. Still the three books remain as his literary legacy.

After 192 Books, I walked across the street to Printed Matter, Inc., a bookstore for an organization that specializes in the dissemination, understanding and appreciation of artists books. (This experience deserves a posting of its own at a later date.)

My personal lit tour ended at Revolution Books, a sparsely stocked bookstore (compared to the inventory at 192) that had a selection of books more political in nature, especially those directed at our government's shenanigans. But they had a few that interested me such as Errol Morris' Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography (2011). I ended up purchasing 100 Diagrams That Changed the World (2012) by Scott Christianson. The irony of the transaction didn't escape me at the cash register as the bookseller tried to "upsell" me into buying a Revolution newspaper. I told the man that I had already bought The Dos Passos's U.S.A. Trilogy earlier in the day, but that wasn't enough to satisfy him.

 

My DBF 2014 Self Assessment

As always, my Festival plans and my actual participation did not exactly match (see last posting), but this year's Decatur Book Festival (DBF) had a few moments worth reflecting upon.

I did make it to one of the Civil War panels to hear the discussion surrounding the "nefarious" William T. Sherman and the destruction of Atlanta. I was too shy and too Midwestern to rebuke some of  grandstanding by Dr. Stephen Davis (author of What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Burning of Atlanta)  even when he was giving John Bell Hood a historical pass on the Confederate general's strategy in defending Atlanta. 

And as predicted, the University of Georgia Press did have a copies of Brown and Elwell's Crossroads of Conflict: A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia for sale. I also found out that they have a new book, The Civil War in Georgia, which was published as a separate piece from the New Georgia Encylopedia.

A late morning beer (a St Bernardius ABT 12) at The Brickstore with a book selling exhibitor friend. It was a little early, but we did beat the crowds.

I chatted with some illustrators and a few self-published authors. Some of those book covers were pretty steamy, especially for such a hot and humid day.

I did make to the Decatur Arts Alliance/ The Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur Book as Art exhibit. Shown here is Diane Jacobs', Hair Talk, Volume II.  You can see the exhibit until September 19th. For more details, including a slideshow of the entire collection, visit here.

At the Georgia State booth I picked a free copy of the literary journal Five Points.  Near the booth, I met Julia Eichelberger, the author of Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty's Gardening Letters 1940-1949  but unfortunately I missed her and Pearl McHaney's lecture on Welty. Maybe I would have asked my them to comment on the Welty quote that sticks in my mind: 

Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.

Then again, I would have been too shy and too Midwestern to talk in front of a crowd --- unless I had imbibed in a second St. Bernardius ABT 12 beforehand. Remember DBF can also mean Decatur Beer Festival