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What Are You Reading Right Now?

I just finished reading The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead. Arc is a tour d' force of greatness, no question. Mead seeks to take the course of U.S. history as it relates to Jews and then Israel from just after the Civil War through 2022. Without serving as a spoiler, Mead effectively makes the argument that Israel's importance to the U.S. stems more from its military and economic success and power than it does to the impact of the "Jewish" or "Israel" lobby. Indeed, he very effectively belittles the impact of the lobbies asa being the equivalent of Star Trek's "vulcans;" an imaginary force thought to be creating a wobble in Mercury's or Venus's orbit. He states: "Not only does Israel occupy a "continent" in the American mind; Jews, at 1.9 % of the population...." in arguing that the focus on Israel is out of proportion to Jewish numbers. The contrast is even starker when compared to an estimated worldwide population at 15.7 million, 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population. What the author leaves out is that the Jews, historically, have had a disproportionate pull on the world psycho.

I do have my quibbles with the book: 1) there are lots of run-on and awkwardly constructed sentences; 2) the book illustrates the dictum in intro to Practicing History: Selected Essays by Barbara W. Tuchman, that it is hard to write good history close to the occurrence of events. It certainly was, and is; and 3) part of point II, the last two chapters, on the history of the relationship under Obama, Trump and Biden are not yet history given how recent they are.

While I do not accept 100% of the author's opinions, the book is an indispensable starting point of any serious analysis and understanding.
 
Next up on my classics audible list:

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From the book under review, by Canada's former PM, Stephen J. Harper,Right Here, Right Now: Politics and Leadership in the Age or Disruption, an excerpt:
Stephen Harper said:
One can call this "populist conservatism" or "applied conservatism," but, to my mind, it is really just conservatism. Conservatism, dating back to Edmund Burke, was never about ideological rigidity.

In fact, Burke was rejecting the philosophical dogmatism that marked other thinkers and thinking in his era-including, by the way, those who reflexively defended the status quo. Conservatism is about seeing the world as it is and applying the lessons of experience to new challenges. It is inherently populist in the sense that it is necessarily concerned with people rather than theories.
Quite the tour d' force, the book amply reviews and summarizes American and, to a lesser extent Canadian sociology, philosophy and political history from approximately 1980 through a portion of the Trump era. He clearly styles himself as a latter-day Edmund Burke, an eminent political philosopher from shortly before the American Revolution through the late 1790's. Harper sees conservatism as pragmatic and flexible as opposed to atavistic.

This book is a short but highly accurate guide to the modern political era, and aptly explains how we wind up with Trump, for better or worse. I reluctantly give "five stars" and this is one such occasion.
 
I did not finish reading Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer. Not that it was a bad book.
I read selected chapters. Much of it is out of date, so that is not "on" the author. The problem with the book is it discusses the fact that many politicians, philanthropist and public figures are warm-hearted towards the poor verbally but live the lives of the rich and famous. To me there is nothing wrong with that. One of the examples that hits a bit closer to target is Edward Kennedy. He was an environmental advocate, except when the wind farms would sully his sightline or sailing playground.

I would appreciate an updated version, if the author writes one. For example, BLM leaders do not truck with their constituency.​
 
Just started Kliph Nesteroff's new book "Outrageous: A History of Show Biz and the Culture Wars". Kliph is a great writer, his book "The Comedians" is considered the standard for information about the history of comedians in America. His second book was great too, "We had a Real Estate Problem" about Native American comedy.

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From the preeminent historian of modern comedy comes an expansive history of showbiz and the culture wars

There is a common belief that we live in unprecedented times, that people are too sensitive today, that nobody objected to the actions of actors, comedians, and filmmakers in the past. Modern pundits would have us believe that Americans of a previous generation had tougher skin and seldom complained. But does this argument hold up to scrutiny?

In Outrageous, celebrated cultural historian Kliph Nesteroff demonstrates that Americans have been objecting to entertainment for nearly two hundred years, sometimes rationally, often irrationally. Likewise, powerful political interests have sought to circumvent the arts using censorship, legal harassment, and outright propaganda. From Mae West through Johnny Carson, Amos ’n’ Andy through Beavis and Butt-Head, Outrageous chronicles the controversies of American show business and the ongoing attempts to change what we watch, read, and hear.
 
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