Saturday, August 31, 2019

Edward Judge and John A. Langdon, A Hard and Bitter Peace: A Global History of Cold War

Professors Judge and Langdon wrote a book, which slightly deviates from the neocon orthodoxy--American foreign policy is not depicted as a continuous thread of victories--and its motives are not described exclusively in terms of "promotion of liberty and democracy". Thus, Ed Judge teaches in Le Moyne College, Syracuse--not in Harvard, or Yale. You cannot find it in normal Google or Amazon searches, instead typing "Cold War in Asia" or "Cold War, Global", you will be directed to the usual neocon agitprop. I cannot even say whether this book is especially good, or bad, because local "Barnes & Noble" where I browse books that my limited budget and even more limited living space would not allow, already sold the only copy. But my limited browsing established that at least some Cold War conflicts are discussed in terms of Realpolitik, i.e. without obsessive desire to point at a moral lesson.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

What Happened to American Century? Foreign Affairs, July/August 2019



Neocon editors of the "Foreign Affairs" obsessively repeat that United States are still No. 1. Did anybody need this reminder in the sixties during proclamation of the JFK's "New Frontier" or Johnson's "Great Society"? Equally obsessive is the neocon assurance on almost every page that Russia is an insignificant state, soon to disappear. Especially vitriolic are Alina Polyakova and that constant racist fixture of "Foreign Affairs", AEI's Daniel Eberstadt. If Russia's is currently so insignificant and its inevitable demise is true, why speak of it so much? Three out of 15 long reads dedicated to Russia directly and at least two--Rose and Zakaria touching Russia in every elliptical moment--suggest unhealthy obsession in their world perception. Neocon preoccupation with Russia can only be explained that they are locked in a time warp infinitely re-playing World War II on the side of the Nazis and their Eastern European supplicants so lionized by the current American media.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Shame on you, people!



Bookstores, online and otherwise, proudly display Mueller Report with the preface of Alan Dershowitz. While his reputation as a star lawyer, unlike reputations of Francis F. and Niall F. as social scientists is solid, to me it is like issuing a collection of poetry with a preface of Charlie Manson, or a book on childhood psychology edited by J. W. Gacy, though the latter obviously knew a lot about the subject.


Unstoppable President Robot Chicken