5,403 words
Patrick J. Buchanan
Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles that Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever
New York: Crown Forum, 2017
It’s déjà vu all over again, folks. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is one of the takeaways from this fascinating political memoir by Pat Buchanan, who worked in the Nixon White House as a strategist and speechwriter after serving Candidate Nixon on the campaign trail. (more…)
Barry Goldwater
2,197 words
Lionel Lokos
Hysteria 1964: The Fear Campaign Against Barry Goldwater
New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1967
The 1964 election was a critical contest. That year was a transitional one between the two social revolutions of the 1960s. (more…)
2,885 words
At the beginning of the month, I saw a video about a lady who got a bidet, boasting that her toilet paper consumption was merely a quarter of what it used to be. “Why, that’s nothing!” I reflected to my girlfriend, who was playing the video showing that America already has a Bidet installed in Washington. For additive crotch-cleansing power, he doubles as a douchebag. At six feet tall, he’s a very large douchebag indeed. (more…)
3,925 words
Gary Gerstle
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: American and the World in the Free Market Era
New York: Oxford University Press, 2022
Professor Gary Gerstle teaches at Oxford University and has written several excellent books about America and its racial and social problems. One such book is American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century, which was first published in 2001 and was later updated with a few extra chapters describing Black Lives Matter terrorism and some quotes from the cast of non-whites in the Hamilton minstrel show who were mad about Trump being elected. (more…)
1,995 words
Edward H. Miller
Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy
Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2015
Edward H. Miller’s book Nut Country, about the rising Republican Party in Dallas in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is another academic book pointing to a certain place and point in time where the American far Right and mainstream Right first launched. Other books point to the Right’s rise in Saint Louis or Detroit at roughly the same time. (more…)
2,480 words
“War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free.” — Heraclitus
Compliance measures and social trust are two key elements in any society, the ratio of which is a good indicator of how productive the people in it are and what the level of the general welfare looks like. Compliance measures usually come with threats to motivate compliant responses.
As compliance measures multiply, so do the threats that back them up. (more…)
Phyllis Schlafly’s critique of the Republican Party changed its focus and direction.
2,020 words
Phyllis Schlafly
A Choice Not an Echo
Alton, Ill.: Pere Marquette Press, 1964
Many of the greatest pioneers of Right-wing political thought in the United States are women. Right-leaning men are often too busy with their jobs and putting out the fires to be prophets. Female activists, for their part, have a remarkable ability to challenge and change the direction of institutions. One such woman was Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016). (more…)
91 words / 2:17:38
The Z Man was Nick Jeelvy’s guest on the latest episode of The Writers’ Bloc, where they aired out their grievances, denounced the controlled opposition, and discussed Mr. Rittenhouse’s recent successes. (more…)
3,535 words
The best thing to happen to the Kennedy political dynasty and its legacy took place over the course of 11.2 seconds at 12:30 PM on November 23, 1963. That is when an Antifa activist, acting totally on his own, fired three bullets from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository into the motorcade of the 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Two of the bullets hit Kennedy, and he was declared dead at Parkland Hospital at 1 PM. (more…)
4,378 words
Hamilton Gregory
McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War plus The Induction of Unfit Men, Criminals, and Misfits
West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Infinity Publishing, 2015
Hamilton Gregory unveiled a seldom-explored facet of modern military history with McNamara’s Folly. Similar subject matter is touched on with the inspiring film Forrest Gump (more…)
3,624 words
On June 8, 1967, unmarked Israeli surveillance aircraft were spotted observing the Liberty several times. Without warning, the ship was attacked by three unmarked Dassault Mirage III fighter planes, equipped with rockets, thirty-millimeter cannons, and machine guns. The tattered American flag was replaced, under ruthless and constant heavy fire, with the ship’s oversized holiday flag, seven by thirteen feet, and when this flag was destroyed, a sailor raised a third flag. There was never a time when the American flag was not flying. (more…)
2,878 words
Joan Mellen
Blood in the Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty
Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2018.
Joan Mellen’s Blood in the Water is the most comprehensive account available on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, and deserves national recognition. Ms. Mellen, a professor at Temple University, is a poor writer; she repeats herself in several places, and fails to adhere to her organizational structure. (more…)