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The Next Deal ::
James and I had short discussion the other day about why this book is so bad. Its ideas are impractical; it is completely devoid of foreign policy; and where in God’s name is the solution to health care and social security crises we see happening? And on top of all those shortcomings, Cherny’s ideas rely on (literally) bankrupt conceptions of the New Economy (i.e., dot com’s with no business plans and egregious balance sheets will change the world), and his rhetoric is full of these obnoxious metaphors and turns of phrase that do nothing but further turn off readers who already disagree with what he is saying about the future of the U.S. Government.
I found it hard to get beyond these problems, and I agree with the fundamental direction of the book. I agree with Cherny that the structure of government in this country is obsolete, that it is built on a social and economic model that is becoming progressively more irrelevant. However, I think his ignorance of how technology works is abysmal, and it adversely affects the role it plays in his vision for the way it affects our economy and our social connections. Guh. It’s like watching a house being built on a foundation of Jello. The recurring problem seems to be that in his focusing on high-flying rhetoric and his descriptions of a bright future filled with endless social justice and economic opportunities, he loses track of the very real conditions that are keeping us stymied in this current political state.
What I will give him, however, is that he has the ability to describe a very hopeful vision for the future, and is able to communicate at least a superficial strategy on how to get there from here. Of course, this is not surprising, since he is a speech writer. But given the current state of Democratic politics, in which the best leaders are merely responding to the right-wing agenda of the Bush administration and only tacitly discuss a bad economy or a health care system in dire need of a complete overhaul, it is refreshing to hear that. And maybe if Democrats started working their own vision -- even if it is painfully fallible -- they would start setting an agenda and actually seem like they’re fighting for something.
Snow Crash ::
Jessamyn is jealous that of the fact that there are still Neal Stephenson books out there that I haven’t read. I’m pretty happy with it as well. Though I’m quickly running out of stuff to read. After Cryptonomicon, Zodiac, his Stephen Bury stuff, and now Snow Crash, I, too, am running out of books to read.
But the good news is that Snow Crash didn’t disappoint me. It’s extraordinary yet completely believable, and like his other writing filled with endless amounts of esoteric knowledge about everything from programming to ancient Japanese culture. And while the characters are fairly two-dimensional, and his fixation on the defaming of his young female characters is as strong as ever, he is able to keep me reading at a very quick clip all the way to the end. The end result is a book that makes me feel smart, that makes me continue to feel good about the fact that there is someone as smart as Stephenson out there writing and thinking about the world.
But I think I am going to hold off on reading The Diamond Age. Not at all unlike other writers of his ilk, I feel I need a break after reading him.
All the President’s Men ::
I feel that being born in 1976 puts me at a significant disadvantage to those who were born a generation earlier. I don’t have any firsthand memories of the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam movement, or the political climate of the 60’s. I don’t remember Watergate. The result is not only that those events mean less to me, but also that I don’t really know exactly what happened.
Let’s use Watergate as an example. I knew Watergate was a hotel, and that there was a break-in there. Those who broke into the hotel had direct connections to the office of the president. As a result, Richard M. Nixon resigned his office. Both he, and the office of the presidency, changed dramatically in the eyes of the American people.
What I didn’t realize was how far-reaching the conspiracy was. Nor did I understand how demented almost everyone in the Nixon White House was. It seemed that everyone there was swept away by a desperately power-hungry need to not only maintain their positions, but also beat back any possible challengers. They beat the hell out of the Democrats who, at the time, were hardly a danger to them (I mean, I wasn’t even around for the 1972 election, and I know how naive and politically incapable of getting elected president McGovern was). And all of it stemmed from a mentality in which, to paraphrase of the Nixon staffers, “if there was an ethically right way to do things and an ethically wrong way, we did it the wrong way, every time.”
But for all the corruption and insanity that the story told, there was also a positive side. Bernstein and Woodward took massive risks to get the truth of the story, and the used their positions outside the government structure to probe for information and get at the truth of what happened at Watergate and how involved Nixon’s White House was in the conspiracy. In doing so, both reporters nearly lost their jobs, and their work precipitated a Constitutional and governmental crisis the likes of which have not been seen since then. And as awful as those events were, the United States would be significantly more damaged had Nixon and his men succeeded in squelching out the story.
Taliban ::
After the terrorist attacks of last September, there seemed to be a newfound rush to understand both Afghanistan and Islamic fundamentalism. The result of that rush was a lot of information about what was happening in Afghanistan, and how those events fit into the larger political and economic picture of the region. But what seemed to be lacking in all that information was a certain amount of knowledge -- specifically, what caused all the desperation that we see today? and what, exactly, is there to be done about it? Of course, the administration had a pointed answer to the latter of the two questions (bomb the Islamic fundamentalists into submission), but their reasonings had nothing to do with the former question. Then on the other hand, those with reservations about such military aggressions were able to talk about the manipulative foreign policies that brought forth the economic desperation of the country seemed incapable of coming up with a suitable vision to compete with military retaliation. As a result, after the rush to find all this information, there was a consistent feeling of confusion.
A full year before the terrorist attacks, before the Taliban became such a household name in the West, Ahmed Rashid published his book, aptly titled Taliban. It provided a sober, informed description of how the Taliban worked, about the fundamentalist vision that drove its leaders, who they fought against, and the foreign policies that left the country of Afghanistan completely destitute and ripe for a takeover by just such an organization. The book’s timeline was a bit difficult to follow, as the description of the contemporary history of the country was interspersed with stories from ancient history of the entire region. However, once his narration became grounded in a single era, Rashid was able to describe not only the current situation, but the political fights, the bloody battles, the manipulation, and the clandestine operations by outside forces that played roles in its ultimate culmination.
Though Rashid gives reasons for the Taliban’s success in the country and shows why they proved to be popular amongst young Muslims, he ultimately condemns them, not only for their violent, repressive laws, but also for their gross misinterpretation of Islam to suit their ends. However, he is also critical of the practices of foreign power, who provided support to the country while it suited their needs, then abandoned them when their wars ended or their interests turned elsewhere. The end result is a full picture of the Taliban and of Afghanistan, a picture provides real knowledge about what happens there continually. I found that Taliban was exactly the sort of book people needed in their rush to understand this newfound enemy, but unfortunately it was largely overlooked.
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