I'm away from my home computer and don't have easy access to the list.
I'm away from my home computer and don't have easy access to the list.
Amazon?
You've got to read Goldhagen with a grain of salt - or perhaps a whole shaker's worth with respect to his take on Truman's decision to use atomics on Japan - but for the most part, he's chillingly correct. You might as well skip the last chapter, "What We Can Do" as it is generally limp-wristed and inneffectual.
The thing that really sticks is his take on the use of the term 'monsters' for the mass murderers and eliminationists of yesterday and today. Goldhagen claims that to usew the term 'monster' is in some ways letting them off the hook. We expect monstrous deeds from monsters. But it is always true that it is ultimately human beings who make the decision to commit monstrous acts, a fact that Goldhagen really hammers home in this volume. He points out that those who participated in mass murder and wholesale slaughter did so willingly and with energy and enthusiasm. We can expect no less here. America now has no special immunity from the horrors that have been perpetrated against helpless civilians non-stop for over a hundre years now. That's especially true for us, now that the White House is full of those with an eliminationist bent.
Funny thing is, even Goldhagen dances around the key concept of the will to power as one of the prime movers of of those who engage in these monstrous crimes against humanity. It's as if he chooses not to look too closely at what has become the linchpin of modernity's monstrosities. I discuss that refusal to look in my book.
For the philosphically inclined, I offer this succicnt summary of modernity's malaise:
Kant's categorical imperative was usurped by the Nietzschean will to power. Nietzsche's call for the 'transvaluation of all values' was trumped by the Left's devaluation of all values. Taken together, the result has been... worse than war.
Timeless indeed.
Big Gubamint and Tyranny seem to go together quite well these days.
UP... and i downloaded the FM 3-24, thxWell said, vigilence can never be understated!
Sorry but your barking up the wrong tree with this. There is a reason the tyrants like Stalin and Mao win, they have an organized army to back them up. A rebellion can’t win unless there is a State power behind them providing funds and arms. Even the American Revolution was only won because France backed the US with funding, war material AND troops (kind of difficult to get my head around cheese eating surrender monkeys actually helping to win a war!).
The US is rapidly turning into a police state (mostly already has) without too much resistance and I guarantee that you won’t have too many people supporting you should you decide to “resist”. They’ll take you out so fast that it won’t even be funny and make you look like some kind of nut case after the fact. Then people will just shake their head and wonder what happened to poor so-and-so and why did he go so far off the reservation. If you can’t win this at the ballot box then you ain’t going to win it at all so give up these useless “Red Dawn” type fantasies.
“Assault rifles” (I know they really aren’t but that’s what everyone calls them now days) are fun to shoot but will make you a target of both the cops and the thugs during any period of civil unrest. Listen to that guy in Argentina who lived through their economic collapse. Your best weapon is one that no one can see so a good CCW type pistol would be much better than any semiauto rifle. The only situation that I can see where an AR-15/AK-47 would be a good idea is in a Rwanda type situation where ethnic cleansing is taking place by the “authorities”. At that point it really doesn’t matter much either way and if you can’t use it to escape at least you’ll go down in a blase of glory (beats being hacked to death with a machete).
Thanks for the book review and ping, Matt! I’ll check this book out.
Another great book that’s still applicable
Total Resistance:
So, if I buy this book does this put me on some DHS list?
Oh, well I probably am anyway ;-)