So I'm snarfing 'Marching Toward Hell' by Scheuer, along with a new
Robert Thurman book (Uma's dad), having ventured up to the street with
birthday money in search of McClellan's latest, '$#!* Happens' as it's
known in the industry, but the latter was all sold out (more on order,
so I'll get to it).
I'm using my Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics, starting in a local
Internet cafe, gravitating homeward, so understand this is quick and
immediate feedback on '...Hell'. Picked up on the Machiavelli, like
that it points us back to Founder readings, looks at border integrity,
as more meaningful definitions of USA concerns than what's running
through the minds of the titular organizers of the current chaos,
which battle for God (or whatever) they're losing (Scheuer is
unrelenting about this).
The guy is quite the polemicist, and it speaks well of our democracy
that old Cold Warrior stuff is still so accessible (a veteran CIA
dude, the guy represents a dying breed maybe, in having lived through
the demise of the so-called Soviet Union). He really presses readers
to think, has little mercy on "me too" head nodding types (at which
point I have to admit to nodding off myself there a bit -- like I'd do
at Princeton sometimes, early mornings especially, no reflection on
the grippingness of the prose).
Anyway, if you're a Hegelian, the USSR's dissolution under Gorbachev
has it's own curiously satisfying overtones, in that the withering of
the state was always projected, just no one expected it to really
happen so soon. This transition from LAWCAP to Grunch (as some
extremists think of it) is just another step in a long sequence of
steps, has everything to do with having a shared Internet and easier
ways to check up on one another. We can't get away with sloppy
thinking so easily. Scheuer is saying that. Better get those
debating skills up to speed. Explain what you've been up to with
those policies. Curious minds want to know. Lots of squandering
maybe? No second chance at bat, would be my recommendation, let the
more youthful have a go.
Kirby
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