The Jakarta Method and Anti-Communist Terror

 

The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, by Vincent Bevins take us into the clandestine world of anti-communist crimes committed by the United State and other totalitarian allies during the Cold War.  The author explains that the US feared that Indonesia would fall to communism; this large and well populated country had to stay out of the American orbit, at any cost.  And the mass murder and terror campaign used to accomplish this became a program of sorts.  The Jakarta Method was the brutal installation of right wing dictators in countries that America feared would fall to communism.  The result was a nightmare.

No Judgement on Cults

 

Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion by Benjamin E. Zeller takes a detailed and scholarly look at the millennial religion that made the news due to the group's collective suicide in 1997.  The author treats Heaven’s Gate as a religion, not a cult.  In religious scholarship, there is no fundamental difference between a religion and a cult.  

For much of Heaven Gates’ history, it had more hallmarks of religion than a cult.  But in the 1990s, it took a dark turn.   More of the characteristics of a classic cult were enacted, like wearing ritual clothes, pooling money, control of food and sleep.  Zeller wants us understand the inner reasons that made people want to commit suicide.  

But by examining this group this way, from the inside, we are actually lose our objectivity.  If the only moral guideline is that people believe what they are doing - there is not much more to say about the topic.

The Jewish Intellectual Stream

Maimonides, Spinoza and Us: Toward an Intellectually Vibrant Judaism by Rabbi Marc D. Angel is a welcome book. There are a dearth of books about the philosophical/intellectual tradition in Judaism.  We need to know more about the thinking elements of our tradition.  This book will help you get invested in the Jewish intellectual stream. 

The Vietnam We Dread Facing

 

Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse will be a difficult read for anyone who believes the United States is the global knight on a white horse.  You are going to be very upset.  The premise of the book is that the massacres and murders that the has dogged the American perception of the war, was not the case of a few bad apples. The people of South Vietnam were viewed as legitimate targets as part of American strategy.  

More of a Biblical Connection

 

Since most people will read Stories from Ancient Canaan simply to read the content that in some way corresponds to the Hebrew bible, it would have been better if the editors had led with a story with more blatant biblical connections.  They did not! But keep at it.  Later in the collection the connections are clearer. 

About Historical Veracity?

 

The People’s History of the United States is a difficult book to critique, as its assumptions and results align with my social and philosophical worldview.  But is that enough to say this book uses sound methodology to reach its conclusions?  I think not. This book is massive in scope, and therefore uses secondary sources.  Yet looking at the sources Zinn choses leaves me skeptical.   

Toward the end of this book, he writes that his work is “...a biased account, one that leans in a certain direction.”  We can certainly say this of this work, and other more ‘mainstream’ histories.  It is biased in one direction, as are all historical accounts. So how do we make decisions about historical veracity?

American Old School Colonialism

 

In Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History, by Kim A. Wagner, we learn that a feature of colonial warfare was the atrocity.  By this Wagner means the wholesale massacre of indigenous, civilian men, women and children by an occupying power under the guise of military necessity.  When the massacre documented in this book took place, in 1906, many other colonial powers were engaged in similar behavior.  Unlike in European wars up to that point, where efforts were made to protect civilians, indigenous peoples were viewed as sub-human, and their lives were not considered important enough for the laws of war.  This atrocity – and the other American actions during the colonization of the Philippines, is no longer remembered in the US.  The people of the Philippines, however, remember them well.