What are you reading right now?

[Watchful Citizen]

All I read anymore is material relevant to American scientific fascism and the NaziMindWar cryptocrats who stole our republic from the previous owners, the merely corrupt. Here's just a few I'm part way through or just completing.<br><br>>Into the Buzzsaw, edited by Kristina Borjesson. <br>This is the 2004 version to read journalist's first hand accounts of crossing the CIA-steered media.<br><br>>The Arrogance of Power, by Anthony Summers. <br>This biography of Richard Nixon includes his covering up Allen Dulles' and others collusion with the Nazis. An excellent carrier wave for post-WWII American politics from 1945-75.<br><br>>Killing Hope, by William Blum. <br>Obligatory history of CIA intervention around the world for the last 60 years. Name a country, any country. Yup. They did that one, too.<br><br>>Plausible Denial, by Mark Lane. <br>Tells of connecting E. Howard Hunt to the JFK murder in a court of law successfully! The period 1977-1984 gave us a tassle of whistleblowers from the CIA airing the dirty laundry.<br><br>>The 1964 Warren Report on the Assassination of JFK.<br>366-page long Associated Press version. Amazingly detailed cover-up document I just found at a tag sale. Oh, the lies and more lies. And yet more lies. My favorite section is on the interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald which is introduced by noting he spent over 12 hours with police but no record was made of any kind. No, that's not suspicous! What are you implying? Silly conspiracy theorists...<br><br>>Dr. Seuss Goes to War. <br>The WWII editorial cartoons of Theodor Suess Geisel. Strange to see the same hand that gave us Horton also giving us Hitler. Promoting the war against isolationism and domestic fascist sniping was Seuss' task.<br><br>>Crossing the Rubicon, by Michael C. Ruppert. <br>We all know about Peak Oil and 9/11 as psy-ops binary agents for permanent war now, don't we? Ruppert's description of the extreme level of CIA infiltration in every American institution rings of truthfullness for that which can be done secretly...is.<br><br>>Chain of Command, by Seymour Hersh. <br>Now that torture and gulags are part of the American economy, one should know how this came to pass.<br><br>>The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro. <br>The efforts of one man to expose the Bush Crime Family and the cryptocracy cost him his life. But he confirmed that he was on the right trail.<br><br>>A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright. <br>Seems mankind has routinely sawed off the branch he was swinging from over the ages and been impressed by how far he fell each time and called it 'Progress.' Reminds me of the Kafka quote, "Yes there is hope. But not for us."<br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

..."What are you reading right now?"<br><br>Oh, other than that?<br><br>Believe it or not, for someone who has always been a voracious reader, I am not in the middle of ANY books! I've found that real life has become so disturbing that I can't concentrate on fiction--it seems too escapist--and there's so much more up to date stuff online than in books I do all my reading online, and offline, I enjoy nature, play with my cats, go out to eat, or rent films.<br><br>The last things I read...<br><br>1. "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich. Very good, but I've been a blue collar worker a lot of my life and I found some of her observations rather jejune and condescending. How come poverty doesn't exist till some yuppie notices it?<br><br>2. "An Innocent Millionaire", novel by Stephen Vizinczey. A very sad story about someone who didn't have an angle and what happened when he found out everybody has an angle except him.<br><br>3. Biography of Mary McCarthy, "Writing Dangerously." Found out she was a CIA protege. Interesting intellectual history of the times, anyway. <br><br>Actual last thing I read that wasn't on the puter was the cover article from this month's "Wired" on "King Kong." 70 pounds lighter, Peter Jackson looks nothing like himself. I'm not a big Kong groupie but I like Jackson and am interested in special effects. My dream job would be working for Richard Taylor at Weta Workshop.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[chillin]

Cosmos and Psyche, Intimations of a new world view by Richard Tarnas. Very well written, thought-provoking.

[H_C_E]

I've been reading -

"High Treason" about the JFK murder. Forget the authors names. Two guys
whose names are forgettable. Interesting book as far as the the JFK subject goes. Doesn't have me raising my eyebrow (the HCE mark of skepticism) quite as much as some titles have.

"Finnegans Wake" - James Joyce. I'm ALWAYS reading FW. I may put it down for short stretches, but I always come back to it. Always. Can't seem to leave it alone.

HCE

[Ziggin' and a Zaggin']

Since early December 2007, I've devoured these:

The Canadian UFO Report: The Best Cases Revealed. by Chris A. Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman

UFOs and the National Security State. by Richard Dolan

The White Sands Incident. by Daniel Fry

The Threat. by David M. Jacobs

America's Secret Army: The Untold Story of the Counter Intelligence Corps. by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting

Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line: America's Undeclared War Against the Soviets. by James V. Milano and Patrick Brogan

Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond. by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain

Subterranean Worlds: 100,000 years of dragons, dwarfs, the dead, lost races and UFOs from inside the earth. by Walter Kafton-Minkel

I've really enjoyed reading all of the above... and I blame... errr... I mean give credit to RI contributors for stimulating my interest in most of those titles. The two books concerning the CIC were fascinating.

I am now reading: The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz.

On deck:

The Phenomenon of Man, by Teilhard de Chardin

Wanting to get my hands on:

The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson

JFK, le Dernier Témoin, by William Reymond and Billy Sol Estes

The Franklin Cover-up: Child Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska. by John DeCamp

Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9/11 Cover-up in Florida. by Daniel Hopsicker

[FourthBase]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

[Jeff]

Nice thread resurrection!

Just picked up today: Survival of the Sickest

[OP ED]

ReReading [for the 3,475th time] for the last day or so: Fearful Symmetry: A study of William Blake by Northrop Frye. Given to me by an English Lit teacher years ago. It is one of the few studies of the artist that seems to have been written by someone who understands him.

[chillin]

Nice thread resurrection!

LoL =D

[§ê¢rꆧ]

The Day the Bubble Burst: A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts (1979)

Written almost like 'historical fiction' in a style that puts the reader there as a kind of third-person observer - jumping from one character to the next, seeing how they are interrelated - it is hard to imagine that some creative liberties were not taken to make it so fiction-like and fun to read. Nonetheless, there's a good 40 pages or so of footnotes and sources, including primary sources like letters and diaries and photographs. A particularly poignant subplot traces a young 16-year-old bootlegger (including a photo of her in her wedding dress), and how her trust fund of $400 was wiped out by a failed bank. Most of the characters of course are bankers and brokers, presidents and big-time players like Henry Ford, but the story of young Jolan Vargo really brings everything down to earth. Highly recommended.

I'm looking for other books on the Great Depression.. any suggestions? I'm also looking for books that deal with the history of how modern markets developed...

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

I just read someone refer to "binge reading." Guilty.
I used to be that username Watchful Citizen in the above post before registering as HMW.

I'm reading about 15-20 books in parallel including:

'Propaganda and the Monopoly of Mass Communications'
by Carl J. Friedrich
and Zbigniew Brzezinski
1956

*

'Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports'
by Dave Zirin
2007

*

'Childhood and Society'
by Erik H. Erikson
1950

*

'Psychiatry and the Cinema'
by Krin Gabbard and Glen O. Gabbard
1987

*

'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'
by Steven Spielberg
1977

*

'The Jack Ryan Agenda: Policy and Politics in the Novels of Tom Clancy'
by William Terdoslavich
2005

[compared2what?]

Also:

The Human Use of Human Beings -- Norbert Wiener.

I try to buy all my books from homeless vendors, for community, green and economic reasons. It also helps keep me eclectic. If several decades behind. Which is actually why I do it. I like arbitrary first-hand socio-historical research.

Next up

Listen, Yankee: The Outspoken Controversial Book About What is Really Happening in Cuba, by C. Wright Mills.

That one's Ballantine, 1960, and I'm really looking forward to it. It has two rubber stampings from the Broadway office of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee on the flyleaf. So I know it will be totally reliable.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

.....

Next up

Listen, Yankee: The Outspoken Controversial Book About What is Really Happening in Cuba, by C. Wright Mills.

That one's Ballantine, 1960, and I'm really looking forward to it. It has two rubber stampings from the Broadway office of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee on the flyleaf. So I know it will be totally reliable.

Very kew-ell.

I have an autographed copy of
'Red Friday: November 22, 1963'
by Dr. Carlos Bringuier
1969

Anti-Castro Bringuier debated 'pro-Castro' (ahem) Oswald on the radio.
His 174-page book was timed to refute DA Jim Garrison's investigation and regurgitates the Warren Commission swill with lots of demonization of that little Commie what dunnit.

[compared2what?]

.....

Next up

Listen, Yankee: The Outspoken Controversial Book About What is Really Happening in Cuba, by C. Wright Mills.

That one's Ballantine, 1960, and I'm really looking forward to it. It has two rubber stampings from the Broadway office of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee on the flyleaf. So I know it will be totally reliable.

Very kew-ell.

Thought of you when I bought it. I actually have a feeling I'm going to lose interest in C. Wright Mills's outspoken and controversial views pretty quickly. However, it does have a very attractive cover.

[Art Van De Lay]

Just finished C.S.Lewis - That Hideous Strength.
Just Started - The Confessions of St Augustine
Just Started - John Flavel - The Mystery of Providence
Nearing the end of - Solomon's Ecclesiasties

By the way when I was looking for a copy of the CSL book I came across a review of the same by George Orwell:



The Scientist Takes Over

review of C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength(1945)

by George Orwell

Manchester Evening News, 16 August 1945

Reprinted as No. 2720 (first half) in The Complete Works of George Orwell, edited by Peter Davison, Vol. XVII (1998), pp. 250–251





On the whole, novels are better when there are no miracles in them. Still, it is possible to think of a fairly large number of worth-while books in which ghosts, magic, second-sight, angels, mermaids, and what-not play a part.

Mr. C. S. Lewis’s “That Hideous Strength” can be included in their number – though, curiously enough, it would probably have been a better book if the magical element had been left out. For in essence it is a crime story, and the miraculous happenings, though they grow more frequent towards the end, are not integral to it.

In general outline, and to some extent in atmosphere, it rather resembles G. K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday.”

Mr. Lewis probably owes something to Chesterton as a writer, and certainly shares his horror of modern machine civilisation (the title of the book, by the way, is taken from a poem about the Tower of Babel) and his reliance on the “eternal verities” of the Christian Church, as against scientific materialism or nihilism.

His book describes the struggle of a little group of sane people against a nightmare that nearly conquers the world. A company of mad scientists – or, perhaps, they are not mad, but have merely destroyed in themselves all human feeling, all notion of good and evil – are plotting to conquer Britain, then the whole planet, and then other planets, until they have brought the universe under their control.

All superfluous life is to be wiped out, all natural forces tamed, the common people are to be used as slaves and vivisection subjects by the ruling caste of scientists, who even see their way to conferring immortal life upon themselves. Man, in short, is to storm the heavens and overthrow the gods, or even to become a god himself.

There is nothing outrageously improbable in such a conspiracy. Indeed, at a moment when a single atomic bomb – of a type already pronounced “obsolete” – has just blown probably three hundred thousand paople to fragments, it sounds all too topical. Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realisable.

His description of the N.I.C.E. (National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments), with its world-wide ramifications, its private army, its secret torture chambers, and its inner ring of adepts ruled over by a mysterious personage known as The Head, is as exciting as any detective story.

It would be a very hardened reader who would not experience a thrill on learning that The Head is actually – however, that would be giving the game away.

One could recommend this book ureservedly if Mr. Lewis had succeeded in keeping it all on a single level. Unfortunately, the supernatural keeps breaking in, and it does so in rather confusing, undisciplined ways. The scientists are endeavouring, among other things, to get hold of the body of the ancient Celtic magician Merlin, who has been buried – not dead, but in a trance – for the last 1,500 years, in hopes of learning from him the secrets of pre-Christian magic.

They are frustrated by a character who is only doubtfully a human being, having spent part of his time on another planet where he has been gifted with eternal youth. Then there is a woman with second sight, one or two ghosts, and various superhuman visitors from outer space, some of them with rather tiresome names which derive from earlier books of Mr. Lewis’s. The book ends in a way that is so preposterous that it does not even succeed in being horrible in spite of much bloodshed.

Much is made of the fact that the scientists are actually in touch with evil spirits, although this fact is known only to the inmost circle. Mr. Lewis appears to believe in the existence of such spirits, and of benevolent ones as well. He is entitled to his beliefs, but they weaken his story, not only because they offend the average reader’s sense of probability but because in effect they decide the issue in advance. When one is told that God and the Devil are in conflict one always knows which side is going to win. The whole drama of the struggle against evil lies in the fact that one does not have supernatural aid. However, by the standard of the novels appearing nowadays this is a book worth reading.

http://www.solcon.nl/arendsmilde/cslewi ... ellths.htm