Reading notes

Robert Fisk writes in the Preface to his new tome, The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. Now reading.

I’m noting because the quote above strikes me so powerfully. I’m reading because I’ve been impressed with Fisk’s courageous journalism for years.

Other book-related resources I’m investigating (first pass among many Googled search results):

• NY Times review (December 12, 2005)
• Znet interview (November 21, 2005)
• TUC Radio podcast (free)

This uncomfortable book is so far reminding me how I felt reading Chris Hedges’ War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning in May 2003. But I will not turn away from the gory reality — and consequences — of war, much as I want to.

I missed this chunk of wisdom from 92-year-old “Granny D” Haddock (bio) when she gave it in 2002, but that’s okay, because it’s 100% as valid and insightful today as it was then.

If we Americans are split into two meaningful camps, it is not conservative versus liberal. The two camps are these: the politically awake and the hypnotized. …

Once we understand what we are up against, and where the meaningful dividing lines truly run, our lives as reformers can be easier because we shall know how to proceed.

How to break the hypnosis is then the question. It is easy.

I find the term “trickle-down reptilism” especially apt. (Makes me think of the 1983–84 mini-series, V.)

[clued by commenter Bluesee in this discussion, one of the longest and ultimately, most heartening, diary/essay/threads I’ve read at dKos. I went through 1,000 feelings reading it all including commentary, and came out with more understanding and a bit of hope that I might find my soul force+empathy again]

2006-01-03 update: Today I see Granny D’s Orchard House speech (October 6, 2005); it’s superb as well: chock-full of wisdom, clear thinking, and wordsmithing mastery:

Again [we face] the work of ending slavery. This time it is a slavery of the mind, which the hardest kind to deal with, as it is usually characterized by the unwillingness of the victims to be emancipated. But it must happen if the suffering of this nation and of the world is to end.

Still more of Granny’s speeches here.