Obama's Wars

Obama's Wars is written by Bob Woodward. For those not in the know, Bob Woodward is one of the journalists who outed President Nixon in the Watergate scandal, resulting in Nixon's impeachment, subsequent resignation, and the suspicion of strong executive power for years to follow. When I saw that he'd written a book about Obama's approach to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I was intrigued, but not enough to read it. But when I heard that the Obama administration was quite irritated with what he had written, my curiosity was well and truly piqued.

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Straight Reporting

Woodward's writing style is odd. It is as if, when editing the book, he did his absolute best to take his own opinions and voice out of it, having his interviewees serve as characters and movers of the narrative. Strangely, this made it very readable and addicting. I also loved how this approach made him an example of how journalism and journalists used to be: unbiased reporters of news as it appeared instead of sensationalist reactionary opinion mongers. Letting the readers derive their own opinion of what Woodward wrote instead of casting his own spin on it was much appreciated.

The result is fair, and no players come out looking completely rosy or clean. Obama is alternately intelligent, capable, vacillating, and indecisive. Petraeus is able, renowned, biased, and forceful. Karzai is both political dynamo and childishly self-centered. Hillary Clinton is both wise and power-seeking. And so on.

What I found dubious, however, and what probably pissed off the Obama administration was that Woodward ascribes to the belief that, if he hears something from more than one person, it no longer counts as classified information and can be published freely. So, say, if he were told something by Obama "off the record" and then heard the same thing "off the record" from Petraeus, Woodward would feel it legal and permissible to share the information with the public. I never quite understood why Woodward felt this was okay, but it certainly allowed for a more thorough and detailed book. And, probably, the likelihood that Obama and future presidents will share less with him in the future.

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The Woes of Af-Pak

The book focuses primarily on the linked problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the incredibly thorough and lengthy deliberations of Obama's team as to which nation poses the greatest threat and which is the most important target of the United States' strength and influence. What dominates a huge part of the book is also the crucial decision of how many troops to send into Afghanistan and establishing a timely goal of when to start winding down.

As I read all of these intense policy discussions and arguments for one side or the other, I observed some things:

- People in positions of political power can be rather self-centered and focused on the ramifications of how their decisions affect their jobs more than whether or not their decisions are right. Holbrooke is a key example of someone whose high opinion of himself and his glory-seeking desire to solve the Af-Pak problem ended up creating lots of needless friction with those he worked with.

- The White House and the Pentagon (politicians and military) rarely see eye to eye, which can lead to clashes between the two. I was astonished to read of so many instances where the military tried to force Obama's hand by providing him really crappy, limited choices or by leaking intentions/plans to the public in an effort to get the people's opinion behind the military's wishes.

- Objectives are highly important, and those who say that the government never thinks over what they plan to do in wars or anything else are full of crap. I've never seen such agonized and detailed deliberation over any issue as I have Obama's administration and the goals of the war in Afghanistan. Even when at their self-centered worst, everyone thought of the men and women on the ground fighting as well as the will of the American people, as cheesy and perhaps stereotypical as it might sound.

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Conclusion

In all, I found Obama's Wars engrossing, though reading about Afghanistan and Pakistan for so long got a bit fatiguing near the end. It is remarkable how complicated a situation it is over there, and reading the book helped me understand how difficult it is to make definitive and helpful choices about what goes on in those countries. I'm still an arbiter of finding a way to stay and finish the job successfully, but I now better understand the arguments of those who say we just need to cut our losses and get the hell out.

To anyone interested in the war in Afghanistan and the intricate policy decisions that have gone into it from the Obama administration, I highly recommend this book. It was interesting, revelatory, and provided a lot of background and character to those people we hear about every day but don't actually know much about.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Some years ago I was introduced to the biographer, Ron Chernow, through his book on Alexander Hamilton. Surprisingly eloquent and able to articulate simply the most complicated financial issues facing a young America and that Secretary of Treasury, I was impressed enough by his writing and explanatory power to consider reading another of his biographies. Faced with a biography of George Washington, the House of Morgan (the rich Morgan bankers of the late 1800s), or John D. Rockefeller Sr., I decided to venture beyond my comfort zone.

The easy choice was Washington. As one of the few remaining founding fathers of whom I've yet to read a biography, Washington would have served that purpose nicely and easily for the political history buff that I am. But yet Rockefeller was who I settled on. Feeling it would be more personal than a biography on an entire family like the Morgan tome, I decided that Rockefeller would be my choice for the first business biography I've ever read. And even though I was out of my comfort zone in the arena of business dealings and the never-ending quest for profit, I managed to find the Rockefeller story an incredibly compelling one.

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The Ramifications of Rockefeller

I'm not going to summarize Rockefeller's life. It was long, impressive, and involved a great number of crazy events, but you can read the book for that. Instead, I'm going to talk about what I drew from the man's career, experiences, and wealth that constantly grew for as long as he was alive.

Rockefeller was a man who was near obsessive-compulsive in the pursuit of perfection. This expressed itself in his personal life, but perhaps most clearly in the business realm which he dominated. From a lowly bookkeeper, Rockefeller ventured into the oil industry, carefully overwhelmed and co-opted rivals, took over railroads so as to lower the rates they wielded against him, and eventually became one of the richest men alive at the helm of a United States oil monopoly that was competitive and powerful at a worldwide level.

The problem was that, in the innocent aims of running a business to the best of his ability, Rockefeller inadvertently annihilated competitors, crushed the hopes of small business owners of many different products, and challenged American conceptions of capitalism. Through Rockefeller and the business trusts (conglomerate monopolies) of the time, we see how the chaotic nature and ups and downs of a free market economy actually resulted, not in healthy competition, but in vast alliances of business owners who sought to bring order to the system, even at the cost of any new entrants to the field.

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The Sympathetic

Rockefeller, through the enormous trust he created in the Standard Oil Company, merely wanted to be the best at what he did. He was devoutly religious, held himself to a humble and Protestant lifestyle, and treated his employees and rivals with the utmost respect. He largely pursued his business goals in the interest of being successful within what American laws allowed. He viewed himself as a crusader seeking to bring a profitable order to the oil side of the market economy and more, benefiting everyone. He even became one of the biggest philanthropists of all time, giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to charities of all sorts across the world, making sure the whole time to avoid having his name attached to the givings, not wanting anyone to mistakenly believe that he gave to charity just to make himself look good.

But Ron Chernow also makes absolutely clear that Rockefeller seemed to be very good at not considering the social and political consequences of his actions. Every time, Rockefeller seemed honestly surprised when merchants and small business owners repeatedly tried to combine forces, just to have a chance at competition. Every time, Rockefeller felt put upon and unfairly mistreated when brought to court for deliberately seeking to undermine and overwhelm competitors of any kind. It is arguable that he never ever realized before his death how antithetical trusts and monopolies are to the United States and its economic system.

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The Ugly

Tainting the reputation of this man further and removing him from the list of businessmen to aspire to was the fact that, for someone holding himself as a proper, moral, godly and giving man, perhaps Rockefeller's greatest talent was lying to himself about the nastiness and dubious legality of much that he had done to secure his incalculable wealth. Corporate espionage, price wars, efforts to cripple competitors by buying all of their tools before they could, monopolizing transportation so that competitors couldn't transport their goods anywhere, buying land so nobody else could use it but him... Rockefeller's rise with Standard Oil reads almost as a litany of dick moves for businessmen.

On top of that, Rockefeller was king of courtroom evasion, keeping everything a secret, and reading laws "creatively" so as to keep the trust going as long as possible, defying for a long time the will of the United States government and the will of the people from taking effect. Whenever I found myself sympathizing with Rockefeller, all I had to do was remind myself of these things and realize that, for all his personal desires and view of himself, Rockefeller was kind of an asshole.

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They really had a thing for octopus motifs back then

Conclusion

And yet I sympathized with him nonetheless. Maybe it was the perception of the biographer running off on me, but I genuinely got the impression that Rockefeller believed more than anything in the world that everyone was against him simply because they wanted part of the pie. Any criticism he viewed as simply the reaction of greed, and jealousy that Rockefeller had achieved hard-earned success in a world where success of this magnitude is rare. To an extent, this had some validity. But it was an entirely self-centered view that seemed perpetually unable to understand the actual social ramifications of what he did, both with his monopolizing tendencies and unsavory business practices.

Occupy Portland / Occupy Wallstreet

Written by Joe the Revelator




The Occupy Wallstreet protest, which has lasted for nearly a month now, has been adopted by activists in several other major cities including Portland, Chicago, and Seattle. The one I visited in Portland Oregon is now the second largest "Occupy" with a population that wavers between 200 and 400, set up in a miniature tent town that takes up two city blocks of park space on 4th street.

At first glance the Occupy zone looks like a country fair had a fling with a Hoover-ville. Stepping into the tent-and-cardboard enclosure can be a bit claustrophobic, and the eye is distracted by the litany of anti-government, anti-bank messages scrawled on every available surface. The biggest message: We are the 99%, and we're mad as hell.

It was this 99% I wanted to speak to. But instead of visiting the Media or Information centers (kiosks of tent poles and cardboard), I went to the most functional part of any budding society: the kitchens. There, under the rain-heavy tarps surrounded by tables of foodstuffs and plates, I rolled up my sleeves and started washing dishes as a temporary volunteer.


99%

It's said that in America 1% of the elite own or control 99% of the wealth. On Thursday the 6th of October, a fraction of the 99% of the not-so-elite banded together and marched through downtown. They numbered well over a thousand, and were met by police and swat who were called in from neighboring counties. The demonstration ended peacefully, and the die-hards settled in the park where the makeshift city began.

Thus far our iffy vagrancy laws and camping restrictions have failed to move the protesters. Mayor Adams has taken a patient stance, allowing them to remain so long as they don't interfere with traffic (which they have) or cause sanitary issues for the city. The police have followed this example, and both sides seem to be working together for this indefinite sit-in.


During my visit I spoke to several other volunteers working in the kitchens, the sanitary station, and the aid station, and I talked to a few of the more fanatical protesters who seemed content to stand around in Guy Fawkes masks shouting rhetoric. I asked everyone the same question. What are you protesting?

The general consensus was that nobody knew exactly what they were protesting against. Nobody could pick out one particular law or business or figurehead. And although everyone seemed in high spirits and were pleased to be doing something about the dire economic situation our country is in, the cause lacked direction. One person told me that Occupy held regular meetings, during which they would decide what to protest. But in the following days their signs haven't changed and their slogans are still vague, directed at the rich upper crust of society.



Guy Fawkes Lives!

One hallmark of the protest movement is the presence of Anonymous. What started as a meme on the hacker/image board/rant site 4chan, has spawned an organized group that uses the face of Guy Fawkes and passes out leaflets informing people which corrupt businesses to avoid, essentially to ban the use of their products. The group as a whole and their literature is cohesive and well-informed. As individuals, Anonymous struck me as narrow minded and volatile.

The first Anonymous I met was standing outside the sanitation station like a statue, watching the comings and goings with his hands jammed in his pockets. He was completely uninterested in me while I was washing dishes. But when he saw me scribbling in my notepad and asking volunteers about the movement, he shot toward me like an arrow, his ramblings muffled by his cheap plastic mask.

The first Anonymous, and the three others I spoke to all had the same solution. Down with the government. The volunteers of Occupy seemed to want to work with authority, and threw around words like Fiat Currency, Korean free trade agreement, and gold standard. The man serving in the kitchens told me taxation on non-sustainable products would go a long way in solving our dilemma. Anonymous simply wanted a revolt. Blowing up British parliament wasn't enough for Guy Fawkes anymore, he demanded a system without presidency, without representation, and without police. When asked who Guy Fawkes was, one Anonymous said; "He was an English guy who fucked the government's shit up for the people."

This is the new face of anarchy.

an.ar.chy ('a-nar-ke) ***noun*** 1. A social structure without government or law and order. 2. Utter confusion.

My understanding of the Occupy movement is no clearer than before I visited the tent city. Its followers are directionless and are soon to face a winter outdoors. Their lack of cohesive vision or goal makes them easy targets for public mockery. The local media treats them like a glorified hobo camp. And the emboldened men in masks are one step away from bandanna-faced looters.

The atmosphere is calm now, but it would only take one mishandled confrontation with the law to set off the more explosive elements of the protest. They lack the numbers for a full scale riot. That is, until someone is jailed or attacked and a rallying cry is called out. If that happens it won't matter what the group's goal is. If the tear gas is thrown and picket signs become clubs, nobody will remember it was the dissolving middle class that spurned the 99% into action.

The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution - 1980-1989

The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution is the second volume of the two part biography of President Reagan by Stephen Hayward. In it, we see Ronald Reagan as president from 1980-1989, his mistakes, failures, successes and victories.

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Finally, We See the Man

One of my main criticisms of the first volume of The Age of Reagan was the fact that Reagan himself rarely showed up in his own biography; instead, the book focused on the presidencies and time period before Reagan, from 1964-1980. Happily, this volume focuses on nothing but Reagan, and in it I was able to get a great sense of who Reagan was as an individual, what made him tick, and what inspired him to make his policies while America's leader.

I am convinced that, personality wise, Ronald Reagan was one of the best presidents we've ever had. Stephen Hayward takes us on a compelling journey through Reagan's presidency, focusing particularly on Reagan's own personal philosophy and stalwart belief in the goodness of the United States and what it stands for. For Reagan believed utterly that the United States was a grand country capable of doing anything it set its mind to. All of his heart aligned itself behind the inherent love of liberty and freedom that every man and woman possesses. And, in a step that many presidents have failed to make, Reagan made absolutely sure that everyone knew this. There is a reason that Reagan was dubbed The Great Communicator; in just about every speech he gave, you could feel powerfully his faith in America as special, able to meet any difficulty or crisis that it ran into to.

What made this quality so powerful, and the reason why Reagan is so loved today, is that this unbridled optimism came when it was needed most. For America's previous three presidents (Carter, Ford, Nixon) were ones who gave America plenty of reason to doubt itself, its system of government, and its ability to defeat the Soviet Union. Carter spoke of America as being in a "malaise" and destined to become a lesser power, Ford failed to make much of an impact on the people, and Nixon's Watergate scandal brought with it a populace with far less faith in the goodness of America and its bureaucracy. In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union appeared to be at its strongest. The U.S. military and economy appeared weak from Vietnam and oncoming recession respectively. It is in this backdrop that Reagan stepped in and restored people's faith and optimism in the future, when all looked at its bleakest.

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The President

As mentioned in my review of the previous volume, Stephen Hayward has a strong bias toward Reagan that occasionally obscures the truth and tells the history from one perspective. By Hayward's measure, Reagan was unsurpassed in domestic and foreign policy, the greatest president we've ever had. However, I did not come to this conclusion. The fact of the matter is that, domestically, Hayward is unable to hide the fact that Reagan was stymied at near every turn. Going into office with the goal of shrinking the government, the size of government grew nonetheless. Reagan's economic policy of instituting supply-side economics (the belief that tax cuts for the wealthy = wealth for everyone) achieved short-term victory then a quick overturning. Although I'm sure there is one out there, having just finished the book I can't think of a single domestic policy that Reagan managed to implement successfully.

On a foreign policy level, Reagan was much more successful, effectively making the Soviet Union repeatedly freak out. One of my favorite stories was of Reagan's command to have every submarine in the U.S. navy stealthily navigate near Russian ships so that they could ping their radar all at the same time (scaring Russia shitless and illustrating to them the technological advantage had by the United States at sea). Another was of Reagan's order to have one of his secretaries collect every Soviet joke he could get his hands on so that Reagan could turn around and use them on the Russian leaders when he met them at summits. Funny moments aside, Reagan's greatest achievement in foreign policy was in showing America's strength to the Soviets instead of embracing his predecessors' philosophy (of compromising and standing down in the naïve hope that the Soviets would reciprocate). On top of this, Reagan's idea of SDI (the Strategic Defense Initiative, more popularly known as Star Wars, that would have been an anti-missile shield) served to scare the Soviets more than anything, contributing greatly to their willingness to grudgingly back down where previously they would have held their ground in diplomatic initiatives.

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Conclusion

In the end I really enjoyed reading this book, though it sure was a long haul. Reagan was definitely one of the more interesting presidents to read about; his indefatigable optimism and willingness to communicate as clearly to the American people as he could made him a very effective and loved president. Stephen Hayward makes the narrative exciting and easy to follow; his only downfall was his painful bias. Some examples include: Hayward's belief that the president should be able to break the law whenever he deems it necessary (argued in order to excuse Reagan from any criticism associated with the Iran-Contra scandal), the minimal time spent on the Chernobyl incident (maybe 2 pages of ~650) despite Hayward's own admission that Chernobyl was a significant reason in the Soviet Union's decline (he did not spend much time on this because he is transparently pro-nuclear energy), and Hayward's assumption that reading the Constitution literally (aka: conservative originalism) is the only valid way to institute justice in the American legal system (see my review of The Nine for an explanation of why this is kind of silly) without even addressing or countering alternative points of view.

Thus, while I did very much enjoy this book, I would point out to any potential future reader that you need to take what Hayward says with a grain of salt. He covers the Reagan presidency with remarkable detail, but does so from the perspective that you are a staunch Republican, often choosing not to address other points of view. But, nonetheless, I would recommend The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution. Reagan was truly one of the more inspiring presidents that America has had, and he was a key factor in the Soviet Union's downfall. Just be prepared to raise an eyebrow and look up some of the things Hayward goes on about from time to time.

Restrepo

Restrepo could easily be renamed Days in the Waging of the Afghanistan War. A documentary filmed by journalists for Vanity Fair (but distributed by National Geographic), it follows a platoon of soldiers tasked with holding and securing the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.

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Strategic Relevance

"Where the hell is Korengal Valley," you ask? Don't know. Its strategic importance isn't explained very well outside of, "We need to defend these people in this valley so that they will cooperate with us in opposing the Taliban." To this extent, it made me wonder as to the overall strategy of the Afghanistan war in general. While I'm sure that there is a strategy, the documentary does a fairly effective job of giving the impression that not even the soldiers know it; upon arrival in the valley they spend time wondering why they are even there. The valley itself is composed of extremely rugged terrain with loads of hills and mountains, making travel and movement very difficult. Despite this, through the documentary we see a year of the company's time in the area and their efforts to make the valley increasingly secure.

Restrepo focuses primarily on three events in the company's time in the valley, with entertaining interludes of watching the soldiers pass the time. These events are: arrival in the valley, creating a forward outpost named Restrepo after one of their fallen comrades, and the dangerous mission dubbed Operation Rock Avalanche. Of these, I found their time at Restrepo to be the most thought provoking with regard to how America is waging the war in Afghanistan.

Restrepo was an outpost built by the platoon on the top of a hill whose only purpose, according to the documentary, was to bring the enemy to the army to be taken down and also as a psychological hit to the Taliban, basically saying, "Hey, I took this rock from you and you can't take it back. Neener neener." This reminded me of the movie Lions for Lambs, within which this precise strategy is criticized for its inherent pointlessness. What is the point of building an arbitrary outpost just so you can get shot at within it? Aside from the psychological impact on the enemy, Restrepo did not convince me of the strategic wisdom of this move. To that point, this documentary was successful in making me curious as to how America is waging the war in Afghanistan and if our approach has changed for the better now.

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The Human Factor

Another thing that makes Restrepo intense to watch is witnessing the lives of the soldiers within the company as they fight within the Korengal Valley, what was once regarded as "the deadliest place on earth". You see the leader of the platoon and his approach to keeping the company focused and together. You see the men and their reactions to what they are commanded to do. And, perhaps most potently of all, you see how this company of soldiers copes with the nasty situation they are in, how they entertain themselves and how they overcome the inevitable deaths of some of their closest friends.

You also get to see the company and the leader of the platoon deal with a number of the Afghans themselves. At a number of points throughout the documentary, the company goes door-to-door trying to gather information so that they can better defend the people within the valley as well as to try to winnow out those who might be secretly working for the Taliban. Of particular interest was the weekly meetings that the company holds with the village elders. My conclusion of this was that the army definitely needs some more diplomatic people inserted into the army units; the leader of the company is very blunt and often wince-inducing in how he treats and talks to the elders. It became very clear very fast that, if winning hearts and minds is the goal in Afghanistan, America needs to be sure that they are being polite to Afghanistan's local leaders while they are overcoming the understandable difficulties of working with them.

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Conclusion

Restrepo may be one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I did not feel that I was being force-fed an argument or point of view; instead I viewed objective events and was able to draw my own conclusion from them. One might argue that objective footage of anything isn't nearly as energizing as someone passionately defending one side of an issue, but I felt that this documentary was incredibly engrossing to watch while simultaneously not coming down for or against the war in Afghanistan. If I were forced to try and gauge what side the documentarists are on, I would wager they are against the war. But, coming out of it, I think that us being there and trying to help out is the right thing to do, we just need to make sure our strategies are workable and that we are kind to those who we want to work with. One thing is definitely clear, though, in that winning the war in Afghanistan will be a long haul. But I personally think that it is worth it.

Thus I highly recommend this documentary. One needn't worry about seeing people killed or anything like that; I thought that it was pretty tame with regard to injuries shown and all that. The big reason why is because the cameraman was trying not to get killed, and thank goodness for it. Consequently, this is a superb war documentary well worth watching that shows us a very close look at what exactly our troops have been up to in Afghanistan.

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P.S. – On an unrelated note, happy 100^th weblog post to me! Given that my posts tend to be around 1,000 words (usually more), I have now written over 100,000 words to this blog. For the record, that's the size of an average-length novel. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. :)

The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order - 1964-1980

The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order is one of the more unusual history books that I've read in my time. The first of two giant volumes, the book follows the general history of the United States from 1964-1980. The strange part of this focus is how Ronald Reagan, the American president from 1980-1988, is only part of this sprawling epic as a sort of supporting actor who shows up now and again to remind you that he exists.

Reagan and the 1964-1980 Time Period

For a book that is supposed to be about Reagan, the author spends maybe 1/5^th of the book actually talking about the man. Stephen Hayward explains that, without this knowledge of the events that came before, one can't truly understand and appreciate Reagan's two terms in office. As I have yet to start the second volume (I need a break!), I can't yet attest to the validity of this approach. But having just finished the first volume I can say that I still doubt that this was a good move. Fact of the matter is that Reagan, while having a modicum of influence every now and then during this time period, really did not matter much. And insisting on covering every event in the 16 years before his presidency came off as excessive and seemingly irrelevant. I found it akin to the idea of starting a book about World War II by reading a prequel volume about World War I. Certainly, the first war and the Treaty of Versailles caused the other, but can't we just summarize that instead of having to read 800+ pages to get to what you are really reading the books for?

However, for a book that is only occasionally about Reagan, I found it extremely engrossing. Stephen Hayward writes in a way that makes the book a page-turner, and that is exceedingly rare for a bulky historical door-stopper. He does an excellent job of pulling you into the crises of the times, from the riots of the Civil Rights era to the oil emergency during Carter's administration. On top of that, his grasp and explanation of the United States' foreign policy and the maneuverings of the Cold War is top notch; every move that the United States made during that time is assessed along with its effects on its allies and enemies. The only parts of the book which I found to be slower/less interesting were the sections where Hayward describes the various primaries and campaigns for President as they occurred. It was hard for me to get past all the painfully cutthroat and cynical politicking without getting very irritated; I often found myself wishing that these sections would end so that I could get to the more interesting domestic and world events and their effects on the United States.

Holy Bias Alert

But, more than anything, what made the book exciting, unbelievable, and jaw-dropping to read was the author's clear bias in favor of the Republican side of things. For the record, I've nothing against biases in biographies or histories; it is truly impossible to avoid getting attached to your subject, so to be unbiased is often the rarer occurrence. But damn... I don't think I've ever seen a bias like this.

It is difficult to explain, but essentially Hayward let his own impressions of events color the way they are presented in the book. At its worst, I was beginning to feel like I was reading an alternate history of America as presented in some sort of odd parallel universe. Some examples:

• Hayward spends a paragraph or so about what made the Civil Rights Act a good thing, then spends at least thirty pages explaining how it was the worst thing to ever happen to America and how we are still trying to recover from it today.
• Every single Democratic president he spends time on comes off as incompetent, opportunistic, vain, and often actively working against the interests of the United States. By contrast, Nixon and Ford come off as well-meaning and comparatively honorable and decent men. Considering that everything I've learned previous to this suggests that Nixon and Ford were both pretty awful presidents, I was understandably surprised.
• He spends a paragraph on how the Three Mile Island incident was terrible, but then pages on how it really wasn't that bad and that we always blow it completely out of proportion.

Martin Luther King Jr. is depicted as vacillating and fairly unimportant. Lyndon Johnson in particular is portrayed as the worst president ever to hold the office (Carter being the second worst). I found this to be very odd, especially when, after a hundred or so pages of explaining how Lyndon Johnson's time as president was one awful, horrendous crisis after another, Hayward then explains that the U.S. economy was actually pretty good during LBJ's terms of office.

Lastly, I noticed that Hayward had a habit of focusing on the actions and influences of (almost always leftist) extremists in a fashion that made it seem like they were the main voice of the people when they were actually less than 5% of the public. Hayward points this out himself a couple times in the book and then goes on to seemingly write exclusively of what these extremists did in a way that makes it seem like they were the central catalyst of events, which is almost certainly incorrect. But this focus on the crazies and the crises helped to make the book an incredible page turner, so there's that at least.

Conclusion

All in all, I came pretty quickly to the conclusion that pretty much every part of the history in this book had to come with a grain of salt. It was certainly eye-opening and I'm sure that most of it is historically correct, but the fact that he would generally only present one side of things made it feel like I was being brainwashed at times. For example, I can't remember a single instance where he pointed out something good that LBJ had done, and he also never explained any beneficial motivations to the man; Hayward always would point out how the decision to intervene in Vietnam or create a government agency to fight poverty was a cynical and cold-hearted bid for votes. And I refuse to believe that. While that factor is always present in any decision the president makes, that is hardly the only system by which the president makes his choices.

Anyways, I did really enjoy reading this book as an entertaining, if painfully biased, history of the United States from 1964-1980. Reagan himself was always interesting when he showed up, but that was fairly rare until near the end of the book. I will be interested to see how Reagan is depicted during his years in office; up to this point, Hayward has portrayed Reagan as a golden, kindhearted crusader of the people and the embodiment of American optimism. It will be intriguing to see if Hayward will be levelheaded and fair in pointing out Reagan's mistakes when he was in office (Iran-Contra Affair, I'm looking at you!).

Frost/Nixon

Once upon a time, there was a man named Richard Nixon. He became president of the United States, did some good things, did some bad, and is now entirely synonymous with the word "Watergate". The Watergate scandal is what sunk his presidency, an event where he abused the powers of his office in order to try and cover up investigation into his wiretapping of political opponents. In essence, he decided that, as president, he did not need to operate within the law, and it was this belief which ended his presidency.

Frost/Nixon takes place right after Nixon has left office, with the United States still clamoring for some admission of guilt or an apology. The main focus of the movie is on the interviews that led to this apology, as well as an analysis of the men involved. The spotlight particularly shines on David Frost, the glitzy British talk-show host who serves as interviewer, and Richard Nixon, the man who was once president and is now the interviewee.

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The Enigma of Richard Nixon

What this movie did especially well, I thought, was to capture the peculiar character of Richard Nixon. Here is a man who is spectacularly intelligent. Though he is generally frowned upon now, his presidency was not without accomplishments. It is arguable that, without Nixon, Communist China would have remained closely tied with the Soviet Union, which might have extended the Cold War for dozens of years if not changed the course of history. It is also notable that, despite the immense criticism levied upon him by the American citizenry, Nixon did more than any other president to win the war in Vietnam; through sheer grit he may have attained complete victory if Watergate had not ended his term of office.

And yet, despite the sympathetic aspect to his character, the movie does not shy away from Nixon's more negative aspects. Nixon is shown to be greedy when he insists on pushing the cost of the interviews higher than their already monumental drain on Frost's pockets. His insecurities shine through, particularly in one powerful scene where Nixon and Frost speak privately together. And his opportunistic tendency manifests itself in his constant attempts to mess with Frost in order to utilize the interviews as a method of vindicating his tarnished public image.

As can be gathered, Frost/Nixon does an excellent job of showing what made Nixon a powerful, confident, and intelligent individual. One might expect a typical attack on Nixon going into it, but the movie manages to surpass this expectation by providing a more balanced and complicated view. The acting of Frank Langella helps to perfect this and add incredible depth to this depiction of the president; he was even nominated for Best Actor for the role.

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The Background Drama

Another aspect of the interviews that the movie focuses on is just how difficult, expensive, and controversial it was to have the interviews happen at all. It cannot be emphasized enough how incensed the average person was with Nixon after he left office, particularly after he was given public pardon by the following President Ford. People wanted him to go to court, wanted him dead... He symbolized everything that had gone wrong with the government, which made him a massive target for incredible hatred that was, to a certain extent, justified. Consequently, part of what made it so difficult to have the interviews happen at all was that people would only support the interviews if they resulted in a public confession/apology by Nixon. And that was in no way guaranteed.

Nixon had no intention of apologizing, believing utterly that his every action in presidency was justified, including Watergate. Thus Frost and his team were placed under an enormous amount of stress as they sought to prod Nixon into blurting out a statement that would condemn him. This pressure manifested in the cost of the interviews, the difficulty of getting funding from companies that didn't believe Frost could do it, the disturbing possibility of Nixon coming out of the interviews with his reputation looking much better than it did before, and the damage that failure could cause to the reputations of those involved if they failed to obtain an apology or slip of the tongue.

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Conclusion

Overall, I thought this movie gripping and hard to look away from. Through the preparations for the interviews and the interviews themselves, you are held to your chair, uncertain how they will possibly get Nixon to concede. It ends up cast into a sort of personal duel of wordplay and character between Frost and Nixon, giving a depth to both of their characters which makes the movie even more compelling. Being history, one knows that the interviews end in Frost's favor, but even armed with that knowledge this does not prevent the movie from being a harrowing step-by-step of the dramatic and difficult lead up to that pivotal moment.

My only warning is that, if you have zero knowledge of Watergate or the general events of the time period (early 70's), some aspects and questions of the interviews might go completely over your head. I already knew of this stuff, so it is hard for me to gauge if having no knowledge will ruin the movie for you. But I doubt it. Even if Nixon and Frost mean nothing to you, it is an interesting study of two complicated characters, their verbal repartee, and their impact on the world.

The Queen

The Queen is a movie that purports to show us the British Queen Elizabeth II in all of her glory. Queen of Britain for over sixty years, Elizabeth II is still alive to this day. Thus, I went into this movie expecting an interesting story; I hoped that it would show me a day or week in the life of such timeless royalty.

However, this goal was not precisely attained. Fact of the matter is that, of all the people in this movie, the Queen almost ends up looking the worst. On top of this, the attention of the movie is not entirely there; the Queen, while present, is almost a sideshow to the events of the film.

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A Diversion in Focus

A better name for this movie might have been "Diana". The movie starts with Princess Diana's death and follows the aftermath that follows, particularly the controversy surrounding the type of funeral she was to have. To that purpose, the majority of the movie's spotlight is on the impact of Diana's death among the British populace and then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to convince the Queen of the necessity in holding a funeral open to the public.

Now I understand how powerful and poignant Princess Diana's death was to many people across the world. She was a dynamo among stuffier royalty, a woman able to act and think for herself in search for her own happiness, an inspiration to those in need as she traveled across the world helping people worse off than herself. Her death was tragic and sudden, and her passing shocked the world into silence.

However, the name of this movie is The Queen. Thus I was immensely irritated when the ramifications of Princess Diana's death effectively commandeered the movie. As for the Queen herself, she gets a good amount of screen-time, yes, but one never really gets much more than a surface level look at her. Her role is portrayed excellently by Helen Mirren, but it is a thankless role; the Queen's dignity and willpower are embodied perfectly, but her opinions and character are limited to her irritation with the whole Diana crisis. Sadly, the Queen's resistance to the proposed funeral preparations appear steeped in rigid tradition, causing the entire film to basically make her look ignorant of the people's wishes.

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Propaganda Piece?

One interesting thing I also noticed was the portrayal of Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) and his actions in the movie made him come out looking absolutely brilliant. I also got a greater sense of his character and point of view, again making me feel that this movie would be better named "Blair" than The Queen. Tony Blair's position was unenviable, torn between a public urging him to eviscerate the royalty and a Queen unwilling to compromise with regard to her own outmoded perceptions. But the film shows him walking this balance perfectly. It shows Blair's willingness to act when the Queen does not, and defending her even when she thinks the worst of him. And it also illustrates to the viewer that Blair's idea of having a funeral open to the public was the best idea, not to mention the idea that won out in the end. Consequently, Tony Blair becomes the hero of the story without a blemish or negative trait aside from a slight, if contextually understandable, irritation of British royalty.

By contrast, as I touched upon earlier, the Queen comes off as both blind to the desires of the British people and strictly attached to tradition even when it is harmful to the royal family and herself (insisting on a private funeral). She is not without rationale; the movie makes sure to point out that Princess Diana was out of favor with the royal family and thus, from their perspective, undeserving of a grand public funeral. But I still found myself getting irritated with the Queen's resistance; tradition versus the will and love of millions seems like a pretty easy decision to make. Perhaps I wasn't able to empathize precisely with the Queen's perspective. But, if that is the case, then perhaps that is a failure of the film and not my own perceptions.

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Conclusion

In the end, The Queen was interesting to watch and largely enjoyable. I personally felt cheated because the movie was more about Princess Diana's death and Tony Blair than the Queen herself. But, if I were forewarned of this, I would have come out of it full of praise. It does effectively show how important and influential Princess Diana was to the world. And it also shows some impressive (though suspiciously too-good-to-be-true) statesmanship from Tony Blair that was compelling to watch. It certainly makes Tony Blair's wife come off as an ass, which I found both amusing and odd!

I don't feel like I know much more about Queen Elizabeth II than I did before watching, though, which is a tragedy. This provides further ammunition to my claim that, really, the movie should have been named after one of the other prominent political figures in that time period.

In short, if you are at all curious about the time period directly following Princess Diana's death, then this movie is spectacular. But if you go into it expecting a close look at Queen Elizabeth II, you will probably come out feeling a bit cheated and disappointed.

Team of Rivals

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is one of those books. You know the kind. Whenever you enter a Barnes & Noble, a Borders, Powell's, this is one of those history books which is always in the best seller section right up at the front, staring at you with beady eyes. A handful of prominent sounding book awards adorning its cover. By virtue of it being everywhere, that makes it less appealing, and thus you move on. But inwardly, you know it will probably be good. You just don't want to hop on the bandwagon.

But lo and behold, I did. Not because of boredom or anything, but because the American Civil War is in fact a time period I know rather little about. I knew the details of a few of the battles, but the overall picture was sketchy. So, upon additional recommendation, I turned to Team of Rivals, a tome of near-painful length. A book focusing on President Abraham Lincoln's presidential cabinet and the politics that went on leading up to, during, and after the Civil War.

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The Good

What this book did especially well is establish the character and personalities of Lincoln, William Seward, and Salmon Chase. The latter two served as Lincoln's Secretary of State and Treasury respectively. It was impressive the level of detail that is established in rendering this dramatis personae; the author tells us stories of their youth, their dreams, their worst moments, their wives, their families, and their political aspirations. I felt like I knew these figures, and I felt as if I had met people in my life who mirrored their personalities. I also was able to compare my own self to them; I came to the conclusion that, of all of them, I probably had most in common with Seward. Consequently, the book comes across as a psychological study, assessing motives and ambitions as these men clashed against one another and then ended up working effectively together as a team.

The book also impressed me with an effective and detailed description of how the Civil War came to be. I was surprised to learn that, while slavery and the expansion of it was a clear issue, the emancipation of slavery entire was on almost nobody's mind at first. Lincoln himself did not advocate against slavery, merely arguing that it needed to be kept where it was and not expanded into new states. His position was that slavery was something that would dissipate by itself in time, but that the preservation of the Union was more important than emancipation. Speaking of Lincoln, I was surprised to learn that, in the end, one of our greatest presidents was almost entirely centrist. He was a labeled Republican but, in today's terms, his actions in office were more similar to that of a moderate liberal/democrat than anything.

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The Bad

The problem with this book, though, is that while the psychological analysis of these figures is quite intimate and enlightening, it distracts from what is going on. Really, I shouldn't be knocking the book on this; it is called Team of Rivals and it focuses upon the rivalry between these men. But once the war starts, it is like reading about the squabbling of children. I read page after page of cabinet members feeling unappreciated and then Lincoln stepping in to calm people down. There are endless stories of cabinet members bickering with each other. After the first few, I understood; yes, Lincoln was a political genius. But when it went on and on and on, I found myself getting irritated with the author and with these men. Given the backdrop of a gigantic Civil War, their childish temper tantrums were exceedingly annoying to hear about. I found myself wanting to slap them and say, "Hello? There's a freaking war going on out there. Shut the hell up!" But I couldn't.

Another relevant complaint I had was about the wives and daughters of these men. Especially when the war is on, the author decides to spend pages here and there describing what the women were up to. Shopping trips, decorating the White House, seeing friends, etc. Now I have no problem with women at all, but I could not understand why the book spent so much time on these figures given the circumstances. First off, the women were not a part of the presidential cabinet (the stated main focus of the book). Secondly, after describing the horrors of war and the stresses of maintaining a government during a civil conflict, hearing about Mary Todd Lincoln's expensive grocery trips was very jarring. Thus it did not make sense why so much of the book was devoted to these women. I'm sure their daily lives were compelling stuff, but it wasn't why I was reading the book.

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Conclusion/The Ugly

In the end, though, I couldn't finish this book. It wasn't for lack of readability; this book is quite well written. It was because, once the Civil War began, the author made minimal effort to explain what was going on. Important battles were given mere pages next to chapters-worth focused on immature political bickering. The Battle of Gettysburg, the single most important battle of the war, was covered in less than a page, returning almost immediately to one of the cabinet members being a dumbass. Consequently, I tried, but I lost interest.

That isn't to say that this book was not good though. Like I said earlier, it was incredibly interesting to read about the varied personalities of Lincoln, Seward, and Chase, and how they made their way through life. This book also does an excellent job of explaining moment-by-moment how the Civil War came into being. But when it came to the cabinet in office during the war, I quickly lost interest and wanted to hit things. If the war itself had been covered in better detail and if the cabinet's infighting weren't so stupid, I would've gone on to finish this. Perhaps someone will who will have more tolerance than I.

The Big Short

The Big Short is a book about the financial crisis and how it came to occur. It follows a number of people who were basically bit players in the financial system; we trail the lives and activities of outsiders and loners who were able to see what was happening in the market and able to take advantage of it. The decision to base the book around these people was a very good one. It gave the book a narrative flow that helped make an incredibly complicated subject a lot easier to understand. Unlike with any news story or article I've ever read of the financial crisis and its roots, I actually feel as if I understand precisely what caused it now, a feeling that had been missing before. For that reason, if nothing else, this book is amazing and succeeds at what it set out to do.

Following the Threads

The people who the author chose to examine and follow throughout the book's story are really interesting people. There is the one who, disgusted with the financial system, creates his own company precisely so he can screw over the fat cats who profit from it. There is another who, through his own unique hermit-like personality and approach to life, is able to discover the fault lines of the crisis long before anyone else. Putting this explanation of the crisis into a chronology like this and making it feel like an unwinding story instead of a dry examination was genius. I don't think I would have been able to understand it any other way.

From what I understand, the crisis was caused by the creation and trade of subprime loans and mortgages. What these were, essentially, were loans given out to people who couldn't afford to repay them. No, it doesn't make any sense. Why would banks give out loans to people who wouldn't be able to give them back? The reason is this: so that the banks, hedge funds, and various finance companies could shuffle them around and take out insurance on them (credit default swaps) when they inevitably failed. They expected them to fail, and thus sought to profit off of the homeowner's failure. They managed to do this for years because, with the seemingly endless boom in housing prices, those who failed were hidden by the successes of those who had not yet done so.

So the system was basically designed to give out loans to those who couldn't afford them in order to profit from their loss. Sounds like a con, doesn't it? Well, it was, but the system was explicitly designed so that it would not be noticed. This, I think, is a huge reason why finance seems so damned complicated. If this book is to be believed, it was made intentionally so in order to conceal the profits that the financial market was making. It was also done so that banks who hadn't caught on to it continued to be hoodwinked so that they would be put under when the crisis finally came, and not those who profited from the crash.

The Absence of Morality

What the book did most effectively was convince me that, while the shenanigans people pull with trading assets about on the financial market is interesting, the system itself doesn't make any moral sense. The atmosphere and incentives of the market make it advantageous to be as greedy and uncaring as possible. In reading about the lives of those who participated in it, I found myself wondering what these people in these careers offer to society? All they do is shuffle money about; buy low, sell high. None of it actually contributes to anyone but themselves. A construction worker builds places that people use. A lawyer helps to keep the justice system working and providing people a voice. Researchers and technicians interact with and repair things that help the average Joe. But financiers? The only argument I can think of is that they help the economy, and that is an argument that can apply to any job ever. Isn't it strange that those who seem to contribute the least to society are those who are the richest for it?

This sort of mentality, I think, is what made the financial crisis possible. Even those who seemed outsiders to it (the people one follows in the book) inexplicably made very little effort to let the government or anyone know about how the convoluted system was making it possible for people to be lied to and taken advantage of. Instead, they used their knowledge to make sure that they were able to escape unscathed from the crisis that followed, even becoming rich in the process. To my eyes, the fact that this was possible would suggest that we need the government or even a private entity to help make the system more transparent. One should be able to trust that every bank isn't out to con them. The financial system should be made less complex; the only reason it is was because people deliberately made it so to conceal their actions.

Conclusion

However, the government's way of fixing it was tragic. What they basically did was throw money at the failing loans so that those banks who bore the brunt of it were essentially rewarded for making the impossible-to-repay loans in the first place. So, in the end, everyone who participated in the system profited from abusing it; those who bet on the loans failing won giant insurance payouts and those who carried the loans were guaranteed the money they should have lost. Therefore, nobody has any incentive to change how things work because no punishment was involved. If the banks had had losses, maybe they would've done their best to make the system more transparent themselves, so that they wouldn't have been taken advantage of by smarter financiers. Instead, it seems the only people to suffer from this were those who were conned into taking the loans in the first place, the people of the United States. And, while one would think that they should have known better, I can't help but feel that they didn't have any option to. Banks had every incentive to make the subprime loans sound magnificent when they weren't, the loan rating system was rife with corruption and thus untrustworthy, and the entire system was made as obtuse as possible in order to throw off those trying to figure things out. Is any of that fair?

Anyways, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't know how the financial crisis came to pass and would like to know why. The author keeps the book interesting by following the stories of some of those people who were involved in it. And as they foresaw it happening, so will you understand right as they did. However, it got a bit repetitive closer to the end, as one can talk about the evils of subprime mortgages for only so long before repeating one's self. But, overall, it was quite good, readable, and informative.

8.5/10

+ 10 for a great, readable book that does exactly what it set out to do

- .5 because nothing is perfect

- .5 for occasional repetitiveness

- .5 for difficult subject material that still gets confusing despite a good explanation

Sicko

I must admit that I did not want to see this documentary. I've never been terribly impressed by Michael Moore. The problem is that he seems like just another biased documentarist or talk-show host. Most of that impression I derived from seeing an earlier documentary of his, Fahrenheit 9/11. In that documentary, Moore seeks to persuade the viewer that Bush was indirectly responsible for the attacks in a way that was neither convincing or very factual. Consequently, I came out of that particular film sympathizing more with Bush than I had before, which is surely not what Moore intended.

However, with Sicko, it is clear that Michael Moore has grown and matured as a documentarist (is that even a word?). The subject matter with Sicko is that of the United States healthcare system, highlighting its flaws, and its capacity to ruin people with insane costs and profit-oriented insurance companies. Michael Moore approaches the subject with an open mind along with tongue-in-cheek humor which makes the documentary both entertaining and informative. There is still a clear bias, but it is one that largely seems supported by facts and rationally thought out conclusions, which is perfect for a documentary seeking to make a point. Essentially split into two parts, I am going to address each major segment/idea of the film to explain the point Moore tries to make along with whether the point was clearly made or not.

Insurance Companies and Profiteering

The first major point Michael Moore seeks to make is to explain how the for-profit focus of insurance companies creates a corrupt system where the companies seek to make a killing and simultaneously avoid paying for people who really need attention based on flimsy excuses. He does this by showing the viewer cases of people who have been screwed over by the system along with interviews with medical personnel.

This was a very persuasive section of the documentary, and one that I already knew of as being a major problem with American healthcare. In fact, most people know that the insane costs of healthcare in America are a key problem with it; fixing relatively small injuries can cost tens of thousands of dollars and addressing life-threatening ones can go even higher. This quickly creates a scenario where, when anyone needs medical help, they are up to their eyes in debt within no time flat. This problem is only exacerbated by the tendency for insurance companies to do their best to create reasons not to pay for the service they are specifically being paid to provide. In short, insurance companies try to make up stuff so that they don't actually have to do what they are supposed to do, and thus saving themselve from having to pay for surgeries, medicines, and such. Bringing up pre-existing conditions is a prominent one, and also creates situations where people with pre-existing conditions are turned away because the insurance company only wants people who they won't have to pay for.

The insurance company part of this documentary is out of date though. If I'm not mistaken (and I will look into this to make sure), Obama's Healthcare Bill now makes it illegal for insurance companies to turn away people based on pre-existing conditions, which helps immensely (Sicko was produced in 2007). However, the prohibitive costs of healthcare in general remain astronomically high and, irritatingly, has been going even higher with the passing of the bill. And insurance companies have still been doing their best to avoid spending money helping people. Needless to say, this is an area that definitely needs attention, regulation, and the passing of some laws in order to be made equitable and fair. The costs of healthcare service in the United States tends to bankrupt anyone who is not upper class, and this is clearly a problem.

Universal Healthcare

The more divisive issue that Michael Moore tries to persuade the viewer of is that of making healthcare universal in the United States in a way that is government supported and provided. To make this point, Moore builds on his earlier argument and points out many more cases exist of people who simply can't get healthcare, casuing many unnecessary deaths and untold amounts of emotional and physical pain for people throughout the country. In what is perhaps even more persuasive, although not without holes, is Moore's travel to a number of countries with universal healthcare that do the job without nearly as much fuss, cost, or difficulties. These countries include Canada, Great Britain, France, and Cuba.

The problem with Moore's argument here is that he doesn't seem to go far enough. He holds forth these countries as having far better healthcare than that of America, but does so in a way that causes skepticism. The healthcare systems of these countries seem almost utopic in nature, without any faults or abuse anywhere. Even Cuba's system appears within this documentary to be so much easier, cheaper, and more effective than our own. This is not to diss on Cuba, but Moore fails to look into anything but the good sides of these working universal healthcare systems. People shown in the documentary apparently only have to wait thirty minutes to an hour for instant, gratifying, and free healthcare, and that does not fit with what I've learned elsewhere. I find it hard to believe that these systems are so perfect, and I will be doing some research when I get time on this. I simply don't believe that these comparisons are fair or fully explained. At no time does he mention a huge problem facing the prospect of universal healthcare in the United States; the United States is much bigger than any of those countries, so what might be good for them and their small populations would be much harder to implement in a country as big as the USA.

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Conclusion

Overall, Sicko was a bit of an eye-opener for me. I already knew the details of most of what he talked about but, for some reason, the way the documentary was presented made me far more aware of the problems of the healthcare system. I am fully convinced that insurance companies and the system itself make for something far more costly than it should be. But I'm not so swayed on the idea of universal healthcare. Certainly, it would be nice, but implementing a universal healthcare system across a territory as large as ours is a monumental and probably expensive-as-hell undertaking. Not to mention that it may not be constitutional and cases would inevitably be raised over states' rights. The federal government would need to impose this hypothetical system on all the states, and this could, in effect, create a constitutional crisis. We are already seeing this with the implementation of Obama's healthcare plan, which is not nearly as far-reaching. Some states have refused to put it into effect.

But this documentary has prompted me to research to verify if all of what Michael Moore said is true. If so, then I will have to say that I'm all for universal healthcare. In this documentary, it sounds like the most wonderful thing in the world. But I have my doubts, so we'll see.

To anyone who doesn't know much about the United States and its healthcare system, this is an excellent documentary to learn from. It also assesses the chronological changes made to the system in the past forty-something years, and thus is a superb briefer on the dilemmas and controversies surrounding the system. If you already know a lot about the healthcare system, this is still worth a watch. Michael Moore's position is persuasive and, while I'm skeptical of some of it, overall it is a fair position to take built on a number of facts and rational conclusions.