Lessons for Muslims from "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation" by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

 

Kristin Kobes Du Mez provides answers in Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation to those who wondered why the vast majority of self-identified Christian evangelicals supported the publicly vulgar & openly sinful Donald Trump for President of the United States in the 2016 election cycle. Historians like Du Mez and Kevin Kruse claim that the answer to this apparent dilemma lies in decades of United States history. While Kevin Kruse emphasized oligarchs' fear of organized labor and social welfare programs and communism, Du Mez emphasized the misogynistic, white supremacist messaging in support of overseas imperialism and domestic patriarchy. I encourage readers to benefit from both books. I encourage Muslim readers to ponder the following questions:

Thoughts on Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang's "Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance between Astrophysics and the Military"

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang have written a very depressing book on how warfare and states' pursuit of dominance have become increasingly intertwined with scientific pursuits. Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance between Astrophysics and the Military covers developments from early modern Europe to our time. While the book is informative and well-organized, it fails to answer or even address the biggest question facing the scientific enterprise for which Dr. Tyson has become its most public advocate: why is humanity not acting on the knowledge the scientific enterprise has produced in order to create a sustainable, just human society?

Comments on "To the Far Right Christian Hater...You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, But You Can't Be Both" by Bonnie Weinstein

I read To the Far Right Christian Hater ... You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, but You Can't Be Both by Bonnie Weinstein in a book club I organized as a member of the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It consists of hate messages sent to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), occasionally accompanied by a pithy rejoinder from the author, who is married to the organization's founder, Mikey Weinstein.

While the Establishment Clause of the USA Constitution has brought this society many benefits, some of which I've mentioned elsewhere, this book can open eyes to the dangers the continuation of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), in its neoconservative Bush-the-Small iteration or its neoliberal Obama iteration or its 45 Regime kill all non-whites iteration.

Review: Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying - The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs by Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer

Sönke Neitzel & Harald Welzer. Jefferson Chase, translator. Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying - The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs. Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2012.

Jennifer Teege, author of My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me, spoke in my town. I asked her about English language books which might help me understand the mentality of Germans during fascism, and she recommend this book.

Sönke Neitzel, a historian, and Harald Welzer, a social psychologist, analyzed declassified transcripts of surreptitiously recorded conversations of German prisoners of war in British & American prisons during World War II. These transcripts confirm both the shocking level of violence fascists unleashed and the suitability of the psychological and institutional structures of a modern capitalist, industrial society to support this violence. Reading it in the United States of America in 2019 increases the urgency of radical resistance to oligarch-inspired labor docility, militarism and global genocide through ecological destruction.

Film: "The Ghosts of Jeju" by Regis Tremblay

Regis Tremblay's "The Ghosts of Jeju" is an 81 minute documentary film describing the resistance of the people of Jeju Island in South Korea to the establishment of a United States naval base.

"Worldly ambition inhibits true learning." - Andrew Bacevich, "Washington Rules"

Worldly ambition inhibits true learning. Ask me. I know. A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable: He knows what he wants and where he's headed; when it comes to looking back or entertaining heretical thoughts, he has neither the time nor the inclination. All that counts is that he is going somewhere. Only as ambition wanes does education become a possibility.

The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández

The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández is an episode of the PBS show "P.O.V." about U.S. marines' killing of U.S. citizen Esequiel Hernández Jr in 1997 in his hometown of Redford, TX. Recently, President George W. Bush has again deployed military forces for border duty. This documentary is emotionally compelling and timely. The people who call for a "secure border" have no idea what it would actually take to do so, and even then it would not stop the flow of drugs and workers.