[lbo-talk] US flag at half-mast today - please tell me it's not 'cos of Falwell?

[Andy F]

On 5/15/07, B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Not too long ago I checked out a copy of Bacevich's
> _The New American Militarism_ and was only able to
> read a chapter of it before it was due back. It looked
> interesting. He cited Chomsky positively in its first
> chapter, or foreword, or intro -- I forget which.
> Bacevich is someone I've wanted to read more, as an
> ex-military insider (a colonel I believe?) who's now
> apparently against militarism and sees it as a
> pernicious. dangerous thread in US social life.

It's not bad, but I didn't think it lived up to the Englehardt
interviews.  He really thinks of American militarism as new, as in
dating to Reagan I think.  The book seems to track his own loss of
innocence -- he started out as a career officer.  He also seems to
think of a structural critique of power (vs. personality based) as
something novel, which is kind of weird.  That said, it's worth
reading for his history of the neocons and more recent
developments....

I'm not going to speculate about his state of mind right now.

-- 
Andy