I quite enjoyed Sam Harris' book The Moral Landscape. Needless to say, I applaud the four horsemen and the struggle for reason. Lying is kind of like On Bullshit, essentially a nicely bound essay. One half of the book is his essay on lying (just 45 small pages), the remainder largely an interview with a prof of his that taught him in philosophy. The essay makes a good case for the position that there are few situations where lying is a good idea, even when well-placed intentions might tell you to. And there are cases where lying is demanded. E. g.; You have Anne Frank in your attic and Nazis at the door asking if you there are any Jews in the house. Then you lie. A case is made for lying to police if the consequences are harsh and you are morally and ethically clean (like having smoked pot, for example). A lesson that governments never learn is that lying can destroy your ability to convince people to do the bleeding obvious. E.g.: The US lied about Iraq and WMDs… now the people are far more skeptical and war-shy than they were before, and perhaps less so than they should be. I have often been a little too honest in my life, usually in the form of bad jokes. My candor has gotten me fired at least twice. As Dale will recall, I probably managed to piss off half the audience at Barry B's funeral service. I spoke of meeting him for the first time where he introduced himself as an SFU psychologist… a group I considered to be part of the problem. Barry immediately noticed my disdain and explained that he was an experimental psychologist, a distinction I was unaware of at the time. I was very gratified when Dale thanked me for making the distinction. To reflect a point made in the book, if you do not lie, you do not have to concern yourself with your audience's sensibilities. Truth, as lawyers are fond of say, is an absolute defense. A single sitting read, but worth it if you have ever spent any time thinking about such stuff. I shall try to be just a little more honest in the future. If you try, you can be honest without being hurtful.
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Miss Lovely was a Scientology code word for one of the first and biggest enemies: Paulette Cooper. The book has no index, a major failing. It is the account of how the church tried to ruin her after the wrote a book called The Scandal of Scientology in '71. The book is heavily leaded, so in is actually quick a quick read. The lengths Scientology will go to attack critics are well known to those of us who have followed it. Anonymous notes to neighbors and employers alleging sexual dalliances, and all kinds of other crap; law suites galore; wire taps, direct threats and so on. In Paulette's case, a fellow befriended her and lived with her for 4 months during some of her more trying times. She came close to suicide and finding out her new friend was actually a church spy did not help. The battle continued for 20 years. At one point, she hooked up with a PI who was working for a European billionaire whose son was duped by the church. She was even hired by the PI. To make sure she wasn't being conned again, she travelled to Europe and met the billionaires lawyer. But it was all a con. Scientology owned the PI. I tried to find Paulette's book. It can be had for a few hundred dollars on the net. Like many other books, it has been suppressed (she actually gave up the copyright as part of a settlement). Well written and not without its tension, the book is a real page turner an a good summary of the battles with the church from 1970 thru 1990. If you have never read about Scientology, I would recommend this one. If you have, it is good background. This was a long read. 620 large, small-font pages, not including notes. I wanted a good summary of the whole mess, and this delivered. Truth be told, for such a daunting volume, I fast-tracked a fair bit of historical and Nixon background. I was 16 when Watergate started (1972) and 18 when it ended. But I was apolitical at the time and the televised coverage was too slow for a kid raised on TV. Everyone has heard the names. Now I can tell you the roles of: Nixon, Erlichman, Haldeman, McGruder, Dean, Colson, Ellsburg, Mitchell, Ziegler, Kissinger, E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, Segretti, Sirica, Cox, Jawarski, Gray, Stans, Sen. Ervin, Sen. Mansfield, McCord, Kliendiest, Richardson, Stennis, Rucklehouse, Bork, and St. Clair. So I learned something. Fun fact: at one point, they were concerned that the president would pardon himself (he had the power) prior to impeachment. But that would be obstruction of justice… but he could pardon that too, but that would be… Nixon was an odious piece of work. A huge bigot. Little or no respect for the law. He actually believed that if the president does it, it is legal, He never acknowledged that what he did was illegal and just plain wrong. He donated some of his papers to charity. He was accused of tax evasion. He then had the value of his (again, not actually his) papers re-assessed from 50k to500k, neatly erasing his IRS indebtedness. Some new restraints were placed on US government powers, but not much. Watergate's chief legacy was to change the relationship between the US people and their government. Iran Contra followed closely on Watergates heels and there are a lot of similarities. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Well written, insightful and bit chilling. If you are curious about those events. I would recommend it. Spoiler Alert: The movie "All the President's Men" is historically accurate, but ends in late '72. The shit hits the fan in '73, Tricky Dick resigns in mid '74, and Ford pardons him about a month later. The movie Dunkirk was just released, and I was surprised to find out just how many people had no idea what it was about. I suppose all events, almost no matter how large, are doomed to fade into history. But I will argue that, at least for now, World War II should not fade.
If any war can be called “good”, WW II was it. The bad guys (both Germany and Japan) were imperialistic and of the opinion that they were the master race. Life under their yoke would have been 20th century slavery. WWII was fought and won within the lifetimes of living people. This fact will not be true for much longer, and we should use wisely the remaining time vet’s have. More people died in WW II than the sum total of all other wars in the 20th century. More would have died if the war had not been fought and won. WWII was the largest conflict in human history… by far. Unlike the Great War, now known as WW I, it actually was a “world war”. Battles were fought on every ocean, and on every continent, with the exception of the Americas. The battle did come to literally the very shores of the Americas, however. WWI was a transitional war, and was fought over 19th century values and concerns. It was a war of kings, like most that preceded it. During WW I, the seeds were sown for modern warfare, including the invention of the machine gun, the tank, the submarine, and aerial-warfare. WW I was the last and only war to feature a static battle line, aka trench warfare. Prior to WW I, most battles were “set piece” battles, where each side lined up at the appointed place and had at it. WW I gave rise to WW II, which gave us, radar, cruise missiles , the modern tank, jet fighters, atomic bombs/power, ballistic missiles, and a raft of other inventions that shaped our world. The modern computer rose out of the need to break Nazi codes, and nothing has changed the world more than the computing and communications revolution that it spawned. WW II is the first war for which we have live film footage. Nothing brings home the carnage of war more effectively than moving images. Movies are fine, but actual seeing has a special weight. All sides saw the horror of war almost first hand. WW II overflows with heroic tales: Dunkirk, D-Day, The Battle of the Bulge, Stalingrad, and Midway only scratch the surface. WW II also overflows with the most awful acts that mankind has ever perpetrated, including state sanctioned genocide (a word that came to us from WW II). When the death camps were discovered, the world reeled, and we are now in the last days of chasing the perps… a task that should be pursued until every last Nazi criminal is dead or in prison. My uncle was lucky. He spent the last four months of the war in Dachau and other holiday retreats. But he survived. All the tales of cattle cars, typhus, starvation, dysentery, torture, etc are all true. All of this, by itself, would place WWII at the top of the list of important events in human history. But WWII has another feature that few, if any wars in the past ever had. As I said, it was truly a battle of good versus evil. The sins of Nazi Germany and The Empire of Japan are so numerous and ghastly that I could not do them justice in a word or two. The German and the Japanese empires had to be crushed. And an entire generation was mobilized to do what had to be done. I often think about a plaque that used to hang in my fraternity house. It named fraternity members who had left school and died during the war. These were young men -- my age at the time -- who fought and died, not for Canada, or the Queen, or the British Empire (although they might have said otherwise), but because they saw a larger duty. Dunkirk was an every-man’s heroic tale, and only one small chapter in the war. Thousands of small boat owners – not soldiers – risked the English Channel and helped save the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) of 360,000+ men. Just a few months later, the Battle of Britain (not to be confused with The Blitz) would be fought and won. But that is another story. The subtitle of this book about says it all: A true Story of Finance, Murder and one Man's Fight for Justice. As you know, I do not read fiction these days. This a is true story about Russia and business and intrigue. It reads like John Grisham, except that it is actually plausible. Most of the upshot of the affair is part of the public record, largely in or form of the Magnitsky Act in the US and Europe. Magnitsky was an idealistic young tax lawyer in Russia. Good advice: keep your money out of Russia. One tiny example: In Russia, if you physically steal the seal of a company, you can use that to transfer the company to someone else. And that is what they did. Raid the business; steal the seal; steal the business. If you, like me, occasionally look south and shake your head at the messed up country that is the USA, then take solace... it aint Russia. The book eye-opening, and a fast and engrossing read. If you get lost in the Russian names, there is a good index. If you want a glimpse into how a 3rd rate KGB operative became the richest man in the world, this book delivers. Hint: he stole it from the Russian people. Bill Browder recently appeared on The National discussing Russian issues. |
AuthorLee Moller is a life-long skeptic and atheist and the author of The God Con. Archives
January 2024
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