 2008-10-03 - A New-Found Respect for My VA Senator
My point of view, first of all, is that there is an under-current, of a powerful, select elite who control the market, our politics and news. Most of the media I digest is in the margins.
That being said, I was surprised at the empathy I had for Jim Webb's military perspective. His autobiographical approach to dissecting the time-line of America's political parties gave me a much more human connection to the soldiers who have made history, and who are currently fighting. Webb adds much richness to this work by integrating his own story into his switch from siding with the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. He takes the reader on a journey of how others with his values have changed as the presidency has changed as well.
While I am all-too aware of the corruption of Wall Street and within our justice system, which Webb outlines, there are areas of American (and Middle-Eastern) history in which I have sadly have been ignorant. Webb, if anything, has a strong understanding of the fine points of this history and how it dangerously repeats itself when we are uninformed.
There were many military and political experts with experience who were ignored by the Bush and his cabinet members in regards to the pit-falls of initiating a war in Iraq. Webb, having fought in Vietnam, has visited the darkest places of the psyche and knows that spilling blood comes with great, unseen consequences. It is done only as a last resort. Our occupation over-seas has created more terrorism than his, and others, careful, thoughtful approach. It is more than rhetoric; He has evidence.
It is assuring to see that a Senator can be so openly opposed to a domineering, covertly and overtly aggressive administration. Webb proves the adage that the personal is political and does so with the flow of a gifted writer. Though he offers a general idea to elicit people's passion to demand a change for the better, there could have been so much more. I was left feeling like the book was unfinished. Though the information and the solutions are truthful, it is a somewhat timid truth which only touches the surface a deep ocean of manipulation and anticipated revolution.
 2008-09-22 - Challenge to today's Americans
"A Time to Fight" is largely autobiographical, describing Webb's family background, military career (Viet Nam), writing career (several novels), Washington bureaucrat career (Secretary of the Navy), bitterly fought 2006 Senate campaign, and now his Senate career. Very impressive, obviously.
In the midst of all that, Webb also includes numerous historical references and anecdotes, mostly about military history, politics, and economics.
The rest of the book describes some of America's pressing challenges. Some of Webb's figures are shocking. For example, on the issue of the disparity in wealth between rich and poor, Webb says that J.D. Rockefeller made about 7,000 times the average per capita income in 1894, while today's money managers can make 700,000 times the average per capita income. Webb is concerned about whether the social contract that binds us together as a nation can survive that enormous disparity in wealth or the other problems he describes, such as the Iraq War, the rising power of countries like China, our exploding prison population (largely resulting from throwing thousands of urban blacks in jail for selling pot to suburban whites), the influence of special interests on politicians, and the military-industrial complex.
Making those challenges even more difficult to solve, according to Webb, is the poisonous political environment, where neither side seems to be willing to work with the other side, and where politicians pander to their base constituencies about deeply felt, but ultimately trivial, cultural issues, such as abortion, flag burning, and gay marriage, while ignoring issues that may literally threaten our survival as a nation.
I was a bit disappointed with how vague Webb's prescriptions were for dealing with the challenges he listed, but this was still a very interesting book.
And now, I think I'll check the want ads to see if there are any openings for money managers!
2008-09-20 - Real Straight Talk from an Actual Maverick
Webb offers some tough policy prescriptions in this well written treatise. These aren't the standard platitudes, and few will agree with everything he says, but he writes with uncommon command for a politician and his call to action is persuasive. There's a lot of biographical insight here, but little self-congratulation. His writes about some topics that simply never get discussed. Indeed, his chapter on criminal justice was probably where his Vice Presidential vetting stopped.
 2008-09-16 - The most important book
James Webb is far and away the finest writer in the
world today.
This book, his latest, is timely and important.
 2008-09-07 - a time to fight
While I have a great deal of respect for Senator Webb, I was disappointed by his book. In the book, Webb takes to task the policies of the Bush administration, the corruption in the Senate, the truculent campaign of Chuck Robb, the conduct of the war and so on. But where he falls short is in his ability to deliver fresh ideas for how to solve some of the pressing issues that plague the country.
If the objective of the book was to leave the reader with a heightened respect for Senator Webb's service to our country and his knowledge of world affairs, the book succeeded. If the objective was to expose issues of political shortcomings, elevate the discourse, and offer compelling solutions, then it failed.
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