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"Why are we at war?"    [ Rants ]

Picked up a copy of "Why are we at war?" by Norman Mailer from Borders yesterday.   It's a thin volume, reads a lot like a political leaflet distributed during periods of upheaval, like during the American Revolution or the fights between the Fascists and Communists in Europe during the early part of last century.   That is, there's a lot of wild-ass speculation and rumor-mongering without a whole lot of evidence or reasoning to back up the theories that he's spouting.   What you end up with by the time you're 2/3 through the book is a theory that happens to fit the facts, which doesn't really prove anything but makes for 30-60 minutes worth of politically-oriented diversion.

The last notes in the book are probably the only reason that it's worth reading.   I like his analysis of Reagan and Bush 43's management styles, they seem to be closer to the truth than what most political commentators (who are effectively paid by the word or minute anyway) come up with.

Mailer's an odd duck politically, since he's all for a union of the further-right (like Pat Buchanan) with the further-left in order to break apart the grip that corporate-centrist politics has on the nation.   This is the sort of wacko idealism that causes a lot of smoke, fire, writing and speeches with very little impact on history.   Buchanan, despite all his efforts, has managed to make miniscule impacts on politics apart from raising a lot of traditional-liberal ire.   And I'd challenge anyone to find a far-left activist who would even consider working with the likes of Buchanan to actually accomplish anything.

The main problem with Mailer's thesis in this loosely-knit collection of diatribes is that America stands to gain very little from creating a global "Empire" akin to the Roman or British ones.   He points out examples of our military and economic might, but why on earth would we then need colonies in the Middle East?

This doesn't stop Mailer from peppering his paragraphs with subtle reactionary sentiments such as "In the old days, in the nineteenth century, when the British had their empire, the Raj would have had the skill to set those two [bin Laden and Saddam] upon each other," or pining for the good old days when all we worried about was Communism vs Capitalism in an interview excerpt from The American Conservative on page 83.

You can find the source of the middle third of the book (his delivery to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, February 20 2003) at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16166, if you want a sample of the writing included.   There's more of Mailer at http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0225-07.htm if you just can't get enough of this stuff.