When you finish reading "Who Will Tell the People" take a look at "America on Strike" by R. E. Noble. Thanks.



Who Will Tell the People?

By William Greider

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

I have been educating myself for over forty years now. I have chosen many great professors to help me along my path to understanding, but I won’t get into that at this moment, other than to tell you about my most recent selection as professor of Civics.

In high school I had a course called Civics. I never figured out exactly what the word “Civics” meant, but I interpret the word as encompassing an explanation of the society and world currently happening around me – politically, socially, economically.

In my high school Civics class we read the daily newspapers, random magazines, and kept up on the local government issues, among other things.
In trying to understanding the modern day world –governments, societies, and general direction of the civilization – I found myself very confused. I wanted to find a professor who could get me up to speed on what is really going on in the world around me. As you know one must choose selectively because there are “so many books and so little time.” Consequently I have chosen William Greider as my “Civics” professor.

I have finished my third book by William Greider this morning, “Who Will Tell the People.” I thought that to be a wonderful title for a book. I have been asking myself that same questions on many different subjects for many years. If you have also been wondering “Who Will Tell the People,” I think I can tell you quite sincerely that one of the people who will tell the people is certainly William Greider.

It is so rewarding when you find an honest, straightforward voice in this world of obfuscation and – for lack of a better word – pure bullshit.
On Mr. Greider’s web site he calls himself an old journalistic type – but Mr. Greider is much more than a Journalist. He is an educator; he is a teacher, an instructor; he is a professor. He has his Doctorate in personal experience in the affairs of the world – that becomes obvious as you follow along behind him.

In Who Will Tell the People we learn, among many other things, how our Democracy works ... or doesn’t work.

Mr. Greider tells us how the Democracy we think we have, lines up to the Democracy we really have.

He tells us about how the laws are made and then un-made. He tells us about the lobbyists, and the lawyers and the Democrats and the Republicans and the Repubocrats – and who owns each of them.

He tells us about the money, the big businesses, the banks, the international conglomerates.

He tells us about the environment; about the military and the pentagon; about who’s in, and who’s out, and why.

At various points in reading Mr. Greider I say to myself – This guy is giving me more than I really want to know. I mean the more I know, the worse it gets. But then he throws in a suggestion, an idea, a possible solution and once again I’m thinking positively.

I am basically a skeptic and I think of the “Power of Positive Thinking” as a prescription for dilution. But you have got to have some kind of hope, even if it is farfetched, distant and on the borders of impossibility. There must be something!
Mr. Greider brings us to the brink, then pushes us off.

Then half-way down, falling into the abyss of eternal despair, we find there is a bungee cord wrapped around our waist. It isn’t much, and the discovery is a little late and maybe not totally reassuring, but it helps.

This book was published in 1992, when we were beginning to talk of “peace dividends” and cutting back on the Military Industrial Complex. Listen to what Mr. Greider was saying way back then:

“The Defense Department was planning a modest five year reduction in the Cold War mobilization ... If the U.S. defense budget were cut in half, it would still be four or five times larger than that of the next strongest nation ... The next round of demobilization would be for real: bringing home troops that had been stationed abroad since the 1950s, closing scores of domestic military bases, shutting more factories ... A few liberals introduced “conversion” bills that did little more than encourage communities and industries to plan for their post-Cold War future. Conservative thinkers concentrated meanwhile, on trying to devise substitute “threats” – Third World terrorism or nuclear proliferation – that might justify continuing the nation’s permanent war footing.”

Chapter 15 of this book is entitled “Citizen GE.” This chapter alone is worth the entire price of the book.

My tendency is to tell you myself what Mr. Greider has to say, but I couldn’t tell the tale as well or with any greater poignancy. I can only tell you to get the book and read it for yourself.

It is not that GE is any worse or better than any of the others; it is more shocking to understand that they are just one of a bunch of like-acting and similar thinking Mega-mights.

If I wanted to continue quoting from this book, this review would be one hundred pages long.

My advice is to buy Mr. Greider’s books and study them. That’s what I’m doing. I’ve only read three thus far, but I know that I am already a world ahead of where I was less than a year ago. Mr. Greider is more than “a read.” He is an education. I feel so lucky to have found such a treasure.

Secrets – A memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

After you read "Secrets" by Daniel Ellsberg, try "Mein Kampf - An Analysis of Book One" by Richard E. Noble. It is also a book that tackles the question ... "Why War?"





Daniel Ellsberg

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

“But, it is just history,” Daniel Ellsberg was told. Over and over Senators and Congressmen told him, “It is just history.” Four thousand one hundred pages of history. Who’s got time for it? Who would ever read it, never mind publish it in a newspaper?

Daniel Ellsberg was/is clearly an intellectual, or he never would have even considered the notion that anyone would be concerned about “history.” He was and still is concerned with all those foolish things that most of us do not have the time for. Things like principle, right and wrong, injustice, the difference between killing and murder, is napalm a weapon or a terrorist act?

It is difficult to believe but there was a time when the “world” was actually debating the morality of dropping a hand grenade from a biplane. What if the random grenade hit a civilian, was the concern.

Today even the good guys are launching “unmanned” rockets all over the world just like the Nazis did in World War II to the horror of the British and everyone else … for a moment or two. These days when they blow up some unintended people the launchers apologize. The innocent dead are referred to as collateral damage. Oops … Sorry.

Wash your salmonella drenched chicken before you eat it. Why can’t I eat rat poison if I want to? Isn’t this a free country? If she and her children choose to sleep in a sewer, that’s their business. So what if automobiles are responsible for the deaths of more Americans than all of our wars combined. I like my car. Pollution … smulution, who cares?

Daniel was wondering about a soldier’s responsibility to follow orders. If a soldier is ordered to shoot his mother, must he comply? Is there a personal responsibility in agreeing to pick up a weapon? Is shooting into a bush or a hut in an enemy village … reconnaissance? Or is it killing … murder maybe?
Is slitting a non-combatant’s throat because he has seen you in an area that you shouldn’t be in, an acceptable act of war?

Intellectual gibberish?

And Secrets is a history of our time … my time. And I wonder how many of my contemporaries have read it? I wonder how many younger people have read it – this is going to be their world shortly, you know.

This book was printed in 2002 – after 9/11 and before Iraq and Afghanistan. Again Daniel was asking us to read more history. Once again he thought that he could stop a war. Once again it didn’t happen. Some guys never learn. I think Daniel needs to read some more history.

He called the book Secrets. I think there is a reason he called his book Secrets and not The Pentagon Papers Revisited or Vietnam II and III. He did it because there is still the misconception that in this day of 24 hour 7 days a week news coverage “Secrets” can’t be kept from American citizens. This book stands as a testament to the notion that “they” can always fool the people and it can be done ALL of the time.

I read your history book, Daniel, and I got your message. I got it last time back in the 60’s also … even though I didn’t read the Pentagon Papers. It “trickled” down. I got the non-intellectual version – the street version. “This is all a bunch of crap,” is what I heard. “They’re all a bunch of liars and crooks,” is what I heard. “Hell no; I won’t go,” is what I heard.

But aside from learning anything “behavior changing” this rendering is a trip through a human conscience. It is a blow by blow description of how a very intelligent soldier and confirmed cold warrior is transformed into a war resister and a “peacenik.”

It is quite a story. It could be a movie … and it was. The Pentagon Papers is what it was called. I watched the movie too.

I’m reading a lot of history of my own times these days. This is a good one. Sure it is only history … but what else are you doing?

Bill O'Reilly

Find out where Bill is really coming from. Read my analysis of book one of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Click on cover of book to the right of this page to make purchase or get more information. Thanks.



Bill O'Reilly

“Culture Warrior”

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

A friend of mine sent me “Culture Warrior” by Bill O’Reilly. He said his son gave the book to him after he had read about twenty pages. His son who is in his thirties or forties said; “Dad, maybe I’m too young for this guy; I don’t know what he is talking about. See if you can figure it out.”

My friend, the father, said that he read about fifty pages and he gave up. He said why don’t you give it a try. So I started reading.

I’ve reached page 98 but I have decided to quit. I feel rather lazy minded to just quit – after all I am the same person who has written nearly 800 pages, a page by page analysis of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. If I could finish that certainly I should be able to complete a little 200 page rant by a modern day right-winger with an ax to grind or a bat to swing. Adolf had a big ax to grind but Bill seems even angrier than Adolf – if that’s possible.

But I hate to spend as much time as I have reading Bill and not getting something out of the experience to write about. So here is my review of the first 98 pages of Bill O’Reilly’s million seller book “Culture Warrior.”

The cover of the book is red, white and blue on a black background. Bill is sitting in the foreground with an American flag waving behind him – he is wearing an American-flag-blue windbreaker. He has a very familiar Irish looking face. He has those “twinkling” Irish blue eyes and a warm friendly altar boy smile. He could easily have been walking a beat in my old neighborhood. He has the well-known Irish temper – as he admits himself throughout the book – or the first 98 pages.

Bill has discovered a conspiracy. Now I’m a true believer in conspiracies so I can’t knock him on that one. It seems that there are a group of people, living right here within the borders of the United States who are presently involved in the overthrow of “our” government. They are not doing this by means of a revolution or violent overthrow. They are too cleaver to come right out and fight like men. They are doing it by guile and persuasion and trying to sway voters and by real sneaky, underhanded, dirty methods like using their money to twist the media and the “truth.” Bill has a lot of terrible names for these people but overall he benignly refers to them as Secular Progressives or S-Ps.

These S-Ps are a very cleaver group of evil and vile people and they have a horrible anti-American agenda; wait until I tell you about it, you won’t believe it. It is truly beyond your widest dreams.

In the beginning of this book he has a fictitious spokesperson mouth the future as seen according to these S-Ps. This spokesperson is an imaginary future American President. She is a female and her name is Gloria Hernandez.

Gloria and her friends it seems have some horrible ideas – like right out of George Orwell’s 1984.

First and foremost these S-Ps do not believe in God; they are very anti-Judeo/Christian. They want to take all the money from the rich people and use it to make their version of a “better world.” For example they want everybody to have their own home – with no mortgage; they want all children to have an education – for free! And that includes college if they are that cleaver; they think that everybody should make a living wage – whether they deserve to be alive or not! (my God! these people are horrible); they want businesses and corporations to act and conduct themselves in the world market place with a moral conscience (what a pernicious method for undermining capitalism and the American way); they want prisons to be reformed and drug crimes to be looked upon as an addiction to be treated as a sickness and not simply incarceration; they want any and all sick and even healthy people to have access to health care – even if they don’t have a penny!; they actually want the United States to be attacked before the United States attacks anybody else; and one can only conclude from all of the above that these S-Ps would probably try to outlaw war if they could get away with it.

In contrast or in opposition to this group of S-Ps there are the Traditionalists.
Traditionalist love Christmas, and Santa, and lots of presents and Christmas trees and Christmas shopping. They particularly like the word “Christmas.” They love their country and support their country in whatever it chooses to do – especially war.
Charles Dickens and Tiny Tim were both traditionalists who would have liked Bill O’Reilly, Bill claims. Charles Dickens was a traditionalist says Bill. You remember, he wrote that great book about celebrating Christmas, “A Christmas Carol.” As you will remember in that wonderful tale a man named Scrooge (an S-P no doubt) was poo-pooing Christmas and all the other characters, including some ghosts, tried to educate Scrooge to the wonders of Christmas (Traditionalist’s Holiday). And as you will recall in that story, Tiny Tim and his mom and dad and Scrooge’s nephew and all the Ghosts and everybody but Scrooge were strongly in favor of patriotism and war, and capitalism. They were adamant on the rich being able to do as they damn well pleased with their money and that the poor should be damned and get up off their lazy butts and get a job. After all, didn’t Scrooge pay his taxes and support the prison system? What more could anyone ask of him and his rich friends? And that dirty old Scrooge wanted to open orphanages and feed the poor and do all sorts of kind things with his money. But Tiny Tim and his mom and dad and all the other characters and all the ghosts of Christmases past, future and present would have none of it. They all said; So what if we are poor, sickly and crippled. We are in this condition because that is the way we choose to be. And we want to be free. You take all your damn money, Mr. Scrooge, and shove it! If God wanted us to be rich also he would have had us born in a welfare state – not in a country like this one where we can all be poor, crippled, and homeless if we choose to be. That’s freedom, man!

John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were both traditionalists, says Bill. They loved their county and thought that rich people should have everything that they wanted – remember Fiddle and Faddle and Marilyn Monroe. Teddy Kennedy is kind of like the diseased afterbirth of the Kennedy family – he is an S-P and Bill cannot figure out how that happened. Teddy may be the only Kennedy who is not really Irish. Bill didn’t say this but I have heard the rumor that Rose Kennedy may have actually had an affair with Eugene Debs or possibly Norman Thomas that resulted in Teddy “the social dwarf.”

Bill is fearless in exposing this underground of S-Ps in the U.S. population – he names names and shows their pictures. You will not believe who some of these people are. I will list a few but you should buy the book to get them all and see for yourself.

Many S-Ps are or have been in the media – Walter Cronkite has just recently come out of the closet. He was probably an S-P since day one but he fooled all of America for about 80 years. Tom Brokaw, Bill Moyers, Jim Lehrer, Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric are all definite S-Ps. Dan Rather and Peter Jennings are wannabes but tried their best to keep their S-P nature secret.

But some of the worst S-Ps who have ever been born are celebrities and appear on TV regularly. Wait until you hear this! Two of the biggest are Jay Leno and David Letterman – Jon Stewart ... of course, is another. S-P people are all over Hollywood – just tip over any rock or slime covered growth and you will probably find one of them.

And Bill, who looks to be over six feet tall and a couple of hundred pounds, keeps getting tricked and beat up by these little, ethnic, anti-American, intellectual types with glasses and speech defects. These people have been harassing Bill to no end. He has even had to go so far as to buy himself a multi-million dollar mansion and hibernate and take respite. He has been forced to hire bodyguards because these S-Ps are the type of people who will resort to anything.

There is one among these riffraff who is a billionaire. He was born a Jew in Germany but to escape being baked in an over he went so far as to change his name and maybe even pretend to be a Protestant. The cowardly S-P then escaped to Hungry or some place where the Russians discovered his S-P tendencies and he had to escape to America. When he got to America – just like all the rest of his kind – he somehow tricked everybody and became a billionaire. But now that he is a billionaire he has finally come out of the closet and is attempting to get all the money from all the other rich people in the world and give it to the poor. Isn’t that just like a rich billionaire – I should have known it.

So that’s how it has been going up to page 98. There are a lot more of these pictures of angelic looking people who are really S-Ps and are out to steal from the rich and give it all to the poor and ... and heal the sick ... and ... and clothe the naked and feed the poor and put a chicken in everybody’s pot and a car in everybody’s garage. You will not believe it! You must read this book for yourself. And don’t worry because Bill has these peoples’ number and each week on the Fox News Network (of which he is an executive producer) you can see him expose all these vermin. The only thing is that now most of these people are afraid of Bill and they keep refusing to go on the air with him and have an intelligent conversation. You may have seen Bill and Geraldo having an intelligent conversation just the other day on the news.

I agree with Bill. I can not understand why any person would not want to come on to his show and discuss their political perspectives. These S-Ps are like roaches. They just want to stay hidden in the dark and sneak around at night eating all our crackers and hors d’oevures. I don’t know about you but I think these roaches need to be exterminated. OOPS ... wrong book. That was Adolf. I’ve read Adolf’s book four times now but I don’t remember if he liked Christmas or not. He was a Catholic but I don’t think that he was a good Catholic. He wasn’t Irish; I know that for sure.
Keep up the good work Bill. Keep that light shinning! And don’t you worry, I’ve got your back, buddy. You are a true American and don’t let any of them commie, Jew, atheist, fascist, pussy, cowardly, treasonous, manipulative, tricky, lying, drug-addicted, parasitic (I don’t think he used that one – Adolf really liked that one), scum sucking pigs get you down. I know how depressing it can get for sensitive, kind, generous, fair-minded types like you and me. Gosh, oh golly gee, sometimes I just want to go over into a corner or lock myself in my room and cry. But whatever you do Bill – Don’t let them see you cry.

Please check out my books of colunms too: "The Eastpointer" and "Cat Point - And Them Dang Oyster People.






I Have Words to Spend

By Robert Cormier

Book Review


By Richard E. Noble

Robert Cormier is a writer/journalist/columnist from Leominster, Massachusetts. Mr. Cormier who has authored an array of children’s Novels which include “I Am the Cheese”; “We All Fall Down” and “Chocolate Wars” also wrote “Now and at the Hour” a rather serious adult novel which I reviewed recently. I liked the man’s style of writing so I tried another of his works.

I Have Words to Spend – reflections of a small town editor caught my eye for a number of reasons. It was listed as his only non-fiction. It was an accumulation of newspaper columns. And it was from the “Fitchburg Sentinel and Enterprise.” These things attracted me because I too have worked for a small town newspaper. I also write books. I have been a columnist. And Fitchburg, MA is not far from the area where I was raised in Lawrence, MA.

Mr. Cormier also fit my penchant for reading writers who are no longer living. Reading too many modern “live” writers can be detrimental and lead to a disappearance of one own style and natural writing inclinations. I don’t want to give that happenstance any quarter.

Since Mr. Cormier was rather well known at the time, he wrote the column under a pseudonym. He wanted to speak freely and not gain the ire of the community or embarrass anybody. The book was edited by his wife.

It is a very, very nice book. It can very well be called reflections. The columns are simple and down to earth. Mr. Cormier is clearly a small town guy with no grandiose expectations from life. The stories are sensitive, warm, thoughtful and often subtly humorous. The reader will find himself smiling coyly or wearing a little smirk very often. Belly laughs were few but there were some. His story about speeding through the local car wash got to me pretty good.

There are numerous stories about his family and children, especially his youngest daughter.

I also was intrigued by the title. It still has me thinking. What did he mean by having words to spend?

I think it had something to do with his anonymity and maybe for the first time he was not restricted by his subject matter.

The column was considered “human interest” and he could write on whatever he pleased. So now instead of buying and selling his words as he felt he must with his books and novels, he was free to spend his words as he chose.

I feel that it is easy to get trapped as a writer and begin conforming to what the writer thinks my be the expectations of his audience. I think this happens to all artists and most don’t like it.

So this may have been a reach or stretch for Mr. Cormier. As far as I am concerned he did just fine.

His page presentation was also interesting. There were one line "paragraphs" everywhere. This gave the impression of a very non-wordy type individual. It was very unusual and clearly a good technique. I liked it. Short, staccato sentences with not many excess words. The point is made ... period.

Democracy for the Few - Michael Parenti

Democracy for the Few

By Michael Parenti

Book Review


By Richard E. Noble

On page 295 of Democracy for the Few the author, Michael Parenti, political scientist and historian, states: “More than half a century ago the great sociologist Max Weber wrote: ‘The question is: How are freedom and democracy in the long run at all possible under the domination of highly developed capitalism.’ That question is still with us. And the answer suggested in this book is that freedom and democracy have at best a highly tenuous and marginal existence in capitalist society.

“In a democratic socialist social system the factories, mills, mines, offices, educational institutions, newspapers, hospitals, etc. will not be privately owned for private gain but will be controlled by and for their clients and workers. That is the goal towards which our efforts should be directed ... This commitment is, or should be, towards communal, collective and responsible decision making …”

Okeydokey! Now where have I read that before? I think it was in a book called Das Capital by some obscure writer whose name slips my mind at the moment.

But this does not bother me. The greatest champions for the rights of the working class in American history have come from the American Communist and Socialist Party. This fact has been credited by famous labor leaders from the AFL, CIO and documented by labor historians. It is an historical fact.

But regardless of the author’s conclusions, remedies and recommendations, I think this book is an invaluable read for anyone interested in the problems that face both capitalism and democracy.

This book was published in 1974 and the author’s analyses of the problems of our democratic system are as prevalent in today’s American democratic system as they were back in the 70s. Not much has changed. In fact, any changes that have taken place have only served to enhance Mr. Parenti’s analysis.

This same book could have the publication date 2010 and with a few name changes and an update here and there it would be on time and on the money. It is amazing to me how Mr. Parenti was able to achieve this. Few social critics have mastered this talent. Most political analyses become obsolete after months. Very few hang around for years and only the greatest for decades. The superstars are the ones we are still reading centuries later.

Democracy for the Few is packed with rather shocking facts and comparisons. For example on page 282 we have this interesting juxtaposition of random information: “… by the end of the 1960s upper income Americans were spending 2 billion a year on jewelry – more than was spent on housing for the poor – and no less than $3 billion on pleasure boating – half a billion more than what the fifty states spend on welfare. Over the years greater sums have been budgeted by the government for the development of the Navy’s submarine rescue vehicle than for occupational safety, public libraries and daycare centers combined.

“The total expenses of the entire legislative branch and the judiciary branch and all the regulatory commissions combined constitute a little more than one half of 1 percent of the Pentagon’s budget.”

This book is filled with such information.

As the title, Democracy for the Few, implies, we have a contradiction in terms with regards to our understanding of American democracy says Michael Parenti, college professor and educator. The gap between the democracy that most of us think we have and the democracy that is our national reality is Grand Canyon-like.

In light of the author’s detailed critical analysis can we seriously claim that we have a democracy – even a representative one, or a democratic republic for that matter?

The author points out every scam, every trick, and every deception. He explains why our democracy isn’t a democracy – with footnotes and easily understood facts and figures.

He tells us why our legislature isn’t working; how our executive and judicial branches have failed us; how our free press has turned news into propaganda; how our freedoms and constitutional rights have been undermined; how our legal system and our prisons have been diverted from the cause of true justice to protective institutions for the criminal wealthy; how our military has been twisted from defensive to aggressive – boarding on the fascist … Well, actually he doesn’t explain how the “system” has been diverted; he explains how it was designed that way from the very beginning. He shows us the Forefathers’ intentions and how our government of the rich, for the rich and by the rich has evolved according to plan.
Mr. Parenti does not think that “the system” can be tweaked. He sees our problems as endemic to our capitalist, corporate state. The old solution of switching corporate controlled Democrats for corporate controlled Republicans will not bring viable change nor will it institute true representative democracy.

This does seem to be the case, but Mr. Parenti, as with others who espouse his solution to these “endemic” problems, seems to be of the opinion that only the wealthy, elitist, current ruling class is capable of deceit and corruption. My question to Mr. Parenti would be, Are these problems endemic to capitalism and its ruling class or endemic to human nature. If capitalists, rich and poor alike, could be injected with a strong dose of the good old, Christian Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – could this not be a more apt and suitable solution? I would even support laws being enacted along the Golden Rule line of thinking. The Golden Rule solution may be naïve but I find it more acceptable than bombs, bullets and a blood stained revolution in the streets of the U.S.A. Revolutions don’t seem to be working all that well either. Look at what ours has wrought, Mr. Parenti – reed your own book!

Republicans and Democrats alike should read this book. I doubt that either group will benefit from it.

This book by itself could easily serve as the text for a two semester college graduate course in American Democratic Government.

Buy it. Read it and weep.

If you will click on the book cover to the right on this page, you will get more information on this selection. Thanks.




A Baker’s Dozen

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

I have been writing and reading short stories since I was a teenager. I have always loved the short story format and it is right up my alley. This book is a sample packet of my efforts over all these years.

Most of my old buddies – or the few that are still hanging out on this planet – have been aware of my reclusive writing habits forever. After publishing this volume, I heard from a few of them. They all complimented me on how much my writing has matured and improved. Interesting enough, when I asked them which stories they enjoyed the most, invariably they chose one of the stories that I had written when in my teens or twenties. That’s funny. There is a lesson there somewhere – but I’ll look for it some other time.

I’m not going to tell any of you which of my tales are from my “early” period or which are from my “mature” period. You will have to guess. But I can tell you one thing, if I thought the story was poor, I discarded it years ago. I have thrown away more stories than I’ve kept in my files. The same goes for my poetry.

I put together this volume with the intention of presenting to the reader a variety of what like I do. As a result, the book has no theme other than all the stories were written by me. Half the stories evolve from life in my hometown. The other half from my life and travels "Hobo-ing America." The "Cain and Bernard's" story, I consider the perfect short story. I laugh everytime I read it. "A Government Job" I feel is one of the funniest true life adventure stories I've written. Unfortunately, it did really happen.

Some of the stories are what is termed “creative non-fiction,” others are totally contrived. Some are funny, others are not funny. Some are third person, others are first person. Some are idealistic, others are realistic. There should be something in this volume for every type reader. My personal opinion is that there isn’t a bad or poorly written story in the bunch.

I’m a traditionalist. I like stories with a beginning, middle and end. I don’t like babbling just to fill the page. I don’t write for the sake of writing, I write with the intention of saying something. Each of these stories says something and each in a different way. I hope you will give this book a try. Your investment will go to a “Noble” cause. That noble cause is to help me publish another of my books. I have many, many stories not yet published. But with a little help from some friends, old and new, I'll get them all out there one day. Thanks for listening.

The Life and Ideas of Robert Owen

By A. L. Morton

Book Review


By Richard E. Noble

I stumbled across the name Robert Owen cross-reading for my book, America on Strike. My book is on the American Labor movement and deals with various famous strikes throughout American History.

Mr. Owen was most notable for operating a factory in New Lanark, Scotland that was opened by David Dale and Richard Arkwright in 1785.

Robert Owen took the factory over in 1800. Prior to that time he had been running a successful textile factory in Manchester, England. And thus began one of the most unique experiments in industrial history. With about 2000 poor and destitute – drunks, homeless, poverty stricken, criminal, uneducated rabble – including 500 children from various poor houses, Robert Owen built a successful and quite prosperous Mill town community.

This experiment in social engineering was so successful that people came from around the world to see with their own eyes this, thought to be impossible, miracle. My hometown of Lawrence and its sister city of Lowell were supposedly fashioned via inspiration from Mr. Owen and his ideas and example.

Robert Owen was born May 14, 1771 and died in November of 1858. He is the quintessential model for the self-made man. Born to a large working family he set off at the age of ten to make his fortune. And he did.

He went to London and then to Stamford in Lincolnshire. There he apprenticed himself to a well established draper.

By the time he was a young man of just twenty years of age and now experienced in business and factory work, he made his boss, Mr. Drinkwater, a proposition to take over and manage his factory and run it more profitably than ever before. The boss accepted and Robert fulfilled his boast and was bought into the firm as a partner.
In 1779 he went on a business trip to Glasgow and met Anne Caroline Dale, daughter of mill owner David Dale. He ended up marrying Caroline. And in time, he became manager and partner in the Manchester factory and then talked his partners into purchasing the factory in New Lanark.

His success at New Lanark astounded the world. He became very wealthy and well respected.

He had “discovered” a philosophy. Men were the product of their circumstances. Their characters were not made by them but for them. Provide men, women and children with positive circumstances and they will live positive productive lives. Men are not to be judged or to be praised. They are therefore not responsible and should be treated reasonably and fairly whatever their actions. Clarence Darrow had a similar philosophy.

He became a philanthropist and a Utopian. He attempted colonies or communes in the New World. One was called New Harmony and was attempted in Indiana.
He was a man of unlimited self confidence. He loved children and dreamed of creating a perfect world. He made written plans for this New World and even named it. It would be called New Jerusalem. Talk about being a man with a plan.

He supposedly coined the word Socialism. It was designed to be contrasted with the word Individualism. Individualism to Owen had grown to represent selfishness and indifference to one’s neighbors and the community. Socialism would be the opposite of individualism and it would represent the spirit of social responsibility – man’s love and sense of obligation to one another.

This book is a patchwork of writings and ideas of Robert Owen. It is bits and pieces and slices from the writings of Mr. Owen. It provides a good overview of Mr. Owen and his ideas and philosophy but I find it somewhat disjointed and bumpy. Owen wrote an autobiography in his later days. Unfortunately he went over the deep end as an old man and fell off into the world of spiritualism and talking with “spirits.” He was not a fan of organized religion and spoke openly and publicly about the perils of religious thinking. I will be checking it out but in any case, I am sure someone has written a good biography.

Robert Owen was a giant in the advancement of Labor and fair play for the poor in Britain. He was a talker and a doer. He put his money where his mouth was. I’m not a fan of communal life but Owen and his ideas on cooperative businesses and social structures may be having a comeback. I will be looking into his thoughts. He was quite a character too. From what I’ve read so far he was a man worth knowing and I want to learn more about him.

The Hobo Philosopher

Will You Walk me to my Car

By Richard E. Noble

"Will you walk me to my car?" the young lady asked me.
"I don't even know where your car is parked," I answered.
"I know you don't, silly, but it is 2 o'clock in the morning and it is dark in the parking lot."

I was the new manager of a successful restaurant on Sunrise Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale, Fl. This was the first time that any young waitress had made such a request of me. I thought that she was flirting with me. The waitress was in her mid-twenties; she couldn't still be afraid of the dark, I thought.
As it turned out she wasn't flirting with me. She was just doing what most girls learn to do very early on in their working careers – she was protecting herself against a needless but very possible attack.

This was memorable for me and I never forgot that experience. It left me with a very strange mix of emotions.

Of course, I felt very manly and protective to be walking this young waitress to her car. On the other hand I felt a profound sadness understanding that I was asked to perform this task in order to protect this girl from a possible attacker of my own kind. She was asking this one particular male to be her protector against other possible less honorable males.

On the one hand I felt pride and on the other hand I felt shamed.
After that experience I noticed that the girl and lady waitresses invariably traveled in packs. They waited for one another each evening and went to their autos as a group or at minimum as a pair.

As a male, I never had to think in such a way – or at least I never did.
When I got to be an even bigger boy and I married, I often wondered if my wife ever harbored fearful thoughts about me. In talking with her cohorts and girlfriends had she ever said; Well, if he ever lays a hand on me I'm out of here.

There was a time when even suspecting that she may have said such a thing would have hurt my feelings terribly. But today, in this state of newfound "maturity," I say to myself why shouldn't she have said such a thing? Who am I to any woman but a "male." I'm the "opposite sex"; I'm one of the "other" kind.

It is very strange to come to this realization. But as we all know there are many males who are untrustworthy, mean, nasty and even brutal. There are males who abuse their mates and even their offspring. And why should any male find that fact so shocking. Males have been murdering and slaughtering one another for centuries – via one excuse or another. And women have for centuries lived in fear of the male and under his domination.

In many foreign countries we see that their women are forced to dress protectively. They don't have to wear armor or bullet proof vests but they must disguise themselves and not appear attractive in any sexual way. It is even against the law for them to do so.

It all sounds like such a terrible situation – to be a female that is.
We think of ourselves as so sophisticated here in the United States but it was just a few years back, 1920, that we allowed women to vote. For the longest time women here in this country were discouraged from reading books; working at many jobs and occupations; there was a time not too long ago when women were not even allowed to participate in sports because it was not feminine or might damage their reproductive capacity.

They weren't allowed to dress seductively either. Sexually enhancing dress was for fallen women and women of the night. Such women were often called "trollops" and much worse by many morally upright males.

As they say we have come a long way but really not all that far. Girls are still attacked here in America and by the thousands – and they are attacked by men and boys.

Women still have to be careful at night; they have to get people to walk them to their cars or they must travel in packs or study the martial arts. It is still dangerous for a woman to be living alone in an apartment in a big city. They must be careful and take precautions that their male counterparts never even have to consider.

Many men, even in America, are still beasts; they still act bestial; they still can't be trusted. You have got to keep your eye on everything they do, even the nice ones.

I was educated here in the U.S. by women who dressed like the women I see on the TV in foreign countries. Very few nuns dress in that style anymore, but that wasn't all that long ago. I'm not that old.

This is a pretty sad state of affairs don't you think? I mean, this girls fearing boys thing? Girls have to guard themselves in our colleges, on our streets, in our parking lots, even in our military. Girls are being sexually attacked regularly in our military … and not by the enemy. This is happening to girls on active duty and in our military Academies. This is rather ridiculous, don't you think?

The Speech

By Bernie Sanders

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

This is the historic written account of the filibuster given by Senator Bernie Sanders on December 10, 2010 on the senate floor. It exposes the bill that resulted via a backroom deal between the president of the United States and the Republican Party. This filibuster was Bernie’s attempt to explain the negatives of this bill to the American people, gain support from the people and defeat the bill. That did not happen. Bernie made this gallant attempt but failed. The bill passed with all of its unfortunate consequences for the American people – particularly the middle class and the poor.

I listened to most of the speech and tried my best to take notes. Unfortunately I could never become a secretary. My note taking was a failure. So I bought the book to get the information.

Bernie repeated his major points over and over in the text which is fine with me. I am a big supporter of repetition. That is how I learned my ABC.

The main point of the book is why are we giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and international conglomerates while running huge deficits and a substantial growing National Debt. The Republicans agree with the urgency of fiscal responsibility but choose to target the middle class and the poor for the cut backs while exempting their rich supporters from paying their legitimate share.

Bernie is very outspoken in defining who has been responsible for our current economic woes. He pulls no punches. His fearlessness to call a spade a spade is reminiscent of Harry Truman. I’ve heard no other present day politician tell it as Senator Bernie Sanders tells it. And in my opinion he is right on the mark. I find nothing in this book or Bernie’s presentation that I disagree with.

The book is filled with Democratic talking points. He explains why a payroll tax holiday is no holiday but a Right Wing rip-off designed by Republicans to suit the Republican historic goal to kill Social Security. He explains the “death tax” and tells us why it was instituted and why it should be continued. He deals with the off-shoring of jobs, the U.S.’s foundering industrial base, the Chamber of Commerce and its anti-American attitudes, corporate tax avoidance in offshore banks and federal loopholes, lobbyists and their overpowering impact on legislation and the legislators, our detrimental “free trade” policies, the perils of the global economy for the American worker and America, the enormous greed of the over-wealthy, the anti-American attitude of many large corporations, the corruption going on in Washington and in the corporate and business community, and Republican hypocrisy and chicanery on all fronts.

The book is written in the simplest of language. The rich and the powerful have declared war against the middle class and the poor, says Bernie. This fact should be more than obvious to any objective observer.

The points that Bernie makes are explained in detail and over and over again. Bernie makes everything very clear. This is an excellent book and an enlightening learning experience. I only wish more people would read it.

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O’Reilly

“Culture Warrior”

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

A friend of mine sent me “Culture Warrior” by Bill O’Reilly. He said his son gave the book to him after he had read about twenty pages. His son who is in his thirties or forties said; “Dad, maybe I’m too young for this guy; I don’t know what he is talking about. See if you can figure it out.”

My friend, the father, said that he read about fifty pages and he gave up. He said why don’t you give it a try. So I started reading.

I’ve reached page 98 but I have decided to quit. I feel rather lazy minded to just quit – after all I am the same person who has written nearly 800 pages, a page by page analysis of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. If I could finish that certainly I should be able to complete a little 200 page rant by a modern day right-winger with an ax to grind or a bat to swing. Adolf had a big ax to grind but Bill seems even angrier than Adolf – if that’s possible.

But I hate to spend as much time as I have reading Bill and not getting something out of the experience to write about. So here is my review of the first 98 pages of Bill O’Reilly’s million seller book “Culture Warrior.”

The cover of the book is red, white and blue on a black background. Bill is sitting in the foreground with an American flag waving behind him – he is wearing an American-flag-blue windbreaker. He has a very familiar Irish looking face. He has those “twinkling” Irish blue eyes and a warm friendly altar boy smile. He could easily have been walking a beat in my old neighborhood. He has the well-known Irish temper – as he admits himself throughout the book – or the first 98 pages.

Bill has discovered a conspiracy. Now I’m a true believer in conspiracies so I can’t knock him on that one. It seems that there are a group of people, living right here within the borders of the United States who are presently involved in the overthrow of “our” government. They are not doing this by means of a revolution or violent overthrow. They are too cleaver to come right out and fight like men. They are doing it by guile and persuasion and trying to sway voters and by real sneaky, underhanded, dirty methods like using their money to twist the media and the “truth.” Bill has a lot of terrible names for these people but overall he benignly refers to them as Secular Progressives or S-Ps.

These S-Ps are a very cleaver group of evil and vile people and they have a horrible anti-American agenda; wait until I tell you about it, you won’t believe it. It is truly beyond your widest dreams.

In the beginning of this book he has a fictitious spokesperson mouth the future as seen according to these S-Ps. This spokesperson is an imaginary future American President. She is a female and her name is Gloria Hernandez.

Gloria and her friends it seems have some horrible ideas – like right out of George Orwell’s 1984.

First and foremost these S-Ps do not believe in God; they are very anti-Judeo/Christian. They want to take all the money from the rich people and use it to make their version of a “better world.” For example they want everybody to have their own home – with no mortgage; they want all children to have an education – for free! And that includes college if they are that cleaver; they think that everybody should make a living wage – whether they deserve to be alive or not! (my God! these people are horrible); they want businesses and corporations to act and conduct themselves in the world market place with a moral conscience (what a pernicious method for undermining capitalism and the American way); they want prisons to be reformed and drug crimes to be looked upon as an addiction to be treated as a sickness and not simply incarceration; they want any and all sick and even healthy people to have access to health care – even if they don’t have a penny!; they actually want the United States to be attacked before the United States attacks anybody else; and one can only conclude from all of the above that these S-Ps would probably try to outlaw war if they could get away with it.

In contrast or in opposition to this group of S-Ps there are the Traditionalists.
Traditionalist love Christmas, and Santa, and lots of presents and Christmas trees and Christmas shopping. They particularly like the word “Christmas.” They love their country and support their country in whatever it chooses to do – especially war.
Charles Dickens and Tiny Tim were both traditionalists who would have liked Bill O’Reilly, Bill claims. Charles Dickens was a traditionalist says Bill. You remember, he wrote that great book about celebrating Christmas, “A Christmas Carol.” As you will remember in that wonderful tale a man named Scrooge (an S-P no doubt) was poo-pooing Christmas and all the other characters, including some ghosts, tried to educate Scrooge to the wonders of Christmas (Traditionalist’s Holiday). And as you will recall in that story, Tiny Tim and his mom and dad and Scrooge’s nephew and all the Ghosts and everybody but Scrooge were strongly in favor of patriotism and war, and capitalism. They were adamant on the rich being able to do as they damn well pleased with their money and that the poor should be damned and get up off their lazy butts and get a job. After all, didn’t Scrooge pay his taxes and support the prison system? What more could anyone ask of him and his rich friends? And that dirty old Scrooge wanted to open orphanages and feed the poor and do all sorts of kind things with his money. But Tiny Tim and his mom and dad and all the other characters and all the ghosts of Christmases past, future and present would have none of it. They all said; So what if we are poor, sickly and crippled. We are in this condition because that is the way we choose to be. And we want to be free. You take all your damn money, Mr. Scrooge, and shove it! If God wanted us to be rich also he would have had us born in a welfare state – not in a country like this one where we can all be poor, crippled, and homeless if we choose to be. That’s freedom, man!

John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were both traditionalists, says Bill. They loved their county and thought that rich people should have everything that they wanted – remember Fiddle and Faddle and Marilyn Monroe. Teddy Kennedy is kind of like the diseased afterbirth of the Kennedy family – he is an S-P and Bill cannot figure out how that happened. Teddy may be the only Kennedy who is not really Irish. Bill didn’t say this but I have heard the rumor that Rose Kennedy may have actually had an affair with Eugene Debs or possibly Norman Thomas that resulted in Teddy “the social dwarf.”

Bill is fearless in exposing this underground of S-Ps in the U.S. population – he names names and shows their pictures. You will not believe who some of these people are. I will list a few but you should buy the book to get them all and see for yourself.

Many S-Ps are or have been in the media – Walter Cronkite has just recently come out of the closet. He was probably an S-P since day one but he fooled all of America for about 80 years. Tom Brokaw, Bill Moyers, Jim Lehrer, Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric are all definite S-Ps. Dan Rather and Peter Jennings are wannabes but tried their best to keep their S-P nature secret.

But some of the worst S-Ps who have ever been born are celebrities and appear on TV regularly. Wait until you hear this! Two of the biggest are Jay Leno and David Letterman – Jon Stewart ... of course, is another. S-P people are all over Hollywood – just tip over any rock or slime covered growth and you will probably find one of them.

And Bill, who looks to be over six feet tall and a couple of hundred pounds, keeps getting tricked and beat up by these little, ethnic, anti-American, intellectual types with glasses and speech defects. These people have been harassing Bill to no end. He has even had to go so far as to buy himself a multi-million dollar mansion and hibernate and take respite. He has been forced to hire bodyguards because these S-Ps are the type of people who will resort to anything.

There is one among these riffraff who is a billionaire. He was born a Jew in Germany but to escape being baked in an over he went so far as to change his name and maybe even pretend to be a Protestant. The cowardly S-P then escaped to Hungry or some place where the Russians discovered his S-P tendencies and he had to escape to America. When he got to America – just like all the rest of his kind – he somehow tricked everybody and became a billionaire. But now that he is a billionaire he has finally come out of the closet and is attempting to get all the money from all the other rich people in the world and give it to the poor. Isn’t that just like a rich billionaire – I should have known it.

So that’s how it has been going up to page 98. There are a lot more of these pictures of angelic looking people who are really S-Ps and are out to steal from the rich and give it all to the poor and ... and heal the sick ... and ... and clothe the naked and feed the poor and put a chicken in everybody’s pot and a car in everybody’s garage. You will not believe it! You must read this book for yourself. And don’t worry because Bill has these peoples’ number and each week on the Fox News Network (of which he is an executive producer) you can see him expose all these vermin. The only thing is that now most of these people are afraid of Bill and they keep refusing to go on the air with him and have an intelligent conversation. You may have seen Bill and Geraldo having an intelligent conversation just the other day on the news.

I agree with Bill. I can not understand why any person would not want to come on to his show and discuss their political perspectives. These S-Ps are like roaches. They just want to stay hidden in the dark and sneak around at night eating all our crackers and hors d’oevures. I don’t know about you but I think these roaches need to be exterminated. OOPS ... wrong book. That was Adolf. I’ve read Adolf’s book four times now but I don’t remember if he liked Christmas or not. He was a Catholic but I don’t think that he was a good Catholic. He wasn’t Irish; I know that for sure.
Keep up the good work Bill. Keep that light shinning! And don’t you worry, I’ve got your back, buddy. You are a true American and don’t let any of them commie, Jew, atheist, fascist, pussy, cowardly, treasonous, manipulative, tricky, lying, drug-addicted, parasitic (I don’t think he used that one – Adolf really liked that one), scum sucking pigs get you down. I know how depressing it can get for sensitive, kind, generous, fair-minded types like you and me. Gosh, oh golly gee, sometimes I just want to go over into a corner or lock myself in my room and cry. But whatever you do Bill – Don’t let them see you cry.

Alger Hiss

Recollections of a Life

By Alger Hiss

Book Review/Commentary

By Richard E. Noble

The first thing that you have to remember about Alger Hiss is that he is not Rudolf Hess. Rudolf Hess is that Nazi guy, who flew to England for some yet to be explained reasons and was tried and convicted at the Nuremberg trails.

Alger Hiss was also tried and convicted, but in the United States, for being a Communist and supplying information to the Russians in 1938.

Alger Hiss was a graduate of Harvard Law school; was a clerk to Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr.; was one of F.D.R.’s bright young men; was in the State Department; served on the Agriculture committee; on the Nye committee investigating improprieties and profiteering in the armament industry; was with Roosevelt at Yalta; served on the international committee which drafted the U.N. charter; and was president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But, after tangling with McCarthy, Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover and a guy named Whittaker Chambers, he ended up selling paperclips and rubber bands for a living. He was also disbarred and went to prison for nearly four years.

It seems that he spent the remainder of his life trying to clear his name and turn over his 1948 conviction. His two biggest mistakes it seems to me were; agreeing to serve on the Nye Commission which was assigned to investigate war profiteering by people like the DuPonts, and Curtiss Wright and Pratt & Whitney companies; and not allowing Whittaker Chambers to give him a blowjob. A little co-operation on this petition might have wiped some of the frost off old Whittaker’s pumpkin.

But blowjob aside, aggravating the DuPonts and others in the Armament industry by announcing that the charges against them were fair and justifiable, just as they were during World War I, was not a smart move. And further stating that the only way to end corruption in the armament industry was to end war altogether was just adding insult to injury. I mean, when you consider that the DuPonts actually tried to raise a private army to violently overthrow the Roosevelt administration ... come on now?

Franklin and Harry Hopkins were now dead. The Stalin connection was over. Harry Truman was having tea with the old Clividon set and the entire world was reinvesting in Krupp Industries.

This was not a time to be investigating war profiteers. It is also interesting to consider why we spent so much time investigating Communists after the war, as opposed to Nazi sympathizers. After all, I don’t mean to shock anybody out there, but the commies, both Russian and Chinese, were our allies, and the Nazis were our enemies, dahhh, remember?

In Alger Hiss’ last book, “Recollections of a Life” Alger makes his last plea for exoneration, and he makes a very, very good case. He had been anxiously awaiting files to be released under the freedom of information act which were guaranteed to take no more than ten days, but took four and a half years. Oh well?

In any case, information from the newly released Russian files, supposedly contradicts Alger’s testimony once again. I wish Alger was still around to defend himself on this one, but now he is dead also. I wonder, could he have refused Molotov’s offer of a blow job, or are the DuPonts manufacturing gun powder in Russia too? From the looks of Molotov, I’d bet on the latter.

Recently the debate has come forward once again. The adopted son of the Hiss’s, Timothy Hobson, has come forward to advance their innocence. He and his half brother Tony Hiss – who has dedicated his life to clearing his dad’s name – are proclaiming Alger Hiss’s conviction to have been a blatant tragedy perpetrated by a series of lies and falsifications.

It seems that Timothy, a ten year old in 1937 and a household witness to any supposed spying or espionage was not allowed to testify in defense of his parents at the trial in 1947 because he had received an Undesirable Discharge from the military on the grounds that he was a homosexual.

What is truly unbelievable is that it is this one case and this one individual, Alger Hiss that marks a turning point in the politics of the American people.
When Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury (not espionage or treason) America turned from the liberalism of FDR and his pro-Russian and anti-German/Nazi-ism position to the Cold War and the pro-German/Marshall Plan anti-Russian Bolshevik position. This poor man and this tragic case are like the linchpin in one of the biggest policy changes and turnarounds in all of American History. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!

World Orders - Noam Chomsky

World Orders – Old and New

Noam Chomsky

By Richard E. Noble

World Orders, Old and New is 99% new and 1% old. Though Greece, Rome and a few other empires are made reference to in the early going, the book mainly centers on the United States and Israel. I was hoping for a more historical interpretation of World Orders, but this book is current events as seen through Professor Chomsky perspective.

It is a long story but according to Mr. Chomsky the two biggest terrorist nations in today’s world are the United States and Israel. He establishes this with page after page of facts and quotes. To fact check this book would be a lifetime endeavor for any young scholar or “fact checker.”

I would guess that all the facts and quotes are accurate; the questioning would be with the interpretation of the facts and quotes.

I don’t at this moment know where I would go to find a more critical analysis of the U.S. role in the last century. Mr. Chomsky sticks the sword of his criticism in the body politic of the U.S.A. and doesn’t stop until it comes out the other side – then he twists it several times for good measure.

Professor Chomsky credits the Cold War as beginning with the Russian Revolution in 1917.

With this I agree. On page 41 he credits a fact from a study done by Christopher Simpson that I found interesting.

“U.S. investment in Germany accelerated rapidly after Hitler came to power … by some 48% between 1929 and 1940 while declining sharply everywhere else in continental Europe … and barely holding steady in Britain.

“In a recent review of British records, Lloyd Gardner concludes that ‘for the British, the immediate problem was still Russia’, not Germany, during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact (until June 1941). Deciding that war was necessary, high British officials ‘centered not on German efforts at partition [of Poland], which London had already dealt with as acceptable, but on the Nazi-Soviet pact, which was not acceptable.’”

My research on who actually financed Hitler substantiates the above quote as does my reading in the history of the time.

I would be interested in the percentage of investment coming from the U.S. and going to Japan and Italy during the same period also.

Woodrow Wilson is described poorly in this work and I think justifiably.

It is pointed out that fascism was admired and supported by the Capitalist nations of the world until it proved to be disadvantageous – economically and politically to the capitalists. “The ‘defense’ was mounted throughout the Capitalist world, taking a variety of forms, including the admirable achievements of fascism.”

He then points out that history records, “Throughout the developed world conservative ruling elites had been discredited by their association with fascism.” Unfortunately this fact is only known to those who read history books.

So it is established that the capitalist world was actually at war with Russia since the Russian Revolution in 1917.

This notion should be obvious to anyone who has researched this historical period – but for some reason to speak or write accordingly still receives resistance.
On page 82 the Professor makes this observation.

“A look at who is celebrating after a conflict and benefits from it, and who is left in distress and suffering, often tells something about the true victors and defeated, and indeed what the conflict was about. By that criterion, the victors of World War II include the financial and manufacturing interests that were mobilized in support of the fascists regimes and were largely reconstituted and restored to power by the official victors; the losers of World War II include leading elements of the anti-fascist resistance worldwide, ranging from radical democratic to Communist in orientation, and violently demolished or displaced and marginalized by the official victors. Not the conventional picture, but an accurate one, and one that does not lack relevance to an assessment of what was at stake.”

The book goes on to discredit the U.S. role in South America, Asia and the Middle East. The professor hits hard on Viet Nam and our present position in Iraq and Afghanistan. I really do not have enough information to argue with the professor. His description of U.S. behavior is nothing less than ruthless.

His point is that America is not on the side of democratic rule anywhere. We sabotage democracy in favor of capitalist profit and progress in any way possible. And we support the establishment power structure that will work to the benefit of American capitalist objectives.

I would only make the distinction between the American “Government” and the American “people.” But the professor does point out that the American people are kept unaware via a compliant or inept media and are not allowed to participate appreciably or to any consequence in their government because of the powerful propaganda of the corporate ownership of the American government.

By the professor’s analysis we do not support democracy around the world and we are far from a democracy here at home. I would like to disagree but find his arguments substantive – and embarrassing.

He continues:

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are controlled by International capitalists manipulated by the U.S.A. and invariably programmed to institute policies that cripple, bankrupt, exploit and enslave the people of third world countries.

Israel is a “client” state submissive and cooperative to U.S. hegemony. It is a partner in U.S. criminal behavior. They are murders and killers as is the U.S.A.
The Palestinian populations within Israel and in surrounding areas are modern day slaves. They are treated as a subclass and are kept in such a condition via laws and manipulation reminiscent of Nazi Germany and its treatment of the Jews in the 30s and 40s.

Because of necessary water sources in certain areas the Israelis will never, and have no intention of ever, submitting to a two state solution to their conflict. The Israeli Jews are attempting to exterminate the Palestinians in much the same manner as the native Indians were exterminated in the United States in its early growth years.

From the Israeli perspective peace will only come to the area when all reluctant and uncooperative Arabs are dead.

This is the situation as Professor Chomsky writes and describes it.

As for hope for the future or a possible solution, the professor states: “Much will depend on cultural conditions within the United States, the global power that dominates the region and has succeeded in imposing its will. But whatever the outcome, what has taken place, and how it has been interpreted, constitute an impressive testimonial to the rule of force in international affairs, one that should be considered carefully by those who care about the fate of the world.”

War and the American Presidency - Schlesinger

War and the American Presidency

By Arthur M. Schlesinger

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

Well, I guess I will have to start reading more Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. I enjoyed reading this book. I had forgotten how good he was.

This work was not exactly what I would call a history book and not really a political book either. But it was filled with both. It was more of a conversational book with an historian about today’s politics and guess-timations for the future. He is very blunt and outspoken. You may not agree with the author but he certainly doesn’t seem to be hiding anything.

After reading this thin book of slightly more than 150 pages, I have no doubt from where this man is coming. He is a Democrat; he accepts globalism and the necessity for world trade; he is against unilateralism; he is not an isolationist; he is a capitalist with provisions, he questions laissez-faire and free trade; he supports world cooperation, the UN etc.; he is an anti-Marxist or anti-Communist; he is anti-Bush and the Bush Doctrine of preventive war; he supports diplomacy and is more of a dove than a hawk; he is an establishment type more than any rebel and he thinks nationalism is dead but will linger on nevertheless in the hearts and minds of the unsophisticated. On this last point, I certainly hope that he is wrong. Without a strong revival of nationalism, I doubt that America will ever be what it has been and what I think it should be.

He gives simple to-the-point explanations of complicated issues. He has a very good writing style; easily understood even to the average reader. I have several of his other books in my library. I will have to get to them.

I read this book in a day or two and I have it filled with highlights. I feel that there is much that I don’t agree with in what he has to say. But there is more than enough that I do agree with to peak further curiosity. He is knowledgeable and smart and he backs up what he has to say with historical insights.

His evaluation of pre-emptive war and the Bush legacy, Bush Doctrine of the preventive war, is right on. As the author points out pre-emptive war is legal and preventive war is illegal. He has nothing flattering to say about Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld.

I really didn’t think that president Bush had established a Doctrine. I was hoping it would be considered more of an aberration. But it is what it is and I hope it will go away. At the moment it appears to be advancing under the present Democratic administration.

I found the book to be refreshing, informative, authoritative, historical and opinionated. I couldn’t put it down.

In this short 150 pages the author covers everything from George Washington and the Revolution to the present war in Iraq. He hits on Wilson and Truman, World War I and Korea. We stumble around with Munich and World War II and the battle between the peaceniks and the war-mongers in various wars throughout American history.
It is a wonderful synopsis of the presidency, where it has been and where it is heading.

Mr. Schlesinger doesn’t mess with the small stuff. He crams bunches of big stuff into this tiny volume. A great read.

The Big Bang Never Happened

The Big Bang Never Happened

By Eric J. Lerner

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

I am not a scientist. My interest in cosmology stems from my interests in philosophy and the ancient arguments over this topic arising between philosophers and theologists or as it evolved between religion and science. The author is also interested in these philosophical and theosophical debates and he maps parts of his debate on the Big Bang cosmology and his plasma cosmology on his understanding of these ancient philosophical and religious arguments.

These sections of the book I found extremely interesting and accurate. This is a very interesting approach for a science book. It brings to my mind a book by George Soros that I read recently where he relates his interest in philosophy to his investment strategies.

The author brings economics and its history into the debate also. This is another very interesting approach from my point of view. Equating the cosmological estimation of a historical period to the degree of economic depression or prosperity is extremely logical and quite revealing. I had no trouble at all understanding the author’s inferences in this regard. I found nothing to question or challenge in this area.

This book challenges the accepted Big Bang Cosmological Theory. The Big Bang theory contends that the universe began as a single cataclysmic explosion ten or twenty billion years ago. The author is a scientist who has involved himself in an alternative cosmological theory and discipline known as “plasma cosmology.”

“Today, Big Bang theorists see a universe much like envisioned by the medieval scholars – a finite cosmos created ex-nihilo, from nothing, whose perfection is in the past, which is degenerating to a final end.”

Plasma theory deals with electricity in gases in the universe and the ability of these electrically charged gases to form matter, planets, galaxies and eventually the universe and to continue on in a positive direction, infinitely.

I am not even going to attempt to explain the author’s plasma cosmology. But from my point of interest the author is consistent with the basics as I understand them.
The author does not believe that something can come from nothing. In many books defending the Big Bang, this notion is advanced. I have never accepted such a premise. This author’s theory is consistent with the laws of conservation of matter and energy.

The author states that his theory is consistent with an infinite, self-regenerating universe. The universe does not have to have a beginning nor does it need to end. It always was and always will be. This point is anathema to many religious explanations of the origins of the universe.

The author challenges the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics. The universe, he explains, is not devolving to a negative state as the current misinterpretation of this law suggests but growing in complexity as it always has and always will. He elaborates on this point to other scientists and in the appropriate scientific language.

This author challenges on a scientific level all the established notions and established scientists, including Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and many others.

That the universe always has been is the only intelligent position that can be offered on the subject, rationally in my opinion. This is as far as the cause and effect search can take us. To go beyond the notion that the Universe is where all our knowledge begins is to step into the realm of religion, mysticism, superstition, revelation and the supernatural. We have the universe and we have science with its observations and experimentations and that is where our inquiry should begin and end.

The author also establishes that time travels in one direction. It is not reversible. Just because equations are reversible does not substantiate any fantasy of traveling backward or forwards in time. I have found this notion totally ridiculous. I’ve ordered a book the author recommends on this subject, “Order out of Chaos” by Illa Prigogine.

There is only one area where I disagree with the author, slightly. But it seems to me many scientists fall into this same trap. Hawking in his last book makes pretty much the same misstatement.

Mr. Lerner confirms the ancient argument over freewill with the supposition that because man has an infinite number of choices he then has free will.

Man does not have freewill in the philosophical and theological sense because he could not have possibly chose to exist. Man’s existence is thus arbitrary and no number of choices will abolish that fact. Man is free to conform to his physiological, biological and genetic preset. This was determined by however it was that human beings originated via the universe. This at present is unknown.

Choices do not make the freewill notion valid. Chain a man to a wall and then offer him a million compensations. Having a million choices does not free him from being chained to the wall. And having choices does not set man free from an arbitrary existence.

To me this book is the most logical and straight forward book written by a scientist that I have read in a very long time. I have already ordered other books suggested in this text. I feel that my interest in science has been renewed.

I more than agree with the author in his insinuation that most of today’s science is wrongheaded. We are basically living in a Ptolemaic scientific state. Some drastic turnarounds to get the scientific community heading back in the direction of logic and sound scientific reasoning are necessary. As the author states, at present the Big Bang is being used and distorted by economic and theocratic inclinations to pressure and push science back into the mystical and theocratic. We are returning to the dark ages where logic, reason and scientific experimentation are being replaced by theorizing, and rationalized dogmatic inclinations – complete with computer paradigms and hypothetical models. I would give this book ten stars if I could. This author has a web site: http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/.

I have found no other books written by this author for the general reader. But I will be keeping an eye out for any new books by this gentleman.
I must repeat. I think this is a great book!!

Limits of Power - Bacevich

Hobo-ing America is my book and it provides a picture of how the millions of non-profligate exist in today's America. Click on cover of Hobo-ing America at right of this page for my information.

The Limits of Power


By Andrew J. Bacevich

Book Review


By Richard E. Noble

The author does a lot of quoting of a man named Reinhold Niebuhr. Do yourself a favor and skip Reinhold. I read Reinhold first at the author’s recommendation, and even though the man writes in English one still needs an interpreter to get through his book.

Bacevich, on the other hand, is very mater-of-fact and to the point.
Andrew Bacevich is a college professor and ex-military. This book is another installment from “The American Empire Project.”

This Project is a series of books by various authors who disparage the imperialistic policies of the United States, the expansion of the Military Industrial Complex, and the tendency of promoting the misguided notion of global exceptionalism by the U.S.A.

In this work Bacevich points out the futility of constantly choosing military solutions to solve international disagreements by the U.S.A. War should be a last resort and only used as a retort to military aggression by an enemy. Used as a diplomatic weapon it has been a total failure, Bacevich explains. Disregarding the morality of it all, it just doesn’t seem to be working. And this failure goes back for decades.

Mr. Bacevich is extremely hard on his military cohorts. General Franks, Colon Powell, General Wesley Clark and several others are run through Bacevich’s meat grinder. He goes so far as to say that, though America’s soldier base and technology are strong, the officers Corps is derelict. He is very outspoken with regards to the poor quality of American military leadership. This would make some conclude that our institutions for training our officers must be faulty. But Bacevich doesn’t mention our military academies. Maybe he deals with those institutions and their shortcomings in another of his books.

He doesn’t have much good to say about the civilian leadership either. He runs Bush and his administration through the ringer. He is especially unhappy with the Bush Doctrine of “Preemptive War” as should all Americans.

He also hits Clinton and his military strategy of throwing bombs and rockets around as equally misguided, insane and irrational.

The moral of his story is that war does not work. He quotes Norman Mailer: “Fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whore house to get rid of the clap.”

In Bacevich’s estimation the military “option” is not the answer.

He questions every military excuse for their failure, even their groaning about interference from inept and dominating, civilian, political leadership.

By Bacevich’s arguments the military leadership has no excuse. They appear to be, in the author’s estimation, a bunch of bungling, rampaging buffoons.

His bottom line: no military unless attacked. Military brawn is a poor excuse for not using our political heads. The United States is not equipped, nor does it have the moral right to be preemptively striking anybody. We should be more willing to let world problems play out in the world theater. America does not have all the answers and we should not be so patriotically egotistical to think that we do. And, by the way, we don’t have the money or the personnel to protect and direct the world militarily.

A big sub-theme throughout the book is highlighted by the word “profligate.” The author praises Jimmy Carter for his “malaise” speech – though he says that Jimmy never used the word.

It seems that it is the wasteful, greedy consumerism of the American people that has precipitated all these terrible military and political policies. We all want cheap gasoline, cheap goods and cheap foreign imports. We are all wasteful, self-indulgent, and … profligate.

This point by the author brings to mind such past writers as Henry David Thoreau, Thorstein Veblen and John Kenneth Galbraith.

Thoreau advised his American fellow citizens back in the 1800’s to “simplify.” He told us to make do with less and to be satisfied with one chair and a mat of straw to sleep on at night. Henry did not get very far with this notion even back in the 1800’s.

Then there was Mr. Galbraith who pondered the difficulties of “The Affluent Society.” A time that was advancing upon Americans when they would all have more free time and luxuries to spare. Oh woe is me. What would all us fat, overfed, wealthy Americans do with all our freedom and money.

Then we had Thorstein Veblen who coined the term “conspicuous consumption.” But Thornstein was not talking about everyday Americans. He was referring to the elegant class, the better-off and the wealthy. Unlike the other two mentioned above, he had a point.

Mr. Bacevich is laboring under the misconception that all of us Americans have been living high off the hog going all the way back to the late forties and early fifties. Ever since World War II ended, America has truly been a land of milk and honey and “profligate” spending on the part of all us elitist Americans.

My dad was hunting work all through the 50’s in my old neighborhood. My hometown of Lawrence was boasting an unemployed percentage of between 30 and 40 percent. We were in a depression.

Things were horrible.

I have never enjoyed profligacy of any type, shape or form. In my book “Hobo-ing America” my wife and I worked ourselves around America and though we worked by the sides of thousands of hard working Americans, we bumped into very few of the profligate.

I think Mr. Bacevich has been blessed and has had the privilege of rubbing elbows with the profligate in some nifty profligate neighborhoods. I have never seen one, nor do I know any of the profligate class. I don’t doubt that one could find statistics to verify the author presumptions but we all know what has been said about statistics.

I resent being held blame for America’s poor government leadership, military leadership, and poor economic policies.

Mr. Bacevich also neglected U.S. failure to maintain jobs in the face of our mounting import/export imbalances that started, as he pointed out, in 1970 and has never returned to the black. He mentioned the import/export imbalance but never once brought up the loss of our jobs to the global economy and what could or should have been done to compensate and keep Americans working.

I agree totally with over 90% of what Mr. Bacevich has to say especially with his points against the military option, preemptive war and attempting to police the world. But the points where I disagree I disagree very strongly.

Please don’t blame me, buddy. I have been doing all that I can just to stay alive.

Hobo-ing America

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

This was the most exciting adventure in our lives and despite all the conversation, very few people actually do what Carol and I did. We sold everything we owned, including Carol’s little MG Midget; bought a van and hit the road, Jack. We left our secure lives in 1976 and the adventure never stopped. I was managing restaurants and Carol was a reparatory therapist working the emergency room at a Miami hospital.

When our initial adventure capital ran out, we were reading the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. We were inspired. Why couldn’t we get crazy migrant/hobo type jobs and continue traveling across America? We did. And that is where this book begins – in a farm labor bureau employment office in California. We were signing up to go “top onions” with all the poor contract laborers and illegal immigrants. The interviewer thought we were nuts.

I subtitled this book “a workingman’s adventure.” That is not quite fair to Carol who also lived a “workingman’s” life. She didn’t sit back at the van baking cup cakes. She climbed 20 ft. ladders to pluck oranges from the top of thorny oranges trees; she tonged oysters from the bottom of Apalachicola Bay; she topped onions crawling around on her hands and knees in the desert-like sun of southern California. She did a “man’s” work, as they say.

We are both now well into our 60’s and as I review this book and our adventure, I must say I found a girl who was one in a million. Carol can gripe with God over what she was given but I certainly have no justified complaints on the girl he sent to me.
We had so much fun on this adventure that I felt compelled to write a book about it. Our adventure began in 1976 and ended in an ice cream parlor in Carrabelle Florida in the year 2000. That’s where the book ends but our adventure is still in progress.
Deciding to pack up and leave Fort Lauderdale and our steady, dependable jobs and lives to have a little adventure before we were too old to enjoy it, was truly a monumental decision. It changed our lives and it changed us … for the better.
When I compare this to other travel books and I have read them all – On the Road by Jack Kerouac or Charles Karualt, Mark Twain’s many travel books, the Dove, Walking Across America, Blue Highways, Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck, Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson, I think Hobo-ing America stands out as somewhat unique. We worked our way around this country. We weren’t on a sabbatical or a scholarship. We weren’t getting a check from National Geographic. We worked and we worked hard doing jobs that the majority of Americans wouldn’t do on a dare.

There are only two other books that I think compare with Hobo-ing America in this regard, Two Years before the Mast by William Henry Dana and Pages from a Worker’s Life by William Z. Foster. Those two guys also put in some sweat.

This is a fun book. It is written as Mark Twain advised, without the author forgetting his sense of humor. Carol and I had great fun and met bunches of loveable and very interesting people. It was the experience of a lifetime for both Carol and I. We both hope you will buy a copy and enjoy reading it. Good luck on your adventure.