All posts tagged: book review

Book Review: High Magick By Damien Echols

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Hope K If I were to pick one word to sum up Damien Echols’ new book, High Magick: A Guide to the Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row, I would choose “empowerment.” And if you’re doubtful that magick is real, well, just know that Damien Echols is the only person to ever have walked away from death row in Arkansas. The West Memphis Three In May of 1993, three eight year old boys were brutally murdered, their bodies found in a gulley, their bicycles left on a pipe bridge in the woods of West Memphis, Arkansas. Here’s the crime scene 25 years later: The town was traumatized by the gruesome nature of the murders. The police either could not or would not name a suspect, and they were getting a lot of pressure. So they honed in on Damien, who with his black clothes, heavy metal music, and interest in magick, stood out. He and his best friend, Jason Baldwin, lived in poverty. So too did Jessie Misskelley, who confessed to the crime. Damien …

Book Review: Propaganda Blitz – How Corporate Media Distort Reality

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We’ve heard a good deal of late about Western democracy, and I for one don’t knock it. I think it an excellent idea, but wouldn’t it require an informed electorate? And wouldn’t that require a media untainted by power and unfettered by any ties other than to truth? Truth in the sense of accuracy and immunity from entrenched interest; truth in the sense of facts and interpretations offered with neither fear nor favour on matters vital to the common good – like climate change, waging war, and levels of inequality both morally indefensible and socially dysfunctional?

9/11 Unmasked: A Remarkable Review

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David Ray Griffin The book 9/11 Unmasked, which I wrote together with Elizabeth Woodworth, has received several excellent reviews. But the most remarkable of these was written by Philip Roddis, who in 2016 had written with vitriol (his term) about the idea that 9/11 was an “inside job.” He wrote: “9/11 Truthism is not only seriously crackers but reactionary too.” What is remarkable about Roddis’ 2018 review is the extent to which he reversed his previous position. Introduction Roddis’ reversal began after seeing responses to his 2016 piece. Most of the responses simply confirmed Roddis’ long-held “contempt” for 9/11 truthers. He had felt this contempt – he recently realized – because he had been “exposed only to lazy, simplistic and epistemologically naive truthers.” Put otherwise, Roddis admitted that his “exposure to truthism had come from armchair conspiracists too idle or brain fogged to put together a decent argument.” Given his long-held certainty that the truthers could not be taken seriously, he had felt no need to “engage with evidential flaws in the official account.” So …

Book Reviews: 9/11 Unmasked

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Every year, at about this time, OffGuardian likes to cover the anniversary of 9/11, the most important “catalysing event” in modern history. And this year is no different. As part of this coverage, and in recognition of our willingness to discuss this often-controversial topic, we were invited to review 9/11 Unmasked, a new book from David Ray Griffin and Elizabeth Woodworth, focusing on the discrepancies in the official account of that fateful day 17 years ago. We reached out to trusted regular contributors and friends of the site based on their honesty, integrity and potentially contrasting points of view. The results are three different reviews, illustrating an interesting cross-section of opinions and experiences. Philip Roddis Two years ago, on the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, OffGuardian ran my review of Dylan Avery’s Loose Change. Except it wasn’t a review but a pouring of vitriol on the film’s central assertion that the events of September 11, 2001 were an inside job. Reception below the line was hostile. But among the cat-calls were voices I could not ignore: …

9/11 Unmasked by David Ray Griffin and Elizabeth Woodworth: A Review

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Piers Robinson Although not a topic for polite conversation, nor a widely recognized ‘acceptable’ issue for mainstream academics and journalists, the issue of 9/11 and the multiple questions that persist with respect to this transformative event continue to bubble under the surface. 9/11 ushered in the global ‘war on terror’, shaping the geo-political agenda of Western governments for almost two decades now and having a deleterious impact on civil liberties across Western liberal democratic states. Torture has been used as part of official policy and there is bulk data collection and surveillance of entire populations. In recent years, further information has come into the public domain, via the UK Chilcot report regarding the formative stages of the post 9/11 ‘war on terror’: Within days of 9/11 having occurred a British embassy cable reported that ‘the “regime-change hawks” in Washington are arguing that a coalition put together for one purpose (against international terrorism) could be used to clear up other problems in the region’; Chilcot also published a Bush-Blair communication from the aftermath of 9/11 which …

A Diabolic False Flag Empire: A Review of David Ray Griffin’s The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic?

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Edward Curtin The past is not dead; it is people who are sleeping. The current night and daymares that we are having arise out of murders lodged deep in our past that have continued into the present. No amount of feigned amnesia will erase the bloody truth of American history, the cheap grace we bestow upon ourselves. We have, as Harold Pinter said in his Nobel address, been feeding on “a vast tapestry of lies” that surrounds us, lies uttered by nihilistic leaders and their media mouthpieces for a very long time. We have, or should have, bad consciences for not acknowledging being active or silent accomplices in the suppression of truth and the vicious murdering of millions at home and abroad. But, as Pinter said, “I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.” No one is more emblematic of this noble …

Book Review – “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”

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David William Pear How can I write a review of Andre Vltchek’s new book Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism? I am damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. Andre himself says that: There is nothing to add to the writing of maverick revolutionary philosophers. Hands off their work! Let them speak! Editions without prefaces and introductions, please; no footnotes! The greatest works of philosophy were written with heart, blood and passion! No interpretation is needed. If allowed to read them, even a child can understand.” He is speaking about the works of other great revolutionary writers, not himself. I think Andre is a great revolutionary writer, too. But, who am I to speak for Andre or greatness? Read his great works for yourself, and you will understand them without my introduction. You will find that Andre has the guts to put himself out there, let it all hang out, and expose his vulnerabilities as well as his wisdom… But I am damned if I don’t write a book review for Andre’s book, because I …

Meanwhile in Ukraine….

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In one of the largest, if not the largest, Neo-Nazi demonstration in Europe since WW2, 20,000 fascists and their supporters marched through the streets of the Ukrainian capital celebrating the birth of Stepan Bandera 01.01.1909 founder and leader of the ultra-nationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) commanded by Roman Shukhevych. This organization which along with the equally collaborationist outfit, the 14th Waffen SS Grenadier Division Galicia 1, were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Poles, Jews and Russians during the ethnic cleansing which began in Lviv with a pogrom of the city’s Jews a week after the German invasion in 1941, and in the western Ukraine between 1943-45.

BOOK REVIEW: Russia against the rest: the post-cold war crisis of world order

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Frank Lee reviews Russia against the rest: the post-cold war crisis of world order by Richard Sakwa Cambridge University Press Chatham House London October 2017 This publication by the British academic, Richard Sakwa, follows on from his earlier work Frontline Ukraine first published in 2015. The present book identifies a continuity and unfolding of events which started with the end of the Cold War 1989-91, but which eventually broke down completely in 2014 with the onset of the Ukrainian imbroglio; the situation then settled into a new Cold War stand-off which has lasted to the present time. Sakwa has painstakingly detailed the whole sorry episode, identifying and dissecting the submerged trends which in time vitiated the early euphoria which had been triggered by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Initially the apparent transformation and ending of the geopolitical deadlock between the two super-powers gave rise to hopes of a new world order; there was a mood of cheery optimism widespread amid talk of a new epoch of peace and prosperity. Sadly, however, this elation underwent …

Book Review: JFK and the Unspeakable – How he died and why it matters

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by Edward Curtin This review was first published on November 28th 2009 and originally appeared on globalresearch.ca, lewrockwell.com and ratical.org. We are republishing it now to mark the our “JFK Week”, as well as announce our new “Book Review” section, coming soon. Despite a treasure-trove of new information having emerged over the last forty-six years, there are many people who still think who killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and why are unanswerable questions. There are others who cling to the Lee Harvey Oswald “lone-nut” explanation proffered by the Warren Commission. Both groups agree, however, that whatever the truth, it has no contemporary relevance but is old-hat, history, stuff for conspiracy-obsessed people with nothing better to do. The general thinking is that the assassination occurred almost a half-century ago, so let’s move on. Nothing could be further from the truth, as James Douglass shows in his extraordinary book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Orbis Books, 2008). It is clearly one of the best books ever written on the Kennedy assassination …

It trolls for thee: a review of Milo Yiannopoulos’ Dangerous

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by A.L. Shaw Milo Yiannopoulos is a creature of the internet: the erstwhile Twitter critter, former professional agitator for clickbait sweatshop Breitbart, and self-proclaimed “virtuous troll” heralds an online gaming-inspired conservative culture war against the political left in Dangerous, his debut book. Yiannopoulos portrays himself as one of the “provocateurs and clowns” needed “to grab the attention and challenge the biases of those who don’t want to be challenged” who pave the way for the “Debate Club Brigade” of intellectuals. Having thus delegated the serious work to others, the result is, indeed, clownish. The target audience may well derive voyeuristic pleasure from Yiannopoulos’ truculent “triggering” of feminists and Muslims. The critical reader, however, will derive about as much benefit from this trashy tract, devoid of almost any references to academic journals or studies, as from reading a primer on phrenology or flat earth theory. Yiannopoulos’ professional career has its roots in technology journalism, starting at The Daily Telegraph, followed by the now-defunct technology e-zine The Kernel (which he founded) and, until this year, heading Breitbart’s …