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BOOKS

Springtime for Snowflakes A professor’s memoir of the closing of the American mind. Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270828/springtime-snowflakes-mark-tapson

In the fall of 2016, New York University professor Michael Rectenwald created an anonymous Twitter account to critique the alarming spread across campuses of an “anti-education and anti-intellectual” social justice ideology. Before long he was outed as the man behind the controversial @antipcnyuprof account, and despite being a leftist himself, became the target of shunning and harassment from his colleagues and the NYU administration. But instead of caving in to the campus totalitarians as so many academics do, Rectenwald declared himself done with the Left, and though still not a conservative, began appearing often in right-wing media to defend free speech and academic freedom, and to expose the “bilious animosity and unrestrained cruelty” he endured from his former compatriots.

I previously interviewed Prof. Rectenwald for FrontPage Mag here back in January. At the close of that interview he mentioned a book he was working on about the experience, and it is now available in paperback and on Kindle: Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and its Postmodern Parentage. Short but dense with insights about postmodern theory, social justice ideology, and academic conformity, the book is a must-read for understanding the intellectual collapse of the American university under the weight of a totalitarian ideology.

Rectenwald begins the book by relating his experience of “becoming deplorable” and being pushed toward political apostasy, which forced him to reexamine the herd with which he had formerly run. “I didn’t leave the left,” he writes. “The left left me” – echoing Ronald Reagan’s famous declaration, “I didn’t leave the Democratic party. The Democratic Party left me.” “In trying to correct me,” Rectenwald writes about his fellow academics, “they did indeed correct me – but not as they’d hoped. They corrected my vision by forcibly dislodging the scales of their ideology from my eyes.” He realized that the “institutions of North American higher education have taken a hairpin turn, and a wrong turn at that. They have surrendered moral and political authority to some of the most virulent, self-righteous, and authoritarian activists among the contemporary left.”

Wolfgang Kasper The Atavistic Assault on Liberalism

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/theatavistic-assault-liberalism/

Mario Vargas Llosa’s journey from Castro groupie to steel-eyed critic of both Leftism and populism gives the observations and commentary of his latest book the authority of a long life both lived and examined. To describe it as a joy of the first order would be to engage in understatement.

La llamada de la tribu
by Mario Vargas Llosa
Alfaguara, 2018, 313 pages, €18.90
________________________

When a grandee of literature and liberal philosophy, such as Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa (left), publishes the account of his intellectual odyssey, this is a literary event. The new book was a sensation in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a learned, critical record of the seven liberal authors who converted him—an idealistic communist in his youth—to full-blooded liberalism. The account comes from the pen of a master storyteller, who became a political animal in the same places and during the same decades as I did. This made the book a great delight for me. For now, the book is only available in Spanish, but an English translation seems not far off.

In a recent interview with Mexico’s cultural-political monthly Gatopardo, Vargas Llosa scoffs at his eighty-two years. He is already planning a globe-spanning tour to promote his new book.

JAMIE GLAZOV’S NEW BOOK: “JIHADIST PSYCHOPATH”

http://jamieglazov.com/2018/07/26/jamie-glazovs-new-book-jihadist-psychopath/

Jihadist Psychopath: How He Is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us.

Jihadist Psychopath offers an original and ground-breaking perspective on the terror war. Like no other work, it unveils the world of psychopathy and reveals, step by step, how Islamic Supremacists are duplicating the sinister methodology of psychopaths who routinely charm, seduce, capture, and devour their prey.

Jihadist Psychopath unveils how every element of the formula by which the psychopath subjugates his victim is used by the Islamic Supremacist to ensnare and subjugate non-Muslims. And in the same way that the victim of the psychopath is complicit in his own destruction, so too Western civilization is now embracing and enabling its own conquest and consumption.

President Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton says about Jihadist Psychopath:

Hard as it is to believe, many in the West simply will not take the time and trouble to understand the threat posed by radical Islamicist terrorism. James Burnham once wrote of a similar problem with international Communism in his masterful Suicide of the West. Now, Jamie Glazov has written this century’s counterpart to Burnham’s classic work and will doubtless upset those determined not to analyze for themselves the nature of the underlying phenomenon.

With a Foreword written by Michael Ledeen, glowing advance praise also comes from Dennis Prager, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Steve Emerson and many other titans and scholars in the international arena. (See Amazon page for many of the blurbs).

Dennis Prager affirms that Jihadist Psychopath is “…one of the most important books of the present time.”

And that’s why you have to pre-order a copy now. Order Jihadist Psychopath Today!

Why Does Facebook Think I’m ‘Political’? The robots won’t let me advertise my book on nationalism.By Yoram Hazony

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-does-facebook-think-im-political-1532559704

The robots at Facebook always urge me to “boost my post.” This sounds kinky, but it’s Zuckerspeak for buying advertising. I’ve avoided these offers because I’m no computer genius. For me, high-tech is writing down my password somewhere.

But then I kept seeing ads for Yossi Klein Halevi’s new book, “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.” I have a book coming out called “The Virtue of Nationalism.” Like a knucklehead, I figured if Yossi could boost his post, so could I.

I pressed “Boost Post.” Soon thousands of people were seeing my ad, and I was psychotically checking the click count every four minutes. “Your ad is doing better than most promotions on Facebook,” the robots flattered me. I was like Fast Eddie playing big-time pool. How could I lose?

It lasted two weeks. Then a red announcement appeared: “Your ad was not approved because your Page has not been authorized to run ads with political content.” My boost was now stamped with a verdict in red letters: “Rejected.”

I found a window for submitting appeals. “My book is concerned with the historical development of the nation-state and the case for preferring it to imperialism,” I groveled. I offered to send the robots a copy so they could see for themselves.

Facebook’s sentient programs don’t wear dark glasses or have menacing names like Agent Smith. A response came from “Veronica”: “The text and/or imagery you’re using qualifies as political, based on the definition we’re using for enforcement,” it said. “You must authorize your page to run political ads.”

Gregg Jarrett: Comey and Strzok — Two key players in the scheme to clear Clinton and frame Trump Gregg Jarrett

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/23/gregg-jarrett-comey-and-strzok-two-key-players-in-scheme-to-clear-clinton-and-frame-trump.html

In one of the more stunning revelations contained in the report compiled by the Justice Department’s watchdog, former FBI Director James Comey claimed he doesn’t remember the moment he decided – and put down in writing — that Hillary Clinton had committed crimes.

We know that on or about May 2, 2016, Comey composed a statement summarizing Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents, concluding that she was “grossly negligent.” Those pivotal words have a distinct legal meaning, and are drawn directly from a federal statute, 18 U.S.C. 793(f), which makes it a felony to handle classified documents in a “grossly negligent” manner.

Comey used the exact phrase not once, but twice.

Based on Comey’s finding, Clinton should have faced a multiple-count criminal indictment, since the FBI discovered that she had stored 110 classified emails on her unauthorized, private computer server. Other people had been prosecuted for similar conduct that jeopardized national security in violation of the law. Yet, Comey – despite characterizing Clinton’s actions with the clear language denoting violation of the law – saw to it that no charges were ever brought against Clinton.

Based on Comey’s finding, Clinton should have faced a multiple-count criminal indictment, since the FBI discovered that she had stored 110 classified emails on her unauthorized, private computer server.

Daryl McCann: Big Brother’s Loyalty

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/07/big-brothers-loyalty/

In his rushed-to-press book, ‘A Higher Loyalty’, James Comey reveals himself as a congenital lawyer with a special talent for obfuscation and self-exoneration. That such a creature rose so high lends enormous credence to Donald Trump’s grievances against the Deep State.

It’s too easy to mock the title of ex-FBI Director James Comey’s memoir A Higher Loyalty. Higher loyalty to whom? Jim Comey? Comey himself anticipates the charge by confessing upfront in the Author’s Note that he “can be stubborn, prideful, overconfident, and driven by ego”, character flaws he has struggled with his “whole life”. No kidding. A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership might be an exercise in self-righteousness, confesses Comey, but whether that is accurate or not—and our author, unsurprisingly, quickly proceeds to deny it—his enmity towards President Donald Trump happens to be based on something more substantial than Comey’s own bruised ego. Ethics is Comey’s word for it. I am, perhaps surprisingly, inclined to agree; but with the proviso that ideology rather than ethics be designated as James Comey’s moral compass.

There is something big lurking in the depths of Comey’s memoir and to uncover it we must address three key issues: (a) the exoneration of Hillary Clinton; (b) Comey’s boyish admiration for Barack Obama; and (c) the brutal denigration of Donald Trump. In the first instance, the former FBI director’s exoneration of Hillary Clinton in A Higher Loyalty is a tricky business, as was his pronouncement in July 5, 2016, that Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in the use of a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State but that, in his judgment, “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against her for mishandling classified information, either “intentionally or in a grossly negligent way”. We now know the FBI “sensitive matters team” never had any intention of recommending charges against Candidate Clinton in 2016 and that, as Candidate Trump would say, “the fix was already in”.

ISIS BEGINS, a Novel of the Iraq War Ken Timmerman’s new novel highlights the urgency of saving persecuted Christians. Jamie Glazov

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270741/isis-begins-novel-iraq-war-jamie-glazov

Frontpage’s guest today is Ken Timmerman, author of several New York Times best-sellers and a frequent contributor to Frontpage. His new book is ISIS BEGINS, a novel of the Iraq War.

FP: Ken Timmerman, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Timmerman: Thanks for having me, Jamie. It’s always a pleasure.

FP: Let’s begin with a quick glance at some of your books: Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Saddam, Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, and your two books on Benghazi, Dark Forces, and Deception.

So here’s the first question: what compels an investigative reporter to write a novel, and especially one about persecuted Christians?

Timmerman: Great question, Jamie. Thank you.

I started going on reporting and mission trips to northern Iraq in 2007, and gathered so much material that I thought I should write a book about what my sources were calling the coming “religiocide” of Iraqi Christians. Already then, in 2007, 2008, Christians were leaving Iraq in huge numbers. Jihadi Muslim groups were bombing their churches, murdering their bishops. They kidnapped ordinary Christians, holding them for ransom, and then murdered them when their families couldn’t produce the exorbitant payments they demanded. I was thinking to call such a book, “Blood of the Iraqi Martyrs.” But my agent at the time couldn’t get a single major publisher interested. Not one.

The publishing world just didn’t want to hear about Christian persecution. Even before Obama, when the subject literally became taboo, the notion that Christians were being murdered by Muslims was not popular.

So during one of these trips, Father Keith Roderick, an Anglican priest who then worked for Christian Solidarity International, a terrific group, by the way, convinced me that I should recast this body of material as a novel.

Why? So that ordinary Americans could feel and smell and taste what it is like to be a persecuted Christian, chased by Muslims intent on murder. For that is the reality of Iraq – and of so many other places around the world, such as Nigeria, Sudan, or Iran. He felt a novel would a more emotional impact on readers than a non-fiction book would.

FP: And you’re not new to writing novels, right?

Timmerman: Right, I am not. I have had two novels published. I confess: I actually started my career writing fiction, and studied under avante-garde novelist John Hawkes at the Brown University graduate writing seminar in the early 1970s and went to Paris in 1975 with a novel in my suitcase. I eventually started an expat literary magazine, Paris Voices, that was the center of a whole expat literary scene. But that’s a whole other story.

David Isaac Reviews : ‘Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu’ By Anshel Pfeffer

http://freebeacon.com/columns/

Biographers typically have an affection for their subjects. Sometimes so much so that they descend into hagiography. No danger of this from Haaretz writer Anshel Pfeffer, an extreme example of the debunking biographer. Typical of his snarky style: Netanyahu “had given up on Israeli journalists being honest enough to present him as the country’s only true leader.”

What is striking about Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu is the author’s refusal to give Netanyahu credit for nearly anything. Few dispute that as finance minister under Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu made important reforms to Israel’s economy. The ever critical Haaretzadmitted, “He succeeded beyond all expectations. His decisiveness, courage and rectitude in pursuing unpopular but important policies succeeded in stabilizing Israel’s economy.”

Yet even here Pfeffer claims Netanyahu’s impact “has been exaggerated,” with the previous Rabin government deserving the real credit for the investments that led to Israel’s high-tech boom.

In view of Pfeffer’s stubborn adherence to the moribund peace process, it is not surprising that his major criticisms of Netanyahu center on his views and policies in relation to the Arabs. Given Pfeffer’s own bleak view of Israel (he has elsewhere described Israel as “a dysfunctional society fighting an uphill battle—one that it often loses—against racism and corruption”), it is ironic that he repeatedly complains of Netanyahu’s “bleak” view. Pfeffer considers it bleak because of Netanyahu’s common-sense belief that “real peace can only come when the Arabs recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist” and that is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes.

Pfeffer complains that Netanyahu is “dragging his feet” with the peace process, with the only peace he is willing to consider “one where Israel bullies the Palestinians into submission.” Pfeffer blames the failure of the Oslo Accords largely on Israel, dating their collapse to reactionary violence starting with Baruch Goldstein, a religious Jew who killed 29 Muslim worshippers in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in December 1994. In so far as he mentions Arab involvement, he blames the terrorism on Hamas. Pfeffer seems utterly blind to Yasser Arafat’s, or now Mahmoud Abbas and the entire Palestinian Arab leadership’s inability to come to terms with Israel as a Jewish state. On May 10, 1994, months before Goldstein’s actions, Arafat famously declared in a Johannesburg mosque that the Oslo Accords were but a tactical step toward Israel’s elimination and called for jihad to liberate Jerusalem.

Hemispatial neglect is a medical syndrome following a stroke, in which the patients behave as if half of their body, indeed half of their world, does not exist. They will eat only from one side of a plate, read only from one side of a book, shave or put makeup only on one side of their face. It’s a remarkable condition. It’s also one that afflicts much of the Israeli journalistic community. Pfeffer, like so many of his colleagues, only sees one side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is political hemineglect.

Mad-Eleine Albright’s New Book….see note please

Nothing here but a halfbright screed against Trump with vile comparisons to Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin and praise for herself and Hillary Clinton….rsk

“She frequently nudges the reader to make connections between the president of the United States and past dictatorships. She reminds us who first coined the Trumpian phrase “drain the swamp”. It was drenare la palude in the original, Mussolini Italian. She quotes Hitler talking about the secret of his success: “I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them… I…reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realised this and followed me.” Sound familiar?”

The former US secretary of state decries the global rise of authoritarianism in her new book, Fascism: A Warning, and talks about Trump, Putin and the ‘tragedy’ of Brexit

Madeleine Albright has both made and lived a lot of history. When she talks about a resurgence of fascism, she says it as someone who was born into the age of dictators. She was a small girl when her family fled Czechoslovakia after the Nazis consumed the country in 1939. After 10 days in hiding, her parents escaped Prague for Britain and found refuge in Notting Hill Gate, “before it was fancy”, in an apartment which backed on to Portobello Road. Her first memories of life in London are of disorientation. “I didn’t have a clue. My parents were very continental European and I didn’t have siblings early on. I felt isolated.” As Hitler unleashed the blitz, “every night we went down to the cellar where everybody was sleeping.”

She has since been back to the redbrick block in Notting Hill. “I rang the doorbell of the person who lived in the apartment – it was a lot smaller than I remember it. I asked a stupid question: whether the cellar still existed. They said: ‘Of course the cellar exists.’ So they took me down and I had this moment – the green paint was exactly the same. I remember the green paint.”

It was decades later that she discovered that, though she was raised a Catholic, her parentage was Jewish and many of her family had been murdered in the Holocaust, including three grandparents.

From Notting Hill, the family moved out of central London to Walton-on-Thames, where they shared a house “with some other Czechs”. The bombs fell there too, but she enjoyed “every minute” of this part of her childhood. “I went to school and we spent a lot of time in air raid shelters singing A Hundred Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall.” It was less terrifying than it might have been because “my parents had a capacity of making the abnormal seem normal”.

Another Day, Another Blow to Freedom Publishers’ appeasement of Islam proceeds apace. Bruce Bawer

This is a story about the appeasement of Islam. To be specific, it’s about appeasement on the part of book publishers. To be even more specific, it’s about a little mom-and-pop operation known as Random House, and a German author named Thilo Sarrazin.

I’m not unfamiliar with Random House. In 2006, Doubleday, a division of that storied firm, published my book While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within. Although it sold briskly from the git-go, it was (like many other honest books on the subject) delicately ignored by most of the mainstream media. Nonetheless, it made the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into several languages – and the paperback edition, published by Broadway Books, another Random House subsidiary, continues to sell. In 2009, Doubleday put out my follow-up book, Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom. Whereas While Europe Slept had warned of the dangers attendant upon Islam’s rise in the West, Surrender addressed the growing Western tendency to assuage alleged Muslim sensitivities, largely through censorship and self-censorship: museums were putting away art works that might offend the Prophet’s followers; universities were installing propaganda factories disguised as centers of Middle Eastern Studies; Hollywood, which during World War II had specialized in patriotic cheerleading, was responding to the “War on Terror” with films in which Americans were bad guys and Muslims were victims; and while cops and prosecutors were doing all they could to avoid bringing Muslim malefactors to justice, they were hauling critics of Islam into court for “hate speech.”

As for book publishers – well, let’s not forget that the first big modern example of cultural jihad in the West was the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses, he thundered, had insulted “Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qur’an.” At the time, that debacle seemed a one-off, and publishers, to their credit, continued to put out books that criticized Islam. The record, however, was not spotless. When Yale University Press, in 2009, released an account of the Danish cartoon crisis, it decided not to include the actual cartoons – a ludicrously cowardly move. Yale wasn’t alone. Over time, it became clear that major presses were becoming more timid on this front: while happy to churn out agitprop by the likes of Karen Armstrong and John Esposito, they were growing increasingly uneasy with blunt truth-telling. Hence more and more writers in this genre have had to put out their books themselves. (In Norway, where I live, one of the top bestsellers of 2015, Hege Storhaug’s Islam: Den 11. landeplage – which will appear in English later this year as Islam: Europe Invaded, America Warned – was self-published.)