Books are powerful, but it’s really how you use them that counts.
I am no Warmonger but I love the message of Art of War, because its great theme is that best move on the battlefield is to never have to go to the battle field.
Now that doesn’t mean appeasing to a stronger, or in the case of Russia today, a much weaker enemy. No the answer is the Great Game.
This book that I found in an old, now-shuttered used bookstore full of unwanted hardcovers and paperbacks is an absolute gem.
How To Make War details the strengths and weaknesses, as well as the practices and techniques of the Red Army and The Kremlin before their disastrous and ultimately empire destroying invasion of Afghanistan.
It also explains America’s strengths and weaknesses. A major theme of this book which Russia has neutralized, is our obsession with technology. We have had the upper hand on The Reds, because not because we are more clever, but because we are able to produce cooler newer shinier stuff!
The Russians are more clever but can’t afford Research & Development let alone Levis. So it’s a perpetual game of stealing our technology and then trying in vain to jump ahead.
But then came the internet. Now their best soldiers aren’t in barracks waiting for a Cold War that may never thaw on their watch. Now they are in inexpensive PCs hacking, or writing stories, and using social media to discredit enemies like U.S. Senator Al Franken.
They didn’t take him down by themselves though. It took two more players closer to home, and well everyone around us to panic about a USO boob grab over a flak jacket, that will leave us wondering a few years or days from now why the hell we didn’t launch an ethics investigation.
We could have got to the bottom of that photo that has a lot more troubling implications than censuring and humiliating Al Franken. But the calculation was that the Left would panic and trade Al Franken as President for one 3/4 term in Jeff Session seat in Alabama. They were right. The Left was as helpless as the apocryphal gerbil up Richard Gere’s ass.
I know I know, you knew somebody that knew somebody that knew somebody at the hospital.
That photo was a weapon.
Because of the Red Army’s adoption of the internet, half of our country trusts Russian State run news like Russia Today and Sputnik more than the New York Times.
If we use books and history correctly, we can insulate ourselves from Russian and GOP attacks via the internet.
But we probably won’t. One take away I have had from trying to plow through Sunday editions of the New York Times is that pinnacle of American News that is worth paying for, is that level of discourse and free news we routinely absorb on social media is dumbing us down fast.
It’s all bought and paid for. You take a ten year old movement and as it starts to quite possibly organically trend towards a relevant and positive outcome and you start putting one million here, one million there.
It’s the Great Game internet style. New ball game, but old Sun Tzu rules. Human nature hasn’t changed in 10,000 years.
Have you noticed that the movement conveniently dissipated? Don’t worry, a million here, a billion there, it begins again. Hitler was Man of the Year in 1938 and Trump was just the Runner Up.
Let me be clear, I will die for Women’s Rights and the right for Women to be heard and be equals in every regard. I would fight in a foxhole with a Woman and I would love to see a Woman president unlike every Christian Conservative old woman I sat next to on every plane flight.
But this is a Game. And the Russians are great at it. And as long as a KGB officer is President and the Bombers are old Bears, we are up against The Soviets. Those tanks are Soviet too. Most of the weapons tallied in this book are still in their arsenal.
But last year’s PC is better than next year’s RPG.
I know I know this isn’t part of a news cycle, nobody is talking about this right now, we are on Christmas Break. I ain’t writing for right now.
If there is a War, my choice of a General is Maxine Waters. Y’all can keep that dumb ass Michael Flynn.
I know I know, what about us. Look up Whataboutism. I never said we were innocent. I just know what side I am on.
I know who isn’t on our side. Can you hear the announcer in Madison Square Garden on Christmas Day,
“He’s #45 from Queens New York, lining up at Center for St. Petersburg, it’s…”
…a great Game we are probably going to keep losing unless we all wake up. Because being #Woke enough. We need Library cards.
A Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many musical ventures and is one of the driving forces behind the Staxx Brothers. He will be partying in Kingston, Jamaica soon.
