There are two books I would like to reccomend.
I think they are both great.

First we have "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025". It is written by Mark Palmer, who was the US amabassador in Hungary when the soviet empire fell.

The book is about the last 45 dictatorships in the world, and how to replace them with democracies. For the sake of their people, and for the sake of the entire world. The book contains descriptions of the dictatorships and their governments, and suggested paradigm shifts for how we should think about the world and how governments of the three world should interact with dictatorships.

The title refers to one of the books major claims: That human rights violations, terrorism and political instability doesn't come from a few certain tyrannies, it comes from tyranny as such.

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...s&n=507846 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0742532542/qid=1080175139/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-1235891-9830538?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)


The other book is named "Persepolis : The Story of a Childhood". It is written by Marjane Satrapi, who grew up in Teheran and was 10 years old when the islamic revolution came. Persepolis is a autobiography comicbook novel, much like Art Spiegelmans "Maus".

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...ce&s=books (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375422307/qid=1080175590/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-1235891-9830538?v=glance&s=books)

If you havn't read these books, I reccomend that you do so. If you have read them, I am curious about what you think and feel about them.

Weren't you reading Bernard Lewis as well?

Nope, not really. I have only read one short text by him. Linked & quoted it yesterday.

I mentioned Lewis.

And I'll need another book or 2 to read in a bout a week. Could you give us a brief idea of what his paradigm change is?

Linked & quoted it yesterday

Damn, can't find it. Which item was it?

Coincidentally, saw an article in the Chicago Trib yesterday about an author (English, I think) who has written several books on Islam and religion. They're supposed to be very good and very readable. Karen Armstrong.

>>"Could you give us a brief idea of what his paradigm change is? "

For the last coupple of decades, our governments have spoken many sweet words about democracy, but they doesn't really seem to care when it comes down to it.

"Stability" have been prioritized over freedom. Support tyrants, because the alternative is chaos. Palmer argue that this so-called stability is a bloodstained illusion.

*Tyrrany IS chaos. The only basic form of government that can be stable in our world is democratic governments with transperant structure, free press and rule of law.

*The false "stability" of maintaining the status quo is not only lazy, it is also destructive. And it gives people all around the world very valid reasons to hate us. If we support the scumbags who oppress them, then how can they believe us when we claim to believe in human rights?

*Dictators take local pro-democracy movements extremely seriously. We should take them seriously as well, not dismissing them as wishful thinking and foolish dreams. The peoples of these countries have a right to be free, and they can be. They are not so different from us as we might like to believe.

*Dictators represents themeslves and only themselves. They are NOT elected, and it's a insult to the people they opress to treat them as if they represent the people, cluture or religion of their country. Yet this is done all the time. We use the names of the countries when we are really talking about the dictators.


>>"Damn, can't find it. Which item was it?"

Hmm, I'll start a new thread about that.
It got drowned in some long thread, and Islam deserves a thread of it's own anyway.

As for Persepolis, it is much more down to earth then Maus.
One of the best things about it is all the simple black and white answers it doesn't give. It doesn't even have a black and white perspective.

If it was a manifesto, I guess it could be summed up in these three thesises:
*People mean well, and try their best.
*Yet they suck.
*In spite of their many shortcomings, they are rather adoreable, and deserve much better then living in a repressive dictatotship, with all the horrors that includes.

It's a emotional story, but without getting sentimental or simpleminded.

I'm trying to find more of what Lewis has said; he apparently has maintained for decades that containment (US policy during the cold war - make friends with whoever sucks the least) isn't the right way to go. He pushes a more aggressive approach (the Bush adminstration has met with him at least once on these ideas).

HOwever, his books don't really detail what he thinks is the right thing to do. Have to find articles or something about that.

I just started the other thread, including the Lewis quote.
Anyway, it seems Palmer and Lewis have a lot in common. Especially, but not limited to, the bottom line that the old idea of supporting tyrrany was a tragic misstake that created a lot of the world's current problems. A misstake that we have to stop repeating.

By the way.
Fuck the german empire.
Fuck it all the way to hell.

Starting the first world war was bad enough.
But it also did something much worse to the world.
It supported a whiney little powerless terrorist asshole who wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the german support.
His name was Lenin.