Rachel Maddow

With her usual 'dog-with-a-bone' thoroughness, Maddow tells the story of how, in the years preceding WW2, American politicians and celebrities were recruited by Germany's Nazi government in its must-win campaign to keep the United States out of the war. Senators and congressmen served as direct mouthpieces for the Nazis, disseminating speeches and propaganda supposedly written by legislators but that actually originated in Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Culture. Fortunately, a small cadre of show more loyal and dedicated Americans worked tirelessly to prevent these right-wing extremists from taking power. As Maddow tells us, "our own story in this wild, uncertain twenty-first century has not an echo in the past but a prequel. For our turn in history, we have the advantage of knowing that which preceded us. The story of what it took to stop the violent American ultra-right in the run-up to World War II—that’s a gift from the smart, brave, determined, resourceful, self-sacrificing Americans who went before us."

We would do well to learn from it.

I highly recommend this book. show less

"History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

They say that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Reading Rachel Maddow's Prequel, that old adage lands with uncomfortable, clarifying force. The America of the 1930s had Senator Huey Long — loud, brash, barnstorming, and brimming with populist promises — and the resonance with our own era of bombastic political theater is impossible to dismiss. Maddow doesn't make that parallel clumsily. She doesn't need to. The evidence, laid out show more with the precision of a seasoned researcher and historian, speaks for itself.

Let me start by saying that this review will differ a little from past reviews. It is too weighty, too important, and not simply "a book review", for we find ourselves on the precipice between democracy and fascism and must make a choice — will we uphold democracy or fall into the pit of fascism?

Prequel tells the story of a far-right authoritarian impulse that has run through the veins of American political life for nearly a hundred years. In the 1930s, coinciding with Hitler's rise in Europe, a coordinated movement pushed hard for fascism here at home. Groups stockpiled weapons and explosives in preparation for an insurrection. Government officials worked in coordination with foreign actors. A fascist-sympathetic narrative was amplified through official and unofficial channels alike. This was not fringe paranoia — it was organized, resourced, and frighteningly close to succeeding.

What is remarkable — and what gives this book its most urgent energy — is the story of who stopped it. Not always the institutions we might hope to rely on. Where the American legal system faltered, journalists and activists filled the breach. Investigators, reporters, and citizens took up the banner of democracy through dogged, unglamorous work.

This is where Maddow's particular genius comes into its own. She is a master of the long connective thread — drawing bright lines between the events of the past and the present without letting the comparison become reductive or cheap. Prequel teaches us what was learned the last time democracy faced this kind of pressure: where the weaknesses are, what held, and — critically — what it will take to hold again. She identifies the strongholds. She maps the vulnerabilities. She makes a history lesson feel like a field guide.

The book is also, simply, a pleasure to read. Maddow brings to the page the same qualities that made her a formidable broadcaster: the ability to take deeply complex, document-heavy material and render it not just comprehensible but genuinely gripping. Her research is formidable. Her journalistic integrity is evident on every page. And her storytelling instincts transform what might otherwise be a dry historical account into something that reads with the momentum of a thriller. The result is a text that is at once a celebration — democracy was fought for and, in that moment, successfully defended — and a warning.

This book is well researched, well documented, and well written. Maddow is a master storyteller handing us a guide for the fight ahead of us. The impulse toward authoritarianism did not dissolve with the defeat of fascism abroad; it went quiet, regrouped, and waited. Democracy is once again under attack from the inside, and Prequel makes the case — calmly, rigorously, without hysteria — that this is not unprecedented, that it has been faced before, and that it can be faced again.

Don't give up the fight. Don't let the bastards grind you down. show less

I will warn you now that I will drift in this review towards, to me, the most infuriating and disgusting information provided by Dr. Maddow. I will get to the drift shortly, but I do not want to be irresponsible, so will provide a few words to help along potential readers.

Read this book!

There. Done. Now back to specifics.

It is proven true of Eisenhower's quote to beware of the military industrial complex. The Complex (as I will refer to it) is not just industrial, it is privatized, show more corporatized, and complete with catchy tag lines and sexy logos. Our Constitution has been run over and is being left in the road critically (not fatally, I stress) injured. The U.S. continues to wage war around the globe and all it takes for us to forget that people are actually dying are the facts that neither do a majority of us have to pay any price for the military operations whatsoever, nor do our leaders need to be held accountable for their illegal decisions pertaining to the military operations.

There are many things in this book to get you outraged. If you are not aware of U.S. military history between WWII and Iraq/Afghanistan, this is a good book to get you up to date. History here, however, is presented in order to prove Maddow's thesis: the U.S. has lost sight of the purpose of having a military to become an unchecked security state...with our blessings. (Well argued, as always, Ms. Maddow!)

Through my own education and career, my focus with military action remains on how women are affected by the formal decisions and informal proclivities of our (mostly male) leaders to dedicate our forces to combat. I worry about what happens behind the media reporting of heroes in military uniforms and the monsters of the other side, with an attempt to gain perspective of the average woman, whose home and sometimes life are destroyed by our gun-happy politicians (a.k.a., profiteers). Thus, my very specific focus for this review is on a section of the book discussing the Bosnian War and the first full hiring of privatized military contractors for combat operations.

The Bosnian War was President's Clinton's little peccadillo of military action. He had to act. He goofed big time with Rwanda by not acting while we watched people being ruthlessly hacked to death in the streets. The American people were disgusted to find out we did little to nothing, along with the UN, to prevent or stifle the massacre. But, though action in Bosnia was (politically) needed, Clinton was not going to commit troops to military action (i.e., war) through Congressional sanctioning. The American people were not in favor of going to war. So what do you do? You commit minimal forces and hire private contractors to do the rest so as not to disturb hometown America. The result is sickening.

In addition to corporate greed which bilked the U.S. government for millions without delivering the services required (sometimes at human risk to our military personnel), "what truly bothered Johnston [former military and then employee of DynCorp]...was the slimiest bag of worms in the DynCorp locker: it was common practice among the contract workers at Comanche [U.S. military base site] to buy themselves live-in sex slaves from the local Serbian mafia. The men boasted about it openly around the hangar and invited coworkers home to meet their new "girls." Some of these girls were said to be as young as twelve" (Maddow, 2012, pp. 164-165).

DynCorp's and the U.S. military's response to the keeping of sex slaves? Ignore it. Military claimed they had no legal jurisdiction over the contractor or its employees. And being a foreign corporation working on military property (i.e., ground no-can-touch-me), DynCorp was not responsible to local authorities. Catch-22 with disgusting detriment to "the girls."

You need to remember, one of the horrendous actions of the Bosnian War (of which there are many) was the unbelievable, cruel, repeated, raping of women that took place as a deliberate, strategic part of the fighting. Milosevic was a sick bastard. The U.S. men operating as part of our U.S. military interventions were equally sick bastards. And we did nothing to stop it. Nice help we gave the Serbians. They are not ungrateful, they just dislike us, and with very good reason. There has been no apology, no convictions, no restitution given for the degenerate, sick behavior of DynCorp's employees. (It's all for profits, so we should shut up and be happy. Go market capitalism!!!)

Our military purpose has changed and the military industrial complex is the behemoth we were warned to fear. There is no way to dismantle what has assembled into a multi-trillion-dollar, budget-sucking pariah. Welcome to the 21st Century!

Former Vice President Cheney, let Rachel Maddow interview you! Please!

Peace. show less

Having recently finished [Prequel] by Maddow, I was eager for more. Her history of the oil industry’s corruption and how it tilled the American soil for our current political mess was wonderful, in the writing and research, and awful in the resulting mess. The country and the world has grown into a numbed resignation at the oil industry’s antics, and the effects of our consumption. ‘Sure, it’s bad, and all, but what can I do about it. And it’s not really that bad, anyway. Won’t show more hurt me.’ But to see it played out in the lives of real people and communities is heart rending. To see how black gold is so intimately tied to corruption and scandal, especially when Russia is folded into the mix, is sickening. There’s a fair bit of expose on Russia’s dark deeds, both with respect to oil and to politics.

5 bones!!!!!
Highly recommended show less