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Reading list
Books we're reading
Where we get our ideas from
By Kevin Potvin
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The Passover Plot, by Hugh J Schonfield, The Disinformation Company, 1965, new for $8.50 at Magpie, softcover 288 pp.
A re-issue of this aging book would appear motivated to pick up on the rage for all things conspiratorial about Christianity’s leadership, following the huge world-wide success of Dan Brown’s Davinci Code. This one is fun, even if the style of writing seems prematurely dated. The idea here is that Jesus was a mastermind political schemer who spent years in solitude studying everything there was to know about the Jewish prophecies regarding the arrival of a savior-messiah. Then he orchestrated things so that others would unwittingly fulfill necessary roles, like the Jewish high priests who take him to the Roman proconsul, and Pilate who is forced to condemn him when he has followers refer to him as King of the Jews. Perhaps this is the original conspiracy theory, the grand-daddy of them all.
Max Corvo, OSS Italy 1942 – 1945: A Personal Memoir of the Fight for Freedom, by Max Corvo, Enigma, 2005, new for $9.50 at Magpie, hardcover, 365 pp.
The CIA used to be the OSS, formed during World War II to covertly exercise US interests in the war at a time when the American public and Congress refused to get involved in what was then figured to be yet another wasteful European civil war. The author of this book claims to have been present at the beginning of the infamous agency, and claims that the operation he was a part of, to sneak into southern Italy and work to overthrow the Axis regime, was so successful, it became the model for all subsequent CIA foreign operations since then.
The thing that sticks after reading this book is how the CIA, for so long regarded by fans and critics alike as a spy operation, has been from its inception really a paramilitary force that hides behind a false façade as mere passive spies. When we saw CIA agents launching rockets in Afghanistan in 2001, many observers reacted with surprise that the CIA even had rockets to fire. Turns out they’ve done more of that kind of work than any other.
The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J Evans, Penquin, 2004, new for $14.50 at Magpie, 622 PP.
This book is interesting for obvious reasons: are we seeing a repeat of history today?
Naturally, the specific historic threads that wove themselves together from 1871 through to 1933 are unique to Germany—and this book is chock full of detail on the nature of each of those specific threads.
But the prominent rope in the weave of threads is the economic troubles suffered by the middle class who were surprised that the experimental World War I would cost them. The chances of severe economic repercussions of gone-awry American experiments with war in Iraq today suggest the American public might be susceptible to going down roads we’ve seen major industrial middle classes go down before.
The constant military backdrop to all public speeches made by George Bush are not good signs in this regard.
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The Republic of East Vancouver masthead
The Republic of East Vancouver supports no party, advocates
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