Revolution in the Air
()
About this ebook
Short essays about freedom and hope under our Constitution. Begins with a review of JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass. Articles investigate taxes and labor market freedom, health care, financial fraud, secrecy, torture, and citizens' right of revolution. Explores our obligation to replace illegitimate government, and how to advance revolutionary aims via secession and civil disobedience.
Steven Greffenius
I was born in Minneapolis in 1954; grew up in Valley City, North Dakota; graduated high school in Des Moines, class of 1972; graduated from Reed College in 1976 with a bachelor's in history; married Leslie Olin from Boston in 1979; served as gunnery and electronics material officer on the USS KIRK based in Yokosuka, Japan, until 1982; earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Iowa in 1987; and taught politics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China, and Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Currently I'm a technical editor at Conexant Systems in Waltham, Massachusetts. My wife and I have a son who lives in Washington DC, and a daughter in junior high school. We live in a great house in Westwood, Massachusetts, southwest of Boston.
Read more from Steven Greffenius
Soldier of Misfortune: George W. Bush's War in Iraq Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRevolution on the Ground Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Revolution in the Air
Related ebooks
The Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and Its Limits in Democratic Indonesia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLandscapes of Fear: Understanding Impunity in India Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPutin's Labor Dilemma: Russian Politics between Stability and Stagnation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsP. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAdventures in Human Space: Across Time and Beyond, Vol. 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNehru's India: A History in Seven Myths Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Soul Gene Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bad Angel Brothers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Johnny Spacehair and the Oil of Ages Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings7 best short stories by Ethel Watts Mumford Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of James M. Scott's Target Tokyo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Joshua Green's Devil’s Bargain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Return Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5First Contact Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwilight of the Titans: Great Power Decline and Retrenchment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSafe and Secure in Atropia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dreyfus Critique: Fundamentals and Applications Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSocialist Revolution Rising? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe new politics of Poland: A case of post-traumatic sovereignty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPower Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Movements in Times of Democratic Transition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStates, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLimits of the Numerical: The Abuses and Uses of Quantification Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Hannah Arendt's On Violence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeople Power: The History and Future of the Referendum in Australia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLord of Formosa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDemocracy’S Hypocrisies: Revelations of Society’S Incremental Erosions on Democracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Bertram Gross's Friendly Fascism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Political Ideologies For You
The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalism and Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The U.S. Constitution with The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kamphf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eighth Moon: A Memoir of Belonging and Rebellion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Project 2025: Exposing the Radical Agenda -The Hidden Dangers of Project 2025 for Everyday Americans Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twilight of the Shadow Government: How Transparency Will Kill the Deep State Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Anarchist Cookbook Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Communist Manifesto: Original Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Revolution in the Air
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Revolution in the Air - Steven Greffenius
Revolution in the Air
Steven Greffenius
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 by Steven Greffenius
All Rights Reserved
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Articles
John F. Kennedy and the Unspeakable
Lincoln’s Legacy and the Path Ahead
Revolution and the Second Amendment
If You Liked Medicare, Wait Till You See What’s Next!
So-Called Health Care Reform
The Massachusetts Plan
Labor Market Freedom and Job Growth
Morally Hazardous Banks
Leadership and Legitimacy
Cash for Clunkers: Another Genius Program
Garden Variety Totalitarianism
Who Is the Bad Partner?
Bring on the Rabble Rousers
Wikileaks and Government Secrecy
Torture Guidelines
Outside the Gates
Freedom in Danger
John F. Kennedy and the Unspeakable
tmp_5b7914cac188116e7dbb87bfe3aa0dad_vov_gf_html_m424b3d6d.jpgtmp_5b7914cac188116e7dbb87bfe3aa0dad_vov_gf_html_m646bfe3b.jpg
tmp_5b7914cac188116e7dbb87bfe3aa0dad_vov_gf_html_db9f2e6.jpgJohn F. Kennedy and James Douglass
I know there is a God – and I see a storm coming;
If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready.
- John F. Kennedy -
I lived in Nanjing, China when Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK, came out. We were cut off from a lot of news over in China. You felt like you were on the other side of the world because you were. So something had to make a big stir in the U. S. for us to know about it in Nanjing. The Los Angeles riots after police beat Rodney King and the first Persian Gulf war were two events that made a stir. Oliver Stone’s film did, too.
I didn’t see the film until much later, well after we returned to the United States. Before that I saw an interview where a journalist asked Stone whether he believed the story he told in JFK. He smiled slightly and said, I just make movies.
I thought it was a good answer. I didn’t feel so comfortable if, after nearly thirty years of controversy, the judgment of so many people would turn on the story presented in one film.
After we returned from China, I read Gerald Posner’s book, Case Closed. The controversy about Stone’s film must have raised my interest, as it was the first book about the assassination I’d read. Posner’s argument, that Lee Oswald acted alone and that a single bullet hit both President Kennedy and Governor Connally, seemed plausible. I hadn’t been inclined to question the Warren Report to begin with, so Posner’s account was convincing enough for me.
Now move forward ten years and more, to the Bush administration’s response to 9/11. The regular use of torture by the CIA and the military against our enemies appalled me. It completely changed my attitude toward my own government. Where before I would give my elected representatives the benefit of the doubt in every doubtful case, now I would never do so. I completely lost faith that the government would do the right thing as it carried out its responsibilities. The government’s behavior after 9/11 caused it to lose legitimacy.
Some would say, It’s about time you saw that.
Others would say, Governments have always done bad things. These acts weren’t out of the ordinary. You have to take the bad with the good.
A third bunch might comment simply, Open your eyes and try not to be so idealistic.
Open your eyes is right, but not in the way the last group intends. Remember Saul’s conversion, when the scales fell from his eyes after God struck him blind? He was a new person after that. What a conversion experience – Paul went out and converted the world after that.
Let me describe my conversion experience. Mine started in 2002, when we started down the path toward war with Iraq. I’ve already written a lot about that period in Ugly War. Anger preceded Bush’s reelection in 2004; discouragement followed it. By 2005, though, my emotion and vehemence had played out, so the horrific events in Baghdad and elsewhere during Bush’s second term didn’t affect me so much. As Bush’s popularity bottomed out and stayed low during 2005-2007, I thought, I was here a long time before everyone else.
Then in the summer of 2009 I read an article by Oliver Stone in praise of a new book by James Douglass. Douglass’s book is titled John F. Kennedy and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. I bought the book at Amazon, and as often happens at that site, picked up another book, too, called Brothers by David Talbot. I read Brothers first, and could see it was a first class piece of journalism. I said to people, if you’re interested in the Kennedys, you have to read this book - and I don’t recommend books that often. Then I started Douglass’s book.
As I read Talbot’s account, I found myself saying, We’ll never know if there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy’s assassination.
As I finish John F. Kennedy and the Unspeakable, I ask, How could anyone who considers the evidence think otherwise?
The main problem with