The Bridge by David Remnick

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In 2004, nobody outside Chicago had heard about the subject of the book The Bridge by David Remnick, Barack Hussein Obama, who was only a state legislator then and author of a memoir titled Dreams from My Father. Next he went on to win the Democratic primary for Illinois, a safe seat for the Democrats. It was about four months later when he delivered the famous keynote address to Democratic National Convention ("there is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there is a United States of America"). He announced his candidacy for presidency in January 2007, and came back to the Democratic convention as the nominee. In January 2009, he became the 44th president of United States of America, and it took him only 58 months to become the President.

Uneasy Childhood

The rise of Barack Obama, as chronicled by The Bridge by David Remnick, was not normal electoral politics, in which one waited normally for his or her turn in the sun. He erupted on the international scene like a revolutionary figure, in the league of Trotsky, Lenin and Hitler. Obama had an uneasy childhood due to absent father, and eyewitnesses describe the childhood as normal and different at the same time. It simply means as a child Obama realized he was meant for something important, and that he was part of something bigger.

Artistic Longings

The book The Bridge by David Remnick also notices that Obama used to write short stories earlier and he had dreams of becoming a novelist, just like other revolutionaries. He felt rootless in the world where he was and felt he did not belong. Although he was a sensitive and clever young man, he was still living on the fringes of a strong country. He then moved to a great cosmopolitan city Chicago in 1980s and plunged himself into the obscure surroundings where he began to discover himself and pursue a single minded ambition.

More Partisan than Those Born To It

The time when Barack Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago closely follows the lives of other revolutionaries. He lived alone in a small apartment, and used to work very long hours. He barely socialized with other people in his vicinity, and he came across as a person who was determined to become a part of that culture, and was going to champion its cause with more fervor than those who were born to that very culture. A fellow social worker was surprised to see how quickly Obama became a Chicago partisan, though it was clear Obama was determined merge himself into the place so that he could call it home.

The Power of Oratory

The book The Bridge by David Remnick mentions the power of oratory that Obama discovered within himself attracted the people around him. The book written by Obama about his growing racial awareness served as campaign manifesto and autobiography at the same time. It was common to see someone writing his memoirs after their tenure was over, but here was a man who wrote a book when he was just 30 and had not even stood in an election. His book and fame benefitted from each other and he never had to worry about money again.

The author Prasoon Kumar works for http://www.uread.com/ which is the leading online bookstore that offers all the current and all time great titles at never before prices. The biracial background of Barack Obama helps him serve as the interpreter between two worlds. He understands the African American world and white world at the same time. Know more about him through the book The Bridge by David Remnick, available at huge discounts only at http://www.uread.com/book/bridge-david-remnick/9780330519984.

Torture Team: How the United States, Under Bush, Came to Abrogate the Geneva Conventions

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Torture Team by Philippe Sands 598 words
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, hardcover, 254 pp, $26.95

If there were a literary casting agency and it was assigned the task of finding a writer to investigate and craft a book on just how the United States came to abrogate the Geneva Conventions and inaugurate torture at its prisons, it could not find a more qualified prospect than Philippe Sands. Sands is an attorney, a British barrister who has taught law in the United States, and an author in his own right. Moreover, he has been personally involved in high-profile international torture cases, those of Chile's General Pinochet, Liberia's Charles Taylor and the British detainees at Guantanamo. Plus, he is witty and very good with his pen.

As one would expect, Sands is a stickler for facts and exact definitions; Torture Team is researched and laid out as meticulously as evidence in a court case. And it may well be exactly that as Sands has kindly provided a copy to Judge Baltasar Garzon of Spain, the same judge who had General Pinochet arrested and extradited from England for crimes against humanity.

As signatory to the international Convention Against Torture, since 1988 under Reagan, the U.S. is obliged to prosecute torturers found in its own territory or extradite them to other countries for prosecution. In early 2010, after a ten-month inquiry into the facts, Judge Garzon determined that a full criminal investigation is warranted. Barrister Sands' helpfulness could bear fruit.

Because his interest is the law, Sands interviewed key legal players in the Bush administration and the U.S. military, something an American journalist could not have done between 2001 and 2008. "I've got a particular bugbear about lawyers," he told the New Yorker. "If not for lawyers, none of these abuses would have occurred."

Torture Team was published in 2008, prior to the horrific reports released in April 2009 on the repeated waterboarding and other tortures of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and Abu Zubaydah. So Sands could not address them or the revelation that their relentless, cruel interrogation was allegedly directed by the White House to coerce "proof" of a connection between Saddam Hussein and the terror attacks of 9/11 -- to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Sands' focus is on Detainee 063, Mohammed al-Qahtani, whose 53-day interrogation log was published by TIME Magazine March 3, 2006. In retrospect, he got off relatively easy compared to the agonies of KSM and Zubaydah. In any event, according to Sands, the six U.S. attorneys comprising the torture team, Bybee, Yoo, Haynes, et al, could well face prison time for their role in counseling the Pentagon and the White House to dismiss long-established international law.

During his two years of interviews, Sands asks whether the torture actually elicited any militarily useful information. His analysis of the answers he received: no. Sadly, because of the U.S. use of torture, anti-American fanatics now have a perfect terrorist recruiting tool. Does the fact that the U.S. no longer tortures captured detainees eliminate that tool? No. We did it and the all-too-graphic photos have been seared permanently into the brains of three generations of the Islamic population. The blowback from this dark era will endure for decades.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, recommends this book: "... read it to learn how, under George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, America abandoned its strongest pillar of power - its own integrity."

Reviewed by John Stickler. What was it like in the years after Hiroshima, for a student in the United States growing up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud? One young man, who graduated from high school in 1955, captured those youthful fears eloquently in a series of poems collected now in a 50-page volume. Growing Up Afraid: Poems of the Atomic Age 1953-1963 by John C. Stickler is available here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=John+Stickler&x=21&y=26

The Ruling Class - How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It

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Book Review - The Ruling Class, how they corrupted America and what we can do about it by Angelo M. Codevilla

For decades experts have been discussing and debating about how important or vital it is to understand "power elite analysis" in order to fully comprehend the working of the American society. The events that make up the parts of history are not random or unconnected but have a political and economic aspect to them which can be sought out using one's intellect.

The American founding fathers realized this and they knew it well enough to see that it was the truth.

From all the books I have consulted that deals with this issue, I have not come across any other work that states this with more clarity and eloquence than this new book. It is vital that all who feel the need to join hands in the making of America's future should read it and share it with family, friends and acquaintances.

The grounds on which this book is based upon is the original article that was written in the American Spectator. This is one of the most concrete and vital essays written on the subject, which he then later expanded upon in this book.

After reading the book, I began to finally grasp the significance of the communist manifesto to inspire like minded individuals.

This great work of Codevilla has to be one of the books of our time. It is a brilliant piece of academic work which will be inspiring and a motivating factor for generations of Americans to come and draw their attention to the society in which they live and the country they need to make proud. This book is not only for Americans but also for the us who need to go back into their past and strive to better the future of our respective nations.

Angelo's book, The ruling class is a very fluent, intellectual and refreshing analysis of America. This eye opening book truly epitomizes the phrase "Its not what you know, but who you know".

If you would like to read a chapter of this revolutionary book click here

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