I haven’t seen any news on the Gunnm movie in a very long time. James Cameron’s Avatar was released on schedule and became a monumental success so I guess nothing should be standing in the way of Gunnm now. Since Avatar (which I admittedly haven’t seen yet) I’m a lot less sceptical about leading CGI characters, which of course would also be the basic premise for a Gunnm adaptation. I say go for it. Not that I ever see how you could make a coherent movie script that had any mass appeal, or followed any familiar and popular cultural clichés like Avatar. For better or worse, much of the appeal of Gunnm is its metaphysical "drivel" and a story about as focused as a hall of mirrors.

Also on back-order: Nato’s Secret Armies

I can’t say that I am entirely thrilled about the Last Order series on the whole. Less is more as the saying goes, and I would have preferred to see the mystery of the original series remain. Also, vampires … WTF?

In other Gunnm news there is no Gunnm news. I’ve heard nothing at all about the supposed movie in ages. Avatar is being released December 2009 so probably no sooner than 2011.

Previously: The Last Order (Gunnm) 4 and 5

Zed Books – “Rogue State” and its author came to sudden international attention when Osama Bin Laden quoted the book publicly in January 2006, propelling the book to the top of the bestseller charts in a matter of hours. This book is a revised and updated version of the edition, Bin Laden referred to in his address.

Contents:

1. Why do terrorists keep picking on the United States?
2. America’s gift to the world – the Afghan terrorist alumni
3. Assassinations
4. Excerpts from US Army and CIA Training Manuals
5. Torture
6. The unsavories
7. Training new unsavories
8. War criminals: theirs and ours
9. Haven for terrorists
10. Supporting Pol Pot
11. Bombings
12. Depleted uranium
13. Cluster bombs
14. Chemical and biological weapons abroad
15. Chemical and biological weapons at home
16. Encouraging the use of CBW by other nations
17. A concise history of US global interventions
18. Perverting elections
19. Trojan horse: the national endowment for democracy
20. The US versus the world at the United Nations
21. Eavesdropping on the planet
22. Kidnapping and looting
23. How the CIA sent Nelson Mandela to prison for 28 years
24. The CIA and drugs: just say ‘Why not?’
25. Being the world’s only superpower means never having to say you’re sorry
26. The US invades, bombs and kills for it…but do Americans really believe in free enterprise?
27. A day in the life of a free country…or…how do the United States get away with it?

Perhaps the quintessential field guide book to United States actions since 1945. It’s the sort of book one should either know by heart or carry at all times.
The only drawback being the fury it will invariably produce, even for a seasoned critic of all things American, when all this, at times almost raw data, is being hurled remorselessly at the reader. It’s a bit much to take in all at once, even if you are in fact already intimately familiar with say three quarters of the events covered by this book.

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine. (William Blum, Rogue State)

Though I should really commend Amazon UK for their speedy handling of my order. Placed on a saturday. Shipped out on a sunday. Arrived on Wednesday. I wouldn’t expect that even from a domestic bookstore. Especially given the selection of books.

Also kudos to Amazon for making an Endload Box packaging solution that fit the mailbox damn near perfectly. I don’t see how that could have been a coincidence. Sure beats having to collect your package at the nearest postal service terminal. So this what I will occupy myself with for the remainder of the summer:

Michel Chossudovsky – America’s “War on Terrorism”
William Blum – Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
Noam Chomsky – Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

Modern classics in the field indeed and books that I should have picked up sooner. On a side note, I find it amusing that the reprint of Blum’s Rogue State now mentions the Bin Laden plug on the cover. At least Blum is laughing it off in the midst of soaring sales (and an utter lack of speaking engagements as I understand it, which I suppose is mission accomplished for the handlers of the Bin Laden charade).

Written with the firm belief that ideology is the driving force of nation-states, history, and politics, this innovative text covers the range of contemporary political ideologies, from the standard categories of liberalism, conservatism, and socialism to newly emerging ideological alternatives.

The authors (both of Arizona State U.) present a new edition of their introduction to the modern world’s political ideologies. Revising in response to the September 11th attacks, they have included more material on radical Islamism than in previous editions. The arguments of the various political ideologies, including liberalism, conservatism, socialism (including Marxist, American, and anarchist varieties), fascism,liberation ideologies, and “Green” politics, are generally presented in the form proponents would argue and some care is made to distinguish between different views within an ideological grouping. [source]

Nicely done and framed, but it is quite obvious you’re dealing with an American text book here. The introduction to the 5th ed. is just littered with 9/11 references and one must consider that they are doing of sorts what they (rightly) lambast Fukuyama (“The End of History”) for doing. I.e. placing too much emphasis on current events and being the futurist. Looking at the cover of the 5th edition, one can wonder what the World Trade Center (with the flag flying) really has to do with Black Liberation or Tocqueville? Wouldn’t even the most pro-American zealot see how this equates haphazard and poorly understood terrorism with some of the greatest thinkers in history? And even that is granted we accept the official 9/11 whitewash. But I’m sure it sells more books. The 6th edition is even worse, with Osama Bin Laden up there with Karl Marx. So much for putting things in perspective and the rear view mirror of history.

A defining force in world history, nationalism remains an inescapable feature of a modern condition. It has underpinned the emergence of many states, and the conflict it has often generated has caused enormous suffering, both directly and indirectly. Nationalism remains a powerful influence today; in the former Yugoslavia and the successor states of the Soviet Union it has instigated great violence and attrocity.

In this incisive and provocative book, completed just before his death, Ernest Gellner – described as “one of the last of the great central European polymath intellectuals” by the Financial Times – explores the phenomenon of nationalism, tracing its emergence and roots in the modern industrialized nation state, its links with romanticism and its creation of national myhs. He investigates its various manifestations and reveals how in long established states such as France, it has been relatively benign, while in Eastern Europe in particular – where nationalist feeling preceded the emergence of modern states – its influence has been far more problematic, and at times disastrous. Finally, the book explores the prospects of minimizing the influence of nationalist feeling and cautiously anticipates the possibility of its decline in this decade of continuing atrocities and “ethnic cleansing.”

Lucid and direct, Gellner’s work combines politics, history, philosophy, and anthropolgy with the multidisciplinary flair for which he was renowned. As nationalism continues to inform contemporary politics, often with vicious and tragic results, Gellner’s last words on the subject are essential reading.

What makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? While many studies have been written on nationalist political movements, the sense of nationality – the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to a nation – has not received proportionate attention. In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the ‘imagined communities’ of nationality.

Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa.

This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state’s mindset in the develpment of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which, all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old.

UC Press – In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein’s answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted.

Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters’ book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz’s bestseller, The Case for Israel.

The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz’s assertions on Israel’s human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts.

Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

While I usually don’t comment on books directly, only through later pennings, this work is in a league of its own and deserves some sort of acknowledgement. From the hype it promises to be just a refutation of Dershowitz’s poor academic standards. And at least one reviewer thought it was difficult to read, in essence filled with facts piled upon facts, which despite its clear scholarly merits, doesn’t make for good mainstream reading material. Again unlike the rather fluid science fiction put forward by Dershowitz. Then again I don’t see Beyond Chutzpah being leisure reading. Also, because many of the arguments that Dershowitz is peddling (and plagiarizing, even though the plagiarizing itself is a breeze compared to the fact that the plagiarized parts are in effect fraudulent) have been echoed by Israel’s apologists for decades, debunking Dershowitz also debunks the Israel lobby as a whole. This is important since, as Finkelstein himself notes, Dershowitz’s book was quickly extolled and made the centerpiece of the “Church of Israel” and its ideological acolytes. As such, Finkelstein’s services are invaluable.

In fact, Beyond Chutzpah is the essential work on the topic. The facts of the Israel – Palestine conflict could surely be found elsewhere, and less abridged too. But what you also get is an extremely well researched and documented up-to-date primer on the conflict. One that connects the dots in an adept way to Finkelstein’s Holocaust Industry, in effect fatuous Zionism, and the rudimentary problems that Israel faces if it ever wants to leave the nation state doghouse where it is currently at. Not to mention the US connection of course and the joint assault on international law and humanitarian organizations. One that frankly threatens us all, regardless of how well versed one is in, or concerned with, the matters of Palestine, past or present.