First of two books I have on that time China lost its fucking mind and Mao was totally cool with it because he found it amusing. Before Xi's recent crack down China had opened up more of its archives regarding the period and so lots of new accounts were available to researchers, especially outsiders. (Xi does not yet seem to be interested in stopping criticism of the period, which he personally suffered during, so this may continue. [original research?]) Both this book and the later one focused on getting access to more personal records like diaries and so on and wanted to try to describe what happened outside of simply intrigue and events in Beijing and the inner circle of The Party. Book is a good example of Stalin's maxim that "one death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic" as just saying that 1/8th or more of the population was directly oppressed during this period really downplays the abject insanity and outright cruelty done in the name of stamping out capitalist roaders inside The Party itself. Also, although the author doesn't say it because you can never say it in academia, the book outlines how the savior to the madness was (surprise) capitalism filling the gaps. Turns out that ignoring the state and trying to make sure everybody has enough to eat sometimes actually convinces the state to leave you alone even in a totalitarian regime hellbent on deliberately being insane. (The other book, which I am on now, specifically suggests a different thesis from this one (at least according to the translators) but I'm not sure it will actually disagree and is instead splitting hairs about the "winner" of events. This one pretty clearly says Deng basically won in the end, it's saying it's not necessarily because of anything he did deliberately.) Of the two books, this is definitely the shorter one and probably more friendly language one (it's not translated from Chinese after all), the guy is sometimes sarcastic and facetious about the accusations leveled during the period that lifelong party members who had been on the Long March were secretly capitalists the entire time. One criticism? He uses British slang like "punters" which I manage to understand because I read Edge back in the day but I still hate that word and refuse on principle to find out how it came to mean shoppers. On a more personal level, while we can never truly know how we'll act in the moment until the moment I'm going to warn you all that when the Next Cultural Revolution comes to The Bire I'm going to be really fucking annoying about it rather than comply to show my loyalty to The Party like the first teachers did in China. Very much do not plan on beating the dead bodies of my colleagues you just tortured to death or whatever to show you I'm not a counter-revolutionary too.
That time a member of the media helped deceive America into a military conflict. (What's that? More than once? Are you sure?) A compulsive liar and con man essentially works his way into the media as the result of schemes to cover up his past. Rather than simply stop lying he decides that since it's worked so well so far to keep lying and things escalate. At some point a bunch of powerful people decide that "hey, this guy really knows what he's talking about" and one thing leads to another leads to millions of Americans are enslaved, imprisoned or dead. Obviously we shouldn't let people like Woodrow Wilson off the hook, he wasn't deceived really, he was being told what he wanted to hear. I know I'm being harsh but personally I think the President should make decisions about war based on a bit more than some random dude whose past nobody can find out (because he's a fictious person) in Rhode Island telling him he agrees it's a good idea and that he has supporting evidence in a bunch of events that nobody else can confirm even happened. Worst part is the author keeps referring to the 2016 election and Russia, even opening the book with how 2016 wasn't the "first time a foreign country tried to influence Americans." Which, no fucking shit, dummy. The Monroe Doctrine wasn't a literal wall built in the sea. Also, the irony of the whole book is that there's a much more obvious parallel sitting right there that should seem totally inescapable, especially for someone who is himself a journalist. A fraudster with no worthwhile credentials and no shame about lying for personal gain including trying to conceal his past completely? A reporter who "reports" with zero care for accuracy only whether or not the sensation can bring him personal acclaim? A public devotion to a phony "cause" in which he humbly (through sheer
good standard journalism) fights, nearly alone, against a powerful international conspiracy to undermine democracy with disinformation? A willingness to work with other fraudsters, discredited officials and outright no goods who will use any means necessary in the name of this cause? John R. Rathom was a Blue Check.
Disclaimer: I have worked with and otherwise support the Innocence Project, I thought the guys name was familiar when I picked this up but it wasn't until I actually went to read it that I discovered he's some hot shot big wig lawyer guy at it, so disclaimer. Basically is what it says on the tin, it's about bad science in convicting people especially innocent people of crimes in the United States. All of which is admissible in court for the reason that it was admissible previously no matter how awful it is. I'll stress, especially after I peeked at the negative reviews, that this is not 10 Junk Science Things That Totally Suck as the guy is a lawyer not a scientist of any kind and it focuses primarily on bite marks. The framing is three specific cases (with mentions of a few others) that the Innocence Project successfully managed to free innocent people on with only minor contention by the state compared to normal. If you're not aware, the United States justice system operates on the principle of "finality" and that once a verdict is issued you are not to reopen it and the state should fight with every means to ever free anyone convicted of anything. Surprisingly, Texas is actually one of the better states about this as you can not only challenge the science that convicted you under habeas corpus (no guarantee of success of course, it's the state after all) it's also one of the few states that actually awards compensation to innocent people convicted of crimes who serve time in prison (again no guarantees but other states won't give you shit) and some of these awards can actually be quite large. That said, the book does document former Governor Rick Perry bragging about killing an innocent man because he was a "monster" despite not actually killing his children and then shutting down a state investigatory commission (that has since been revived and doing good work) so it wouldn't harm his Presidential bid in 2012. Also, from experience I think the book (which admittingly is not in its purview of "junk science" although I'd argue...) somewhat downplays some of the absolute complete shit prosecutors do to mislead juries. But again, it does mention the
unindicted co-ejaculator theory so that's always fun and I can't complain really.
Lastly, because Goodreads had a thing (it's where I steal these covers from) I have read 45 books for the year not counting comics (I only log the actual physical TPBs I've read) and will get to at least 46 maybe 47. No idea if this is normal or not, one of my friends did their pledge thing and wanted to read 12 books for the year, they logged... 2. (I think they just forgot to keep going on Goodreads, 12 seems reasonable based on their past years. Still a win in a contest I didn't enter by the two sweetest words in the English language:
DEE FAULT!)
