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Title: Out of Control : Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century by Zbigniew Brzezinski ISBN: 0-684-82636-4 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.75 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: On "Out of Control"
Comment: What will our world be like in the twenty-first century? What are the factors that will determine the shape of the global politics in the new century? Is global change evolving out of control? These and many other related issues are rigorously covered by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his masterpiece monograph "Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century" (1993). Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, clearly describes the purpose of the book in the introduction stating that it is "partially diagnosis, partially prognosis, and partially advocacy" (Brzezinski 1993, ix). The book is mainly focused on the historical consequences of the "grand failure of totalitarianism" in the twentieth century, and on the role of America in a new geopolitical order.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 the United States had to think about how it was going to adjust to a new world. Brzezinski was among the few scholars who initially addressed this multifaceted problem by drawing some perspectives on the future of world affaires. "Out of Control" is a superior example of such analysis. However, the book seeks to follow "the justification of America's preponderance" line and casts a light on world politics exclusively from the American perspective.
"The Politics of Organized Insanity" is the author's point of departure. This chapter discusses the failure of ideological utopianism during the twentieth century, and the overall price that mankind has had to pay for it. Here Brzezinski presents a very detailed record of all politically motivated deaths of the century. Comparing the twentieth century with other periods in human history the author concludes that the twentieth century became "mankind's most bloody and hateful century, a century of hallucinatory politics and of monstrous killings...never before did it [killing] consume so many lives..." (Brzezinski 1993, 4-5). The century of "megadeath", a century of politically motivated bloodshed, also featured by the political awakening and mass belief in ideological utopias - "metamyths". The author further discusses the reasons of the communist utopia's failure, and explains that the defeat of communism was only partially due to the victory of western democratic ideals. "Rather its defeat was largely derived from its own fundamental misconceptions" (Brzezinski 1993, 57). Then Brzezinski, the world's leading expert in communist affaires, gives a brilliant analysis of totalitarianism and, particularly, communism. Moreover, he warns that the collapse of the communist ideology can bring the prospects of democracy and the free market in the former Communist states into peril.
Totalitarianism (Communism and Nazism) collapsed as it was morally discredited. However, the Western democratic societies are also witnessing the degradation of values. Consumerism in the wealthy advanced countries poses no moral restraint on a human being who becomes guided by a sense of greed for material goods. Hence, ethical and moral standards have been replaced by individual instinctive desires. This social condition, introduced by the author and called "permissive cornucopia" as opposed to "coercive utopia" of totalitarian systems, emphasizes the erosion of moral and religious values in the West. The process of moral degradation and social hedonism are considered by the political scientist as threatening to the global stability because this could deepen North-South cleavage and strengthen the frustrations of the socially excluded and unemployed groups in the West itself. After the breakdown of communism, the world has entered the new phase - post-utopian phase. Justifying the cornucopian values Western civilization puts under threat self long-term viability and "capacity to provide a meaningful message to the politically awakened world in the post-utopian phase" (Brzezinski 1993, 66).
In "The Peerless Global Power" the author finally points to the central idea of the book: the United States is "the lonely superpower" which has no rivals even approaching its might in any dimensions of power. Nevertheless, the point is that "the value content of the American message to the world threaten to undermine America's special role as the global leader" (Brzezinski 1993, 87). What should be done to ensure America's historically unique and unprecedented position in world politics? The author gives a concise answer which is a warning at the same time: "Unless there is some deliberate effort to reestablish the centrality of some moral criteria for the exercise of self-control over gratification, the phase of American preponderance may not last long" (Brzezinski 1993, xiii). In other words, what is indispensable to America now in order to sustain its global leadership is a moral legitimacy.
"Faceless Rivals", another comprehensive chapter of the book, is devoted to the assessment of Europe and Japan as these two are quite often regarded as America's possible rivals or even successors to its dominant status. Despite the fact that both Europe and Japan have economic power matching America's, however, Brzezinski does not accept these two's ability to lead the world because "it is not clear that either one of them could soon translate economic into political-military power (Brzezinski 1993, 87). Still, according to the author, this does not consequently guarantee that world leadership will be automatically executed by the United States, rather this means, "the only alternative to American leadership is global anarchy" (Brzezinski 1993, 146). Thus, the political analyst justifies America's global predominance and the need of its prolongation. Without America there will be chaos - is rather simplistic logic construction. However, the author does not provide any solid evidence in support of his apocalyptic assumption.
"Out of Control" is an impressive effort to explain the state of modern world politics. However, as has been said, "Out of Control" is over-accentuated on the significance of America staying "on top of the world". Nevertheless, Bzezinski is beyond question a distinguished intellectual and academic. Undoubtedly his "Out of Control" is one of the best books on international relations ever written.
Rating: 4
Summary: Prescient and provocative: Dr. Z's AETIOLOGY OF HYSTERIA
Comment: "The danger is not that conservative policies will succeed....The danger is that when the inevitable failure of conservative governance occurs, an angry populace will conclude that mainstream conservatism as well as liberalism has been discredited--and that the extremists of the populist and fundamentalist right will be well placed to take advantage of popular alienation and wrath.... Make no mistake, the present Republican spree on behalf of the corporate elite will sooner or later provoke a backlash...
...Indeed, it seems increasingly likely that the now moribund mainstream conservative movement of 1955-1992 will be viewed by historians as nothing more than the icebreaker for a resurgent radical right. Historians of the next century may well record that the conservatism of [William F.]Buckley, Kristol and Podheretz was an ephemeral offshoot from the main line of descent on the American right, a line that leads from [the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist and radio priest of the 1930's] Father Coughlin through [1950's communist hunter] Joe McCarthy and [1960's racial segregationist] George Wallace to Pat Robertson and Patrick Buchanan. Though they claim to be students of the French and Russian revolutions, all too many of the thinkers and strategists of the conservative movement appear to have forgotten that those who begin revolutions are seldom the ones who finish them. Indeed, they are often among the first victims of the brutal forces they unleash upon the world."
Michael Lind
UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From the Introduction
Only one who has read the modern psychological work of Alice Miller can imagine how Freud's heart must have broke years after writing THE AETIOLOGY OF HYSTERIA in 1896. In this book, which Freudians still try to pretend he never wrote, he actually proved children are not sexually promiscuous by nature; they creatively express their suffering from forms of sexual abuse-usually experienced at the hands of adult guardians and parents-via cryptic fantasies. (He abandoned this work after extreme protest from pedophiliac colleagues in 1897 and invented the destructive Oedipal Conflict myth in its place; which has caused a century of psychological agony to millions of children and adults around the world.) Similarly, one can almost see "Zbig" crying the same kind of tears Freud must have cried after writing OUT OF CONTROL: the kind of tears cried when one realizes that, as with every Faustian contract, the devil is eventually coming to collect on the soul you sold him for power and success.
"Enlightenment," the Buddha said, "is progressive disillusionment." Ironically, the progressive disillusionment demanded by OUT OF CONTROL is a product of what it reveals in that context: Dr. Z's other books--and those who created public and foreign policy through them--are among the greatest contributors to the violent, materialistic and immoral side of our national character AND the virtually inevitable American Empire apocalypse he, with OUT OF CONTROL, so deftly details. The sacred iconoclasm of historian Gore Vidal, among others, gives us a new look at Truman, Stalin, World War II Japan, the Dulles Brothers and the Cold War in its entirety. Zbig, in his historically erudite but sadly cryptic way, acknowledges this with OUT OF CONTROL via acknowledging what it all has produced.
But never does Dr. Brzezinski tell us the complete truth, historically or personally. (For example, see Mossadeq Ahmed's THE WAR ON FREEDOM [where Brzezinski's THE GRAND CHESSBOARD is quoted voluminously] for his chronicling of both US involvement in the Islamic resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and what it has produced today. The CIA under Dr. Brzezinski during the Carter Administration, in order to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, helped create "The Base": a collection of CIA-trained Islamic militants known in Arabic as *Al Qaeda*. I'll let you guess who one of their Sau'di leaders was.) What, for example, can Dr. Z say to us regarding the discoveries of investigative journalist Gerard Colby, author of THY WILL BE DONE, THE CONQUEST OF THE AMAZON: NELSON ROCKEFELLER AND EVANGELISM IN THE AGE OF OIL:
"Nelson Rockefeller, who died in 1979, owned vast Latin American real estate and cattle ranching, mining, industrial and financial interests centered in Brazil... Rockefeller-a top Latin American adviser to presidents from FDR to Nixon, and Ford's vice-president-played a dominant role in shaping the U.S.'s interventionist policy in Latin America, according to this blistering expose based on 18 years of research...Colby...and his wife, Dennett, a freelance journalist, charge that Rockefeller, his banks and their allies, working with the CIA, bolstered repressive regimes in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay. Forcible dislocation of native peoples, hunger, disease, genocide and the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rain forest are the legacy of these policies, in the authors' analysis..."
Review from Publishers Weekly
"...the authors document the deaths or uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Amazonian and South and Central American tribal peoples. They describe an unlikely and sinister alliance among the Rockefeller family, America's largest missionary organization, and the American government-an alliance formed to benefit each of its members. The Rockefellers wanted oil and other natural resources; the Wycliffe Bible Translators wanted to spread the Word of God; and the American government wanted to fight communism. This is a disheartening, tragic story that needs to be told and will attract much attention."
Review from Booklist
Will "Zbig" fully admit and detail how recent history shows to what degree we in the democratic/"free market" West have become exactly what Marx and Engels said we were, before, during and after our fight to rid the world of the political philosophies created in their name? Or his role in it? This, not cheap sex, reality TV and the 60's, lay at the core of the American moral identity like a virus--as shown by real history; the history not found in our children's propagandistic textbooks.
OUT OF CONTROL could be evidence of what Zbig saw on his road to Damascus. The important question, however, is this: to whom does he and our current Administration really pray to now...and why?
An ironically important book.
Rating: 2
Summary: Zbig Ego
Comment: To understand this book, its contents, or its significance, one must first understand its author. This is not always important, but in this case, it is essential. Zbigniew Brezinski, or Zbig for short, is the former National Security Advisor for the U.S. government, a Council on Foreign Relations member and former co-director, the co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission, and probably the leading intellectual of the reigning political and economic power elite, to use a phrase coined by sociologist C. Wright Mills. In other words, he is the voice of the reigning powers, to a very large degree.
In that sense, his books are well worth reading - but not for the reason of wanting to take his advice, but for seeing what the power elite are up to. He stated his goals and values very clearly in an earlier book, Between Two Worlds: America's Role in the Technotronic Era, when he unequivocally stated that it would soon become possible to maintain continuous surveillance on virtually every person on the planet, and that this would support the overall goal of eliminating national sovereignties and democracies, under the leadership of an international elite-ruled global governance. He is, in short, a closet fascist. He wants, and advocates, an Orwellian society of technological surveillance under an elite-run global feudalism. I'm sure he would choose more pleasant euphemisms for global totalitarian dominance by a few wealthy bankers, financiers and intellectuals, but I will call it what it is: fascism. Read his books. But don't forget the infantile grandiosity, the supreme hubris, and the Orwellian dreams of technological global totalitarianism that is the motive behind them. His books and his own words will make that clear, if anyone is willing to wade through them.
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Title: The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski ISBN: 0465027261 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
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Title: The Geostrategic Triad : Living with China, Europe, and Russia by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, John J. Hamre ISBN: 089206384X Publisher: Center for Strategic and International Studies Pub. Date: 18 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author by Michael T. Klare ISBN: 0805055762 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 13 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership by Zbigniew Brzezinski ISBN: 0465008003 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Coming Anarchy : Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War by Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 037570759X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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