Brenton Nichol - Columbia, MO (170 books)

Brenton Nichol gave

to:

With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
by Glenn Greenwald

read in December, 2012

My rating:

Hopefully there aren't that many people out there who don't recognize that there is currently a lot, and I mean a LOT, of unrest and unhappiness in the general US population. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that unrest is misunderstood, misattr...moreHopefully there aren't that many people out there who don't recognize that there is currently a lot, and I mean a LOT, of unrest and unhappiness in the general US population. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that unrest is misunderstood, misattributed, misapplied, or even willfully mischaracterized. The Tea Party may have had some noble goals in the beginning, but those were quickly overshadowed by birthers, extreme libertarians, and loonies who couldn't spell anything on their picket signs correctly. Similarly, the Occupy movement has some very legitimate grievances, IF you can dig through the piles of BS that the mainstream media, the mega-rich, and our elected officials have said about OWS. And, to be fair, even a lot of people within Occupy don't seem to really understand why things are shitty, and who's really responsible. They just know that it hurts a lot when they try to sit down, and somebody out there is responsible.

I propose that anyone still wondering should read two books for starters: Griftopia by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and With Liberty and Justice for Some by Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald. These seem to me a solid baseline for understanding what all the public outrage is about.

There are two parts to the disease that afflicts us; the first part is the crimes committed by those in power, and the second part is the lack of justice meted out to those in power. Griftopia is the emotion-fueled rant that lays out all the conscienceless ways that the "One Percent" have taken advantage of us time and time again, while With Liberty and Justice For Some is the air-tight, theory-of-law-based clincher that details how those perpetrators never see justice for their crimes and what that means for us as a society.

IF we truly believe in Greenwald's opening chapter arguments about the rule of law, the necessity of law, and the necessity of law being universally distributed for it to mean anything at all, everything that follows in the book should make every US citizen sick to his or her stomach. Our country is not ours, our government is not ours, justice is not ours. Starting with Ford's pardon of Nixon for the Watergate scandal, Washington has developed a rich tradition of pardoning political officials for crimes they have committed, for covering up or ignoring those crimes, and, as of late, for extending this same indemnity to the country's business and financial elite.

This transcends partisan politics; indeed, it is why partisan politics will never do us much of any good, because both major parties are wholly compromised by disregard for the rule of law and a resultant "I'll rub your back, you rub mine" mindset that ensures neither party will ever seek to undo the damage of the other or hold anyone accountable for that damage, no matter how many times the two parties swap control of the White House.

If you read Griftopia, you'll be left wondering "why on earth doesn't anyone in power DO anything about this!?" When you then read With Liberty..., you'll understand exactly why nobody in power ever does anything. Real Estate magnate Leona Helmsley is infamous for stating that "only the little people pay taxes" after being accused of tax fraud. Since then, it is apparent that our entire political construct, and all of their friends in business and finance, have adopted the motto "only the little people pay for their crimes."(less)

Brenton Nichol liked Felix's review of Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3:

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3 by Mike Mignola

" All in all I found this collection highly enjoyable. Conqueror Worm held up to the high standard of quality of the previous Hellboy stories and contains everything one has come to expect from them: Nazi villains doing occult research in Gothic castle... "
Read more of this review »

Brenton Nichol is currently reading:

Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy
by Rudyard Kipling

My rating:

Brenton Nichol is currently reading:

Collected Ghost Stories
by M. R. James

My rating:

Brenton Nichol is currently reading:

Crooked Little Vein
by Warren Ellis (Goodreads Author)

My rating:

Brenton Nichol is currently reading:

Habibi
by Craig Thompson

My rating:

Brenton Nichol gave

to:

Habibi
by Naomi Shihab Nye

My rating:

Brenton Nichol gave

to:

Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales
by Ray Bradbury

read in December, 2007

My rating:

Bradbury is incredibly prolific and most of his short stories succeed in one of a variety of ways - transporting me, briefly, to another awe-inspiring world, showing me a normal part of life through a strange new facet of perception, tugging at my he...more

Brenton Nichol marked as to-read:

The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
by Brennan Manning

My rating:

Brenton Nichol gave

to:

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
by Matt Taibbi

read in December, 2011

My rating:

Hopefully there aren't that many people out there who don't recognize that there is currently a lot, and I mean a LOT, of unrest and unhappiness in the general US population. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that unrest is misunderstood, misattr...moreHopefully there aren't that many people out there who don't recognize that there is currently a lot, and I mean a LOT, of unrest and unhappiness in the general US population. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that unrest is misunderstood, misattributed, misapplied, or even willfully mischaracterized. The Tea Party may have had some noble goals in the beginning, but those were quickly overshadowed by birthers, extreme libertarians, and loonies who couldn't spell anything on their picket signs correctly. Similarly, the Occupy movement has some very legitimate grievances, IF you can dig through the piles of BS that the mainstream media, the mega-rich, and our elected officials have said about OWS. And, to be fair, even a lot of people with Occupy don't seem to really understand why things are shitty, and who's really responsible. They just know that it hurts a lot when they try to sit down, and somebody out there is responsible.

I propose that anyone still wondering should read two books for starters: Griftopia by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and With Liberty and Justice for Some by Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald. These seem to me a solid baseline for understanding what all the public outrage is about.

There are two parts to the disease that afflicts us; the first part is the crimes committed by those in power, and the second part is the lack of justice meted out to those in power. Griftopia is the emotion-fueled rant leveled at the perpetrators, the "One Percent" who rake us over the financial coals with wild abandon, while With Liberty... is the air-tight, theory-of-law-based clincher that details how those perpetrators never see justice for their crimes and what that means for us as a society.

Taibbi, writing for Rolling Stone, is decidedly less delicate with his words than Greenwald, who formerly was a constitutional law and civil rights attorney. Taibbi, of course, found notoriety with his original 2009 article on Goldman Sachs that was later expanded in Griftopia; specifically with the now-infamous opening that characterized Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Colorful? Yes. Deserved? Well, read the book and figure that out for yourself.

Taibbi's language makes for an invigorating read, but it also, I fear, makes it easy for those who don't already identify closely with his political persuasion to dismiss the book as a libelous, or at least exaggerated, screed. To do so, however, would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to cheat yourself out of vital information. Griftopia will come across, a lot of times, as a snarling dump on Republicans, but then again, as the party that's generally all about de-regulating everything (except gay marriage), which in turn paved the way for the horrific financial destruction waged by Wall Street, they don't really have a valid complaint when Taibbi levels both barrels at them. Further reading, however, reveals that Taibbi will give credit where it is due regardless of political party, and we learn that Clinton's administration can easily take plenty of blame, too. And if, for some reason, you like Alan Greenspan, well...put on a face visor. It gets messy.

One by one, Taibbi lays out the conscienceless cons pulled on the American people by way of financial deregulation, mortgage scams, commodities trading, the health insurance agency, and more. I'm sure there are a variety of books out there that take one or two of these topics and expound on them in much greater detail, but Griftopia is a good first step into understanding that the financial and political elite in this country have been pulling a lot of crap on us in the past couple decades, and that they won't stop until we make them stop.(less)

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Brenton Nichol gave to: With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful by Glenn Greenwald read in December, 2012	My rating:
Hopefully there aren't that many people out there who don't recognize that there is currently a lot, and I mean a LOT, of unrest and unhappiness in the general US population. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that unrest is misunderstood, misattr...more
Jan 08, 2012 10:38pm · see review
Brenton Nichol liked Felix's review of Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3: " All in all I found this collection highly enjoyable. Conqueror Worm held up to the high standard of quality of the previous Hellboy stories and contains everything one has come to expect from them: Nazi villains doing occult research in Gothic castle... " Read more of this review »
Jan 08, 2012 08:20pm · see review
Brenton Nichol is currently reading: Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy by Rudyard Kipling	My rating:
Jan 08, 2012 08:04pm
Brenton Nichol is currently reading: Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James	My rating:
Jan 08, 2012 08:02pm
Brenton Nichol is currently reading: Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis (Goodreads Author)	My rating:
Jan 08, 2012 08:01pm
Brenton Nichol is currently reading: Habibi by Craig Thompson	My rating:
Jan 08, 2012 08:00pm
Brenton Nichol gave to: Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye	My rating:
Jan 08, 2012 07:59pm
Brenton Nichol gave to: Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales by Ray Bradbury read in December, 2007	My rating:
Bradbury is incredibly prolific and most of his short stories succeed in one of a variety of ways - transporting me, briefly, to another awe-inspiring world, showing me a normal part of life through a strange new facet of perception, tugging at my he...more
Jan 08, 2012 07:59pm · see review
Brenton Nichol marked as to-read: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out by Brennan Manning	My rating:
Jan 08, 2012 07:59pm
Brenton Nichol gave to: Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America by Matt Taibbi read in December, 2011	My rating:
Hopefully there aren't that many people out there who don't recognize that there is currently a lot, and I mean a LOT, of unrest and unhappiness in the general US population. Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of that unrest is misunderstood, misattr...more
Jan 08, 2012 07:38pm · see review

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