Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

glennds
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Re: Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

Post by glennds » Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:45 am

vnatale wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:15 am
glennds wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:25 am
dualstow wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 4:37 pm
The Lincoln book was all I saw on the Civil War, and I think that’s the one that glennds was asking about.
Vinny, I appreciate that you're an avid reader and that you share passages that were particularly thought provoking to you.
If you were to indicate the name/author of the book at the beginning or end of the quoted passage, it would help keep things straight, especially if multiple books are involved.

BTW, the one I was asking about turned out to be Sjursen's A True History of the United States. I haven't bought it yet or decided if the author's message may be a product of his own biases as Kbg suggests.
As far as his alleged biases go? He does have a PhD in history and the US Army did have him teaching the book's exact subject matter to cadets at West Point. He also, I believe, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd say that by an unbiased view that he'd be considered creditable.

You have a good suggestion but there are oftentimes not that many passages that are responded to. So I'd rather use the exception method wherein if someone like you wants to know where it comes from you ask and I will let you know. Otherwise it'd be a lot of extra work on my part with no benefit to anyone.
Thanks Vinny!
Regarding Sjursen's book, when there is a large sample base of Amazon reviews, I'm inclined to go with crowd wisdom and see where the majority of the reviews point. In this case they're very good, but the nature of the critical reviews show a pattern of complaint around the author's political biases i.e. attacking conservatism and defending far left ideologies.
This combined with a provocative click-baity title is where my reluctance comes from. If you've finished the book I'd be interested in your impression of the author's objectivity.

The subject matter is interesting to me, so long as I can access it in a manner as free as possible from political bias, look-back through woke eyes, or Zinn/Chomsky wannabeism.

Thanks DS for setting up the book recommendations section!
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vnatale
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Re: Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

Post by vnatale » Mon Sep 26, 2022 11:37 am

glennds wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:45 am

vnatale wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:15 am

glennds wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:25 am

dualstow wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 4:37 pm

The Lincoln book was all I saw on the Civil War, and I think that’s the one that glennds was asking about.


Vinny, I appreciate that you're an avid reader and that you share passages that were particularly thought provoking to you.
If you were to indicate the name/author of the book at the beginning or end of the quoted passage, it would help keep things straight, especially if multiple books are involved.

BTW, the one I was asking about turned out to be Sjursen's A True History of the United States. I haven't bought it yet or decided if the author's message may be a product of his own biases as Kbg suggests.


As far as his alleged biases go? He does have a PhD in history and the US Army did have him teaching the book's exact subject matter to cadets at West Point. He also, I believe, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd say that by an unbiased view that he'd be considered creditable.

You have a good suggestion but there are oftentimes not that many passages that are responded to. So I'd rather use the exception method wherein if someone like you wants to know where it comes from you ask and I will let you know. Otherwise it'd be a lot of extra work on my part with no benefit to anyone.


Thanks Vinny!
Regarding Sjursen's book, when there is a large sample base of Amazon reviews, I'm inclined to go with crowd wisdom and see where the majority of the reviews point. In this case they're very good, but the nature of the critical reviews show a pattern of complaint around the author's political biases i.e. attacking conservatism and defending far left ideologies.
This combined with a provocative click-baity title is where my reluctance comes from. If you've finished the book I'd be interested in your impression of the author's objectivity.

The subject matter is interesting to me, so long as I can access it in a manner as free as possible from political bias, look-back through woke eyes, or Zinn/Chomsky wannabeism.

Thanks DS for setting up the book recommendations section!


I finished the book. Raced through it since it was so good. It is a book that I hope to read more slowly in a studying fashion so that I can better retain much of what is in it.

The nature of the critical reviews is predictable. They are revealing their intense biases and how they will never accept anything that goes against those biases.

I try to avoid reading reviews until I finish a book so as to not bias me. After I read the book I did read the first three pages of reviews.

As far as the title goes? It got me to take it out of the library! Furthermore it well lives up to its title!

I sent many, many, many excerpts to a friend who after reading them decided to buy the book.

Another friend gave it a grade of A+. While I was still reading the book I asked him why he gave it such a low grade.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

Post by dualstow » Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:58 pm

glennds wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:45 am
Thanks DS for setting up the book recommendations section!

My pleasure. Of course they aren’t recommended by the forum as a whole, but at least we’ll have some idea what books are being talked about without slogging through posts and pages.
RIP Marcello Gandini
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vnatale
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Re: Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

Post by vnatale » Mon Sep 26, 2022 4:41 pm

dualstow wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:58 pm

glennds wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:45 am

Thanks DS for setting up the book recommendations section!

My pleasure. Of course they aren’t recommended by the forum as a whole, but at least we’ll have some idea what books are being talked about without slogging through posts and pages.


That reminds me to finally ask if anyone knows the whereabouts of Kriegsspiel?

I just checked. It does not say when he was last active but says he last wrote anything here in April.

One time he provided us with an extremely long list of books he had read. Of course I methodically went through that list and bought many of those books on his list.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

Post by Kbg » Mon Sep 26, 2022 6:00 pm

vnatale wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:15 am
As far as his alleged biases go? He does have a PhD in history and the US Army did have him teaching the book's exact subject matter to cadets at West Point. He also, I believe, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd say that by an unbiased view that he'd be considered creditable.
PhD candidate...but I stand partially corrected (or fully if he has it now).

I think he has some credibility...but generally someone who is pretty consistent with a particular take on things over a broad spectrum of related issues as a minimum is probably projecting a deep bias.

But that's ok, everyone has a take on things.
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Re: Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

Post by vnatale » Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:11 pm

Kbg wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 6:00 pm

vnatale wrote:
Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:15 am

As far as his alleged biases go? He does have a PhD in history and the US Army did have him teaching the book's exact subject matter to cadets at West Point. He also, I believe, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd say that by an unbiased view that he'd be considered creditable.


PhD candidate...but I stand partially corrected (or fully if he has it now).

I think he has some credibility...but generally someone who is pretty consistent with a particular take on things over a broad spectrum of related issues as a minimum is probably projecting a deep bias.

But that's ok, everyone has a take on things.


No, I am the one who stands corrected as it appears he is a PhD candidate and not a full-fledged PhD. However, from this -- "A retired U.S. Army officer and West Point graduate, he served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at the military academy." -- it seems that West Point's instructors do not all hold PhD's but that they allow those with only Masters degrees to teach their courses?

I highly recommend you go here and read his extensive "About Me" section:

https://skepticalvet.com/

I think you will have it highly amusing.

Here are some nuggets from it:

Daniel Albert (Danny) Sjursen is just another exasperating, insufferable, self-centered Leo with a minor Messiah complex, born on August 5, 1983.

He deployed from there to Baghdad, Iraq from October 2006 to December 31, 2007, and commanded his platoon there before taking the reigns as the Troop Executive Officer (XO).

Soon after redeployment, he was promoted to captain and moved back to Fort Knox, KY for advanced training.

There, he toiled hard for nearly two years as an operations officer under the tutelage of his phenomenal commander, mentor, and later friend, the now General Matt Vanwagenen.

After the departure of then Lieutenant Colonel “V,” Danny took command of B Troop and unhappily worked for a new sociopathic sort of commander. He took the troop to the Arghandab Valley in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan from February 2011 - January 2012. It was such a lovely locale that he seriously considered buying into a timeshare there, but thought better of it after realizing his sand-bagged palace was basically under a state of siege. In Afghanistan, he handed out (wasted) millions in taxpayer dollars to the oft-peculiar locals, unsuccessfully battled the neighborhood “Terry”-the-Taliban, and lied/obfuscated to his superiors so as to escape with as many of his boys’ lives and limbs intact as possible. At that he mostly failed. So it goes…

Upon return, he received the plum assignment to go back and teach (some would say indoctrinate) history to cadets at West Point. It was, all kidding aside, the job of his dreams and the joy of his professional life. Prior to joining the faculty, he earned a master’s degree at the University of Kansas,

Then, at West Point, Danny taught American and Civil Rights (naturally, given his complexion) History to freshmen (plebes). Oh, and the army even promoted him to major.

s for all the obligatory professional, resume stuff: he is a retired US Army officer, director of the new Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), senior fellow at the Center for International Policy (CIP), and contributing editor at Antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, NY Times, The Nation, HuffPost, The Hill, Salon, BuzzFeed News, Tom Dispatch and Truthdig.com, among other publications. He also does significant work, mainly policy and historical reports, for the Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF) think-tank. Danny was previously a distance fellow for the Defense Priorities think tank. He makes regular appearances on the Rick Sanchez show (RT), the Real News Network, Zero Hour with RJ Escow, and dozens of podcasts and nationwide radio stations. He is also the co-host of the Fortress on a Hill podcast.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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