Book Review

Getting caught up, don’t think I’ve posted this excellent John Clark review that was in last week’s paper.

Jim Webb. “A Time to Fight. Reclaiming a Fair and Just America.” Broadway Books/Doubleday, New York, 2008. 

By John Clark

If you would like to understand the complex economic, political, and military cross currents of our Nation as the new millennium begins, this book is for you. The author examines our national dilemma, including economic troubles, widening gaps among classes of citizens, our confused foreign policy, and other aspects of national life. All this in concise prose in a comfortably paced book of a modest 255 pages.  

Jim Webb was already a familiar figure in the portals of power in Washington, D.C., before being elected in 2008 as the junior Senator from Virginia. He served as Asst. Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration. He was earlier a Marine Corps Platoon Commander in Vietnam. Afterwards he became an Emmy Award-winning journalist, author of nine books, and creator of the nationally popular feature film Rules of Engagement. 

Webb says that “…one of our greatest difficulties today is in bringing the problems that most threaten our future out into the open so that they can be honestly debated. Issues such as economic fairness, fundamental social justice, the long-term strategic direction of the country, and the hardening of American society along class lines rarely make it onto the Senate floor, much less into the arena of the national political debate.” 

We are reminded that the nation Ronald Reagan  described as a “shining city on a hill”, did not just happen. Nor was it created by a bunch of intellectuals. It was “built one brick at a time with human hands after a great deal of struggle” by farmers, laborers, and soldiers who believed in our system. The people at the pinnacle of power are reminded that without those who do the hard work for our Country, they couldn’t buy their food, dispose of their trash, or drive on a road without potholes. 

This thought leads the author to suggest that “It is not class warfare or

envy…” to point to the economic imbalances in our society between wage earners and corporate executives. And in fact “the poor have largely calcified into a seemingly permanent underclass, rife with crime” who depend on government aid. This was anticipated by Teddy Roosevelt in 1903 who advised that “We must act upon the motto of all for each and each for all…” and sees to it that each is given a square deal. 

John C. Clark is a member of the Ocean Shores Friends of the Library

The group’s Website: http://home.att.net/~osfol/index.htm