Trees for the Forrest

Yesterday was December 7th. As we remarked elsewhere, Japan fucked around. Japan found out. Has anyone, anywhere, anytime won a more complete and total victory than the United States over Japan? We defeated them, occupied them, and remade the nation in our image, we did. Thank you, General MacArthur. Flawed, but still one of the 50 greatest Americans never to be president.*

Stroock's Books reader(s) are probably aware of last week's Munk Debate between Matt Taibbi and Douglas Murray vs a pair of establishment media types whose names won't sully this blog. Click here for a review. Taibbi simply related facts. He is a man of the left but a proper journalist. You know, who, what, where, when, why. Taibbi's a man horrified and disgusted by what's happened to media. Murray was particularly and enjoyable savage. It moved, a little. 

We've been thinking about media bias for months now and we'd like to point out there's a difference between modern media bias and media bias in say, 2000. But we've never been able to put our finger on it. Last week the great Stephen L. Miller made a great point about late 20th century media bias. The media in 2000 was most certainly biased, but it didn't pretend events didn't happen (like Hunter's laptop) and pretend other events did happen (like Russian collusion). There's more. Much more, but that's a good place to start.

Off we go. After a few days, sales of The Aftermath of 1976 are right where we want them to be. We're on track for big things. To put it another way, so far, so good. Thanks to those of you who've purchased, by the way. Thank you, 'long term limey reader'. For those wondering, at one point KU vs buying a digital copy was a wash financially. Now we definitely make more if readers buy the digital copy. We take home seventy percent of that $4.99 you're plonking down. Or 3.99 for those of you using fiat money. We can't make the Pound sign. We can't. We won't. 

One of the issues in The New American Order's future history chapter is what to do with the devastated American cities. Rebuild or let them lay as is as monuments to destruction. We've wondered what would happen if authorities did nothing. There are real world examples, actually. In the 1950s the city, state and feds built a massive apartment complex in St. Louis. The dreaded Pruit-Igoe housing project. Everyone in America knows when someone says, 'the projects' they ain't talking about no place good. Eventually they demolished the place. Here's Pruit-Igoe site now, given over to nature. Wouldn't that happen to America's post nuclear cities if left alone? Ahhh, but the radiation, you say. Look around Chernobyl. Everything is fine. 

Story time with Will: A member of this blog's Confederate contingent suggests for Palmerston's War a short story with Nathan Bedford Forrest and some Brit officers. Not a bad idea, actually. Forest was a tactical genius, a man who understood the value of maneuver, surprise and shock. 'There can be no peace in Georgia while Forrest lives,' General Sherman said. An interesting man. Even a cursory read of Forrest's postwar life shows a complex man.  He was from the south's hereditary poor, but became a self-made businessman. There's the other thing or things Forrest did, about which we won't speak at this time, but would certainly handle in such a story.

We've had in our head, for a long time, a story idea about Pershing's Mexican expedition. This was predictable, given all the Pershing work we've done. This novel would include the Battle of Columbus, New Mexico (in which the US Army shot the shit out of Poncho Villa's men) followed by the pursuit into Mexico and several skirmishes with the Mexican army. This is a great idea, with lots of adventure, a real historical epic. Pershing would be a character as would...you know who. Problem: our other historical novels, A Line through the Desert, A March through Hell, didn't do so good.

*Our paternal grandmother never forgave the Japanese. Heck, a lot of our Chinese neighbors won't but Japanese cars. We own two Japanese cars right now. Before anyone gets on our case, that's after owning two Saturns and a Jeep. We loved that Jeep. We wouldn't buy a German car, but that's about as far as we're willing to go. Fritz Fischer walking the streets of Dortmund bears no responsibility or guilt. It's not like the Krauts killed Jesus or anything. Ha!