Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of "the Good War"

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: A must-read as the US begins yet another "good war" in Iraq.

Rating:
Summary: Good antidote to Spielberg's flagwaving exercise
Review: From its Hitler-satire book cover to the book jacket photos of Mr. Zezima in his bandana, the Gex-X nature of his book is evident. However, as to serving its stated purpose - an antidote to the flag-waving exercise of Saving Private Ryan - the books works admirably. As Howard Zinn and others have made clear, nearly all war movies are anti-war movies, but though Spielberg brought gore to the big screen as never before, it was ultimately a pro-war movie. Being an American Jew, we must consider Speilberg's bias. Historian David Wyman would not share Spielberg's enthusiasm for America's noble war.

Zezima's book is not a thorough historian's effort, but it does what virtually no American historian has developed the courage to do: challenge all the self-serving myths that Americans believe about World War II. On that score, Zezima is to be commended for standing up to the propaganda barrage, a situation that has become much worse during the post 9/11 era. As a single-volume work, it succeeds as no other book I have seen on the subject, and that includes the work of Fussell, Adams, Zinn and other professional iconoclasts.

Works such as Zezima's predictably earn one star reviews from people who rarely offer any substantive criticism, but write witty ad hominem attacks. The one-star reviews he has garnered say a lot more about the sorry state of the American political scene than they do about Zezima's book.

Rating:
Summary: A Damning Indictment of America's False Consciousness
Review: It is very unfortunate, but not a bit surprising that some people would rather ignore or forget about the gruesome deeds of some of America's most celebrated images. Do these people ever ask that we "get over it" or "forget about" Hitler and the holocaust? I think we all know what kind of people would say such things. However, when it comes to American's such as Henry Ford--who kept a framed photo of his hero, Hitler, in his office and funded a virulently anti-semetic newspaper which Hitler himself praised in the highest terms, or Charles Lindberg who eagerly gave profacist radio speeches throughout the 30's and Prescott Bush--father of Prez George Bush--who raised over $50 million for the Nazi war effort, we are supposed to ignore it and pretend that it didn't happen. Are we also supposed to pretend that over 100 million people didn't die during the Good War, while were at it let's just pretend that there was no war at all.

Fortunately, there are people like Michael Zezima and Howard Zinn who will not allow what has been called the "murdering of history" simply because it is inconsistent with great myth of America as the tireless defender of freedom and justice in the world. Obviously, contrary to what some would say, these facts have not been exposed enough, if so why are so many Americans in the dark about the true events of history? Books like this are not produced with the purpose of "trashing America", but in order to make America a better place. For as long as war criminals, traitors, and racists are immortalized as American heroes, the true facts of American history will need to be brought to the attention of the public, which is the valuable purpose that this book is intended to serve.

Finally, by exposing the inhumanity of war, this work represents a strong condemnation of military acts of agression and the logic of total war, which since WWII, has become an all too common tactic of modern war, resulting in the deaths of untold millions of innocent civilians. For as a Judge presiding over the Nurenberg trials so aptly observed it is not the act that determines what a war crime is, it is simply a matter of which side one happens to be on. The Losers are war criminals and the winners are heros. Until people begin to see beyond this kind of grossly simplistic opposition, writings such as these will continue to serve an essential purpose in the service of democracy, justice and freedom. Reading "Saving Private Power" will introduce you to the dark side of history that many would like to keep hidden and in the end you will never be able to see the World in the same way again.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Michael Z 's shattering of myths surrounding the Second World War in Saving Private Power is a fresh alternative to the 'feel good' interpretation of the war provided most recently by the likes of Spielberg, Brokaw and Ambrose. However, Mr. Z falls into the same trap as the capitalist/imperialist/racist opponents he rails against; Z himself has become a propaganda tool of his own communist ideology.

Saving Private Power reads less like a serious historical work and more like an official history of the USSR as published by Moscow in the 1980s or a Beijing sanctioned history of the Great Leap Forward. Z certainly does not fail to shed light on every documented or even suspected transgression committed by the US and its leaders and soldiers before, during and after the war, with bonus commentary on the horrible acts of the military-industrial complex committed in the 50 years since the war! While this myth shattering offers a new perspective, at times all this zeal leaves the reader feeling like this may be just the most recent installment of Pravda.

I don't have an issue with Z's main thesis - that WWII was not a "Good War" and that, in fact, the US committed many acts of barbarity, despite the nostalgic efforts of Hanks and Spielberg. Unfortunately, the style and tone of the book imply that all things American are wrong and that all this nation has done in its history has been self-serving and disasterous for the rest of the world. This simply is not true. Additionally, no context is provided on the alternative to our capitalist democracy, namely Communism (which for all purposes was just another form of fascism in its substance - Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Kim and the rest were never interested in true egalitarian principles) and its millions upon millions of victims across the globe. While Z may not be, I am glad the Reds were crushed here and elsewhere!

So Z, I like your point of view but lay off the whole ideological debate will you? It won't win you any converts to your cause.

Rating:
Summary: The first overdue indictment of the guilty since Nuremberg
Review: The author really hasn't exposed that much any well informed person wouldn't already know. This may, however, be the first time all of this "other" history of WWII has been put into a compehensive volume and made availabe in retail book stores coast to coast. It's long overdue. Like a lot of people, I thought the opening sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" was terrifying in the extreme, and one cannot help but feel a sense of awe and profound respect for aged veterans who experienced this. But was establishing concentration camps for Japanese-Americans in an already racially and economicaly segregated nation really the right thing to do? Having done it can we really claim the moral high-ground with any credibility when we combat Nazism? Is a nuclear weapon used against a largley CIVILIAN population (already conventionaly bombed around the clock) really an appropriate response to a nation that launched a preemptive strike against US MILITARY targets? Did our beloved FDR knowingly invite such a preemptive strike as a means of galvanizing an otherwise isolationist and economically crippled nation? Did US diplomacy really try to avert war with Imperial Japan? Did Americas barons of capitalism make faustian deals with the Nazis in order to please shareholders and line their own pockets in the process? Did a United States Army court authorize the firing squad execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovak for "cowardice"? Or what of the betrayal of thousands of Canadian troops sacrificed at Dieppe? Before this book one could only read such alternative view points in novels like "Slaughterhouse 5", "Catch 22", "A Midnight Clear" or non-fiction works like John Hersey's "Hiroshima". These books did not necessarily toe the line that "Saving Private Power" does but they were the first to enlighten me beyond the conventional, sterile, censored, patriotic histories of WWII. One could read Stephen Ambrose forever and come away feeling damn good to be American but where the hell is the challenge in that? The Author will undoubtedly be attacked for his blasphemy, and outrageously and irrationaly accused of excusing the likes of Aushwitz and Nanking, but it's crap and don't let those "keepers of the flame" control the debate. They have done it far too long. My only complaint is the author's obvious reverence for the Soviets. They made their own faustian bargains with Hitler and Stalin's Red Army as "liberators" is analageous to...say....the United States as an innocent victim of Japanese agression.

Rating:
Summary: Horrid, trite, hash
Review: This book is horrible. I knew I wouldn't like it right away when I saw the photo of the smugly grinning, tatted and pierced author and his girlfriend on the dust jacket. This is the Gen-X Dipstick version of WW2- oh gosh they killed people- oh gosh we were duplicitous- oh gosh I really think it was a bad thing- definitely not cool! There isn't even anything original or new - just some warmed over Howard Zinn with a pinch of Studs T. and an even more sanctimonious view of history than all those lefty Boomers had in the Sixties. Mickey you have absolutely no idea.