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Reviewed by Joanne Eddington
Do you believe America is "a gut-shot hyena devouring its own entrails"? If so, this is the book for you. In it you'll meet a determined band of anarchists and socialists intent on overthrowing our government and economic system, all under the banner of peace.
They blame American foreign policy for terrorism, capitalism for war, and patriarchy for just about everything. And they don't stop at mere blaming. These hardcore militants are dedicated to what they call direct action: helping soldiers to desert, destroying computer systems, trashing recruiting offices, burning military vehicles, and sabotaging defense contractors.
This is peace?
The author started out as a newspaper reporter in San Francisco, and his roots in that city might explain something about his gender-based assault on our social norms. He joined the Green Berets during the Vietnam War not out of patriotism but to expose them in a book, A WORLD OF HURT. A liberal foundation awarded it a prize for its portrayal of "the blocked sexuality and need for patriarchal approval that propel men into the military."
His new book slanders the soldiers in this current war. The real heroes, Hathaway claims, are the deserters. The rest he depicts as rapists and murderers. As the wife of an American serviceman abroad, I found this particularly offensive.
Fathers are responsible for war because they are the "spear carriers of patriarchy." The book vividly portrays a love affair between a traumatized soldier and his mother, as a way of subverting patriarchal power.
RADICAL PEACE, larded with ghoulish collages that look like they were made by someone on an LSD trip, has a moldering 1960s flavor. One aging hippie, now a Granny for Peace, admits, "Destruction was my generation's greatest talent, and we were surrounded by a society that needed destroying."
All this could be dismissed as deranged drivel if it wasn't so dangerous, so undermining of the fundaments of our civilization.
Hathaway has been amply rewarded by the society he's trying to destroy. He's a college professor of American studies, teaching young people about our country.
Loathsome as the book is, I recommend it -- as a way of knowing your enemy. I'd go so far as to say it's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what the radical left is up to these days. It takes us into the lives of these domestic insurgents, following them on their missions as they snatch a soldier from military detention and send him as a deserter to Sweden, slash the car tires of recruiters and hurl rocks through their windows, burn out computers with power surges, set fire to Army trucks. We get insight into their twisted thinking and subversive tactics so that we may better defend ourselves against them. RADICAL PEACE is important for understanding the current state of our country.
This book is further evidence that the hatred of America is reaching hysterical dimensions. Even Obama's liberalism isn't enough to satisfy these malcontents who are devoted to tearing down our nation and remaking it to suit their own radical ideology.
The question for all the rest of us is, Will we allow them to do it?