Trying To Avoid Scaring Off Participants With Warranted Negativity Toward Our Focus Book

[solutions]

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---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Did You Fail To Send A Weekly Email Friday Evening
From: Solutions
Date: Sat September 6, 2025 1:23 pm PDT
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Attachment:
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Dear John,

This was the first time I can remember not receiving a weekly Reading Liberally e-mail from you every Friday evening.

I was worried something might have happened to you.

But then saw an hour ago that you had posted on our website the Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz.

I’m glad you’re OK, but did you fail to send a weekly e-mail or did mine get lost in cyber-space?

Your friend,

Solutions


---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Trying To Avoid Scaring Off Participants With Warranted Negativity Toward Our Focus Book
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sat September 6, 2025 5:47 pm MDT
To: Solutions
Attachment:
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Dear Solutions,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

Though “fail” is a rather harsh word for a friend to use.

Yes, I had just finished reading the first half of “Chokepoints” and posted on our website Thursday the Second Short Quiz (Intro + Chapters 1-35).

And realized that the Second Short Quiz together with the Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz (Questions Before Opening ‘Chokepoints’), exhibited extreme negativity toward the focus book and the knowledge of its author.

However warranted IMHO, the negativity contrasted sharply with the Amazon.com book description and the glowing Amazon.com book-review excerpts – please see the Original Proposal of “Chokepoints” at viewtopic.php?f=872&t=2699&sid=0ee69c30 ... 194d8eb000.

And with the four book reviews from the Wall Street Journal, London School of Economics, The (London) Guardian and Foreign Policy Magazine – all posted at viewforum.php?f=873&sid=0ee69c309352122 ... 194d8eb000.

Accordingly, it occurred that sending out the weekly e-mail which would have featured this negativity, would scare off participants with negativity toward our focus book however well warranted IMHO.

Because they would believe reading it a waste of time.

In the light of --

(A) All the glowing reviews from cognoscenti, and

(B) The alignment of the mainstream media in worshipping “economic sanctions” --

I hope everyone who is reading “Chokepoints” will have passed “the point of no return” in reading it by our next weekly e-mail next Friday -- and will participate in our Wed Oct 1 Zoom discussion --

and will be prepared to arbitrate whether I or “Chokepoints” is accurate.

Thank you again for your e-mail -- I hope you are reading “Chokepoints” and will participate Oct 1.

Your friend,

John K.

[solutions]

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---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Re Trying To Avoid Scaring Off Participants With Warranted Negativity Toward Our Focus Book
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed September 17, 2025 9:23 pm MDT
To: Solutions
Attachment:
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Dear Solutions,

Yes, in our 9/6/2025 exchange of e-mails you forced me to admit that no weekly e-mail had been sent the evening before for the first time that either of us could remember.

The reason was that I realized that the extreme negativity in the Second Short Quiz and the Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz (both of which would have been featured in the weekly e-mail) would scare off members from reading the book and participating in our Oct 1 Zoom meeting.

In other words, the purpose of the Short Quizzes is to generate enthusiasm and participation, and the IMHO-deserved negativity of the “Chokepoints” quizzes would have done the opposite.

*****
So once again, you are correct that the problem was solved for the 9/12/2025 e-mail whose first section would have featured the Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz by substituting an entirely-different first section calling attention to our 9/8/2025 letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, viz. --

“On 8/22/2025, each of you was invited to join our new Working Group on Anti-Semitism on College Campuses – please see our Email invitation at viewtopic.php?f=875&t=2710&sid=9ac0e461 ... ffe40f3743 which explained that Sec. 8 of www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org states, we form Working Groups ‘whenever a particular policy issue (1) may require immediate action on the spur of the moment (rendering addressing it at the next regular monthly meeting impractical), and/or (2) may require long-term attention.’

“Attached is the Anti-Semitism Working Group’s letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi entitled –

“Harvard vs. US Dept of Health & Human Services (US Dist Ct Mass - Case 1:25-cv-11048-ADB) -- Harvard Professors teaching/preaching THE BIG PALESTINIAN LIE

“The FedEx tracking numb/e is 884191870180.”

*****
The letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi is available for download at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2711&sid=a696fab4a ... 0dcb309e71

The 9/19/2025 weekly e-mail will similarly substitute a nearly-identical first section, but calling attention instead to our 9/9/2025 letter to President Trump on the subject of “The Ukrainian War -- Asking Saudi Arabia to end it the way Saudi Arabia ended the 2014-2015 Ukraine War” and available for download at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2714&sid=a696fab4a ... 0dcb309e71

That, of course, will take us to the final e-mail in this month’s cycle which will be sent 9/26/2025 and which features the Suggested Discussion Outline for the Oct 1 Zoom meeting.

Hopefully, by Sep 26 our regular participants will already have read Chokepoints and be prepared 5 days later to serve as a jury determining whether the negativity in the three Short Quizzes was warranted.


Your friend,

John K.


PS – Before you ask, I believe not scaring off participants is justified because “Chokepoints” is a worthwhile read.

Yes, it was written by a proponent of economic sanctions who IMHO highly exaggerates their importance and is often wrong vis-à-vis both his facts and his opinions.

But it is the only book on the subject that we have come across.

And its claims are a good starting point for further research. Indeed, while reading “Chokepoints” I spent considerably more time researching its claims than actually reading the book.

Bottom line???

Considerably reinforced was my impression that economic sanctions are proverbial “smoke screens” used by pols to pretend they are actually doing something.

An unintended thesis for “Chokepoints”???

Vis-à-vis Putin’s current War on Ukraine, now 3.5 years old, “Chokepoints” apparently without realizing the irony, reported (p. 337) that 3.5 years ago British Prime Minister Boris Johnson --

“spoke to executives from Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Lloyds of London, warning that the next round of sanctions would ‘really bite.’”

Some “bite”!!!