• Home
  • Articles
    • Books
    • Business News
    • Community
    • Economics
    • Environment
    • Food
    • Human Rights
    • Observations
    • Politics
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
The Mirror is a bi-monthly magazine which looks at the social, spiritual, political and environmental issues in our world
Reflections and Observations
  • Home
  • Analysis
  • Books
  • Business News
  • Change the Conversation
  • Climate Change
  • Comment
  • Community
  • Economics
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Health
  • Human Rights
  • Observations
  • Politics
  • Social Networking
  • Spirit
  • The Creative Class
  • The Daily News
  • Women Going Places
  • Uncategorized

The Empty Shield

-by Giacomo Donis

Michael Moorcock’s New Statesman Book of the Year. A people’s history and the horror of war: Howard Zinn meets Apocalypse Now.

March 1972, about to graduate from NYU. A journey: two days and nights in the New York subway. Love it or leave it. A decision: become a Great Academic Marxist; blow up the Williamsburg Bridge; go into exile. Vietnam Veterans with placards, for and against the war. Seven placard-men at the seven gates of Thebes, brandishing their shields. A decision. Political or personal? Or pure Zen? Mind or no-mind? Kill for peace! Dylan, Hendrix, or the Fugs.

The two Suzukis, or Dogen. Monk and Coltrane! The relation between Hegel’s logic of thinking as such and his logic of practice, which does not exist. The screech of the subway stops. A fork where three roads cross, the realm of shadows, what is to be done?

A Chinese menu? Stab it! Stab it with your fork! But what I, myself, decide is not the point. The point is the question of ‘what a decision is and what making a decision means.’ The answer is ‘never stop asking.’ Ask yourself.

Ask FDR, JFK, LBJ, McNamara and his band, John Kerry, or a Vietnam War veteran of your choice. Ask Nixon, Kissinger Trump! Ask Trump! Ye great decision-makers, have you ever asked yourselves what a decision is and what making a decision means!

That is the question. The Empty Shield asks it. Repeatedly, repetitiously, abysally, and, possibly, once and for all.

“The Empty Shield by Giacomo Donis is an extraordinary political biography. Donis describes how his Marxist politics developed and how renouncing his US citizenship (for Italian) proved harder than leaving the Mafia, with federal agents grilling him and warning how people like him could suffer. It’s a people’s history rather than a conventional memoir.

Share this:

Related Posts

Picture 3 When the going was

Analysis /

Graydon Carter hired Christopher Hitchens, pissed off Trump and revealed Deep Throat

Graydon Carter

Books /

When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

a85f1ee408690f9f5757ad5f96e324e1

Comment /

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

‹ Nick› Sea levels rising fastest in big cities

9th May 2025

Recent Posts

  • Graydon Carter hired Christopher Hitchens, pissed off Trump and revealed Deep Throat
  • When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
  • Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
  • The EU will spend billions more on defence. It’s a powerful statement – but won’t do much for Ukraine
  • In siding with Russia over Ukraine, Trump is not putting America first – he is hastening its decline

Categories

  • Analysis
  • Books
  • Business News
  • Change the Conversation
  • Climate Change
  • Comment
  • Community
  • Economics
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Health
  • Human Rights
  • Observations
  • Politics
  • Social Networking
  • Spirit
  • The Creative Class
  • The Daily News
  • Uncategorized
  • Women Going Places

Archives

JEZ Media

Back to Top

  • Home
  • Analysis
  • Books
  • Business News
  • Change the Conversation
  • Climate Change
  • Comment
  • Community
  • Economics
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Health
  • Human Rights
  • Observations
  • Politics
  • Social Networking
  • Spirit
  • The Creative Class
  • The Daily News
  • Women Going Places
  • Uncategorized

To subscribe, advertise or contribute articles to themirrorinspires.com contact publisher@xtra.co.nz

(c) The Mirror Inspires, 2025