Grieg Pedersen

The Empire Has No Clothes Grieg Pedersen

Award Finalist in the "Social Change" category of the 2017 Best Book Awards!What started as a guide to political mythology grew into a call for action as well. We're at a critical point in our history. If we keep on the way we are we may not survive it, but there is hope! Hope that our newest adult generation, the Millennials, can solve our problems by thinking about them so differently from their parents and grandparents that most of us can't even understand it. The author sees greatness in them. Politics is part mythology. Like the Emperor in the famous story, people and their cultures are vain. They like to keep an image of themselves that's better than they deserve, to cover their faults in glorious cloth. To do that, cultures tell stories. They tell them to their people, to each other, and to themselves. They lie to themselves about themselves, inventing the clothes they'd like to have and telling everyone they have them, hoping people won't see the blemishes underneath. Sometimes the stories become reality. Other times they're destructive or just deceptive. We'll strip some of those clothes from the Empire, one set at a time, and see how they're made. After all, who doesn't love a naked Emperor?We tell our kids not to give in to peer pressure, then do what we think our neighbors think we should do. Except it's not. What is it, really?American politics and culture have become so rancorous and uncivil that it's almost guaranteed that unpopular candidates will win and violence will follow. There's a way to fix that. Something you probably do every day is related to the biggest threat to long-term national security - and western civilization. A bunch of Quixotic idealists have the solution, but they won't tell it that way. Grieg presents a viewpoint forged by life in nine states, the edge of bankruptcy, homelessness, a six-figure income, a dot-com startup, and time served in the Marine Corps infantry. By deadly force situations and resigning the best job of his career in protest. A life that gave him a lot to think about: how things are, how things ought to be, and why people see things so strangely sometimes. Or maybe it's just him.