Our Real War: What Happened to America (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781466487970)

M.J. Murphy writes about what he knows. In Our Real War - What happened to America, M.J. channels two of his most intimate relationships - love of his community, Millinocket, and his love of the automobile industry, to ponder the turn America has taken in a compelling and insightful way. Murphy is not a political pundit, a behavioral psychologist, or a lobbyist. He is not an expert on the sociology of corruption or a theological scholar. In fact, it is what he is not that makes this narrative so readable for the average person. When he reports about the role of General Motors as a representative multinational business in his narrative and the role of Great Northern Paper Company as a representative regional business, he does so from the inside. Beyond his credentials as a subject matter expert, there is also much to be said about M.J. for the man that he has become in his own right. He is deeply religious, yet lives his faith without imposing his values on others or judging them harshly. He is a personable, sociable, and unassuming soul who loves his work, his community, and his family. As a bona fide member of the rural American middle class, he has observed the rise of injustice and the decline of individual liberty for all of us through the lens of an often unrepresented majority that is heart of America - thousands of small towns caught up in an unwholesome mix of local, state, and national power-brokering that has challenged them to do battle. A battle for their lives, liberties, and pursuit of happiness - gifts bestowed upon them by God and ostensibly protected by our government, at least, according to the founding fathers. M.J.'s family has clearly galvanized his belief in America's core values. His opportunity to grow up in a community where the townspeople know each other on a first-name basis has reinforced his views about the importance of each person. Through his immersion in a college program of studies (finishing at the top of his class), he has added academic abilities and critical thinking skills to his authoring abilities. Finally, Hard-wired into his heritage and nurtured by his Christian belief system, M.J. has acquired his unrelenting sense of responsibility to current and future generations a responsibility that he wholeheartedly believes each of us must also embrace if we are to have any chance in winning Our Real War.