Events

Join us for our June meeting.

We will be talking about the previous day's primary election and where to go from there to achieve victory in November. We'll also be planning our garage sale fundraiser on June 17.

If you haven't been to one of our meetings or haven't stopped by in a long time please come and see what we are all about!

Join us for our June VGFD Book Club Meeting. Our book is The Shield and the Cloak by Gary Hart. You can order the book by clicking the link below and VGFD will make a commission for each book purchased through the link. Please note that there is no audio version of this book.

The July book selection will be American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips. By ordering both books together, not only you can get a head start on July but you can qualify for Amazon's free Super Saver shipping!

As always, we will meet at the Four N 20 Restaurant on Laurel Canyon between Riverside and the 101. Remember that we are given the space for the meeting at no charge. Please show your appreciation by buying dinner or dessert and a beverage. This will ensure that we can keep using the space. Thanks!

Discuss the books in our discussion forum! More on Gary Hart and "The Shield & the Cloak" at the forum under VGFD Book Club.

Publishers Weekly review of The Shield and the Cloak:
Former Senator Hart argues in this treatise the future of national security that 9/11 was an "opportunity to redefine America's role in the world," but one the U.S. is misusing "by waging preemptive warfare in the Middle East and thus possibly increasing the threat." Hart proposes the military abandon traditional notions of warfare ("Fast fighters, giant carriers, monster tanks, big missiles") in favor of increasing the number of special forces units that can be deployed quickly and quietly against insurgents whose organization is akin to "cancerous cells." continued...


The Washington Post's Book World review of American Theocracy:
Few political strategists have relied so extensively on history to understand the American political system as Kevin Phillips. Often identified as a former Republican strategist, Phillips has made a career of charting his disillusion with the GOP in books such as American Dynasty, a blistering look at the Bush family. His latest, American Theocracy, continues this scrutiny -- with mixed results.

American Theocracy is three books in one. He argues that a "reckless dependency on shrinking oil supplies, a milieu of radicalized (and much too influential) religion, and a reliance on borrowed money . . . now constitute the three major perils to the United States of the twenty-first century." continued...