Democracy – Public Intelligence Blog

Heart-Felt, Intelligent, Useful but Still Believes in Democratic Party, October 26, 2008

Thom Hartmann

I bought this book after receiving the author's words from Tom Atlee that then became part of the prefaces for Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography). I then realized that this same author gave us Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class – And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback)).

The author, a self-described liberal, accomplishes roughly three things in this book:

1) Introduces neuro-linguistic programming and framing concepts as a means of understanding the political theater that passes for democracy today;

2) Seeks to differentiate the conservative “code” versus the liberal “code” and criticizes both–the conservative code for being false and unsustainable, the liberal code for failing to make the leap that connects and empowers We the People.

3) Goes on to discuss how to combine “code-aware” story-telling with the reassertion, recreation, and promulgation of the new liberal “brand.”

I admire this book and recommend it highly. I could not give it the full five stars for two reasons: first, the author blindly accepts the Democratic Party as “good,” not recognizing that they are actually “crime lite” in contrast to the Republican Party (and also the new face of Wall Street, with the Republicans designated to take the fall this time around in what has been a “fixed” and fraudulent electoral system since the 2000 fraud made pre-selection a given option); and second; he actually thinks Nancy Pelosi knows what she is doing–I think she is a doormat with no spine, so right off we have some cognitive dissonance. This case has been made by Peter Peterson in Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It so I will not belabor it. BOTH parties are evil and BOTH parties have betrayed the public trust.

Where the author really connected with me was toward the end, when he spoke about resurrecting “We the People” and the “brand” of all that is good about liberalism. If I set aside my disdain for both parties, what the author has to offer is a “code” for the new Transpartisan Alliance and organizations like Reuniting America and the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility. Please do look them up.

The book seeks to help good people communicate good ideas.

Here are highlights from my reading, all good:

+ Politics is a set of stories intended to arouse specific responses.

+ The liberal story is about interconnected world with inherently good people who need safety nets and community; the conservative story, as portrayed by the author, is about people being evil, fate being deterministic, and gated communities being the solution.

+ The author provides a truly impressive and subtle primer on neuro-linguistic programming, framing, and most impressive, how to help people transform “victim” stories into “learning” stories.

+ He places great stress on not seeking to stop or end or criticize bad status quo behaviors and policies, but instead trying to find fundamental connections (we all want American the Beautiful) and then seeking consensus on new positive ideas.

+ The author provides a very concise summary of Hobbes' Leviathan (war is a natural state) versus Locke's two treatises (and no mention of the social contract that I noticed), which points out that accumulated wealth is unnatural and impairs the broader community. I really enjoyed this.

+ He discusses the Jeffersonian draught of instruction on how a colony might secede, and I myself, speaking at the secessionists' conference in mid-November, make a note to look it up–if we cannot dismantle the two criminal parties, then secession is the only “legal” option for Vermont, the South, the Pacific Northwest, and so on.

+ The author draws a number of contrasts with story-telling examples, of “conservative” versus “liberal” framing:
– SECURITY: gated community versus all happy
– MORALITY: about what people do in private versus public welfare
– MONEY: “death tax” versus “rich kid tax”
– IRAQ: “just war” versus “unjust occupation”

The author resonates with me when he uses Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and John F. Kennedy (JFK) as the examples of the liberal brand done right.

He points to an example of government doing the right thing in Germany: they ordered the banks to give very low cost loans to home-owners for buying solar power systems; and they ordered the power companies to buy the excess power at seven times the going rate. The outcome: they got 100,000 solar-powered homes GIVING BACK the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant (and the power company saved that investment).

In passing he slams Reagan for ending the non-profit status of health care, and Gingrich for teaching the Republicans how to code their way to victory.

The book ends with “democracy begins with you…you're it.”

Books that I am reminded of and recommend along with this one:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations (KMCI Press)
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Imagine: What America Could be in the 21st century
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

I believe this book, as with the other books mentioned above, matters. However, I believe it is very important for all to reflect on the FACT that neither of the two candidates has addresses the substance of governance; neither has published a draft balanced budget; and regardless of who wins–with the fraud on both sides evening out–We the People all lose.

To end as the author suggests, with a personal story: I am an estranged moderate Republican, leaning toward Libertarian, who also respects all that the Green Party stands for, while yearning for every citizen to be an Independent. We the People are no more–for now. Corruption reigns in America–we are a “Cheating Culture” through and through.

2008/10/162009/12/04

Review: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy

5 Star, Commissions, Democracy, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

The Single Best Examination of Secrecy Costs, October 16, 2008

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I testified to this Commission, both publicly and also in a private session in the office of Daniel Patrick Moynihan (RIP).

This is the single best non-partisan overview of the costs of unnessary secrecy, as well as the imperatives of providing proper definition and protection of necessary secrets.

I note with appreciation that my testimony led him to include the words “open source” in his cover letter of transmittal to the White House.

For a sense of the logical implementation of the findings of this Commission, see THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest.

For a sense of how we must radically alter the “closed circle” of national intelligence to embrace the entire Nation and indeed the Whole Earth, see Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.

2008/08/252009/12/04

Review: VOICE OF THE PEOPLE–The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life

4 Star, Communications, Democracy

Conversational Book, Valuable, August 25, 2008

A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

My substantive review, which is very favorable, follows the Table of Contents that I am entering here because the publisher failed to do so using the tools that Amazon provides.

Part I: The Crisis in Our Politics: Partisan Fatigue
Chapter 1: What Divide? Our Phantom Political Conflicts
* The Divided America Myth
* The Transpartisan Majority: A Different America
* Language: Partly a Problem of Words
Chapter 2: Some Casualties of Partisan Politics: Prisons, Schools, Hospitals, and National Security
* Prisons and the Penal System
* Public Schools: A `Rising Tide of Mediocrity'
* The Healthcare System
* National Security
* Bringing Citizens into Public Spaces
*
Part II: The Old Politics: Squeezing the Life Out of Society
Chapter 3: Transpartisan Capitalism I
* Private interest and Public good
* Ownership in Public Spaces
Chapter 4: National Security and “The Long War”
* Improved Law Enforcement and the Recruitment of Citizens
* Spending for Security
Chapter 5: Challenges of an Unconnected Society: Race, Sexual Preference, and Religion
* Rethinking the Relationships
* Race
* Gender and Sexual Preference
* Religion/Spirituality

Part III: The Transpartisan Imperative
Chapter 6: A Call to Action: The Transpartisan Opportunity
* Addressing the Nature of Life: Nasty, Brutish, and Short
* The Founding
* Forming a More Perfect Union
* The Structure: Congress Shall Make No Law
* The Transpartisan Context: We are all Republicans We are all Federalists
* Transpartisan Discourse

Part IV: Transpartisan Politics: Bring Life Back to Society and Society Back to Life
Chapter 7: Transpartisan Capitalism II
* Public Schools and the Challenge of Bureaucracy
* Notes on a Political Strategy
* The Energy/Environment Challenge
* What is Politically Feasible
* Who will Decide What to Do on Climate Change?
Chapter 8: Recruiting Citizens as Partners for National Security and Foreign Policy
* Focusing on Social Trust
* A Foreign Policy Model
* Spending for Security
Chapter 9: Re-engaging Society: Race, Gays, Religion, and Spirituality
* Race
* Gender and Sexual Preference
* Religion and Spirituality

Part V: Leadership for a New American Politics
Chapter 10: Transpartisan: Past, Present, and Future
* Transpartisan Integration: Engaging Left and Right
* Expand the Analysis
* Transforming Taxes: A Transpartisan Discussion
* Expanding the Business/Commercial Context
* Synergizing Religion
* Empowering the American Transpartisan Imperative
Chapter ii: An Awakened America
* The Changing Role of Leadership: Repairing the Structure of Partisan Politics
* The Paradox of Political Change
* Active Citizenship Organizing Transpartisan Political Campaigns

Conclusion: Leadership for a New Politics
* Starting a Conversation

MY REVIEW

Jim Turner, the liberal co-author, shares with Don Beck, author of
Spiral Dynamics : Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Developmental Management), the conceptualization of the word “transpartisanship,” a word that is a direct contradiction of the word “bi-partisan,” the latter being code for “keep the two-party spoils system immune from public challenge.” See Peter Peterson's Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It.

A. Lawrence Chickering, the conservative co-author, wrote Beyond Left and Right: Breaking the Political Stalemate, a concept that has gained great popularity, in part because of Paul Ray's superb work on “The New Political Compass” (not yet a book, free online).

Both authors credit Dee Hock with his pioneer role in One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization.

I rate this superb book at four stars and a “must read.” The authors and the publisher lose one star for failing to offer the book in a scalable manner, and for presenting a mish-mash of policy assertions with little reference to either the actual threats to our society or to the actual budget (e.g. 950 billion for the military and 30 billion for diplomacy, in 2007).

This is a hugely important book and a must read. It is not available free online, which is a pity because the book *should* be read by millions before Election Day 2008.

I went through my copy today (I traded Jim Turner a copy of Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace) and here are the critical points that grabbed me:

+ “Old (partisan) politics squeezes the public out of politics.

+ Transpartisan capitalism (not to be confused with Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution) creates a valuable new concept that melds private interests and public good.

+ National security is broken, in part because the US “system” is optimized for state to state relations, for “hard power” from the military, at a time when we need to distinguish between–and deal differently with–strong versus weak states, and weak states versus their societies (often fragmented ethnically, tribally, and by religion).

+ Restoring local ownership is a key principal in energizing change. I personally support “home rule” and the reasonable demand that corporations forego their illicit use of “personality” to avoid liability.

+ The authors present the need for an informal network for deciding upon and then delivering foreign assistance that is separated from US “policy” and not necessarily funded by the taxpayer.

+ The authors quietly present the alternative to individual income taxes, crediting economic professor Edgar Feige with the idea of an automatic banking transaction tax.

+ The authors call for changing the debate from left-right to a four quarters matrix (see Paul Ray's work for a more sophisticated depiction) and for creating new means (not further defined) for engaging all of us in participatory democracy. [The most obvious need is for all budgets to be online and open to the public prior to being voted on by Congress or other bodies, and for the elimination of all secret earmarks.]

The book ends with a disappointingly out of date list of founding members of Reuniting America, 110 million strong, and a handful of organizations including 25 representing the “radical center.”

See also my own political book, free online as well as for sale as a high end full color version, Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography). There is no connection between the two books or the authors of that book and my own personal “shout out” against the corruption that is so evidently on display in Washington regardless of which party controls the Congress or the White House. “Bi-partisan” is code for betraying We the People and giving trillions of our hard-earned credit to Wall Street speculators that bribed Congress to look the other way as they destroyed the American economy.

2008/08/152011/10/22

Review: Obama–The Postmodern Coup – Making of a Manchurian Candidate

4 Star, Corruption, Democracy, Politics

Polemical, Provocative, Frightening, & Credible, April 15, 2008

Webster Griffin Tarpley

Edit of 18 Oct 2008: New book by this same author with much more detail including extensive notes, Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography. Tell others. We have a problem and it is not Obama, it's the people around and behind him.

Edit of 9 May 2008: “House Negro.” That's what a Reverend of color called Senator Obama, and I agree. The Democratic “system” is trying desperately to field a “front” that can win, and Obama has rolled over for them. Just as Colin Powell betrayed all moderate Republicans by confusing loyalty with integrity (instead of quitting and calling for Dick Cheney's impeachment and then running for President in 2008), Obama is, as this book suggests, a Manchurian candidate–a House Negro.

Edit of 7 May 2008: I lost all respect for Obama when he finally disowned Reverend Wright. His original instincts were correct, his late renunciation is further proof that he is bought and paid for by the system. Reverend Wright, despite his inflamatory language, was right on target in seeking to arouse passion about misdeeds done in our name. This can still be a great Republic, but it needs integrity, transparency, and dignity for all. I respect Reverent Wright more than I respect Senator Obama at this point.

Edit of 5 May 2008: Please ignore the individuals whose hysterical reviews demonstrate they are reacting to mine, they have not actually bought nor read the book. I deal with reality, nothing else. This book is a wake-up call, just as the 935 lies and the 25 impeachable offenses of Dick Cheney are a wake-up call. I have confidence in our Collective Intelligence. I have no confidence in the think tanks, the candidates, or the political system of a two party organized crime spoils system.

Edit of 1 May 2008: In the author's own words:

This is not an academic study. It is a vigorous political polemic. It is meant to sound an alarm against a looming catastrophe. All of that is sincere, and none of it is hidden. Now that the phase of adulation and cultism is dissipating, I urge you to take a fresh look.

In the context of all that I know and have read, this book shocked me into realizing that the author may well be correct, and that Senator Obama and his wife, as intelligent and well-intentioned as they may be, are nothing more than puppets to a Trilateral Commission/Federal Reserve mafia.

I say this as someone who believed in the potential of this candidate, but who subsequently found that his campaign staff, his senior political advisor, and even Oprah Winfrey, are so enthralled with the prospects of an easy engineered win (money talks), that they are refusing to engage with or listen to Libertarians, Greens, Reforms, Naderites, or Independents. They refuse to mention the word “transpartisan” that outs the lie of bipartisanship (“keep the two-party spoils system alive, continue to exclude Independents and others from all debates”), they refuse to address the need for Electoral Reform and the naming of a transpartisan cabinet in advance of the election, and they refuse to create much less publish any semblance of a balanced budget, without which all of their promises are empty (as well as often mis-guided). So for all of these reasons, as polemical as the author's book it, I find it credible and compelling. This book also explains why Mike Bloomberg has gone silent–others with more money than he appear to have persuaded him he could, like Bear Sterns, be punished by being bankrupted.

MOST INTRIGUING is the manner in which the author dissects and evaluates Senator Obama in the context of who his advisors are.

I now realize that the refusal of all three candidates to outline any kind of strategy for eradicating the ten high-level threats to mankind by harmonizing the twelve policies is deliberate–they don't HAVE a strategy, they have an agenda, and it does not include our well-being.

Let me set the stage with two quotes from pages 178 and 179:

“Obama is best understood as a multi-contractor puppet with hardware from the Ford Foundation and software from the Rockefeller-Trilateral-Brzezinski circles.”

“The Obama campaign has thus far been shown to represent: the Ford Foundation, the Trilateral Commission, the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberger Group, Skull and Bones, the RAND Corporation, the Soros Foundation, the Rockefeller family, and the Friedmanite Chicago School of economic genocide. Obama is the Manchurian candidate groomed and indoctrinated by those financier-controlled groups. As president, Obama would impose a regime of crushing economic austerity and a new set of foreign wars far worse than what has been seen under Bush.”

I am going to highlight a few points here, and reserve the option of modifying this review after I talk to the author tonight. I want to get this down while it is fresh in my mind.

The real kicker, the “truth-teller” that persuades me this author is on to a very important potential nightmare scenario for the USA, is the role of Zbigniew Brzezinski as the top foreign policy advisor and indeed the “maker” of both Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.

I have always respected Brzezinski's talents, but as I have grown older and wiser I have come to see him as nothing more than a war criminal, no better or worse than Henry Kissinger, both of them convinced that a) they know better, b) their grand strategic design demands the subversion of all who stand in their way, and c) never mind a little genocide here and there (and especially in Africa), eugenics is code for depopulating the areas we have not finished looting.

What I see in the two political parties, both Running On Empty, is a propensity to promote sycophants and then let them do great evil “in our name” and without retribution.

The book on Kissinger has been written: The Trial of Henry Kissinger. The book on Brzezinski remains to be written. For a taste, see Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025.

I share the author's view of Brzezinski as a loose cannon with a rabid anti-Russian sentiment, and I for one will not vote for any candidate that allows Brzezinski to play with our loose nukes, or to antagonize Russia with missile defense in Poland.

The author is quite persuasive when he discusses the manner in which Brzezinski obtained both political asylum and a lucrative complete funding package for the Chechnyan terrorist leader now granted asylum and living in splendor here in the DC area (at taxpayer expense).

He makes it a point to observe that Brzezinski is an opponent of Third World development, wanting no more miracles such as have been achieved in Asia.

I believe the author when he describes Senator Obama as Brzezinski's last chance, at 80, to create destabilization along the Russian western border, and to goad China into invading Siberia to the point there is a Russian-Chinese war. Thus does Brzezinski go up in flames, taking the rest of us with him.

Other Obama advisors (less Joe Nye, who can be reasonable) are also frightening, buy and read the book for details.

The author has several major pet rocks that get tossed around, and I summarize them here:

1) The Clintons are the lesser evil because they have no single owner and Senator Clinton, for all her flaws and tribulations, appears to be genuinely in favor of New Deal arrangements for the working class and the vanishing middle class..

2) The young trouble this author. He considers them ignorant, gullible, and too subject to manipulation,

3) Fascism lurks, and one price Senator Obama may have to pay is that of his life–being assassinated early on (shortly after inauguration ostensibly by a foreign agent)so the Vice President can take over and fulfill the fascist/corporate control dream. I shake my head as I write this–if I had not lived the life I have, been part of the CIA, read all the books I have, all of this would be disreputable ranting. The book is an indictment, not a conviction, and merits attention.

In other provocative notes the author considers Mark Penn to have been a mole into the Clinton campaign all along, and to have provided a strategy intended to fail, bolstered by fake polling that misled Senator Clinton.

The author laments the splintering of the 9/11 Truth Movement between Kucinich and Ron Paul, and suggests that Kucinich was in grave error when he threw his delegates to Senator Obama.

The author explores how John Edwards dominates the two major issues of the day, poverty and labor rights, and these were essentially stolen from him with “big money” we do not see behind the “little money.”

The author draws to a close warning the reader that like Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama was selected and promoted by the Trilateral Commission, and that like Jimmy Carter, he will preside over a melt-down of the US. Indeed, he draws a line from “malaise” to Mrs. Obama's discussion of “broken souls.”

The author believes that Senator Obama is being set up for a fall with the national infrastructure fund, which will be speculative and lead to a major economic setback (for the little people, the funds will do fine).

The author believes that the mental health of the candidates for President is something that must be examined in public very carefully. He has grave doubts about both Senator Obama and Senator McCain, and while I have grave doubts about Senator Clinton's ability to listen to anyone other than her cronies, I do NOT have a single doubt at all about her sanity and seriousness of purpose.

His draft emergency economic recovery plan covers a stop of foreclosures, raising minimum wage, Tobin Tax implementation, single-payer health care, tax relief for families, nationalization of the Federal reserve and re-regulation of banking and finance, funding infrastructure to eliminate daily auto commutes, protection of the family farm, attention to global depression, and restoration of FDR's “freedom from want.”

So there you have it. I am impressed.

See also Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History and also An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, New and Updated Edition and of course all the books on the lies told to We the People regarding Viet-Nam and more recently, 9-11, Katrina, and Iraq.

There are others. Bottom line: Government lies (both left and right) and We the People need to flush all these knaves down the toilet and start over.

For competing visions that do not tolerate Manchurian machinations, see, among many others:

The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2008/08/152009/10/30

Review: Participatory Budgeting (Public Sector Governance)

5 Star, Budget Process & Politics, Democracy, Public Administration

The Best Book on the Topic, with a CD-ROM, Totally Rich,April 15, 2008

Anwar Shah

This is the very best book on Participatory Budgeting I could find (other than those on Puerto Alegre specifically, I will review one of those later) and once in hand, it has fully satisfied. The higher than normal cost for a book of this type is fully justified by the CD ROM.

Use the Search Inside This Book line under the book cover to see the Table of Contents and other elements of the book. I did not do that but if you have any doubts at all, reading the Table of Contents should be more than enough to overcome them.

For my purposes the two most important parts of the book were overview by the editor Anwar Shah (top expert with the World Bank); the guide to participatory budgeting by Brian Wampler; and the concluding appendix by Alan Folscher, on Citizen Participation and State Effectiveness, and also–very important–Preconditions and Enabling Factors for Citizen Engagement with Public Decisions. The rest of the book is regional case studies, and the CD ROM is country case studies.

From the Overview

+ Participatory Budgeting is direct democracy
+ It empowers citizens to deliberate, debate, and influence
+ It is a tool for educating, engaging, and empowering citizens
+ Transparency can reduce inefficiency as well as corruption
+ It strengthens governance by including the marginalized
+ It comes with significant risks (this was the new stuff for me)
– Process can be captured by interest groups
– Can cover up existing injustices
– Tyranny of group dynamics can overpower good intentions
– Tyranny of method can exclude other democratic means (much as the fine print in many legal agreements excludes access to courts and juries by including a concealed agreement to abide by arbitration)

Introduction to Participatory Budgetng

+ Four factors for success
– Strong mayoral support
– Civil society willing and able to engage in the debate (harder to find that I realized)
– Supportive policy environment that can withstand legislative pressure\
– Financial resources to actually fund programs sponsored by citizens

Guiding Tenets Include:

+ Division of municipality into regions for easier discussion and implementation
+ Government-sponsored meetings throughout the year
+ Quality of Life Index is created to weight program toward less well off
+ Deliberation and negotiatiion is public
+ Bus caravan visits all the proposed projects before voting on them
+ Elected representatives vote on all the projects (open or secret)
+ Municipal councel is elected with two representatives from each region
+ Year end report is published
+ Everything in monitored publicly year round

The above cannot possibly capture the nuances and complexities of each individual case study, so that is where ethnographic specificity must be applied.

Appendix on Citizen Participation

+ Types of participation
– Information sharing
– Consultation
– Joint decision making
– Initiation and control by citizen stakeholders

+ Preconditions and Enabling Factors
– Openness and democratic depth of the political and governance systems
– Existence of enabling legal frameworks
– Capacity for participation inside and outside government
– Existence of functional and free media institutions
– Willingness and capacity of government to make budget information open

What most surprise me as a lay reader (i.e. I claim no expertise at all, I simply believe to direct democracy) was the MANY OBSTACLES to participatory budgeting. I have heard that WikiCalc is coming along, which would along for budget information to be commented on and then different perspectives aggregated from the individual to the neighborhood or political preference level; and I hope that EarthGame will become a reality in which each person plays themselves and has access to full information, but in the context of populations that struggle day to day, it is going to take much more than an “invitation” to achieve participatory budgeting. In a nutshell, we know now that it can work, but getting it to work anywhere is going to be a real challenge.

Great book. A solid academic endeavor that if I were repeating my MPA this year, should certainly be in the Budgeting Course.

2008/08/072009/12/04

Review: The Way of the World–A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Democracy, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics

Forgery is old news–focus on the loss of morality, August 7, 2008

Ron Suskind

EDIT of 3 Sep 08 to add CIA published denial and attack, and comment from Association of Former Intelligence Officers, as a comment.

I have reviewed all the books linked to below, and my reviews of those books will add depth to this review.

Ron Suskind's first book on the current Administration, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 was extraordinary for its deep look at Dick Cheney and how since his Ford days, he has always favored unfettered Executive power and has never, in every Continuity of Government exercise, NEVER, given any thought to Congress. He ALWAYS went for an Executive dictatorship that used “war powers” to overturn the Constitution and every single civil liberty. However, the better books on Cheney (25 documented high crimes) and Bush (a tragedy within a farce) are these:

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Bush Tragedy

The media and the other reviewers are placing excessive emphasis on the forgery. This is old news. Vaclav Havel, former President of Czechoslovakia, personally said that the White House claims that Iraqi intelligence met Al Qaeda in his country were false. The son in law of Sadaam Hussein who defected asserted, very credibly (and without torture) that the regime kept the cookbooks, destroyed the stocks (Army intelligence tells me they poured so much stuff into the river the future of those downstream is very scary), and were bluffing for regional influence's sake). The fact is that in addition to Cheney's 25 high crimes, there were 935 documented lies told by the White House, and their lack of ethics, integrity, and respect for the Constitution is now beyond repudiation. See for example:

State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq

I continue to be astonished that citizens of the US are not burning tires in the streets and surrounding the White House demanding the immediate exile of Dick Cheney and the appointment of a care taker Vice President, at a time when open source intelligence (OSINT) is telling all of us, and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that Dick Cheney has promised Israel the US will nuke the Iranians between November 2008 and January 2009.

The core value of this book is NOT in the forgery, which is old news, but in the broad picture it paints of a Republic that has become a Third World dictatorship in which Cheney calls the shots, Congress is complaint (both parties be damned, the Republicans for being collaborators, the Democrats for being doormats), the war loots the individual taxpayer for Halliburton's financial benefit, and brave Americans die for an illegal, immoral war justified by a cadre of liars: Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Feith.

I read a a great deal–an almost fruitless attempt to remain sane in a time of mass insanity–and what I admire most about this author and this book is his broad focus on morality, civil liberties, and the values that differentiate true conservatives who read and value philosophy–and liberals who parrot phrases they do not understand. This is SERIOUS stuff!

In support of this author's “brief” to We the People, who should all be absorbing and then acting upon his message of paradise lost, I can only point to four more books within my Amazon limit, but urge all to look at my lists of books on evaluating Dick Cheney, on the case for impeachment, and on strategy, emerging threats, and anti-Americanism for good reason.

Will and Ariel DurantThe Lessons of History, a capstone volume on their 10-volume History of Civilization, tell us that MORALITY is a strategic asset that is priceless. Ron Suskind is right on target when he points out that it is this aspect–the loss of our national morality–that distinguishes the Bush-Cheney regime. Other Presidents have lied, cheated, and stolen, but this is the first in modern history to combine BOTH global imperialism AND domestic subversion on a scale that makes Richard Nixon look like a novice.

Max Manwaring, contributing editor of The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century, and his distingusihed authors, make the point that LEGITIMACY is the single most priceless asset for any government, for it empowers citizens and enables commerce, innovation, and civil society.

Ambassador Mark Palmer, author of Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025 points out that the US is not respected nor trusted in part because the Bush-Cheney Administration has chosen to be best pals with all but two of the 44 dictators in the world. Rendition, torture, warrantless wiretaping at home (including Guantanamo); deep secret and financial relations–at our expense–with 42 dictators busy looting and terrorizing their publics. Go figure….

Much of what the author has brought together is not new for those of us that continually monitor and agonize over crimes against the Republic, but I have to give him credit for crafting an elegant presentation that makes his book a moving and hence essential wake up call for the Republic. The people are NOT sovereign today, the people are sheep whose civil liberties, freedom of expression, right to bear arms, even their right to assemble, are all under attack.

With my final link, choosing from over 1,000 candidates, I conclude with a strong recommendation for the book Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. America is a failed state, and it is not just Noam Chomsky and Chalmers Johnson that are saying this, but also true conservatives steeped in thinking and integrity who are aghast at both the crimes of this Administration “in our name,” and the two clowns we have running for President, neither of whom can produce a strategy to restore America in the face of the ten high-level threats to humanity, a coherent policy matrix (twelve policies from Agriculture to Water), or a draft balanced budget and notional Cabinet proving they have a clue. They do not.

The USA has become a Third World nation. We let it happen by abdicating our moral and civic responsibilities as citizens of a Republic. Right now, regardless of who “wins” in November, we all lose. THAT is the point of this great book. The Republic is adrift and sinking fast.

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