The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
PlaceholderGunnar Sevelius
Need the link for a new book. Review in a few days. Certain to be very favorable, this is precisely the kind of synthesis we need more of. Contrasts with the nine pillars of peace used within the UN which are more functional, will compare and contrast shortly.
Phenomenal–Ref A Relevant to Everywhere ElseKey notes and quotes:
+ Bush Senior should not have left Saddam Hussein off the hook in Gulf I, should have finished off the regime while we had enough troops on the ground to make the peace.
+ US blew Gulf II from the moment of victory onward. “Incoherent” is a word the author uses frequently in describing virtually every aspect of US operations in Iraq. The one element that gets high marks from him is the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) but the fact that the bulk of the “reconstruction” money was mis-managed by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) makes AID's excellent a footnote in this sorry tale.
+ Book covers 2003-2006; the author was Minister of Defense and then Minister of Finance during the reconstruction period.
+ “Too few Americans actually cared.” Fred Smith (parent agency not clear) gets high marks from the author for caring and competence as the CPA-appointed advisor to the Ministry of Defense in the 2004 timeframe.
Continue reading “Review: The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace”
Truly Remarkable–Provokes & Entertains
This DVD is superb and also subversive. I doubt that the “stars” in this movie, particularly James Baker, Bill Bradley, Howard Brown, and Larry Summers, really knew what they were getting into, since their words–and their bland denials–ring so false in this context.
I put the film in while trying to deal with Microsoft's latest “update” that cost me half the morning, and I recommend it very strongly as a Christmas present or for classrooms and book clubs.
My notes:
+ A Peabody, whose ancestors came on “the boat” and also founded Groton, laments that whereas all the leaders used to pass through Groton, now there is no real “source.” I am reminded of Lee Iacocca's Where Have All the Leaders Gone?.
+ Hedge fund visits basically boils all ownership in America down to four banks, and later in the film we learn that six multinational control almost all “content.”
Needs to Be Said, Needs to Be Read, A Solid First StepQUOTE page 27: “The Founders set out to prove that ordinary people could be entrusted with governing themselves in a state where no one could arbitrarily arrest them, lock them up, or torture them.”
This book resonates with me, in part because for the past ten years I have been reading heavily and observing the decline of America in all respects–see my chapter on Paradigms of Failure in 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), both free at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog (as will all my books, but I do recommend the Amazon hard copies).
Continue reading “Review: The End of America–Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”
Beyond 6 Stars–Could Help Destroy Strong, Gore, & IPCCShort version: bad science, bad media, bad politics, bad finance.
Two other books I have reviewed that support this one:
The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity
Global Warming False Alarm: The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming
This book also helps reinstate Lomborg, whom I am ashamed to say I doubted after he was first denounced (publicly) and then redeemed (quietly) in Denmark. See my reviews of:
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage)
I list these–and point to others at the end of this preliminary review–to make the point that this author's stellar and very complete work with very good notes is the coup de grace–the final bullet in the head of the IPCC, a mercy killing long over-due. [Disclosure: I funded the first three years of the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity that accepts the ten high-level threats to humanity for action, and places climate change within priority #3, Environmental Degradation–we also place a very high priority on clarity, diversity, integrity, and sustainability of effort.
EXTRACTS from A Book Review by Richard C. Cook (FREE VERMONT MEDIA)
It’s too late for anyone to pretend that the U.S. government, whether under President Barack Obama or anyone else, can divert our nation from long-term economic decline. The U.S. is increasingly in a state of political, economic, and moral paralysis, caught as it were between the “rock” of protracted recession and the “hard place” of terminal government debt.
. . . . . . .
Thomas Greco, in his new book The End of Money and the Future of Civilization (Chelsea Green: 2009) , outlines the increasingly familiar story of how things got so bad, and he tells it as well as anyone has ever done. His style is precise and sometimes academic. Behind it, though, is a passion for truth and the type of rock-solid integrity that refuses to sugar-coat a very bitter pill.
More than that, Greco writes about how to change what has gone wrong. His credentials as an engineer, college professor, author, and consultant are impeccable. His book is among the most important written in this decade. It is truly a book that can alter the world and, if taken seriously, give large numbers of people a practical way to survive the gathering catastrophe.
Continue reading “Review: The End of Money and the Future of Civilization”
