Religion & Politics of Religion – Public Intelligence Blog

2009/12/212009/12/21

Review: The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Phenomenal–Ref A Relevant to Everywhere Else

December 21, 2009

Ali A. Allawi

The author has achieved extraordinary synthesis and summation, with gifted straight-forward language.This book is not only a capstone reference, but demonstrates why we need to LISTEN–none of us could learn–in a lifetime–all that this author has in his head. That's why multinational engagement is a non-negotiable first step toward the future.

Key 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”

2009/12/142009/12/14

Review DVD: Angels & Demons

Religion & Politics of Religion, Reviews (DVD Only)

Surprised Me, Not a Typical Sequel

December 14, 2009

Tom Hanks, Ron Howard

Although I tend to shy away from sequels, I broke down and bought this at Giant to pass time away while completing a tediuous task. It was GREAT.

There is zero babe factor in this movie, which was a disappointment, it could have been scripted much more engagingly, but three things really blew me away throughout:

1) The staging or the access to ostensible Vatican inside and underground areas–presumably not actually within the Vatican, this was all done superbly

2) The twists and turns and the ending were great. I actually had tears of surprise at the end and will not spoil it.

3) Finally, Tom Hanks and the historical allusions still fascinate me. It would be great if history could be taught so ably, but more deeply and more thoroughly.

Absolutely recommended.

To browse all 86 of the DVDs that I recommend, visit Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, each links back to their respective Amazon page but only there can you see JUST my DVD reviews. [Use Reviews (DVD Only) (86)]

2009/12/122011/10/22

Review: Threshold–The Crisis of Western Culture

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Electoral Reform USA, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Five for the Voice, Four for the Substance

December 12, 2009

Thom Hartmann

Thom Hartmann is one of a handful of individuals that I consider to be true guides for the rest of us, and I consider two of his earlier books, Cracking the Code and SCREWED, to have been instrumental in my own transformation from recovering spy to intelligence officer to the public.

The book does cover a lot of ground lightly, but it is coherent, and because it is Thom Hartmann, whose voice is hugely important to all of us, I settle on a five instead of a four. Other books that complement this one include Tom Atlee's The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All, Jim Rough's Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People, and The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy.

Here are my notes:

+ Book may be missing pages, mine starts at page xi (Preface) so I am left wondering, what happened to i through x?

+ Book opens with quotes from Einstein and Schweitzer with respect to the urgency of widening our circle of compassion to include ALL living things, and explicitly ALL humanity.

Continue reading “Review: Threshold–The Crisis of Western Culture”

2009/11/282019/09/06

Review: Nonzero–The Logic of Human Destiny

7 Star Top 1%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Communications, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, History, Information Operations, Information Society, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Media, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

7 Stars–Nobel Prize (Of Old, Before Devalued) – Life Transformative Insights

November 28, 2009

Robert Wright

QUOTE: “Non-zero-sumness is a kind of potential–a potential for overall gain, or for overall loss, depending on how the game is played.”

This book is one of the most sophisticated, deep, documented, and influential I have ever read, right up there with Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Published in 2000, this book has NOT received the marketing promotion or the public attention it merits.

THIS BOOK HAS SUBSTANTIALLY ALTERED MY PERCEPTION OF EVERYTHING ELSE.

Continue reading “Review: Nonzero–The Logic of Human Destiny”

2009/11/012009/11/01

Review: The Genius of the Beast–A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism

6 Star Top 10%, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), History, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Deep Look at Soul of Man, Society, and Capitalism

November 1, 2009

Howard Bloom

I received this book in pre-publication form so as to offer a blurb for the jacket. Below is my take on this book.This book will simultaneously tease your brain, arouse your emotions, and motivate you as it probes deeply into the soul of man, society, and capitalism as the engine of Western civilization.

The author gifts us with a counter-culture manifesto that resurrects the goodness of capitalism while also connecting to the roots of humanity, of the human soul as a microcosm of the soul of society.

Be patient, the first third of this book will amuse, enlighten, & provoke, at which point it will grab you by the throat and shake your fundamental perceptions of life. The author is compelling in both a scientific sense, weaving psychology, biology, economics, and sociology together; and in an artistic sense, delivering theater of the mind, new visions, poetic turns of phrase page after page, and a massive amount of purpose-laden provocative minutia, all of which culminates in blinding flashes of insight that explain the mind-expanding role of circuses, the failure of religion, and the natural cycles of fission and fusion, splintering apart and coming together.

Continue reading “Review: The Genius of the Beast–A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism”

2009/10/102009/10/11

Review: The War After Armagedoon

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion

Not Really a Novel, More Like a Wake-Up Call

October 10, 2009

Ralph Peters

Although I read mostly non-fiction, one of Ralph Peter's novels (his first in ten years, the last one I really liked was Traitor), is better than reality, for it portrays what we can expect when our delusional political, economic, and military acquisition practices play themselves out, and in the case of this book, what happens when we ignore the desperate need for religious counter-intelligence that I have been calling for since the 1980's.

The non-fiction foundations or complements to this book are American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America and Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.

In a nut-shell, this a marvelous depiction of what happens in the future when enemies of the USA plant two small nuclear devices in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, leading to a nation-wide call to arms with crusade overtones.

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2009/09/202009/09/20

Journal: God is Us, We are God

Consciousness & Social IQ, Religion & Politics of Religion

Hats off to the Wall Street Journal for commissioning a pair of essays, short extracts of which are offered below.

Karen Armstrong says we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence

Most cultures believed that there were two recognized ways of arriving at truth. The Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were essential and neither was superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary, each with its own sphere of competence. Logos (“reason”) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to function effectively in the world and had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. But it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life's struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology; if translated into ritual or ethical action, a good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow with serenity.

Continue reading “Journal: God is Us, We are God”