In Its Niche Beyond a Six–In Larger Context a Four
October 11, 2009
Roger Martin
First off, what got me to buy this book does not appear in the book at all–the author on record as saying that Wall Street was not designed to make money for its investors, only for its mandarins–the same is true of how universities are designed, businesses, etc. but that one observation really got my attention. I bought the book before BusinessWeek featured it as one of four in the October 5th edition (Europe version), and after looking the others over, chose this one.
In the larger context of changes to the Earth that now take three years instead of ten thousand years, as an entire literature flourishes on The Philosophy of Sustainable Design, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage and Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, the book is a four for narrow-casting and lack of context, but you can use Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, to search and sort among my other 1,400 reviews, so no penalty is warranted, This book will be scored Beyond 6 Stars at PBI/PIB for the simple reason that it addresses the core need of all eight tribes of intelligence (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-governmental organizations), to re-design away from the Industrial Era waste (where Six Sigma stops), and to instead envision how the world could and should be, and set out to achieve that–a prosperous world at peace.
The premise is that JFK went against the national security establishment, notably the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military-industrial complex, and was assassinated by deliberate plan of the CIA, with Richard Helms, David Atlee Philips, David Sanchez Morales, and Desmond Fitzgerald specifically culpable for high crimes of treason.
As with 9/11 and the documented culpability of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Larry Silverstein, and Rudy Gulliani, there is insufficient proof in this book for conviction, but it is more than ample to demand a very intrusive and comprehensive investigation of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the FBI. I *want* to believe Helms when he says CIA did nothing not ordered by a President. However, if the premise of this book is proven, CIA should be abolished, its HQS demolished, and salt plowed into the earth at Langley.
The book's most positive account is of the back-channel dialog JFK developed with Khrushchev, Castro, and the Pope, dialog that not only defused the confrontations of the time, but also ended the Cold War. The theology of peace, the role of Monk Thomas Merton, the role of Norman Cousins (author of The Pathology of Power – A Challenge to Human Freedom and Safety), the role of the Pope and Pacem in Terris, and the strength JFK drew from a single meeting with Quakers are moving. This is in many ways a resurrection of JFK and both an epitaph worthy of his unsung accomplishments, and a call to arms for achieving closure–truth and reconciliation–with respect to his assassination by US Government personnel committing treason.
Phenomenal Overview, Timely, the One Book to Buy If…
September 12, 2009
David Gordon
I read in threes and fours on any given topic, and in some ways I regret getting to this book last, but on the other hand, having read the other books below first, it makes me appreciate, and be willing to certify, that this one book is the one to buy if you only want to read one book on the topic.
I love the book, not least because it reiterates the Secretary of Defense view that the military cannot win this Long War alone.
What this book does NOT address is the raw fact that we are our own worst enemy, and that as long as we make policy based on delusional fantasies combined with rapid profiteering mandates from Goldman Sachs and Wall Street, as long as we lack a strategic analytic model, and as long as we are completely opposed to actually creating a prosperous world at peace, then the USA is destined for self-immolation.
HOWEVER, if you recognize as I do that those in power are completely divorced from reality, having become “like morons” as Daniel Ellsberg lectured Henry Kissinger in Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and that both Congress and the White House consist of good people trapped in a bad system that robs each and every one of them of their integrity, then no happy ending is possible.
The power and common sense of the Average American (see the book by that title, I am out of authorized links) can still be brought to bear, but first we have to stop this nonsense of thinking that if we only have the right strategy, we can evil and force not just the emerging powers, but Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Wild Cards like the Congo, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Turkey into their “role” as playthings of the American Empire.
Please. We have gone from a village idiot to a major domo that gives good theater, and books like this are still being written? Get a grip!
Phi Beta Iota, the new honour society committed to public intelligence in the public interest, is now publishing the free online Journal of Public Intelligence. There are no costs or qualifications save one: have a brain and use it in the public interest.
WOW! A Jewel Pops Out of Amazon's Recommendation System, October 14, 2008
Will Durant
EDIT of 30 May 2009 to add flyleaf notes.
I was utterly THRILLED to see this book by Will Durant, published in 2005, pop up out of Amazon's recommendation system. Now I'm hooked.
The book opens with suicide statistics to point out the ultimate sacrifice or loss when hope is not to be found. One million in the world, 81,000 in the USA, 84.5 per day, 1 every 17.1 minutes. I have had 18 professional and one personal suicide in my life, What an important opening.
Finished, it surprises and delights with the common sense selections.
Key insights, remembering that this book is an edited collection of many people responding in one page to the QUESTION from Durant, who sent out 100 letters. First published in 1932, all the answers are grounded in the real world.
1) Uncertainty fosters greed.
2) Corruption of a society does not preclude the emergence of great minds that can catalyze further progress.
3) 1000 citivilizations have died in the course of history.
4) Citing Aristotle, all things have been discovered and forgotten manytimes over. Man–imperfect man–is the constant.
5) Utopia would be birth control, enfranchisement of all, emancipation of all–all of this is undone by crime, corruption, and war, none of which are necessary
Four quotes I feel should be here to encourage purchase of the book:
a) “We are driven to conclude that the greatest mistake in human history was the discovery of ‘truth.' It has not made us free, except from delusions that comforted us and restraints that preserved us.” Page 14
b) “Where such a faith [that gives hope], after supporting men for centuries, begins to weaken, like narrows down from a spiritual drama to a biological episode, it sacrifices the dignity conferred by a destiny endless in time, and shrinks to a strange interlude between a ridiculous birth and an annihilating death.” Page 17
c. “We discovered birth control, and now it sterlizes the intelligent, multiplies the ignorant, debases love with promuscuity, frustrates the educator, empowers the demagogue, and deteriorates the race.” Page 29
d. “The greatest questions of our time is not communism vs. the West, it is whether men can bear to live without God.” Page 34
All of the above are Durant's words. Then the book goes forward with two pages for each of those responding, one a graphic etching, the other their text.
Minus 1 for Fluff, Plus 2 for Bringing Us Back to Paine: 6 Over-All,
June 27, 2009
As annoying as this book obviously is for so many, it is not only squarely on target, but merits great respect for bringing all of us back to the more developed wisdom of Thomas Paine.
My review of that last one (I review all books I link to) itemizes 23 of the 25 high crimes and misdemeanors that make Dick Cheney long overdue for retrospective impeachment and negotiated exile.
My notes from the first half of this double-spaced book (the second half is the original work of the original Thomas Paine, and I loved having a chance to reread that):
+ Principles must displace the two political parties
+ Creative extremists are needed–non-violent *armed* extremists better
+ Government is imposing both sacrifices and intrusive conditions on a public that has been sacrificing since the 1960's
+ Shortcuts have consequences, national debt IS bad
+ Political leaders are parasites (Amen, Brother!–I would add, “and prostitutes uncaring about the public interest.”
+ Social Security and Medicare are a scam because the money is being spent and an IOU put in its place–close to $10 trillion in unfunded future obligations (but see my review of Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
+ “Smiley-faced fascism” is the order of the day
+ Tax code is a weapon and a scam
+ Election manipulations anti-democratic, need term limits and an end to gerrymandering (see my review of Grand Illusion linked above)
+ “Green Government” is a scam that is radically increasing federal government powers to intervene and impact negatively on private property
Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL) are the poster child for Congressional and Executive idiocy and hypocrisy, and I give this its own paragraph to emphasize how much I admired this example and the way in which the author presented it. He lines up his facts and I am shocked to learn that they contain six times any “safe” level of mercury and when they break there is a complex clean-up procedure that is required, and they are *seriously* hazardous to children, pets, and adults.
I totally welcome and agree with the author's view that politicians are disdainful of citizens and overly enamored of secrecy for the sake of avoiding oversight.
I learn for the first time that lawful armed citizens were unlawfully disarmed in the wake of Katrina, and I believe the day will come when law enforcement officers are gunned down by citizens resisting unlawful disarming–our government is out of control, is going to issue illegal orders including “martial law” for the “common good,” and they will not be ready for the Harvest Of Rage: Why Oklahoma City Is Only The Beginning.
The author does a fine job of pointing out how the two-party tyranny uses international treaties to end-run common sense and impose addition deprivations on citizens.
A few quotes I especially admired:
p6: “The fastest way to be branded a danger, a militia member, or just plain crazy is to quote the words of our Founding Fathers [about the right to abolish the government].
p6: “It is not time to dissolve the bands that connect us to one another, but it is time to dissolve the ‘political'bands that *separate* us from one another.” I totally agree–look up the Unified Independents, I believe they will capture a third of the seats in 2010 and if Obama does not pass the Electoral Reform Act of 2009, he will be a lame duck President kicked out in 2012 in favor of an Independent President who demands Cabinet level selections and a balanced budget proposal be presented to We the People *prior to* Election Day.
p9: “Through legitimate 'emergencies involving war, terror, and economic crises, politicians on both sides have gathered illegitimate new powers–playing on our fears and desire for security and economic stability–at the expense of our freedoms.” Absolutely right, see the images I have loaded above, Obama is a CONTINUATION of Bush and Goldman Sachs is still helping Wall Street loot the Treasury.
p19: “This isn't a debate aout money, it's a life-and-death struggle for personal freedom and national liberty.
Between the book and the origina Tom Paine materials is a 9.12 project that does not do much for me, I'm sticking with the Boy Scout principles.
My online annotated bibliography at my corporate web site (OSS.Net, Inc.) provides direct links to 500+ of my reviews of relevant non-fiction books organized into groups.
I was actually expecting an Operating Manual. Although what I ended up with is a 136-page double-spaced “overview” by Buckminster Fuller, a sort of “history and future of the Earth in 5,000 words or less, bracketed by a *wonderful* introduction by grandchild Jamie Snyder, an index, a two-page resource guides, and some photos and illustrations including the Fuller Projections of the Earth.
First, the “core quote” that I can never seem to find when I need it:
OUR MISSION IS “To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.” Inside front cover.
The introduction is a treat–I note “impressive” and appreciate the many insights that could only come from a grandchild of and lifelong apprentice to Buckminster Fuller.
Highlights for me:
Founder of Design Science, a company by that name is now led by Medard Gabel who served as his #2 for so long. I just attended one of their summer laboratories and was blown away by the creativity and insights. It is a life-changing experience for those with a passion for Earth.
He imagined an inventory of global data. I am just now coming into contact with all of this great man's ideas, but my third book, Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time, also online at the Strategic Studies Institute in very short monograph form, is totally in harmony with this man's vision for a global inventory of global data.
“Sovereignness” was for him a ridiculous idea, and a much later work out of Cambridge agrees, Philip Allot tells us the Treaty of Westphalia was a huge wrong turn in his book The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State.
“Great Pirates” that mastered the oceans as the means of linking far-flung lands with diversity of offerings was the beginning of global commerce and also the beginning of the separation between globalists who knew the whole, and specialists whom Buckminster Fuller scathingly describes as an advanced form of slave.
He was frustrated with the phrases “sunrise” and sunset” as they are inaccurate, and finally settled for “sunsight” and “suneclipse” to more properly describe the fact that it is the Earth that is moving around the sun, not the other way around.
In 1927 he concluded that it is possible for forecast with some accuracy 25 years in advance, and I find this remarkably consist with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's view that it takes 25 years to move the beast–see for instance Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy.
He has an excellent discussion of the failure of politics and the ignorance of kings and courtiers, noting that our core problem is that everyone over-estimates the cost of doing good and under-estimates the cost of doing bad, i.e. we will fund war but not peace.
He described how World War I killed off the Great Pirates and introduces a competition among scientists empowered by war, politicians, and religions. He says the Great Pirates, accustomed to the physical challenges, could not comprehend the electromagnetic spectrum.
He states that man's challenge is to comprehend the metaphysical whole, and much of the book is focused on the fact, in his view, that computers are the salvation of mankind in that they can take over all the automaton work, and free man to think, experiment, and innovate. He is particularly forceful in his view that unemployed people should be given academic scholarships, not have to worry about food or shelter, and unleash their innovation. I am reminded of Barry Carter's Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era as well as Thomas Stewart's The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization.
There is a fascinating discussion of two disconnected scholars, one studying the extinction of human groups, the other the extinction of animal species, and when someone brings them together, they discover that precisely the same cause applied to both: over-specialization and a loss of diversity.
Synergy is the uniqueness of the whole, unpredictable from the sum of the parts or any part individually.
On page 87 he forecasts in 1969 when this book was first published, both the Bush and the Obama Administration's ease in finding trillions for war and the economic crisis, while refusing to recognize that we must address the needs of the “have nots” or be in eternal war. I quote:
“The adequately macro-comprehensive and micro-incisive solutions to any and all problems never cost too much.”
I agree. I drove to Des Moines and got a memo under Obama's hotel door recommending that he open up to all those not represented by the two party crime family, and also providing him with the strategic analytic model developed by the Earth Intelligence Network. Obviously he did not attend, and today he is a pale reflection of Bush. See the images I have loaded, and Obama: The Postmodern Coup – Making of a Manchurian Candidate.
Early on he identified “information pollution” as co-equal to physical pollution, I am totally taken with this phrase (see my own illustration of “data pathologies” in the image above). I recognize that Buckminster Fuller was about feedback loops and the integrity of all the feedback loops, and this is one explanation for why US Presidents fail: they live in “closed circles” and are more or less “captive” and held hostage by their party and their advisor who fear and block all iconoclasts less they lose their parking spot at the White House.
Most interestingly, and consistent with the book I just read the other day, Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change (The Changing Face of War), he concludes that wars recycle industry and reinvigorate science, and concludes that every 25 years is about right for a “scorched earth” recycling of forces.
He observes that we must preserve our fossil fuels as the “battery” of our Spaceship Earth, and focus on creating our true “engine,” regenerative renewable life and energy.
I am astonished to have him explain why the Pacific coast of the US is so avant guarde and innovative (as well as loony). He states that the US has been a melting pot for centuries, and that the West Coast is where two completely different cultural and racial patterns integrated, one from Africa and the east, the other from the Pacific and the west.
I learn that he owned 54 cars in his lifetime, and kept leaving them at airports and forgetting when and where. He migrated to renting, and concluded that “possession” is burdensome.
In Its Niche Beyond a Six–In Larger Context a Four
