Congress (Failure, Reform) – Page 3 – Public Intelligence Blog

2009/07/252009/10/06

Review: Winning the Long War: Retaking the Offensive against Radical Islam

5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Democracy, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Operations, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

First, Understand the Enemy Within

July 25, 2009

Ilan Berman

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.

Buy the book. Also consider:
Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom
Unfolding the Future of the Long War: Motivations, Prospects, and Implications for the U.s. Army

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.

I have posted my book 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) online, the Annotated Bibliogrpahy will lead those who wish to connect to reality to over 500 non-fiction reviews here at Amazon.

Books I specifically recommend for anyone who can actually talk to Obama about reconnecting with both reality and the 70% of eligible voters that did NOT vote for his well-greased win:
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)

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.

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2009/07/042009/12/04

Review: Who Killed Health Care?–America’s $2 Trillion Medical Problem – and the Consumer-Driven Cure

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Politics, Priorities

Tip of the iceberg, see the image, June 22, 2008

Regina Herzlinger

I've been thinking about publishing a book on health intelligence, and borrowed this from a colleague.

My contribution will be the image I created while thinking about what the book should look like–the inner square was co-created with another person.

This book can be summarized with three words: *corruption* killed health; *transparency* can heal us; and only we, the *patients* (or victims) can come together to demand resolution.

In the comment, where Amazon does allow URLs, I am pointing to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report online, which documents 50% of all health costs as waste.

The author ends with very specific recommendations that are excellent as far as they go, but that ignore the 80% of solutions that are outside the existing hospital-pharmaceutical complex. The Japanese have started weighing and measuring their population–a population's health and vitality is the single greatest contributor to national power and prosperity, ergo, we need a “360” approach to national health, and I try to depict that in the image above.

2009/07/032016/01/12

Review: The Ambition and the Power–The Fall of Jim Wright : A True Story of Washington

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

John M. Barry

5 Stars Classic Detailed Study of Both Corruption and Abusive Power, September 18, 2008

This is the book whose account of what it takes to be a “Member” that so turned my stomach (i.e. the book is phenomenal) I concluded that no sane and honorable person should seek election.

On the one hand, it recounts in excruciating detail the degree to which then Speaker of the House Jim Wright had to be constantly on the go to collect (“raise”) funds for his future campaigns (every two years), while also illuminating the pathologies of House leadership processes.

On the other hand, it recounts in equal detail the deliberate and malicious manner in which future Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich set about to destroy Jim Wright–his reputation, his position, his office, his personna.

I am not sure which turned my stomach more–the two together are quite depressing.

I have since learned that the Democrats are much more practiced at electoral fraud and other connivances, and that the Republicans are now learning to match the Democrats and “level the playing field.” We need to take back the power, get the money out of politics, eradicate the rule by secrecy and information asymmetries between elites and the voters, and get our Republic back.

From a Constitutional point of view, this book also charts how Newt Gingrich destroyed Article 1 of the Constitution, and turned all Members into “foot soldiers” for the party — they vote the party line as bought by billionaires, or they get no nice offices, staff numbers, etcetera. He destroyed what was left of the bi-partisan balance of power aspect of the US Constitution.

This is a SUPERB reading for any university or college class studying the real world of politics as it is still practiced today on the Hill.

More recent books, also recommended:
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Tribes on the Hill: The United States Congress–Rituals and Realities, Revised Edition

2009/06/272011/10/22

Review: Glenn Beck’s Common Sense–The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

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.

Glenn Beck is not Thomas Paine. He's not even an average American, cf.
The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen. What he has going for him is a bully pulpit, the right instincts (no pun), and the ability to reach some, but not all and certainly not a majority, of conscious Americans.

The book is squishy, a moderately well-organized rant against “Progressives”; I myself have done better with 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). However, I honor this book, I really do. Below are five books that have the substance this book lacks, without the heart that Glenn Beck delivers:
Obama: The Postmodern Coup – Making of a Manchurian Candidate
Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

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.

See my review of the following books for modest hope:
Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change (The Changing Face of War)

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.