Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution – Page 5

2009/07/182009/10/24

Review: The Challenge for Africa

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Disease & Health, Education (General), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Humanitarian Assistance, Information Operations, Information Society, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Amazon Page

A Gift–Properly Priced, Presented, and MOST Rewarding,

July 18, 2009

Wangari Maathai

Of the three of four books I have consumed so far for an introduction to Africa's current condition, this one is by far the best, and if you buy only one, this is the one. The other two, each valuable in its own way, are:
The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

Tomorrow I will plow through Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future and post a review.

The author, a Nobel Peace laureate for the Green Belt Movement, delivers a very straight-forward, practical “woman's voice” account of both the past troubles, present tribulations, and future potential of Africa. This book is replete with “street-level” common sense as well as a real sense of nobility.

Early on the author addresses the reality that uninformed subsistence farming, what 65% of all Africans do, is destroying the commons. I find that ignorance–and the need to educate and inform in their own local language (no easy task when speaking of thousands of local languages)–is a recurring theme in this book. I see *enormous* potential for the application of what the Swedish military calls M4IS2 (multinational, multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain information-sharing and sense-making).

The author provides an ample tour of the horizon of aid, trade, and debt imbalances, of the dangers of culture and confidence of decline, of the need to restore cultural and environmental diversity, and of the need to reprioritize agricultural, education, and environmental services instead of bleeding each country to pay for the military and internal security (and of course corruption).

CORE POINT: The *individual* African is the center of gravity, and only Africans can save Africa–blaming colonialism is *over*. The author's vision for a revolution in leadership calls for integrity at the top, and activism at the bottom, along with a resurgence of civil society and a demand that governments embrace civil society as a full partner.

CORE POINT: The environment must be central to all development decisions, both for foster preservation and permit exploitation without degradation. Later in the book the author returns to this theme in speaking of the Congo forests, pointing out that only equity for all those who are local will allow all those who are foreign to exploit AND preserve.

I am fascinated by the author's expected discussion of the ills of colonialism including the Berlin division, the elevation of elites, arbitrary confiscations of lands, and proxy wars, what I was NOT expecting was a profound yet practical discussion of how the church in combination with colonialism was a double-whammy on the collective community culture of Africa.

The author observes that any move away from aid, which has been an enabler of massive corruption at the top, and toward capitalization and bonds [as the author of Dead Aid proposes in part] will be just as likely to lead to corruption absent a regional awakening of integrity.

The author discusses China, observing that China has used its Security Council veto to protect African interests, and the author observes that the West continues to destroy Africa with arms sales, France and Russia especially, followed by China, with the US a low fourth.

I learn that patronage and the need for protection are the other side of corruption as a deep-seated rationalization for keeping power, and I learn that pensions in Africa are so fragile that retirement is fraught with risk, another reason to seek long-term power holding. I am inspired to think of a regional pension fund guaranteed by Brotherly Leader Muuamar Al-Gathafi.

On a hopeful note the author praises the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as leader of Liberia, and sees real promise in the AU leadership summits that she attends.

CORE IDEA: Leadership training at all levels must keep pace with the changes in technology and the complexity of Africa's engagements. Civil Society in particular must be understood and embraced by government leaders at all levels.

The author spends time around page 134 discussing her pilot project to create local empowerment, devolving decision-making to create a multi-layered structure that establishes priorities while also providing accountability and transparency, minimizing corruption. Using a trained facilitator, the author brought together around 40 fifteen-person committees to create a strategic plan, and that is now useful as a map regardless of turn-over.

On page 158 the author briefly discusses ECOSOC (Economic, Social, and Cultural Council of the African Union) founded in 2005 to bring the voices of the people into the AU deliberations; to educate the peoples of Africa on all aspects of African affairs; and to encourage civil society throughout Africa.

My reaction: ECOSOCC is a center of gravity and could be the lever needed to create a regional M4IS2 network that substitutes information for violence, capital, time, and space. A harmonization of investments to address regional cell phone access (Nokia ambient energy devices), regional radio stations using solar power; and a regional public information program on the basics of mosquito control and other key public health topics, all call out for action in partnership with ECOSOCC.

Later in the book the author equates misinformation with alcohol and drugs. Ignorance is a recurring theme.

The conclusion of the book is full of deep wisdom on re-imagining community, restoring family by returning the men, stopping the brain drain, and making it easier for remittances to return; of the need to create micro-nation forums within each macro-nation; of the need to create local radio stations in each of the local languages and dialects; of the need to address energy shortfalls while stopping the march of the desert; and finally, of the need to address the pressing twin issues of land ownership and tourism management so as to restore the primacy of African interests.

The book ends on a hugely positive note calling for Africans to reclaim their land; reclaim their culture; and reclaim themselves.

Other books I consider relevant to respecting Africa:
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era

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2009/07/172013/07/03

Review: The Trouble with Africa–Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Civil Affairs, Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Country/Regional, Democracy, Diplomacy, Disaster Relief, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Humanitarian Assistance, Information Operations, Information Society, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Security (Including Immigration), Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Credible, Pointed, Relevant, Useful, Essential,

July 17, 2009

Robert Calderisi

I read in groups in order to avoid being “captured” or overly-swayed by any single point of view. The other books on Africa that I will be reviewing this week-end include:
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
The Challenge for Africa
Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's FutureUp front the author stresses that since 1975 Africa has been in a downward spiral, ultimately losing HALF of its foreign market for African goods and services, a $70 billion a year plus loss that no amount of foreign aid can supplant.

The corruption of the leaders and the complacency of the West in accepting that corruption is a recurring theme. If the USA does not stop supporting dictators and embracing corruption as part of the “status quo” then no amount of good will or aid will suffice.

Continue reading “Review: The Trouble with Africa–Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working”

2009/07/152009/07/16

2008 War and Peace in the Digital Era (Draft)

Monographs, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Priorities, Security (Including Immigration), Strategy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

General Peter Schoomaker–the same general that gave Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) a proper hearing at the U.S. Special Operations Command, created the first active duty Army Civil Affairs Brigade since WWII, stood up by Col Ferd Irizarry, USA. I personally believe that the theaters commands must become Whole of Government commands, and that Army Civil Affairs Brigade should become the hub for a global Earth Rescue Network that includes all relevant personnel from all eight “tribes” (government, military, law enforcement, academia, business, media, non-profit and non-governmental, and civil society including labor unions, religions and citizen wisdom councils and advocacy groups.

This monograph, commissioned by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) had *not* been validated and is offered in draft to avoid delay in sharing the core ideas for enhancing US Army performance in Stabilization & Reconstruction operations. I am *very* interested in having a dialog on this including errors and omissions, and will respond to any comments.

2009/07/132009/10/16

Review: Critical Path

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

History, Philosophy, Engineering, Architecture, & Education,

July 13, 2009

R. Buckminster Fuller

Although I heard Fuller speak at Muhlenberg College in 1973 or so, I had not read his books and for me Critical Path was a very healthy reminder that long before many of the current authors, Buckminster Fuller had a grip on the basics:

1) Economic theory of scarcity and secrecy is evil, benefitting the few at the expense of the many

2) Earth is NOT a zero sum Darwinian game for humans, in fact it is the human role–the human mind's role–to “synergize” Earth into a win-win for all.

3) Money is not wealth only an artifact that is representative of empty bank vaults and gross misrepresentation by the alleged wealthy. Only time-energy accounting and “true cost” of goods and services should be used.

4) Obstacles to displacing rule by scarcity and secrecy are the public ignorance of natural science and the collaboration among governments, corporations and large organizations such as religions and labor unions that “divide and keep conquered.”

5) Computers–and Fuller was clearly envisioning today's computers, not those of his time–if properly fed all of the relevant data can alter perceptions on a just enough, just in time basis. This coincides with my own view that we can and must educate the five billion poor one cell call at a time, but it also favors the ideas gaining currency of connecting the one billion rich (80% of whom do not give to charity) directly with the needs of the five billion poor at the household level of need.

I am hugely impressed with both specific actionable visions and specific actionable facts:

1) Now possible to create a global electrical grid that runs across Alaska into Canada and China, and eliminate the electrical shortfalls in both those countries and in Canada and the US West Coast.

2) In time-energy “true cost” accounting, every gallon of oil that we use cost $1 million (in 1981 dollars, which is to say, around $10 after the current Administration finished with its massive devaluation plans).

3) There are two critical paths that are not understood by the public or those who profess to represent the public: path one is those natural trends that proceed with or without human errors, omissions, and interventions; path two is the human path both local and as a global aggregate.

4) Considered in time-energy terms, both our industrial-era schools and our industrial-era office buildings are lunacy. He provides a fascinating discussion of inland versus island dwellers, concludes that most urban office buildings should be converted into mixed dwelling-telecommuting centers and is generally brutal about our national policies being 50 years out of date (in 1981–that would make them 80 years out of date today, and I agree).

5) He provides a BRUTAL discussion of banking and government bail-outs of banking as well as mortgage fraud that led to the Great Depression, how banks dispossessed the farmers not realizing that the land was over-valued AND that no one else wanted to do the hard work of farming, and I am generally thunder-struck by how history has repeated itself.

I am especially impressed by his “cosmic costing” which does not allow for hoarding (he joins others in cursing money as both a hoardable good and one that can draw interest beyond reason).

A goodly portion of the book covers the art of doing more with less; doing it faster; and ultimately benefitting increasing numbers of humans with the same technologies.

His discussion of “precession” revolves around not competing with anyone else, instead attending to the unattended. He has a gift for “comprehensive consideration” that we could all draw upon for inspiration.

I am completely absorbed by this book, which includes in the final third:

1) The challenge is to educate all humans, and to teach humans to learn in the shortest possible time–my kids have two answers: cell phones and video games. This is a no-brainer.

2) I offer some quotes below but am totally engaged with his discussion of the Geoscope, what some today might call an Earth Monitoring System, and his view that we can create a 200 foot version of the Earth where one inch equals three miles, and using computers, be able to illuminate for any human–however poorly educated or ideologically stunted–what actually IS the reality.

3) He spends time describing the World Game and cites two books by Medard Gabel that are no longer available via Amazon (but see the EarthGame(TM) technical description offered by Earth Intelligence Network), and describes it as a problem-solving choice-making educational game.

On page 287 I am stunned by his anticipation of the “de-sovereignization” of the United States of America, coincident with the bankruptcy of the US Nation at the hands of its out of control federal government.

On the architectural side I am fascinated by his discussion of flat slab building as the worst possible time-energy construction, and his discussion of the alternatives that he created, including floating cities that I now regard as inevitable.

The book contains an unexpected gem, a compendium created by Fuller based on US contractor experiences in Russia that was delivered to Brazil. It is still valid and it is a model for the kind of clear thinking that government engineers should be able to, but cannot do. [With credit to Chuck Spinney, I have learned that “government specification cost plus engineering” has fried the brains of multiple generations of engineers who are unable to computer biomimicry, cradle to cradle, green to gold, etc. We must wait for our children to rule the world, they are the “digital natives” who will not tolerate rankism, secrecy, scarcity, or lies.

A few quotes are in the comment as I must respect Amazon's 1000 word limit.

Below are some other books that strike me as very complementary of this one, but more recent.
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
Don't Bother Me Mom–I'm Learning!
Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential
Conscious Globalism: What's Wrong with the World and How to Fix It
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time

Additional in Comment:

A couple of quotes:

xxv: “It is sa matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.”

xxxvi: “The race is between a better-informed, hopefully inspired young world versus a running-scared, misinformed brain-conditioned, older world.”

xxxviii: “The political and economic systems and the political and economic leaders of humanity are not in the final examination; it is the integrity of each individual human that is in the final examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate.”

118-119 “The USA is not run by its would-be “democratic” governance…..Nothing could be more pathetic than the role thats has to be played by the President of the United States, whose power is approximately zero.”

169 “The objective of the game would be to explore ways to make it possible for anybody and everybody in the human family to enjoy the total Earth without any human interfering with any other human and without any human gaining advantage at the expense of another.”

See also page 199, page 202, 208, 221, 225, 287, 346

Simple awesome. If you want your children and grand-children to have an intellectual advantage, nurture their thinking on sustainable development and read in yourself on Buckminster Fuller.

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2009/07/032009/12/04

Review: Never Surrender–A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

Helpful, Illuminating, and Inspiring, October 12, 2008

Jerry Boykin

I ordered this biography on a whim, as one of a dozen books on irregular warfare that I am using to review the thoughts of others before I publish my own book. When the three boxes from Amazon arrived, this book was buried under others, but was immediately the most attractive for the week-end.

Several important insights are available from this book:

1) Charlie Beckwith, whose book Delta Force: The Army's Elite Counterterrorist Unit I really enjoyed, especially the part where he refused to leave a British field hospital for an American one, learned from the SAS the most important lesson it had to teach, and brought it to DELTA: to be *truly* unconventional, to be *truly* irregular, you must be UNMILITARY. From this page (69) I simply relaxed and enjoyed a great account. I got what I was looking for, sooner than expected.

2) The 12-hour long march from point to point is a time-tested method of screening for individuals who have inherent resolve that cannot be trained for. I quote from page 78: “The Army can train a man to spy, shoot, blow things up, and kill with his bare hands. But it cannot instill in a man the series of two-sided personality coins that cash out as a successful operative: patience and aggression, precision and audacity, the ability to lead or fall in line. Above all, the Army cannot instill resolve beyond physical and mental limits.”

3) In the above context, faith is helpful, and faith cannot be taken for granted. Early on I enjoyed the author's explanation of how he reconciled faith with a profession that wages death (for life), finding that every war is a spiritual battle. The author explicitly identifies America as God's land of faith and tolerance, and I agree with him.

4) On page 130, he concludes that some men are evil and simply need to be killed. I agree with that completely. In the 1990's when I first started advocating the need to shift away from the Soviet Union and toward Third World terrorists and criminals, I used the phrase, “one man, one bullet.” We still cannot do that today, while the Navy and the Air Force continue to buy fewer really big things for more and more money.

I enjoyed every minute with this book. This is not a “shoot 'em book.” This is, as the subtitle communicates, the story of an extraordinary individual, a man born and trained to be the best possible fighter, who found faith and kept faith with God and America. He is “the way it ought to be.”

Here are some side notes.

Rumsfeld created the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence because he was furious that his Special Forces had to be “led” into Afghanistan by the CIA (see my review of Jawbreaker: The Attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander.

George Bush Junior betrayed all of us in crucifying and disavowing General Boykin in the face of media lies and exaggerations for which the author was fully exonerated by two Inspector General endeavors.

Media–the out of control largely ignorant media–is the best weapon that terrorists and others who hate America can use. I agree with that, and I am especially concerned at the ignorance of both our current presidential candidates, neither one of whom can talk substance in the context of a balanced budget–and they get away with it because the media has no idea what the substance of governance is (see the free online book, also on Amazon, 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).

9/11 struck the author as the opening salvo in a long battle for our own soul. I agree with the soul part, but the battle started when we decided to run the world for 50 years, very badly, while ignoring the spread of violent Islam funded by Saudi Arabia. See these four books:
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century

Other tid-bits:
+ 1 of three officers to make cut in creating DELTA. Peter Schoomaker was another.
+ DELTA pool was 118 of whom 25 finished the Long Walk, of whom 19 were selected (in the first class)
+ Boykin's dad was one of five brothers who served in “The Good War,” three in the Army, two in the Navy.
+ He was 6 feet tall and weighed 180 lbs in the eighth grade.
+ Played guitar and wound up playing at World's Fair in 1965 (the thought, “well-rounded” came into my head–not a thug stereotype)
+ Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets
+ Drawn to brotherhood of infantry, inspired by Viet-Nam stories.
+ One of his coaches taught him that faith and reality could go together
+ Once married, his first child drove him to the Dean's List
+ “I really wanted to learn everything the Army had to teach.”
+ Found faith for real in the Army, it filled a void.
+ He LIKED Ham and Lima Beans in C-Rats. That alone makes him strange in an amusing sort of way. I always thought of that C-Ration as one step down from bread and water.
+ He had his failures, in both school and the Army, but they drove him to excel and honors came his way when he bore down.
+ Aide de Camp tour in Korea got him to Viet-Nam for three months, and gave him a strategic understanding of the Army
+ Lost the general's dog, ended up running him down. Very funny.
+ Was one of the originals as paratroopers migrated into air assault.
+ Almost shut out of DELTA by the shrink for “excessive faith in God,” but he connected with Beckwith in the final interview and got in, the clear message being that the faith was not misplaced.
+ Excellent discussion of the time value of instinctive shooting (with the necessary training) over aimed fire–life of a hostage, the first takes one second, the second takes two seconds, time for the hostage to be killed.
+ Beckwith understood the killing nature of bureaucracy
+ I have a note, this book is the anti-thesis to Colin's Powell's biography, My American Journey and a shorter different book-end to Hackworth's About Face: Odyssey of an American Warrior

The author takes us through a number of operations in a manner that does not compromise any tradecraft and is not tedious. I appreciated very much the light once over on Tehran (the students thought they would have to get out in three days, they under-estimated the timidity of the US under President Carter), Sudan, Graneda which was not a surprise and for which CIA had no intelligence of substance for the fighters, Panama, Somalia, and then Bosnia.

Sixteen pages of photos are in the middle of the book, all appropriate and helpful. There is no index.

I thought to end this review with several of the phrases from the Bible that the author quoted in the book. I bought Leadership Lessons of Jesus: A Timeless Model for Today's Leaders because it was on sale in the uniform store at MacDill, and now that I have read this book, believe that our Irregulars of the future will be well-served by being required to understand faith, and to memorize portions of the Bible, the Koran, and other Holy Scriptures (just think of the impact as shown in Lawrence of Arabia, when his completing a reading instantly won over King Faisal and sidelined the conventional colonel).

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 9.4-5

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40

“For they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings of eagles, they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40.31, faxed from around the world as he struggled to survive a 50 caliber bullet shattering a radio into his body.

Amazon won't let me have more than ten links, but this one, by Navy Capt Doug Johnston, is worth a close look: Faith-Based Diplomacy. There is an intersection of UNMILITARY, faith, and Irregular War: Waging Peace that no one in power seems to understand.

2009/07/032009/12/04

Review: Poets For Palestine

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Culture, DVD - Light, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

Remarkable Gift, Bargain Price, Provokes Reflection, October 30, 2008

Remi Kanazi (Editor)

This is one of those rare books that I agreed to read and review after hearing from the publisher. At first I said no, then I realized Palestine was very much within my range of interests even if poetry was not, and I am glad to have said yes.

The book brings together 37 poets offering 48 poems interwoven with 30 artist renditions each on their own page. The book is made possible in part by a New York based organization, Al Jisser or “the bridge.”

The introduction connects the Palestinians to the much broader concerns of indigenous peoples everywhere, social justice being the shared issue.

Turns of phrase that stayed with me:

– hybrid ideology

– our city is a cell

– memory holding history too harsh to taste

– feel the future dissolve in a moment

– clean water

Five of the poems that resontated with me in a more special way (all are worthy of reading):

– Fathers in Exile

– Moot

– The Coffin Maker Speaks

– Those Policemen are Sleeping: A Call to the Children of Israel and Palestine

– This Is Not a Massacre

As I was preparing to write the review, I noticed the other books that Amazon brings up, using reader choice to connect to other readings of interest, and it hit me: this books is a perfect beginning for anyone who wishes to explore the literature on Palestine's history, current condition, and dubious (or inevitably triumphant) future.

In my notes I wrote “cornerstone for the resurgence of Paletinian identity and self-determination. I am certainly among those who stands with Gandhi, who said “Palestine belongs to the Palestinians the way France belongs to the French.”

I was struck by the book's extension to include Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Lebanon, the latter a country I have come to care about after a teaching mission there in 2007. In that light, below are some links to books I recommend along with this one:

Other non-fiction books I recommend:
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul
They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

You can buy this book with confidence that it will satisfy and provoke. Still, as a service to the publisher, who did not use the Amazon “look inside this book” features, here are the titles of all the poems; I type them as a gesture of respect for all that they represent:

Who Am I, Without Exile?
Enemy of Civilization
Portrait of Mona Lisa in Palestine
The Camp Prostitute
Fathers in Exile
Palestinian Identity
Ar-Rahman Road
And So It Goes…
Curfew
Installation/Occupation
The Seven Honeysuckle-sprigs of Wisdom (extract)
Untitled
a moonlit visit
Black Horses
Moot
The Promised Land
Hate
Wall Against Our Breath
Lights Across the Dead Sea
The Coffin Maker Speaks
Morning After the US Invasion of Iraq
The Price of Tomatoes
Regret
Calm
Palestine in Athens
Saudi Israelia
Hamza Aweiwi, a Shoemaker in Hebron
Humming When We Find Her
Wire Layers
Making Arabic Coffee
My Father and the Figtree
The Tea and Sage Poem
Letter to My Sister
In Memoriam: Edward Said 1935-2003
At the Dome of the Rock
Those Policemen Are Sleeping: A Call to the Children of Israel and Palestine
This is Not a Massacre
23 isolation (Infirad)
Free the P
Another Day Will Come
Morning News
break (bas)
Baby Carriages
Kindness
An Idea of Return
changing names
Abu Jamal's Olive Trees
A Tree in Ratah

One last observation: here in the United States of America, the Republic has been destroyed–the people are no longer sovereign. Instead, two criminal parties conduct electoral fraud as theater to they can retain their monopoly of political power which they prostitute to Wall Street and the inbred very small financial class that considers both the American people and the Palestinian people to be virtual slaves of no consequence. At some point soon, the American system will “break” and new possibilities will emerge–it remains lunacy as well as criminal for the USA to spend $1.3 trillion a year on war when a third of that amount could assure a prosperous world at peace, including an international Holy City, a Palestine with access to the sea, and an Israel that is not stealing all the water from the Arab aquifers but instead trading high technology for food grown by Arabs.

Poetry–and indigenous peoples reasserting the sovereignty of people over organizations–may yet save us all.

2009/07/032009/12/04

Review: Patriotic Grace–What It Is and Why We Need It Now

3 Star, Democracy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

5 for elegance and good intent, 2 for being blind to reality, a strong 3 overall, November 17, 2008

Peggy Noonan

I would have gone with a weak four if the book had more substance to it, but ultimately this is a “quickie” book with good intentions and elegant turns of phrase, and I certainly recommend that it be bought and read.

I am estranged moderate Republican utterly livid over the manner in which the “bi-partisan” spoils system allowed Bush-Cheney to destroy America while both Congress and the White House subverted the Constitution.

Hence, when Noonon calls for “bi-partisan” collaboration in the middle of the book, I must immediately put her in the same class as lawyers for organized crime leaders. Democracy in America has been destroyed. The League of Women Voters was pushed out of the debate business so that the Republican-Democratic debate commission could exclude Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Cynthia McKinny, Gloria La Riva, and the ever so arrogant and hence irrelevant Bob Barr. We are NOT one nation, we are NOT one people, and there is nothing wrong with America that Electoral Reform will not fix. A third of the country's voters have been illegally gerrymandered out of their vote, and another third have been disincentivized by the idiocy of our campaigns.

Here Noonan earns a solid three and moves almost to a weak four when she castigates both Obama and McCain for failing to discuss any serious issues, and especially her pet rock, the electrical grid. While she is right on both counts, this is as substantive as the book gets, everything else is pabulum about bi-partisan singing kumbawah while in fact bi-partisanship is treason–Congress is broken in every possible way at the same time that the Executive is organized for incoherenceand the ONLY thing that will fix (and preserve) the United STATES of America is Electoral Reform–I am providing the text in easy to read format in the first comment below, most from Ralph Nader as refined by me.

To end on a positive note, this book is a cross between Ralph Nader's The Seventeen Traditions and Imagine: What America Could be in the 21st century while completely avoiding the reality depicted in Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy or Senator Tom Coburn's Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders.

NOTE for my regular readers: Amazon has totally hosed up the review system. Fans that come in once a week to catch up and vote on each review are being treated as “campaign voters” and their votes are automatically deleted once they pass some threshhold, perhaps three votes for the same reviewer on the same day. You have to complain. They are also incentivizing negative reviews, and this has encouraged stalkers (whose votes get deleted) but it also peverts the system in that most of my reviews which have three times the positive votes of any other reviewer, now fall below the line because I also have a small segment of negative reviews that are oriented mostly on the premises of the book I am reviewing, not my review (most of which go right up to 1000 words and include 10 links to other books). If you select me as an “Interesting Person” at my profile, this will unbury my reviews when you as an individual visit–otherwise Amazon has sentence me to intellectual death….

Other books on the theme of this book that are better:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Doing Democracy
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

The free book online (and at Amazon) with everything this books does not address:
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)