Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 5 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/11/08

Review: The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown–Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Secession & Nullification, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Charles R. Morris

Forward to Future of Capitalism and GRIFTOPIA

November 8, 2010

This book was flagged to my attention in the Comments section of my own review of Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America, where my review includes the following quote that I share here:

QUOTE (32): What has taken place over the last generation is a highly complicated merger of crime and policy, of stealing and government. Far from taking care of the rest of us, the financial leaders of America and their political servants have seemingly reached the cynical conclusion that our society is not work saving and have taken on a new mission that involved not creating wealth for us all, but simply absconding with whatever wealth remains in our hollowed out economy. They don't feed us, we feed them.

I defer to the other reviewers on the substance of the book, but want to provide links here to several books that address the larger context of the soul of capitalism and the corruption of the two political parties that have undermined the US Government and US economy with malice aforethought.

Capitalism:
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
The Betrayal of American Prosperity: Free Market Delusions, America's Decline, and How We Must Compete in the Post-Dollar Era
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism

Corrupt Two-Party Tyranny
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny
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)
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

I am blogging twice a week at Huffington Post on what a Virtual Cabinet doing sane evidence-driven policies in the context of a balanced responsible budget might look like, and would welcome visits there by those interested in getting back to honest government and responsible capitalism.

2010/11/052011/12/23

Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Matt Taibbi

6 Star Game Changer….Maybe

November 2, 2010

This is an extraordinary book, combining gifted insights and turns of phrase with serious research that has a point worth fighting for: Wall Street led by Goldman Sachs has ripped off the entire US economy, and they still have most people thinking that politics matters.

It merits comment that while Michael Lewis was first, with Liar's Poker, and was recently quoted as saying he had no idea Wall Street would get away with these obvious high crimes against the public for another 30 years, this author takes us all up another level, weaving in everything–politics, culture, sex, booze, LSD, and the occasional rabbid racoon.

The author is especially deft at observing, documenting, and describing the combination of lunatic ignorance and blessed righteous anger within the Tea Party, at the same time that he points out they have no idea that they have been funded and directed by the very people who have stolen their economy out from under them.

I am especially impressed by the author's understanding of how Wall Street has managed to co-opt the very people they are destroying by leveraging the “shared” view of excessive government regulation. I for one absolutely believe that states should start nullifying federal laws and regulations that impair state-based businesses (e.g. butchers and cabinet-makers). What the people being destroyed do not understand is HOW they are being destroyed by Wall Street, which is essentially eating out the foundation from under them.

Continue reading “Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America”

2010/10/292011/10/22

Review: Wingnuts–How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

John P. Avlon

Theater–Follow the Money to Understand

October 28, 2010

Unquestionable a great book, with one big missing piece: it does not follow the money back to Wall Street. Buckminster Fuller understood in the 1960's that the White House had become theater, I did not understand his meaning until the economic meltdown and my noticing that Goldman Sachs has provided the Secretary of the Treasury for the last six or so Administrations.

The Tea Party, a grand mix of idealistic individuals who really think they have a shot at making a difference, is funded by the Koch Brothers, and all the other wing-nuts this book discusses all have financial underpinning that serve a purpose: to create theater. They are the American version of a political circus that keeps people's eyes off the raw fact that the US is a two-party tyranny with election manipulation so embedded that we no longer qualify as a democracy according to international standards.

NOTE: To investigate funding yourself, just search, my preferred search portal is Duck Duck Go, for <Koch Tea Party funding>

Wing-nuts is an “order of battle” for the extremist fringe, but it does NOT explain why the US government and US economy are in the toilet. For that we need just one word: INTEGRITY (lost).

The wing-nuts are getting their time in the sun because the extreme wealthy that have hollowed out America, exported all the skilled jobs, allowed illegal immigration so they could pay even less for unskilled labor, are now nervous. Bush Junior did his eight, Obama gave Wall Street four more years, right now the best that Wall Street can think of is making the next four years a complete circus.

`All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing' (or words to that effect). Edmund Burke and Justice Brandeis are both cited on this one. It says a lot when two comedians make more sense and demonstrate more integrity than all of our Senators, Representatives, and Executive Branch officials. Perhaps it really does take a comic (or two) to save a Nation.

Just one of many books supporting my suggestion that this is all theater:

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

My own 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) is also free online and provides a sane intelligent alternative to wing-nut theater and the two-party tyranny funded by Wall Street, led by Goldman Sachs.

You can find all of my non-fiction reviews sorted into 98 categories at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. I have also created lists of reviews (e.g. corruption, education) and two master lists. The negative list is everything that is wrong with America and the world, the positive one everything that is right or could be right. Both those lists are also at the Huffington Post. It's time to restore the integrity of our Republic, that must of necessity begin with Electoral Reform.

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2010/10/252010/10/27

Review (Guest): Buddhism without Beliefs

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Religion & Politics of Religion

Craig K. Comstock

Book creation coach, TV host

Posted: October 25, 2010 07:16 PM

A Buddhist Vision of Life Beyond Consumerism

Review of Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening

EXTRACT:

The service offered by Batchelor is to get to what he regards as the core of Buddhist practice, free of “accretions” imposed by various Asian traditions. Of course, some westerners are attracted to Buddhism in part by the rich Baroque trappings of the Tibetans, the subtle Theravada traditions of southeast Asia or the spare paradoxes in Zen cultures. But other westerners want a practice they feel is more suitable for a scientific and democratic society.

Having been a monk in two of three Asian traditions (Tibetan and Korean), Batchelor sought what he regards as Buddha's basic realization. In his writing, he even set aside such crucial elements of traditional Buddhism as rebirth and karma, not denying that the founder taught these doctrines, but attributing them to the Hindu world in which he'd grown up and arguing that they aren't necessary to Buddha's genius as expressed in the “four noble truths.”

Within Buddhism, Bachelor's heresy is not to do without the concept of divinity (the founder was agnostic about metaphysics), but rather to set aside any realm other than our life on earth and to accept the possibility of death as oblivion. This is a delicate point because the prestige of Tibetan religious leaders, starting with the Dalai Lama, depends in part on the claim to be reincarnations and because the finality of death is almost unimaginable to most of us.

What a waste to obtain the necessities of life, guard against danger, form attachments to other humans and accumulate knowledge, and then poof, it's all gone like photo albums when a house burns down. This would be almost as unthinkable as a process of evolution. What human would design so slow, wasteful and unfair a process? Batchelor's point here would be that the gist of Buddhist dharma practice is being aware of what's here, now, rather than placing hope, without evidence, in a happier life after death.

Read full review at Huffington Post…

2010/10/242010/10/24

Review: Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Harrison Owen

Low-Cost Priceless Guide Worth Hundreds of Thousands

October 24, 2010

It's been my pleasure to know the author of this book ever since he hunted me down after my review of Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self-Organizing World, and I have also had the benefit of being a participant in a number of Open Space sessions run by, among others, Peggy Holman, author of Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity and the older The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems.

I cannot over-state the value of this book to anyone who has a complex and expensive problem but cannot afford to get the author there personally. While the book is no substitute for the genius, the intuition, the experience, and the sheer “quiet energy” that the author can bring to any endeavor, it is not just a starting point, it is more than enough to get you through your first self-organized event, and the results are sure to astonish as well as excite about the potential benefits of having the author lead the next session.

Here is how it works in a nut-shell, and I put this into the review because I am not happy with the minimalist marketing information the publisher has provided but happy that Look Inside the Book is activated–use that feature!

1) Everyone who cares is invited to a meeting in a space large enough to accommodate the group. Many events will charge a fee to cover the space, the food, and the travel costs of the facilitators, some events can be free especially if internal. HOWEVER, the diversity of who is invited (i.e. including outsiders, clients, journalists, the lowest ranking maintenance people), THIS MATTERS….A LOT.

Continue reading “Review: Open Space Technology: A User's Guide”

2010/10/242010/10/30

Review (Guest): Science, Strategy and War–The Strategic Theory of John Boyd

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Force Structure (Military), Military & Pentagon Power, Science & Politics of Science, Strategy

cover science strategy and war — Amazon Page

Frans P.B. Osinga

5.0 out of 5 stars “Hell of an Engineer”

October 24, 2010

By Retired Reader (New Mexico) – See all my reviews

Phi Beta Iota: This is the long review provided directly to Phi Beta Iota. A shorter review can be read at the Amazon Page.

I have just completed a first read of “Boyd”, by Robert Coram and have concluded that I a made a big mistake reading Osinga’s book first. Osinga explains what Boyd did; Coram describes how he did it. If you read Coram’s book first, Osinga’s book will be much easier to tackle. Both are quite good, but Coram gives a much better sense of the context in which Boyd did his work and a better understanding of who John Boyd was and what he represented. Robert D. Steele has an excellent review of Coram’s book that I recommend. I purchased both books at the same time, but read them in the wrong order.

I was not surprised to find from the Coram book that Boyd attracted a select group of like minded individuals who put integrity ahead of the go along to get along mehtod of moving forward. We could certainly use a similar group at the Pentagon of 2010.”

This book has the rather ambitious goal of “better understanding the strategic thought developed” by Colonel John Boyd (USAF ret.). For the most part it succeeds in doing this. Since Boyd choose not consolidate his thoughts into one or more books, Osinga was forced to develop his information from Boyd’s slides used to brief his ideas and from Boyd’s notes. So what does this book tell the reader about the “strategic thought” of Colonel Boyd?

Although Osinga does not address it, John Boyd appears to have had what can only be called the mind of an engineer. The application of scientific principals to practical ends seemed to come naturally to him. He actually received a degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech in 1962, but this appeared to have primarily credentialed his existing engineering talent.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Science, Strategy and War–The Strategic Theory of John Boyd”

2010/10/18

Review (Guest) (DVD): The Social Network

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, DVD - Light, Information Society, Reviews (DVD Only)

Jesse Eisenberg (Actor), Andrew Garfield (Actor), David Fincher (Director)

Review by Jon Lebkowsky

The David Fincher/Aaron Sorkin film collaboration called “The Social Network” is not about technology, though there are scenes that suggest how code is produced through focused work (which actually looks boring when you’re watching it “IRL” (in real life), without Fincher’s hyperactive perspective – but is so engaging you can lose yourself totally in the process when you’re the one actually producing the code). The film is more about the entrepreneurial spirit, what it takes to have a vision and see it through. The real visionary in the film, Mark Zuckerberg, appears far less intense IRL than Jesse Eisenberg’s interpretation would suggest, but his drive and work ethic are undeniable. It’s not an accident that a guy in his twenties produced a billion-dollar platform; he could have been derailed if he’d lacked the persistence of vision and intent that the film shows so clearly. And, of course, he was kind of a jerk, probably without meaning to be. That kind of focus and drive tends to override comfortable social graces, kind of ironic when you’re building a social platform.

Continue reading “Review (Guest) (DVD): The Social Network”