America (Founders, Current Situation) – Page 20

2012/10/082012/10/08

Review: Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Michel Chossudovsky

4.0 out of 5 stars Five for Detail, Three for Bias, Solid Four for the Serious Reader / Researcher, October 8, 2012

Michel Chossudovsky is a known researcher and writer who is easily left of center; his greatest value lies in his presentation of truth in detail, something the neo-conservatives (far right of center) are incapable of doing. Anyone who demeans this author or his work is evidently incapable of understanding that Dick Cheney led the telling of 935 now-documented lies in taking the US to war on Iraq and in Afghanistan.

The book is NOT easy to read, with small print and 70 distinct separately titled pieces, all well-organized but reading like an op-ed book. The author also over-states, in my view the threat of a global nuclear war, while very pragmatically outlining the many ways in which the US and NATO are giving all indications of both tolerating an Israeli attack on Iran, perhaps with an Israeli nuclear bomb into Iran so they can pretend that they destroyed a nuclear facility that was no nuclear at all.

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2012/09/122012/09/12

Review: Who Stole the American Dream?

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Hedrick Smith

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Narrative–Could the Book Tour Spark a Revolution?, September 11, 2012

EDIT of 12 Sep 2012: I spent the night thinking about this book. Directly below [and now also loaded as a graphic to this Amazon page] are a graphic showing the preconditions of revolution in the USA, and the short paper on revolution from which the graphic was drawn Here's the deal: ample preconditions exist for a public overthrow of the two-party tyranny, but a precipitant (such as the fruit seller in Tunisia) has not occurred. Even though 18 veterans commit suicide day after day after day, this is hushed up. Occupy blew it–they should have occupied the home offices of every Senator and Representative and demanded the one thing Congress could deliver that would energize the public: the Electoral Reform Act of 2012. This book by Hendrick Smith, and the book tour, could be a first step toward mobilizing a complacent public. [search for phrases below to get right to them]. Don't miss all three graphics above with the cover.

Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

1992 MCU Thinking About Revolution

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I received this book as a gift today (I am unemployed and can no longer afford to buy books very often), and a most welcome gift it was. The author's earlier books were in my library, now resting peacefully at George Mason University, and I was quite interested in seeing what he makes of the mess we are in.

The book is a solid five. I would have liked to see a great deal more outrage, a lot more calling of a spade a spade (abject corruption on the part of all concerned), but that is me. The author has created a very compelling narrative that manages to avoid offending anyone in particular, and I can only feel inadequate in admiration for his balance. If I were to re-write this book, most readers over 40 would be dead of a heart attack by chapter four. On second thought, not killing the reader with truth may have its own special merits!

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2012/09/052012/09/05

Review (Guest): Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive

3 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Civil Society, Culture, Research, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics

Bruce Schneier

Robert Steele: This review is so useful that it is being cross-posted to Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. Both this book and its virtual sidekick, The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest completely miss the point of Statecraft as Soulcraft, of The Exemplar: The Exemplary Performer in the Age of Productivity and Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition. It's about education. How a society educates EVERYONE is the ultimate foundation for transparency, truth, and trust (the subtitle of my most recent book, THE OPEN SOURCE MANIFESTO. Education is the soul of a direct democracy, and the primary enabler of pervasive voluntary reciprocal trust.

It's not you, it's me. Great book, but I didn't enjoy it.,June 7, 2012

By K. McCauley “I'm the one they call when things go wrong.”

I'm a Bruce Schneier fan. I read his blog regularly and I think he's one of the smartest and most forward thinking security experts working today. I bought this book without even looking.

Perhaps I should have. It wasn't what I expected and because of that, I was let down and disappointed. Which reflects in my low rating. It's certainly a well written book and well researched and makes very good points. Too bad it wasn't very interesting to me.

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2012/09/042012/09/04

Review: The Principles of Representative Government

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Culture, Research, Democracy, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Justice (Failure, Reform), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Bernard Manin

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star Wake Up Call – The Democracy That Never Was….,September 3, 2012

It is a telling sign of the ignorance across the USA and elsewhere that there is no other review of this book, a book that was brought to my attention recently when I made it known that I was beginning to question the US Constitution's sanctity, having already concluded that the USA is as Matt Taibbi puts it so well in Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History, a merger between criminal corrupt complicit government and criminal corrupt financial gangs whose crimes are either legalized or ignored (“control fraud”).

I find it very sad that I had to reach the age of 60 and have several years of unemployment on top of my life experience and multiple graduate degrees before I could ingest the reality that the USA is a democracy but that this does not mean popular self-rule, nor did the Founding Fathers every intend for it to be a direct democracy. The USA is a republic of, by, and for the wealthy, and I consider it quite timely and helpful that this book may be making a comeback in the consciousness of the avant guarde that always sets the stage for a revolution–and I do believe a revolution is coming in the USA.

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2012/08/192012/08/19

Review: The Age of Fracture

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Culture, Research

Daniel T. Rodgers

4.0 out of 5 stars An entire book without the words “corruption” or “paradigm failure”,August 19, 2012

I bought this book expecting it to be a six star special, and then was tempted to drop it to three stars for completely missing the point. I've settled on four. It is a brilliant work of scholarship that analyzes varying schools of thought without once connecting to either realities or fundamentals–ethics, for example. I do not mean to be cruel, nor hyperbolize for effect, but as I put the book down it occurred to me that this book is a most extraordinary discussion of the clothes not being worn by the Naked Emperor.

Since those who rave about this book are no doubt the norm — intellectual pedigrees without integrity in the holistic sense — let me preface by brief critical comments by bringing forth the importance of whole systems analytic models, and within those model, the importance of integrity. Integrity is not just about honor — one can be honest on the small things while totally lacking in holistic integrity or social integrity — the extremists within the two-party tyranny that has looted the US treasury certainly fall into this category. While this book speaks to the cost of cultural hegemony, and even the cost of class betrayal from the top down, it never gets to calling a spade a spade, a crook a crook, a failed paradigm a failed paradigm. Kuhn, Morgan, Fuller, and Ackoff would all be disappointed.

Chapter 1 Losing the Words of the Cold War seems oblivious to the military-industrial complex or the fact that both Kennedy and Khruschev had to deal with out of control generals as the greater threat, not one another. Alternative reading:

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It

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2012/08/122012/08/12

Review: The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Mike Lofgren

4.0 out of 5 stars 6 on Republicans, 3 on Democrats, 0 on the Other 50% of America's Voters,August 12, 2012

I read this book is in original incarnation, “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult,” (truthout, 3 Sep 2011), and have to give the author high marks for fleshing out his original litany of Republican felonies against the public. For that he gets a 6 — beyond five stars and long overdue. He is especially strong on showing how hypocritical, unintelligent, and generally unethical my former party has become. He barely earns a 3 on the Democrats, and this is a pity because his success on the Republicans really calls for a similar indictment for the Democrats by an insider.

Where I was most dismayed by the book is in the author's complete failure to grasp that the REASON the Republican and Democratic parties are so corrupt is precisely because they have excluded the Independents, Constitutionals, Greens, Libertarians, and Reforms from ballot access, while also disenfranchising them through gerrymandering–our corrupt Congress chooses its voters, not the other way around, which is why Peggy Noonan was able to supply Ronald Reagan with the killer saying, “there is less turnover in the US Congress than in the Soviet politburo.”

I've read the other reviews and decided the best thing I can do to encourage the general direction of this book (corrupt parties, corrupt government, time to flush) is list other books I have reviewed that strongly support this one but with more coherence in their chosen area of focus.

I begin with the two party tyranny. My own book I cannot link to but Amazon allows me to list it under my signature.
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

On the corruption of Congress:
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

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2012/07/012012/07/01

Review: Rebuild the Dream

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Van Jones

4.0 out of 5 stars Oblivious to the Insanity of the Two-Party Tyranny, But Worth Digesting, July 1, 2012

This is one of two books I read on the plane to DC from Seattle, the other being Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy.

Part I for me is largely a waste of time. The author is — in my view of course — delusional on Obama's success and at face value completely unwitting or unphased by the depth and breadth of the progressive betrayal of Obama aka Bush III. The author is also high on Al Gore — along with 9/11 and the root corruption of Congress that made our economic collapse inevitable this is one of my litmus tests. Al Gore took the bribe, rolled over and played dead despite the three months notice by Greg Palast of The Observer (later published in book form as The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. On the Republican side, I hold Colin Powell and George Tenet accountable for betraying the public trust, allowing Dick Cheney to take America to war on the basis of 925 now documented (Truth.dig) lies. There are no winners — no paragons of virtue — in either party, and I specifically include Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich has false flags, never really being willing to leave their warm embrace of their chosen tyranny.

Part II is slightly interesting is you do not read a great deal, a rehash of heart space, head space, the American story, and swarm theory. The rest of us call it collective intelligence, cognitive surplus, human scale, etcetera. Books to read here, vastly more detailed that the author's light once over, 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, Barbara Marx Hubbard's Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential and so many others that I have reviewed here at Amazon–and the many more I have not.

Part III begins to return value, and I certainly agree with the author's early articulation that “America is still the best idea in the world,” but I find him hypocritical or oblivious in the extreme to completely ignore all of the broken promises, the role of money, the loss of integrity across every pillar of society.

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