5.0 out of 5 stars Rings of Truth Against Rings of Lies, February 20, 2012
I cannot improve on Betsy's review, “Instruments of the State: Propaganda or Just the Facts, May 20, 2011” and recommend that review. Here I just make a comment and link to some other books. Normally I do not do fiction, but this book came to me and I have a very high interest in the truth at any cost, it lowers all other costs. Unfortunately, all forms of human organization, from governments to religions and certainly including corporations and non-profits, all seems to believe that any lie good for them is an “acceptable cost.”
It is not. Lies are like sand in the gears of an extraordinarily complex and delicate machine. Lies kill and lies cost. The last fifty years have seen a web of lies and a web of deliberative destruction of humanity and the planet such as has never before been orchestrated. Deep secrecy and deep technologies have allowed the 1% to impoverish the 99% while concentrating wealth and looting public treasuries in a manner scarcely imaginable.
By all means read the book, but especially so if you do not have the time or the money for all of the non-fiction that backs up this book's story line. I list my allowed ten books below. Many more can be accessed at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, where my 1700 plus reviews are sorted in the 98 categories within which I read, all leading back to Amazon.
My own books are free online as well as for sale here at Amazon. My next book, coming out in June, is the antidote to all of the lies, it is entitled THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth, and Trust. It will NOT be free online, as it is being distributed by Random House and published by North Atlantic Books.
The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — that, in my view, should be the battle cry of the 99%.
Startling, Offers a Wealth of New Information, February 19, 2012
EDIT of 6 May 2012 to acknowledge fixed made by publisher for new edition after review, change title, and increase to five stars.
I was given this book as a gift. I do not normally seek-out conspiracy literature, but in the aftermath of 9/11 and all I have learned about that (search for < 9/11 books dvd source=phibetaiota >, I am now shifting from my long held view that given a choice between incompetence and conspiracy, one should go with incompetence every time. This book brings me closer to a 50-50 split, but I am still on the 70-30 side giving incompetence the edge.
The best thing I can say about this book is that while there are others addressing Gladio (the Italian secret unit), this may be the first book that really strings everything together, adds, connects, spreculates, in a more thorough way going beyond Italy to include the rest of Europe and to my surprise, Sweden, than the few prior books. This book is also the most current, to include the Libya take-down and to warn that Turkey is next. The book does not address Syria.
Perhaps the most substantive point in favor of the book's value is the detailed and documented manner in which it outlines how Italy spawned the most active secret campaign because it is the one place where the Catholic Church and the Mafia have their homes, and can come together with NATO, big business, the neo-Nazi extreme right, and the intelligence and security services whose budget inevitably benefit from false flag attacks in the absence of real threats.
As much as the book troubles me with detailed documented examples of a long series of false flag attacks including assassination of leaders in Sweden and elsewhere (and at one time targeting Charles DeGaul), I am inclined to think that the author makes an unwarranted assumption that the “legitimate” stay-behind networks created after World War II morphed into a “killer / false flag” network over time everywhere. While this is absolutely proven beyond a doubt for Italy, it is not proven for the rest of Europe.
Because the author relied on second-hand quotes and did not read the original, this book has a poor misrepresentation of the findings of my friend Cees Wiebes' book, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia: 1992-1995 (Studies in Intelligence History). The focus of Cee's book was on the inadequacy of convention intelligence services with respect to peacekeeping intelligence; and that the rest of the mess was a mix of sheer incompetence within the UN, big power politics, and bureaucratic in-fighting in Washington, D.C. That sounds righter to me and is consistent with my own review of the English-language version that I link to here.
I am constantly astonished as I read this book, finding nuggets of documented information that I had no idea were out there. I think frequently while reading this book that it would be truly wonderful to have the ability to ingest this and many other books like it into a professional intelligence evaluation facility, create the maps that connects the dots — people, places, organizations, dates, and such — and get to the bottom of so many crimes against humanity that have been carried out by order of Western powers — certainly co-equal to the crimes against humanity from the “lesser” powers in Rwanda and Burundi.
The author provides details on the Russians using a PSYOP at the end of WWII, creating the myth of the Hitler redoubt, with the specific intent of distracting General Eisenhower and gaining time to take Berlin — their plan worked.
I read with amusement the author's assessment of the National War College as the place where we park right-wing nutcases/neocons, and knowing some of them myself, cannot disagree–that is however a disservice to the 90% of NDU that is solidly in the middle.
The author is provocative as he weaves his documented tale about the degree to which all left of center groups were penetrated in the aftermath of WWII, and I see how easily the intelligence and security services might have found it to manipulate groups into doing violence — or into taking the blame for false flag violence. On the basis of this book as well as others, I speculate that at least half the “threat” against which the USA has devoted considerable time, treasure, and trust, has been FALSE — self-made.
The death of most significant Swedes standing up for Palestine gets my attention.
The “coincidence” of police training exercises in both London and Madrid, each closely associated with the actual train bombing that takes place in and around the exercise area, is profoundly disturbing — we now know that Dick Cheney scheduled the counter-terrorism exercise MONTHS before “the day,” and as I write this, I marvel at the ignorance of the public and the perhaps justified arrogance of those who create false terror to advance their own selfish ends.
I learn that Steve Pieczenik, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, was a Carter trouble-shooter, and I find this fascinating because the same Dr. Pieczenik came on record to call the CIA-JSOG raid to kill Bin Laden a false operation (Bin Laden having died a decade ago, a patsy was killed instead) and to say that there is new evidence against Dick Cheney in relation to 9/11.
I put the book down a bit frustrated — it is hard to make sense of so much detail, it really needs to be visualized with timelines and so on. However, this is a world-class book in terms of documentation, and setting aside the hyperbole, assumptions, and many small mistakes, I certainly recommend it.
We are all beginning to learn that governments lie to their publics as a matter of routine; that banks and corporations lie, cheat, and steal more more than the Mafia; and that the Catholic Church may be the world's primary money-laundering network. It is in the context of a public slowly awakening to reality that I recommend this book as an excellent place to begin exploring and raise it to five stars.
I am limited to ten links. Here are two more, to browse my other 1,700 plus reviews visit Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, where all reviews link back to their book's Amazon page.
5.0 out of 5 stars Preliminary Review: Understanding the Trade-Offs & True Cost of Empire,December 8, 2011
I have ordered this book and am very much looking forward to providing readers (and myself, this is how I keep notes) with one of my more detailed reviews. The publisher is to be scolded for not using Inside the Book, one of Amazon's best features, and for failing to provide the best possible use of the Book Description and Editorial Reviews section. While the existing review is good and I have voted for it, it does not do this book justice. My decision to buy was based on the easily found review in The Guardian (UK) by Richard Drayton, “Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression, and Revolt by Richard Gott — review,” published 7 December 2011.
Where I am going to go with my review is toward an in-depth articulation of what has never been done before that I know of, an examination of the trade-offs of Empire and the opportunity costs of Epoch A hierarchical “rule by secrecy.” I have reviewed many books on Empire, Class War, Elite Rule, all easily found in master list online, Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative). I also recommend the observe, Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive).
Russell Ackoff would say that Empire represents centuries of doing the wrong thing righter–and at greater expense across the political-legal, socio-economic, ideo-cultural, techno-demographic, and natural-geographic domains. As we approach the Mayan calendar's start date for Epoch B, 12 December 2012, many of us are conscious that we must abandon old ways and rethink how we organize society. Occupy is a sympton of this – organized people against organized money, organized consciousness against organized violence.
This could quite well be the best book ever written about Gandhi's philosophy of conflict: satyagraha. Bondruant's book is systematic and thorough. She lived in India for years and even got a chance to interview Nehru and many of Gandhi's other colleagues about the nonviolent action they were mutually involved with, which eventually brought about Indian Independence. This book was first written either in 1953 or 1958. But this edition was revised in 1988 and includes new, important commentary and afterthought by the author.
The book is everything the other reviewer said, and more. Because the author takes such a systematic approach, I can't imagine a better introduction to Gandhi's philosophy of conflict. But the truly unique and most vitally important aspect of this book, in my opinion, is due to the author's orientation. Her field is political science. She was a researcher who held a high position at the University of California at Berkeley. And she claims that Gandhi's philosophy made a contribution to political science that no system of political theory has ever adequately dealt with before. In that sense, she says, that Gandhi's greatest contribution to the world may have been overlooked. And this, I think, is what makes this book one of the most important books of the 20th century. Continue reading “Review (Guest): The Conquest of Violence – The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict”
5.0 out of 5 stars Helps Understand OccupyWallStreet–Solid 5 Misses Mark on True Cost Economics,October 13, 2011
I was given this book as a gift, and could not have–in a million years of planning–gotten a better book relevant to OccupyWallStreet (OWS) than this book. I read it this morning while my MGB was in the shop recovering from my trip to NYC OWS 6-7 October (shredded the generator). Halfway through my notes, advanced here, I observe that the book is a pleasure to read and a substantial advance on the earlier disruption explorations.
While I sympathize with those who do not “get” this book and downgrade it, I gave it a solid five and seriously considered a six star plus (only 10% of my reviews go there) but kept it at five because any book that considers Walmart disruptive (which it is) without observing the “true cost” to society, the environment, government, and small businesses, is completely missing the big picture.
This book does go beyond the earlier book that I have also reviewed, The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business, and while Clayton M. Christensen has been churning books out with variations on the theme, I do see in this book very important, useful, immediately applicable insights and would recommend buying the first Christensen book and this book (to which he writes a Foreword).
I am less interested in the emphasis that the author places on Disruption Theory being able to build a bridge from the art of successfully guessing what innovations with succeed to the science of increasing by 5% or more which innovations will succeed, but that is, as the author points out, very significant when you consider that the percentage improvement is on hundreds of billions of dollars of investment.
QUOTE (5): Disruption's central claim is “that an innovation has the best chance of success when it has a very different performance profile and appeals to cusomters of relatively little interest to dominant incumbents, and the organizaton commercializing it enjoys substantial strategic and operational autonomy.”
Could that be a description of OWS and the 99% that have been screwed over by the two-party tyranny that has shaken down Wall Street and the military, intelligence, health, energy, and prison complexes for political contributions (bribes) while discounting the public treasury by 95% (the going rate for an earmark is 5%)?Ā The 99% are of no real interest to Wall Street or the two-party crime family that has hijacked democracy, and OWS is demonstrating substantial strategic and operational autonomy. What neither the left or right “get” right now about OWS is that it is a manifestation of a broad view that we need to dismantle both parties and end institutionalized politics while restoring the sovereign individual.
5.0 out of 5 stars Six Star Epilogue, the Capstone Work, September 26, 2011
I have been a fan of Ralph Peters for over fifteen years now, going back to the early 1990's when the US Marine Corps was trying to get the Secretary of Defense (then Dick Cheney) to focus on most likely vice worst case threats. Having been the senior civilian responsible for creating the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, and the Study Director for the flagship study, Planning and Programming Factors for Expeditionary Operations in the Third World, I recognized both his deep integrity and his broad intelligence, both so uncharacteristic of the near-venal to all-banal US secret intelligence community that I had served since 1976.
This is his capstone work. Below are a few of his most notable recent works, there are many others, and I also recommend his Owen Parry series on the Civil War. If you only get one book by Ralph Peters, this is the one to buy.
2012 in my view is a turning point year for America, and I pray that it is the year that citizens with integrity kick politicians without integrity (all of them) out of office and get a clean sheet fresh start in recreating a government of, by, and for We the People instead of what we have now, what Matt Taibbi describes so well in Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History, “a highly complicated merger of crime and policy, of stealing and government.”
5.0 out of 5 stars Long Needed Treatise, But Too Expensive,September 21, 2011
EDIT of 11 December 2011: Gene Poteat, President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) has an excellent review of this book in the Summer/Fall 2011 issue of Intelligencer. The following quote is from his review, it captures the essence with perfection:
“The weakness and deteriorating standing of America in the world today is the failure to take into account the role of information, disinformation, ideas, values, culture, and religion plays in the influence and conduct of foreign and national security policy.”
While the above glosses over the corporate capture and abject corruption of all three branches of the Federal government, it certainly summarizes and recommends the book in question. See also my graphic, “Information Pathologies,” loaded above next to cover.
End Edit
In the midst of an economic depression, it is a real shame to see a book that is so very relevant to unscrewing the Republic, and also see the same book terribly over-priced. At 230 pages this book should be offered at 24.95, and a donor should be found to permit the author to speak to the Department of State via the Secretary's Open Forum, with a free copy of the book to every person attending.
Click on Image to Enlarge
The author is the founder of the Institute of World Politics, a rather unique institution that offers three Masters programs and that strives to do what no other university can claim: to teach a mastery of all of the instruments of national power, and to teach how culture, ethics, strategy, and philosophy can come together to drive Whole of Government planning, programming, budgeting, and execution so as to advance both the prosperity and the protection of the Republic.
This book came to my attention after I found and truly enjoyed another book out of the Institute of World Policy, by Cultural Intelligence for Winning the Peace by Juliana Geran Pilon. Everything I read about the Institute, or by those associated with it, offers a very strong, coherent, culturally-compelling vision of how to advance positive values inherent in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America.
Startling, Offers a Wealth of New Information, February 19, 2012
